An Honest Lie(75)

“Does it bother you to work with food when you have such an unhealthy relationship with it?” She’d won again; she could see it on his face. Everyone from the compound has a fucked-up relationship with food. He was bothered, his sallow skin flushing all the way to his eyeballs. He took another step toward her and stopped abruptly. Rainy could hear her own ragged, angry breath in the pause before he turned. She watched his sure strides toward Braithe and her stomach clenched.

Braithe couldn’t keep her head up when Paul crouched down next to her. It bobbed upright for a minute and then settled back on her shoulder. There was a narrow window, high above where Braithe was tied; the light that filtered through made it look like she was wearing a yellow T-shirt. Rainy could only see the back of Braithe’s head, but Paul was looking at Rainy as he leaned over the woman. He slapped her, hard, across the face. Braithe barely made a sound, which could mean she was too drugged to realize it had happened or it had happened so often she was used to it. Rainy kept her face impassive; she would not give him control that easily.

“Our little Braithe was sitting at the bar, drinking white wine like a bad cliché, when I showed up. Rocked your world, didn’t I, B?”

Rainy made her face as wooden as possible as she listened to him; she wouldn’t give him anything to work with if she could help it.

“You know what I thought when I saw her sitting there, Rainy?”

She didn’t like the way he said her name, dragging out the a. Ray-nee.

“I thought, what a sad little queen bee, sitting on that stool in her cold shoulder blouse, looking like someone just broke her heart.” Paul let all his features sag, mimicking what must have been Braithe’s posture at the bar. God, thought Rainy, why was Braithe in that bar that night? Had she called Stephen, or had she just needed to get away?

“And someone had broken her heart, Ray-nee, that someone was your guy, wasn’t it? Your Grant.” He paused for her reaction, his narrow face turning serious with his tone.

His blue, fishy eyes studied Braithe, and he tilted his head to the side so that it matched the angle of hers. He looked like a puppet relaxed on its strings.

“Said she’d flown here from Washington with some girlfriends for a weekend getaway. So I asked what she wanted to get away from—” He clapped his hands twice, bouncing on one leg with the flair of a performer. Of course, Rainy thought: Vegas, he’s a showman.

“She thought that was so, so funny. Do you know what she told me next, Rainy?”

“I can’t wait for you to tell me, Paul,” she answered dryly.

“She said she was there to call her ex, the man she was still in love with.” Rainy swallowed; she wished she had water to cool the aching in her throat. How long had she been here? Paul stared at her, his eyes mesmerizing.

“She took your little game as a sign, you see? And then the psychic...you girls just had to stop to talk to that cracked nut, didn’t you?” He tapped a closed fist to the side of his head, clicking his tongue.

“It’s not my business who she’s in love with. It’s not reciprocated.”

“Well, see there, that’s what I thought, as well—this poor, delusional woman who arranged this...special weekend so she could come to Vegas and have a psychic confirm her high school boyfriend was the one.” He laughed, slapping his knee like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard, and then he suddenly became very serious.

“She showed me the text she was planning on sending him, you know...” He placed a hand over his heart, his bottom lip drooping out. “It was good, Rainy, that’s all I’ll say. Braithe should have been a writer.”

“That’s all you’ll say, huh?” Somehow she really doubted that.

Paul grinned, making the motion of zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

From across the room Braithe moaned. Paul either didn’t hear her or didn’t care; he was engrossed in telling his story. “We had a toast together to celebrate, but I could tell she was nervous the whole time, waiting for Grant to text her back.”

Rainy bit down on her tongue, forcing herself not to use it. She needed to hear him out, wanted to, but she was spitting angry that she was being forced to hear the truth from a sociopath instead of Grant. And how much of the truth was he actually giving her? Braithe wasn’t conscious enough to contradict his story.

“He did text her back. Not right away, but his response was equally as thoughtful as hers.”

She couldn’t hold back for another second. The anger rose like vomit. “Fuck you!” If he didn’t have her chained, she’d launch herself at him. “I need water,” she said.

Paul shrugged. “Why should I give you water when you’re being so very rude?”

“A dehydrated girl is no fun to play with, Paul.”

He kicked off the fridge he was leaning against and Rainy gave a silent prayer of thanks when he pulled a bottle of water from the pack on the counter and casually walked over. She kept eye contact with him the whole time he held the bottle to her lips. Cold, mean chips of blue buried beneath a spray of blond lashes. They were unblinking as they watched her, like he didn’t want to miss a second of her suffering. She was so, so close, but she couldn’t quite place him yet.

She tried to drink slowly to give him less of a thrill, but she sucked down the whole bottle in seconds. He carried the empty bottle over to a garbage bag and tucked it inside, then he took a bottle over to Braithe. Rainy heard the seal on the lid snap before he bent over her with the water. She couldn’t tell if Braithe was conscious enough to drink, but after a few seconds he stood up, setting the bottle on the table above her head. Was this really happening? Yes, because you made it happen. She didn’t want to look at him. She’d been staring into his eyes less than twenty seconds ago and it had been a hollow experience. She suddenly felt exhausted. She leaned her head against the pole behind her and closed her eyes.