Wanda composed herself and said slowly, “Joe didn’t die because he hit his head on a rock.”
“Well then, what happened to him?” said a now-startled Cain.
“Joe died because someone stuck a knife in his back. He was deliberately murdered.”
“A knife?” said Cain, now visibly stunned.
“There’s no doubt. It punctured his heart.”
Cain sat back, and it was like a great weight had been lifted off her.
Then I didn’t kill him. So why is the FBI after me?
“I didn’t stab him. But I bet you know who did.”
“I always thought it. I mean, Desiree was so—”
“—evil? Yeah, she was. Do you know where Desiree is now?”
“I have a phone number, but no address.” Atkins looked nervously at her. “And you don’t want to go down that road, Eloise. It . . . it would not be good. You have to stay away from the past. I don’t want you to be hurt, not again.”
“I was hurt a lot. While you stood by and did jack shit. I’m still hurting, actually.” She rolled up her sleeve so Atkins could see the knife etchings, the lumps, and the burns that would be with her till she died. “You think this shit ever stops hurting? Not to mention how she messed with my head. That was even worse than this crap.”
Wanda’s eyes filled with tears, and she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.
“You can cry, Wanda. All you want. It won’t change anything. It won’t change how I feel about you or old Len in the wheelchair over there. You got to live your life. You got to walk in and out your door whenever you wanted. But not me. You ever think about that when you went home and left me where I was?”
“Are you here to . . . hurt us?” Wanda looked over Cain’s large, muscled physique, her eyes swelling with the fear that physical harm was imminent.
“Fortunately for you, no. But I know that the FBI is looking for me.”
“They were here.”
Cain looked alarmed. “Here? When? How did they find out where you were?”
“She didn’t say.”
“She?”
“A younger gal around your age, and an older woman. They were asking questions.”
Cain thought about what Kyle, the teenager in the woods, had said about the tall FBI agent. “What sorts of questions?”
“About what happened that night. They said they had a video of you.”
“Yeah, I saw that on the TV. What exactly did they ask about?”
“About you, how you got to where you did. What happened on the night you got away. But they also told me some things.”
“Like what?” asked Cain.
“That your real name was Mercy. And that a man kidnapped you from your house.”
“Mercy? I . . . I was kidnapped?” said Cain.
“Yes. A man named Ito Vincenzo. He and Len were in Vietnam together. He told us that your parents wanted you dead and that he, well, that he rescued you. But according to the FBI gal, he was lying. He took you from your parents for his own reasons. It had something to do with a grudge he had against your mother. The mob was involved or something or other. It was truly bizarre.” Wanda paused and said, “And he left the other child. He apparently did a little nursery rhyme to pick which one of you to take. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. How sick is that?”
CHAPTER
35
CAIN FELT HER HEART START TO POUND and an intense pain shot through her head along with a cascade of repressed but still ill-formed memories. It was like her brain was moving so fast, it was burning itself out, all safety valves blown right through. She glanced at Len.