An Honest Lie(83)

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?”

Rainy opened her eyes, looked at Ginger this time. Taured had pistol-whipped him pretty good. One side of his head was...dented. Along with the broken nose she’d given him, he was almost unrecognizable.

Nice way of saying it. Her mother’s voice in her head.

Rainy looked away quickly, the tears in her eyes fat but unfallen. “I don’t know what he wanted to do. I just did what he said.”

The idea that he was in some way affiliated with Taured and his cult had crossed her mind. At first, she’d wondered if he could be Frank, Sammy or Marshall. All those guys had been Taured’s henchmen, but they’d all lacked something she picked up right away in Ginger: he was smart, really smart. That wouldn’t have gone down well at the compound. Taured couldn’t keep smart men because they always eventually called him out. The women had been different: they stayed because they were in love with him, but it hadn’t mattered how smart they were because their feelings for him won out, even if they probably just had Stockholm syndrome. Ginger’s black hair had thrown her off, but then she remembered. It was when the lady at the Quick Mart had said that one of the two men who bought the syrup dyed his hair, had light roots underneath. The little boy who’d followed Taured around the compound until everyone made fun of him: he’d loved Taured, too. And Taured had used that love against him. He’d been training all the kids up to serve him, so possibly he thought of Ginger as the future Frank/Sammy/Marshall. And somewhere along the line his love for Taured started the rot that spread through the rest of him.

She felt the vomit piling up behind her throat. Turning her head to the left, she let it come, and she was sick across the floor. This kitchen was having an odd baptism. When she looked back at Taured, he seemed pleased. Of course he was: he fed on the emotions he caused. It didn’t matter how gross the outcome was. After another torturous minute of watching her, he dragged Ginger’s body into the walk-in freezer and kicked the door closed, dusting his hands.

“He hit her pretty good.” Rainy licked her lips, nodding toward Braithe. “Can you check on her?”

Taured nodded. He walked over to where Braithe sat, taking her in, before lowering himself to his haunches. She was no longer sitting up, alert; her legs were extended in front of her and her head was lolling again. He touched her neck and looked at Rainy. “She’s alive,” he said. Then, as he stood up, he said, “You care about her.”

“I do.”

“You offered yourself up to this to save her.”

“I suppose that’s what it looks like,” she said.

“No greater love than this, a man who gives up his life for his friend...” He looked down at Braithe for another few seconds, considering either her beauty or her value to Rainy—she didn’t know which—then he walked toward Rainy along the length of table that separated her from Braithe. When he was in front of Rainy, with his back to the freezer, he leaned against it, crossing his ankles.

“You were never transparent about what you cared about, except for your mother. It was all a mystery to me—what parts you were faking and what parts were real.”