“Oh, come on now. You didn’t really think I’d do that? You’re not a stupid girl, Rainy. Funny, though, I looked for you on the wonderful wide web and found next to nothing. No personal life, no particular place you grew up…no addresses. That couldn’t be because you’re lying about your real name, could it?”
Braithe looked up, her eyes glassy and unfocused.
“Maybe,” Rainy said. “But what difference does it make to you?”
“I like to bond with my victims.”
“Yeah? I knew a man who liked to bond that way, too.”
He smiled and she saw the expensive dental work, porcelain veneers; her grandmother had had them. It was the first time a smile had lit up his eyes, and it was creepy. She recognized her mistake: he was trying to throw her off-balance, make her so emotional she couldn’t think clearly.
Rainy tried to keep her face neutral. He was smart, and she needed to be smarter.
“Where is he now, little liar Rainy, and what is your real name?”
“Fuck you. You obviously know what my real name is. You texted it to me.” Rainy spat at his feet and he smiled without malice. “But you’re not using your real name, either. You obviously have a connection to the compound.” But he didn’t answer her, just continued to smile beatifically. Obviously, he wasn’t going to explain anything to her. At least, not until he was ready. He looked past her to Braithe and made kissy noises at her.
“This one has been such an angel. I’m not used to all this spice. You’re like a little hot pocket, aren’t you?”
“Did your daddy talk to you like that? No…that’s not right,” Rainy said slowly. “It was your mama, wasn’t it? That’s why you hate women.”
Paul’s smile froze. He took three jerky strides to Rainy and she felt the sting of his hand as he slapped her clean across the face. He caught her lip and she felt it split open like ripe fruit. Braithe moaned from somewhere behind her and Rainy heard the rattling of handcuffs on the table leg.
Paul stood over her, his clear blue eyes clouded. Rainy watched him clench and unclench his fists like he was trying to pump his anger out of them. She felt strangely calm, or perhaps it was the drugs—either way, she stared on impassively as Braithe began to cry softly from her end of the table.
He was thin, thinner than most men of his height, but what struck Rainy most were the veneers. An eating disorder would cause the signs of malnutrition on Paul’s face, and she’d bet his teeth were rotting from years of bulimia before he shelled out the money for his Ronald Reagan teeth.
“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.