“Then why?”
He looks at me.Steady.Certain.Unbothered.
“Because you were never going to do it, Marin.You were going to come home and find a reason to wait one more day.And then one more.And then one more.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you better than you think I do.”
I stare at him.He stares back.And for the first time since I met this man, I don’t see the handyman.I don’t see the fixer.I don’t see the man who shows up when I call and doesn’t ask questions.
I see a man who just burned my life down and thinks he did me a favor.
“Get in the basement,” I say.
“What?”
“Get in the basement, Luke.”
61
Luke
They say it ends how it starts.
She means it.I can see it in her face—not the grief she wears for Mrs.Mather, probably not the pitch face she wore in New York.Something past all of that.
“Marin.”
“Don’t.”
“Let me explain?—”
“You can explain from the basement.”
She’s holding the taser.Her hand is steady.
“You’re not going to tase me.”
“I tased Charles.”
I could take it from her.But the woman holding it just found out I burned her plan to the ground and she’s looking at me the way she probably looked at Charles the night she loaded him in the trailer.
“Okay,” I say.“I’ll go.”
I walk past her.Down the stairs.The soundproofed walls.The concrete floor.The column with the crack I made worse with a wrench while she was somewhere over Virginia.
The chair is in the corner.She drags it to the center of the room.
“Sit down,” she says.
I sit.
The rope comes from the same drawer as the ball gag.She ties my wrists to the chair.Looped low, pulled tight.Clean knots.The work is familiar.I just didn’t expect to be on the receiving end.
“I hate to suggest this,” I say.“But you might be overreacting.”
She doesn’t respond.Her silence isn’t avoidance.It’s a choice.
