She looked agonized by this. “You can give me all the money you have and I still won’t have the number.”
“Do you at least remember the area code?”
She gummed her lips and looked at the ceiling. “My short-term memory is just about shot. Comes with getting old.”
“All right,” said Buckley, looking frustrated.
“Do you think she’s going after Desiree?” asked Atkins.
“Wouldn’t you?” said Spector.
Atkins kept her gaze on Buckley. “But why would Becky kill anyone?”
“We’re not sure. That’s why we want to find her. To ask her. And if she is going after Desiree we need to stop her. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
Spector said, “Why didn’t you stop them from hurting Becky?”
Atkins seemed surprised by the question. “What? I . . . I didn’t . . . I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid.”
“How young was she when Rebecca became a prisoner?”
“Six.”
“So you were too afraid to help a little girl?”
Buckley glanced questioningly at Spector. He didn’t seem to understand where his colleague was going with this.
“I’m not proud of it,” said Atkins.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Cain when she came to visit you?” asked Spector.
“She hated me for what I’d done. She probably wanted to kill me. As big and strong as she is, she could have easily. But she didn’t. I . . .”
“What?” said Spector.
“I was surprised that she turned out . . . as . . .”
“ . . . normal as she did,” said Spector.
“Y-yes. She seemed to . . . to have herself together okay.”
“With no help from you.”
“I did what I could,” Atkins said indignantly.
“Right.”
“Yes, well, thank you,” said Buckley hurriedly. “We’ll be in touch.”
On the way to the SUV, Buckley said, “What the hell was all that about, Britt?”
“Nothing. She just rubbed me the wrong way is all.”
“Okay. Just don’t let it get in the way of what our goal is.”
“It won’t, Peter. But you have to admit, it was disturbing.”
“Life is disturbing. But put it behind you. I need your A game for this.”
CHAPTER
41
BACK AT THE HOTEL, they walked to their separate rooms.
Spector sat on her bed for a long time staring into space, something she almost never did. Reflection for her was painful and thus counterproductive. She mixed herself a gin and tonic from the minibar and sipped on it, while she looked out the window at downtown Huntsville. She had killed a number of people during her career. Some while in combat in the Army. Once as an FBI agent when a suspected serial killer they had tracked down pulled a gun and was going to empty it into Spector’s partner. She had shot him dead. Then, in her new career, she ended the lives of others she had no quarrel with, solely for payment.
So what right do I have to question Wanda Atkins’s ethics, or morals?
She finished her drink, sat on her bed, and took a photo out of her wallet. It was of her parents. Her father had been short and heavily muscled, but immensely flexible, with superb range of motion. In martial arts that was key, she knew. Her mother had been tall and lean; Spector had taken after her physique-wise. She stared down at their unhappy countenances.