Page 71 of An Honest Lie

Open your eyes, open your eyes!Rainy had a purely comical thought:The boys are fighting!

Braithe, who had her knees pulled up to her chest, straightened one leg.

As they grappled, they lost their balance, and Ginger took the brunt of the fall, hitting the ground and staying there, pinned by Taured’s weight. They’d collapsed just beyond where Braithe sat against her own table leg, struggling.

Rainy couldn’t see what happened next. The men’s feet were kicking, and she saw flashes of gray boots. Ginger tried to reach for his gun, but Taured was a bigger man with longer arms, and he got there first. She braced herself for a gunshot, her vision swimming as the grunting continued, but the only sound that came was two dull thumps. Braithe was watching, she had a better view than Rainy, and she was trying to keep out of their way, pulling her legs up to her chest. As Taured stood, Braithe’s head followed him, tilting all the way back.

Everything felt perfectly still in those moments, and the light from the high window was shining directly on Rainy’s face, bright white and blinding. She blinked once...twice...and then Taured rose from the ground, a disoriented victor. Rainy could just see Ginger’s boots, unmoving, beyond Braithe.

Taured stumbled back into Rainy’s view, glancing at Braithe and stepping into the greater part of the room. There was blood on his hands and shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was looking for her. It was her turn to tremble, the weight of her stupid, ridiculous plan crashing down on her. Handcuffed to a table leg on an abandoned floor of a hotel, at the mercy not only of a would-be killer but her worst enemy. She started laughing at the absurdity of it: How had she thought she should deal with a kidnapper herself?

She couldn’t contain the laughter that bubbled from her lips.All because she grew up in a cult and had a lot of great therapy, she’d thought she could outsmart a sociopath.Her laughter was almost beautiful even to her own ears, illogical yet melodious in this impossible situation.

“Hello, Taured,” she said, and as he crouched down in front of her, he was grinning. Blood was running steadily from his nose where Ginger had got him good. She wondered if Ginger were still alive. The light wasn’t good, but it looked like there was a lot of blood on that side of the room.

“You’re not so different,” she said.

He grabbed her chin and turned her head from side to side.

“You’re very different.”

When he let her go, her skin tingled where his fingers had been.

“That’s good. Want to let me out of these handcuffs? My wrists are killing me.”

Taured made a face like,Wow, okay, and stood up.

“Who’s your friend?” He glanced back at Braithe, who was sitting very still.

“Her name is Braithe. Who’s yours? Do you remember him?”

Taured looked over to where Ginger lay motionless. “Ginger. Of course I remember him. I got your email. You can imagine how shocked I was, Summer, to see your name pop up from that old email address.”

She’d used the email he’d had them send their daily journals to, knowing he would still have access to it, would look at it, even after all these years. He needed those trophies.

“The subject line got me.” He pushed off from the wall and took the few steps needed to reach her. Then, like he’d done a moment ago, he lowered himself in front of her, eyes sparkling. She was in kicking distance of his crotch, the arrogant bastard. She could see the pores on his face, the individual hairs that grew down his neck. The freckle on his earlobe that looked like the tiny stud of an earring. She remembered noticing that as a child. She’d thought, when she’d first met him, that the illusion of an earring made him look cooler.

You should kick him now; you might not get another chance later.

“Now, I know you’re this fancy sculptor. I’ve seen the accolades and awards—” he held his hands up, shaking his head “—but you really should try your hand at writing, Summertime.”

As he looked at her like—like she was a meal, she remembered why she was here. She curled her toes up in her boots. Paul—Ginger—hadn’t said she couldn’t wear boots.

Taured was still speaking. “The description you sent. Very good detective work, by the way. I knew it was our Ginger.” He glanced up at the ceiling like he was recalling something. “‘Taured, I need your help. A man has taken my friend captive and he’s asked me to surrender myself to save her. He told me that if I contacted the police his first order of business would be to kill her, but if I came willingly, he’d spare her life for mine. All I can offer is a rough description of him...’”

Rainy exhaled, a sort of laugh that sounded choked. He was imitating her tone like he’d been listening to her speak for the last dozen years. He was creepy...sick. She yanked on her cuffs in anger.

“Look for a broken nose.” He sounded purely delighted by this point. “And then you actually managed to break his nose!” He shook his head in proud disbelief. “You were always so determined, so dead set on what you wanted. I know that because I read half of your thoughts. The beautiful innocent thoughts of a young girl in her prime.”

Her head ached in the spot it had met Ginger’s nose.

“Before he left, he’d been causing problems. You know how disgruntled people get. But thanks to you, that problem is now—” he looked over at the body and then back at Rainy with a gleeful expression “—dead.”

He spared her more of his fucked-up thoughts when he went to look over his handiwork. He stood, a foot in the puddle of Ginger’s blood, hands on hips, then suddenly he bent down. Legs extended, Rainy bounced on her left side, then right, trying to get blood flowing.

Fuck. Shit.He was dragging the body toward her. Ginger’s head was not okay. She closed her eyes when Taured propped him opposite her against the door to the walk-in freezer.

“Hey!” She heard him clap his hands. “He had the sense to turn the freezer on! Do you think it was for you and your friend?”

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