“Damn right. I took her in when nobody else would, like I said. I did her a favor. And what did I get out of it? Heartache and misery.”
“So you did care for her, at some point?”
Atkins calmed a bit and the vindictive look in her eyes faded somewhat. “I took care of her. I dressed her and fed her. She was clean. Until . . . until we moved her where we did.”
Blum sat down on the bunk opposite Atkins and said in a quiet voice, “Because she was unruly? Because you were fearful of what she might do? That’s understandable.”
Pine shot Blum a look but remained quiet.
“Yes! She terrorized us. By the time she was eleven she was taller than Joe. When Becky hit thirteen she grew like a weed. She was huge. At fifteen she was over six feet and strong as a horse. Joe always took the gun when we went out to the woods. I insisted on that. And when he was gone during the day, I had to keep the gun on her while she was doing work for us. It got so we had to make her do most of her chores after Joe got home because I was scared to be around her alone, even with the gun! If we’d let her stay in the house she would have killed us in our sleep. It was like . . . having a wild animal around. Even when she was out in the woods, I barely got any rest. I was a nervous wreck all the time.”
Pine inwardly seethed at these callous remarks. As though Atkins’s misery had been greater than her sister’s. As though Mercy was at fault somehow. But she said nothing. Blum was obviously working on something, and Pine wanted to let it play out.
“And she probably kept secrets from you,” said Blum. “People like that often do.”
“She did!” said a now-animated Atkins. “Exactly. Joe said she didn’t. But what did he know? He tried to trust her when she was still little. She just suckered him.”
Blum said, “Men are clueless about reading women. We both know that. When you get to a certain age, like we both are, it becomes very clear.”
Atkins pointed at Blum and grinned. “You hit it right on the head. Men! They’re moronic when it comes to women. They don’t know how we think. The head games we play. The manipulation we use.” She said in a little-girl voice, “ ‘Oh, big, strong man, you’re so much smarter than me, can you come over here and do everything I tell you to do?’ ” She grimaced. “And see where that got Joe? An early grave.”
“But you weren’t fooled,” said Blum.
Atkins shook her head and tacked on a cackle. “I saw right through her. I knew what she was about. She didn’t fool me for one minute. All this innocent crap. Trying to get Joe on her side. It was disgusting.”
Pine reached into her pocket and her fingers closed around her phone. She slid it out but kept it behind her back.
Blum noted this, but Atkins didn’t. She was staring at the floor, lost in her own self-pity. Blum rose and moved so she was in front of Pine, blocking Atkins’s view of her.
Pine quickly flicked through her screens and tapped on a couple of images.
Blum said, “But unlike Joe you were probably able to get her to talk. To reveal things she didn’t want to reveal because you were smarter than she was.”
Atkins looked up with a desolate expression. “Joe never gave me credit for anything. I was the one who told him to go into the security business when he lost his job. I helped him get started and then got him clients. And I was the one who told him we needed to put that girl in a cage. I knew she was nuts. The man that took her? Wanda said he told her Becky’s parents wanted to kill her. And they probably had good reason. I came to see that. He saved Becky from whatever she was involved in, but he did us no favors, that’s for damn sure.”
“It must have been really intrusive for you.”
“At first, I thought it might be okay, you know. Having a kid. You’re right, I did want children, but I had a problem there and couldn’t. But I wasn’t sure this was the right way.”