“Couldn’t you just ask me not to?”
“Because you’re noted for doing as you’re told?”
I had no answer for that.
“I thought so,” he said.
Frank’s alive, I told myself. Hold on to that. Hold on. If he can put up with whatever they’re doing to him, you can deal with one lousy Texan.
But it was a mistake, thinking of what might be happening to him. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “Yeah, well,” I said, “sorry about slapping you.”
“Irene.”
“What?” I said, not looking at him.
“What you’ve been doing — that hasn’t just been busywork.”
I sighed. “Don’t lie to me, Cassidy. I might look like I need a lie, but I don’t.”
“I’m not lying. If you think about it, I’ve told you the truth. You don’t always want to hear it.”
I didn’t reply.
“Not that I blame you,” he added.
“Thanks for that, anyway.”
“Listen to me now. It’s always better for us to know as much as we can about the takers. Knowing who, in all likelihood, took them that night — that gives us something to bargain with.”
“You just told me you could have bargained with a lie.”
“Better if we can bargain with the truth. Much better.”
Somehow I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm over that. I felt as if I’d spent precious hours hunting for a lost key, only to come back home and find out all the locks had been changed.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go in.”
“I’m tired, Cassidy.”
“I know you are,” he said. “I know you are.”
I looked up at him. He looked sad. I was going to apologize again for slapping him, but his cell phone rang.
Everything began to change with that call.
29
“SO WE’RE ALL SET?”
It was Samuel’s voice. He tried to listen, to pay attention. It was better than thinking about the restraints, about being back in the bed. Better than thinking about the curtain being around the bed again, cutting off his view.
Bret had drugged him again, given him something mild in a drink that made him less upset about being placed in the restraints again. But now, awake, he had nothing to take the edge off. Better to be alert, he told himself.
He was marveling at how easily he had awakened this time. He did not feel nearly so groggy. And the dizziness was not so severe. Had Bret cut down the dosage?
“Of course we are, Samuel.” A woman’s voice. “Don’t you trust me to do anything right?”
The stranger’s voice startled him. He felt a deep sense of shame that yet another person would see him like this, then set aside those feelings. Pay attention, he told himself again.
“No, Faye, as a matter of fact, I don’t.” Samuel. “Especially not after you broke that bottle of after-shave.”
“I wasn’t the one who broke it!”
“You were the one who didn’t pack it right,” Samuel said.
“It doesn’t matter. Thanks for making the arrangements, Faye.” Bret’s voice, placating.
“The only one who has made any kind of mistake so far is you, Sammy boy,” Faye said.
“Don’t call me that,” Samuel said. Couldn’t she hear his anger? Frank wondered.
“Did he tell you?” Faye went on. “He screwed up the fax yesterday.”
There was a silence.
“Bret doesn’t care,” Samuel said. “You think you can divide us, but you can’t.”
“This isn’t about division. Bret’s not interested in me. But he’s interested in knowing how you really sent that fax. I can see it in his face.”
“No,” Bret said. “Samuel doesn’t have to tell me anything he doesn’t want to.”
Another hesitation. “She’s trying to make a big deal out of nothing!” Sam’s voice, exasperated. “I couldn’t get the computer to work with the pay phone at the airport. So I used the hard copy you gave me and sent it on an actual fax machine. Big deal.”
“Sorry you had problems,” Bret said. “Must have been frustrating.”
“It was,” Samuel said. Frank could hear him gloating, heard his belief that Faye hadn’t caused the trouble she’d
