Page 66 of An Honest Lie

“You fucking psycho.”

“Now, now, Rainy, it’s right over there—” he pointed to his right and Rainy followed his gaze to two large steel doors with what looked like vault handles on the front “—waiting for a new bitch to freeze. You’re up next!” he said cheerfully. “I brought you bacon and eggs.”

He hummed as he unwrapped her food, setting it on the counter. He glanced over every few seconds to make sure Braithe was eating.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Rainy said.

Paul nodded. “Soon as she’s done.”

Rainy searched Braithe’s face, looking for something—a message or a plea for help, anything—but her head remained bowed, her movements mechanical. Rainy sighed, frustrated.

When Braithe dropped her fork to signal that she was done, Paul led her to the bathroom, where she spent no more than five minutes. He had her handcuffed back at her spot with not a peep. She was as docile as a deer.

He came toward Rainy with his keys. As he crouched behind her, she felt the pressure on her shoulders ease and the handcuffs release, and she was able to move her arms forward. It took her a minute to get up, the feeling slowly moving back into her limbs in needlelike pricks. Paul’s presence behind her made her move forward, her steps an awkward shuffle. She didn’t want him behind her, she needed to see what he was up to. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that he was smiling.

“Move,” he said, shoving the barrel of the gun into the small of her back.

“Did you see that in a movie?” she asked. The blow felt sharp, and then wet; he’d struck her on the back of the head. Rainy fell, sliding across the floor as her vision flashed to bright white and then black. Was there blood? She felt for it, and her fingers came away sticky.

“Get up. You have two minutes.”

She did as she was told, pulling herself up by the bathroom door handle and glancing back at him.

He was still smiling.

Rainy peed with her eyes closed. When she was finished, she washed her hands and then wet a paper towel, dabbing it on the back of her head as gently as possible. She was going to have the king of headaches. When she walked out of the bathroom, Rainy didn’t think—she just walked toward him until she was standing right in front of him. He was taller than her, but only by a few inches. She took a natural stance, tucking her head down and clenching her jaw. Then she said something in barely a whisper. Paul cocked his head and then leaned toward her to better hear her. “What was that?”

Rainy said it again, but only a fraction louder. The gun hung limply at his side. His head dipped closer. Rearing her head back, she repeated the rules to herself: if you went in mouth gaping, you’d risk biting off your own tongue, and if you weren’t braced for impact, you could damage your neck. She snapped her head toward her target, using her body to propel her, aiming for his nose. She heard the crack before she felt it. Paul’s first scream was muffled, the second loud and pained, but he moved quickly. Rainy didn’t have time to move before the butt of the gun hit her in the temple.So this is the way you die, she thought as she fell.

She wasn’t dead. She was cold and in pain. Sitting up, she groaned at thewrongnessof the feeling in her head. It felt big and heavy, a dull ache dragged across her forehead and into the base of her skull. She’d hit Paul and he’d hit her back, but where was he? She scooted to a sitting position, leaning her head back. She was freezing. Duct tape stretched over her mouth, she supposed, as part of her punishment, since no one could hear her in here, anyway. She felt her internal panic clock ticking faster. The walls pressed in and Rainy dropped her chin to her chest and tried to be somewhere else, but her control was a paper town. The last time she’d been inside a walk-in freezer, she’d seen her mother’s lifeless body. Did he know? Had he been there, too? She tried to think, but the pain in her head was as distracting as the cold.

Paul’s blood was everywhere—her pants, the floor—and she knew that if she looked in a mirror, she would see it on her face. She could smell it. He was nowhere to be seen, though for all she knew he was out there beyond the freezer doors, doing something to Braithe in retaliation for what Rainy had done to his face. She squirmed against her bonds, but it was no use.Conserve your energy, Rainy, think.She could do that; she knewhow. She’d spent the torturous hours in solitary, thinking. She hadn’t checked out and she hadn’t pretended to be somewhere else: that had been her time to examine what was happening to her and why. She swayed from side to side, eyes closed, doing her best to keep moving without exerting herself.He knows how your mother died, he knows how Taured used to punish the women at the compound. He might even know that Sara helped you get away. Fuck, she thought, and from deep in her subconscious, she began to remember.

Paul had been in Kids’ Camp with her—she was sure of it. He had experienced similar atrocities, and he had become...this. She’d read about the murders as she sat in the hotel room: Sara’s and Feena’s. After Derek had told her that Sara had been murdered, it had occurred to her to Google Feena Wycliffe. There had been only two articles about Feena’s death: the first had been after her body was found in her car at a concert venue. She’d been strangled from behind and left in her car. A security guard found her in the early hours of the next morning. Police had asked the public for help, urging them to come forward if they had seen anything. The next article was published on the one-year anniversary of the murder. Still, police had nothing: no DNA, no fingerprints. All Feena’s friends had alibis, and since Feena’s purse and wallet were still in the car, undisturbed, the police could only conclude the motive was personal, but they had no idea what it was. According to her friends, she hadn’t had a boyfriend or love interest.

Surely, if they’d questioned Feena’s friends properly, they’d know about her time in the compound...unless, like Rainy herself, she’d never told them. That sounded more likely. She’d been living a new life somewhere else and the chances that her friends hadn’t known were strong. After all, Rainy had chosen something similar for herself. It had been harder to read about Sara—her Sara. The details in her death were gruesome. Different. The police had no reason to connect the two...yet. If Paul had succeeded in killing her, Rainy was sure the police would connect all three of them back to the compound. She knew it. That’s exactly what Taured didn’t want to happen. Whether or not Paul was trying to incriminate Taured, or just lead police in his direction, she didn’t know, but she had the feeling he was out to get his former leader’s attention one way or another. And that was exactly why she’d gone to him for help. Two vultures with one stone.

Shit.It was so cold...

What if he doesn’t come?But she knew him: she’d been thinking about, obsessing about...and psychoanalyzing every facet of his personality for years.

Her eyes snapped open. There it was. The connection she’d been grasping at and failing to make. He’d killed Feena by strangling her, he’d killed Sarah by shooting her. He was giving them the deaths he thought they deserved: Taured’s “special girls.” Feena had taken too much of Taured’s attention, so he’d cut off her air. Sara had given Taured a baby, taking Taured farther away from Paul or whoever he had been back then—so he’d shot her in the stomach and left her to bleed to death in the desert.

Rainy had a sick feeling that her own death would include some type of poison...or drug, like her mother’s had. Taured had used food to lure Rainy into his office the night he’d drugged her and taken those photos of her. He’d fed her apricots in the cafeteria the night he’d convinced her to tour Kids’ Camp. And who had been there watching very carefully? Someone had been studying Taured and the unique relationship he had with each of his girls, someone obsessed with Taured and winning his approval, being the most important person to him.

Ginger.

25

Now

“Braithe, do you hear me? Do not eat or drink what he gives you... Braithe!”

Braithe wasn’t hearing her; she was lying on her side on the ground, still handcuffed to the table, but Ginger had left her legs free. He must not see her as much of a flight risk. That was good. If he underestimated Braithe, they could use that.

Rainy had been trying to wake her for a good thirty minutes, ever since Ginger had left, clanking her handcuffs against the table leg and calling out to her. But she was seriously dehydrated and her vocal cords were raw from the screaming she’d done in the freezer. She didn’t know how long he’d be gone, but the little fucker had run off without gagging her.

He’d let her out of the freezer, his nose bandaged and his eyes looking slightly doped. Good. Rainy figured he’d gone to urgent care and come right back, even though it hadn’t felt like right back. But the four or five hours she’d spent in the cold had seemed like much more. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep, and when she’d woken up, Ginger had been standing over her. Without speaking he’d dragged her out of the freezer and back to her spot against the table leg. As soon as he ripped the duct tape from her face, she’d said, “I’d like to upgrade to a suite.”

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