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.
They had brutalized their daughter, making her childhood a misery. Her father had drunk himself to death. Her mother had died by her own hand with a rifle similar to the one she had used to compete with in biathlons.
Spector couldn’t say she missed either of them. Constant beatings just did that to a child. Part of her—Spector’s surprisingly frail emotional side—wanted to return to the Atkinses for a little visit and end the lives of both Wanda and her crippled husband; it would be easy. But the professional side of her said that was not possible.
She lifted the sleeve on her right arm and stared down at the mark that had been carved into her skin as a seven-year-old by her drunken father while her doped-up mother held her.
El Cain had apparently put herself back together, at least to a certain extent.
I’m not sure I can say the same.
Unlike Cain, she had undergone plastic surgery to erase all the other marks inflicted on her, except for this one. Because it had been the first, and because she wanted it with her always, so that she would never forget.
Not that I ever could.
She had never met Cain. She would kill her when the time came because that was how she made her living. But after learning what the woman had gone through, she would take no pleasure in it. In fact, she was starting to regret taking this job at all.
Give her a corrupt politician to get rid of, or a cartel chieftain, two of which she had sent to the hereafter. Or a dictator from a troubled nation who had killed and robbed his people for decades until she had been sent in to hurry him off to an afterlife by the leader of another country. Her employer had been as bad as the dictator, but that was no concern of hers.
But this one was different. Still, she had committed to doing it.
Even with that, she could only lie on her bed and stare at the ceiling, wondering about her life decisions and not coming away with a single good answer.
*
In his room, after having some wine and doing some other work, Peter Buckley was staring down at his notes from the interview with Wanda Atkins. It was a setback that they didn’t have Desiree’s phone number or address, but they would have to work around that. And if they could somehow get to Desiree first and then await Cain’s arrival? But she had the woman’s phone number and might already be well ahead of them.
His smartphone buzzed as a text dropped into his inbox. When he looked at the screen he couldn’t believe his good fortune. A transaction had been made using Eloise Cain’s credit card at a hotel in Asheville, North Carolina.
He pulled from his file a copy of her driver’s license. He had two associates standing by for just this sort of eventuality with immediate access to his private jet. He gave them the necessary information, then he took a snapshot of Cain’s driver’s license and sent it to them.
Fly there now, find her, and take her, he said in the message. And let me know when you do. I’ll arrange for a place for you to bring her and text you the location. I’ll be there as soon as I can.
He made a call and had one of his people attempt to charter a private plane from a local provider in Huntsville. Unfortunately, nothing was available, and all commercial flights leaving that day had long layovers. He clicked off and then texted Spector with the news; he added that they would be driving to Asheville, a little more than five hours away, and she should be ready to leave in ten minutes. He received a single thumbs-up in reply. He frowned at the response. He was unsure what was going on with the woman, but he didn’t like it.
He called another associate and told him to find a private place on the outskirts of Asheville and to do it in the next hour or so. It seemed a difficult task, and it was. But Buckley paid for people to do difficult things all the time. And they either succeeded or they no longer worked for him.
He packed his bag and left twenty dollars for the maid. Then he met Spector in the lobby, and they headed to the rental car.
CHAPTER
42
HELLO?”
“Agent Pine?”
“Yes, who is this?”
It was the evening and Pine was in her hotel room sitting on her bed when the phone had rung.