She knocked and waited as footsteps approached. She wasn’t sure how she was going to handle this, but maybe that was a good thing. Ever since her escape from the Atkinses she’d been winging things for the most part. Sometimes it had worked and sometimes it hadn’t. But why change now?
Wanda Atkins opened the door with an e-cigarette in one hand. She stared up at the towering Cain and her free hand flew to her mouth, almost dislodging the cannula in her nose as she recognized her visitor.
“Oh my God, it’s . . . you.”
“It’s been a long time, Wanda. And even with the lack of hair and the years piled on I guess I haven’t changed so much.”
Wanda started to shake. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry for everything, Becky.”
“It’s El now, short for Eloise.”
Wanda looked startled for a moment and then a sad smile eased across her face.
“Eloise? Like the book I brought you?”
“Yeah, only it was Eloise at the Nightmare House. My own little fantasy,” added Cain. She looked at the cannula in Wanda’s nose and the attached oxygen line. “You sick?”
“Smoked too many cigarettes.” She held up the e-cig. “Now I vape.” She eyed the tall Cain warily. “What are you doing here, Be—I mean, Eloise?”
“Can I come in?”
Wanda looked uncertain about that, so Cain just stepped past her and into the house. And there was nothing she could do about it, which made Cain feel immeasurably powerful.
Wanda followed her into the living room, where Len Atkins was asleep in his wheelchair.
There were stacks of folded laundry on tables and chairs and some dirty dishes piled on an ottoman. The mingled smells were fuggy. To Cain they smacked of old and sick.
“Sorry for the mess,” Atkins said in an embarrassed tone.
Cain shrugged. “This is a lot better than where I used to live, right? The walls aren’t dirt. And when you want to open the door, it opens, right?”
Atkins coughed and glanced nervously at her husband. “I, uh, I guess you remember Len. He, uh, he had a stroke a while back.”
“Whatever,” said Cain brusquely. She didn’t care about strokes or Len’s or Wanda’s problems. This moment was all about her.
Wanda quickly moved some items off the couch so Cain could sit. She sat across from her in a chair and studied the younger woman. “Why did you cut your hair off? It was so beautiful.”
“Not after my time with Desiree it wasn’t,” Cain replied, tacking on a grim look at Wanda. “She had fun pulling it out by the roots, or setting it on fire. But then you know all about that.”
The older woman shrank back under her fierce gaze, like a flower getting hit by a sudden burst of frost. “I think about you a lot,” she said lamely.
“You did some nice things for me, Wanda.”
“But I never did anything about—”
“No, you never did,” said Cain in a harsh voice, but then she shrugged. “It wasn’t your problem, right? And in the end I took care of it myself.”
“I . . . Joe deserved whatever you did to him.”
“I knocked Joe down when he tried to stop me, and he hit his head on a rock. If he died, it wasn’t my fault. Then I just ran for it. Somebody fired a gun at me and missed. Had to have been Desiree because Joe was already dead. Then I just ran harder. I kept going for miles and miles until I was able to hitch a ride.”
Wanda looked at her with a startled expression.
“What?” asked Cain.