Page 35 of Web of Lies
He doesn't stop laughing until I get to the kitchen. The hose is in the back yard and that's where we're going.
“Stop, Wyatt. Stop. Let go. She's in the bedroom.”
I drop his foot. “Where?”
He stands up with an obnoxiously sideways grin eating up the side of his equally obnoxious face. “Calm your ass down, Wyatt. I don't need you having a heart attack or anything. No hospitals, remember?”
I just look at him.
He snorts another laugh and walks back to the bedroom.
“Well?” I snarl when he sits down on the bed.
“Hang on a second.”
He digs a small silver key out of his pocket and leans over the side of the bed. That's when I see it. I was in too much of a tizzy before. He unlocks one half of a pair of handcuffs and sits back up, still smiling like a fool.
“Another second.”
He rolls to the bottom of the other side of the bed and unlocks another set of cuffs. Then he rolls over the edge and pulls Larken from under the bed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
He just keeps grinning. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I ignore him and look at Larken. It's dark, so I flick on the light. She blinks at the sudden brightness, but stands there with one cuff dangling off a wrist and another dangling off the opposite ankle. I'm way more annoyed than I probably should be that the cuff fits around her ankle.
Her fucking husband. Sure guy, let me just make your starving, brow-beaten wife miserable enough to go running back to you with a smile.
This is such a problem.
“What? I didn't put her back in the trunk.” Shaun says it like I should be proud of him. Like he should get a sticker or something.
I hold up my hand to shut him up. “We'll talk about this later.”
“Why are you even awake right now?”
“I couldn't sleep,” I answer, then point at Larken. “I've got some questions for you. Right now. Come on.”
I grasp her wrist, the one without a cuff dangling from it, and drag her behind me to the kitchen and guide her firmly into a seat. She waits silently, waiting for my inquisition with her fingers tangled together on the table in front of her.
“You don't say much,” I start. “You don't whine or argue or scream.”
“What's the point?” she counters. “What good would it do?”
“Most people at least call for help every other minute. Don't you want somebody to come save you?”
Shaun saunters in and sits at the table across from her with that stupid smile on his face again. Larken looks at him for a few moments, looking every bit as annoyed as I feel before she answers. “I hate to break it to you, but you kind of saved me. I'm just trying to figure out what to do next.”
“I...” What? I did what? “What do you mean, I saved you? We dragged you out of your perfect house with a sack on your head and threw you in a trunk.”
She shrugs. “I'm not in that house anymore.”
“What happens when you go back?”
Her chin lifts and she stares down her nose to meet my eyes. “I'm not going back.”
“Your husband’s money says you are.”
