“You don’t miss with a shotgun, not at close range.”
Atkins looked panicked, glancing this way and that.
“Let me tell you what I think happened,” said Pine. “Mercy was running toward the road because that was her escape route. But before she could do that, she ran into you and Joe. There was a confrontation. Joe and Mercy went at it. She hit him in the head and fled. Somehow a shot was fired. Then something happened. And Joe ended up dead from a knife in his back. Then you got your stuff together and called the Atkinses. Wanda met you at the Esso station, drove you to Atlanta, and put you on a bus, and you got the hell out of Dodge. You ended up here and got yourself another slave because that’s just the sort of sick person you are.”
“You have no proof of anything that happened in Georgia.”
Pine shook her head. “You’re going to prison. It’s long overdue.”
“What if I told you your precious Mercy was killed that night?” sneered Atkins.
“You can tell me, but that doesn’t make it true. The fact is, if she was dead, you’d have had no reason to kill Joe, and if you hadn’t killed him you’d have had no reason to run, would you? Because the cops didn’t know you were holding a young woman prisoner. You’d just bury her in the woods and that would be that.”
Defeated, Atkins looked away and said nothing.
Pine stared at her for a long moment, disgust dripping from her features. Then she called the police.
CHAPTER
32
WE’VE CONTACTED GAIL’S FAMILY, Agent Pine,” said Deputy Sheriff Tate Callum. Pine and Blum were at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office in Asheville. The battered Atkins was just down the street at the county detention center after having been arrested and formally charged.
Callum was in his late thirties, trim, with a brisk manner and blue eyes topped by close-cropped blond hair. He was heading up the North Carolina piece of Desiree Atkins’s crime spree.
“She told me that her parents overdosed and were dead.”
Callum nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. But we found an aunt and uncle. Apparently, they were in no financial condition to take Gail in when her parents died. Now they are and they want her to come live with them. They’re coming here to get her, in fact.”
“That’s wonderful news,” said Blum.
“What about Desiree Atkins?” asked Pine. “Or Dolores Venuti, as she’s known around here.” Pine had filled in Callum on Atkins’s true identity and her being sought on suspicion of murder in Georgia.
“Fact is, once she gets a lawyer and he sees what the evidence against her is, she’ll probably do a deal. But there’s more. My deputies are at her shop right now and they’ve been reporting in what they’ve found. Kidnapping and imprisoning Gail is bad enough. But they found evidence of what looks to be a drug distribution operation in a secret room at her shop. I guess the occult business wasn’t making enough money. She’s looking at a minimum of twenty to life when all is said and done. And that doesn’t take into account the Georgia piece you told me about. I plan on calling the Georgia folks tomorrow.”
“Can we see Gail now?”
“Sure thing. If you hadn’t come along, I’m not sure what would have happened to her. I know she’s been through a lot but she’s showing some real pluck.”
Callum led them to a small office where Gail was seated and eating a sandwich and a bag of chips and drinking from a bottle of water. There was a bandage on her head from where Atkins had struck her with the gun.
Callum left them and Pine and Blum took seats opposite the girl.
“How’s your head?” asked Blum.