She filled the gas tank and set off. Cain had no idea if her decision would lead her to salvation or a prison cell. But something very powerful inside her told Cain she had to do it. After all these years, the gap in her memories had to be filled in, one way or another.
She pointed the car south and hit the gas.
Back to nightmare time.
CHAPTER
21
MANY HOURS LATER CAIN SLOWED her car and felt her breathing accelerate as she drove into Crawfordville, Georgia. This was not because of the surroundings. She had never passed any place here that was recognizable to her because the Atkinses had been careful never to bring her into town, or anywhere else. They obviously didn’t want anyone to know that they had her. At first, Cain didn’t know why that was the case. As the years went by the reason became very clear.
Cain stopped for a late dinner at a small diner with half its blinking neon lights out and with an exterior faded by time and probably shallow pockets. She wasn’t really hungry but just needed a bit of time to deal with the fact that she was back in this place.
The waitress poured out her second cup of coffee and watched as Cain listlessly poked at her food.
“Not to your liking, hon?”
Cain glanced up. The woman was well into her seventies and looked too tired and frail to still be working. The smell of stale cigarette smoke rose from her pores like a morning fog. Her teeth were nicotine stained, but her features were kind and her smile was sincere.
“No, it’s fine. Just sort of lost my appetite.”
“Haven’t seen you around before. You new in town, or just passing through?”
“Just passing through.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” noted the waitress wistfully. She tucked a strand of gray hair back inside the blue cap she wore. “I’d like to say I’m just passing through sometimes, and I was born here. Born here and never got out of jail. Where you coming in from?”
“Atlanta,” Cain lied.
“Been there once, thirty years ago. Bet it’s changed a lot. Now this here place never changes. Some days that’s good, most days not so good. But it’s all I’ve got or ever known, so . . .”
“Change can be good,” said Cain.
“You sound like you speak from experience.”
“Well, experiences are all I’ve got.”
“Hope they were good ones, sweetie.”
Cain paid her bill and left without answering.
She had learned the street address for the Atkinses when she had lived in the house and seen letters addressed to them. For some reason, that address had been lodged in her memory ever since.
The Google maps app on her phone was guiding her to that destination. When she turned onto the road she finally saw something she remembered. The massive live oak up ahead. It had obviously gotten even bigger over the intervening years; its canopy was so broad it almost blocked out the sky, it seemed to her. This was the tree under which Joe Atkins’s body lay. She wondered if the last thing he ever saw was that tree, knowing it would outlive him.
There were no other homes down here, as had been the case when Cain lived here. As she passed by the house, the sweat started popping up on her face, under her armpits, behind her knees. Her stomach started to churn. The freezies were taking over with the power of a fully loaded freight train. She hit the gas, blew past the house, jerked to a stop a quarter mile down, put the car in park, then got out and threw up coffee and stomach bile behind a raggedy bush.
This is ridiculous, El, pull yourself together.
She got back into the car and drove back down the road, passing the house slowly. It looked mostly unchanged. There was a large blue tractor trailer rig out front. It seemed to dwarf the modest house. The rusted metal carport next to the house was empty. She could see no lights on inside. She pulled farther down, parked on the dirt shoulder, and got out. With a flashlight she’d taken from the glove compartment, Cain set off into the woods with a very specific destination in mind.