Taured made a face like, Wow, okay, and stood up.
“Who’s your friend?” He glanced back at Braithe, who was sitting very still.
“Her name is Braithe. Who’s yours? Do you remember him?”
Taured looked over to where Ginger lay motionless. “Ginger. Of course I remember him. I got your email. You can imagine how shocked I was, Summer, to see your name pop up from that old email address.”
She’d used the email he’d had them send their daily journals to, knowing he would still have access to it, would look at it, even after all these years. He needed those trophies.
“The subject line got me.” He pushed off from the wall and took the few steps needed to reach her. Then, like he’d done a moment ago, he lowered himself in front of her, eyes sparkling. She was in kicking distance of his crotch, the arrogant bastard. She could see the pores on his face, the individual hairs that grew down his neck. The freckle on his earlobe that looked like the tiny stud of an earring. She remembered noticing that as a child. She’d thought, when she’d first met him, that the illusion of an earring made him look cooler.
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.