She wasn’t dead. She was cold and in pain. Sitting up, she groaned at the wrongness of 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 knew how. 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.”
He’d shoved her down, hard. The back of her head hit the table and she moaned, dropping her chin to her chest, dizzy. He didn’t use the handcuffs to secure her to the table this time: Rainy saw him reach for his pocket, where he pulled out pink zip ties. He secured her arms around the table leg with the zip ties before he took off the cuffs and tossed them aside. Pink zip ties. She almost asked if he’d ordered them on Amazon, but she wanted a shot at some water.
Pink, pink, your feet stink! She could hear her dad yelling that across their small apartment living room before charging for her: the tickle monster. Had he been high when he’d done that? Drunk? On a sober kick? Did she care? He was never scary to her; his sideburns were too big to be taken seriously and his laugh was contagious. Pink. She felt encouraged: this was so stupid and yet so real. Her dad had taught her how to break someone’s nose with her forehead; he’d demonstrated it many times in their living room. She’d thought it was hilarious, especially when he mimicked grabbing an imaginary someone by their shirt collar and rearing back his head, to “head-bash” them as he’d called it. “This is how you do it, Summer, are you watching?” Little had she known how that lesson would serve her now.
“Time out for noisemaking?” she asked. He didn’t look at her, not in the mood for jokes after getting his ass beat, she supposed. Oh, how smug you are, tied-up woman! she told herself. Either way, she could see the dark bruises beneath his eyes and it pleased her somewhere deep and feral: she’d got him good. Thanks, Dad.
Ginger had said no one could hear them because the restaurant was in a wing that was being remodeled, yet he was never winded when he arrived with his armful of groceries. That meant the elevators were probably working, and Ginger—as staff—would have access to the key codes that would allow him up here. He didn’t seem at all worried about the sound.
When she looked over at Braithe, she was sitting up. It took a minute for Rainy’s mind to catch up to what she was seeing. She tried to say Braithe’s name, but it caught in her dry throat.
“Rainy—” Braithe’s voice was so shocking in the silence that for a few seconds Rainy’s tongue stayed glued to the roof of her mouth as she tried to work it free.
“Rainy...” she said again, more desperately.