Page 63 of An Honest Lie

“You’re a lifesaver,” Rainy said, handing her the rest of the bills.

The woman nodded curtly and disappeared through the door again.

“You’re definitely a New Englander, Paulie.” She typed a few notes into her phone and sent a text before making her way back to the front of the Bellum. Ditching her phone in the trash can out front like he’d told her to do, she stood in eyesight of the lobby and waited, counting to two hundred. He’d wanted to see her do it, then he wanted to have time to get away. She searched their faces: the comers and goers, the staff—there were too many bodies, too many options.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, said her heart.

She walked in.

At seven o clock, Rainy went to the buffet. She scanned the bodies at the various hot stations and spun around to look at the salad bar, where a line of gray-haired ladies was calling out to each other about cottage cheese. There were people everywhere, walking in twos, threes and fours. Rainy felt numb with a side of nausea. Grabbing a plate, she got in line, trying not to look at mounds of mayonnaise salad, keeping her eyes peeled for whatever Paul intended for her to see. Staff were positioned around the room in sparkling dinner jackets, looking ready to jump into action or song. It was a lot to keep track of. No wonder this was where he’d sent her; there was too much chaos for her to watch everything that was going on. He could be anywhere, posing as anyone. Rainy’s plate was still empty as the line crawled past the lettuce. She grabbed spinach with the tongs, her gaze carefully combing the area. This was stupid—ridiculous. What if he was toying with her? The ache of anxiety riding in her chest crested when there was nothing significant near the trays of onions and cucumber, and she thought of the message again; he’d told her to go through the buffet lines, and that she’d know what she was seeing when she was seeing it. She had no clue what that was supposed to mean, except that he was in charge and she had to do what he said.For now, she told herself. That made her feel better, the idea that she was just playing his game until she could play her own.

There was no sign of anything weird at the meat-cutting stations, so she turned left toward the soup, and then there it was: her name on a placard above one of the lidded soup containers:Rainy Chowder. Rainy peered closer, thinking that maybe it was a coincidence, but the script on the first word was slightly smaller than the second. It was an envelope, small and white, stuck to the top of the placard. She pulled it off to reveal theCorn. The envelope fit comfortably into her palm. Rainy abandoned her plate on a trolley of dirty dishes and walked straight for the door.

She didn’t open the envelope until she was safely in a bathroom stall. Her name was written with black marker in near-perfect script. She turned it over and used her nail to open the envelope, sliding out a rectangular room card. Handwritten in the bottom corner in permanent marker was the number 447. She was to go there now. He was probably watching her. She felt suddenly exposed, the stall around her flimsy protection. She signed into her email account from the burner phone, found the draft she’d been working on. What she had on the phone was her version of a police composite: what she thought he looked like, where she thought he worked, where he was from, where he’d instructed her to go. With more time, she could have tracked him down herself, but with Braithe’s life hanging in the balance, she had to trust the job to someone else.

And she did. If she trusted him to be able to do anything, it was this: find what he wanted, what he’d believe to be his. Paul had left a trail, albeit a small one, but it might be enough. She added one last line to the end of her email. It was more of a hopeful line, a hunch. If she couldn’t pull it off, he’d be looking for the wrong person.

He’ll have a broken nose, she typed. She sent the email, then threw the burner phone in the tampon disposal.

Reaching for the box of Band-Aids, she began to work.

The first letter from Taured had come to her apartment in New York. It was on his official church stationery and her first instinct upon opening the envelope was to toss it away from her as far as it would go. But she hadn’t; she’d clutched the paper in her closed fist until she felt ready to read it. She read the letter the same way she would read the five others he sent shortly after, with all the lights in the apartment on and her gun sitting on the counter in front of her. Loaded. How had he found her?

His tone was friendly and light, the threats buried under Bible verses and zealous concerns about her well-being. Last he’d seen her, she’d been just a young girl, and now here he was, reading about her on the internet. She was famous! Hopefully, one day, they’d be able to catch up. The last part had given her nightmares for a week. If Rainy had shown that letter to the police, they would have cocked an eyebrow at her and asked what the problem was. You had to know his language, understand the euphemisms he so often used to dig out what he was really saying:

Hello, I’m still watching you.

She’d moved after that, subletting an apartment from a friend so her name wasn’t attached to an address. The letters came to the galleries instead. Rainy would get calls saying a letter had arrived for her. It wasn’t completely unheard of to receive correspondence through a gallery, thank God. Rainy would take a cab to go pick them up and carry them home unopened.

To prep herself to read them, she’d get very, very drunk. Most of them said the same thing: Taured marveling over her accomplishments, Taured saying he prayed for her, Taured saying he hoped to one day see her again. He ended the letters with:Till He returns, Taured.

She’d only started thinking about getting out of New York when she met Grant, flirting with the possibilities of a move to the Caribbean or perhaps Europe. The farther away, the better, and her art provided enough money for her to live well.

Grant had changed the course of her life, luring her to cold, rainy Washington instead. It had all happened so fast. And why? Because he loved her art? She had plenty of people who fawned over her, calling her gifted. But what mattered to Rainy was the way Grant accepted her for who she was in the moment.

Now, she stood in front of the room, her hand held to the door as if she were feeling for a heartbeat. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, she slid the keycard into the slot, and a second later, the lock opened with a satisfying click. Was he here, somewhere just out of sight, watching her?You are so fucking stupid, she thought before pushing the door open and walking inside. Rainy stood, staring around at the empty room and contemplating the man who called himself Paul. He worked here. The room faced the service alley that ran alongside the hotel, a bleak stretch of tar bordered by a parking lot. She doubted these rooms were used by guests unless it was an emergency. To prove it, she walked over to the minibar and cracked open the door to the fridge. It was bare inside and smelled funny.

Next to the bed on the nightstand was a hotel glass filled with a milky-looking liquid. And propped against it was a typed note that said:Drink me. Rainy considered the liquid, holding it up to the light, and then smelling it. So was he the Cheshire Cat or the White Rabbit, and what was supposed to happen when she fell into his world? She knew he wouldn’t kill her...not right away. He would want to stretch out the experience, really play with his toys. She didn’t care, though, not enough to stop herself from tipping the glass to her lips and taking a few gulping sips; the taste was bitter. Psychological warfare had been Taured’s specialty and Rainy had learned the rhythm and beat of it. If she didn’t come, he was going to kill Braithe. She sat on the bed after she’d swallowed the last bit and waited to feel something.

She was awake. The room opened itself to her sideways, her face pressed against cold concrete. She licked her lips, which felt stiff and dry, and tried to sit up, but her limbs felt weighted. No, they weren’t weighted but restricted: she was tied up. She’d been in the hotel room, and now she was in what looked like a very large, industrial-size kitchen. She could see the large metal doors of a fridge to her right, draped in plastic that been half pulled off. On her left were what looked like more fridges, only these had narrow doors. She wriggled her wrists and realized they were bound by handcuffs.

“Paul...” It was more of a wheeze than a shout. Rainy barely got his name out before she started coughing. As she spoke, she saw brown work boots walking toward her from the far end of the room. They stopped abruptly, close to her face. If she stuck out her tongue, she’d taste the toe of his right shoe. Tilting her head up toward the light and the owner of the boots, she got her first look at his face, her eyes waterlogged from coughing.

Paul was long-faced, with skin the color and texture of sweaty American cheese. He had a nose for days: a nose you couldn’t miss. How disappointed she was in Quick Mart Susan and her weak description. His hair was tucked under a beanie, but she could see the oily black strands of it curling at his neck. His face told a different story: a wiry beard hid the bottom half of his face, a tangle of reddish brown. She’d pin him right under thirty, but she couldn’t be sure in this dim light. There was a meanness to his mouth, lips that didn’t curve up or down but slashed a straight line under his beard. She couldn’t see his eyes until he bent down to haul her into a sitting position. They were blue and very clear, like a Nevada sky staring back at her. How could something so evil have such beautiful eyes?Who was he?He was so familiar.

Her neck felt like it was made of cooked pasta. Her head bobbed on her shoulder and she got a good whiff of him. She could smell the fry oil on his skin, the grime of the kitchen. She was grasping at something...what was it? He was a cook...or maybe a server—he could even be the manager, she thought. Unblinking, he studied her face as she studied his. The vein in his temple was throbbing. Rainy could see it, fat and swollen beneath his skin like an earthworm. She kept the barest hint of a smile on her lips but said nothing.

When he seemed satisfied, he stood up and she was looking at the dark blue knees of his jeans. He backed away rather than turning around and she understood why: he held a phone at chest level and was taking photos of Rainy where she sat handcuffed to the steel leg of the table.

She was angry, she wanted him to stop taking photos, but she couldn’t find the words to say so. She tried to hold up her hand, to block her face from his camera where a line of drool hung lazily from her lower lip, but it was chained to the leg of the table.

“What are you doing?” She slumped forward and the handcuffs bit into her wrists. He was tall—six feet, maybe—and narrow in the chest. When he was finished taking his photos, he set his phone down on one of the metal tables. He leaned back, crossing his legs at the ankles, smiling at her pleasantly like she was a visitor. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt and his arms, which were crossed over his chest, were lean and muscular.

“I’m surprised you came.” He said this casually, as if they were having lunch. “And I’m not exactly sure why you came, to be honest, especially after this one—” he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder “—has been trying to steal your man.”

Her eyes followed his gesture. There were two stainless-steel prep tables bolted to the floor in a T shape. Rainy’s hands were handcuffed around the leg at the top left of the T while another slumped figure—Braithe!—was handcuffed to the bottom of the T, her back to Rainy.

“It’s a restaurant. One of many. It’s being renovated, and no one is here. So no one will hear you, I’ve made sure of that.”

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