“Will. I told Will.”
He was scared of Will. She could see that in his eyes.
He asked, “Trent?”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
Michael kept staring at her, obviously trying to decide if she was telling the truth. Finally, he shook his head. “Uh-uh.” He didn’t believe her.
“It’s true,” she insisted. “I’ve known him all my life.”
He let his gaze take in her body. She was naked below the waist, her legs braced apart so that she would not fall. He told her, “You need to remember there are a lot of different ways you can die.”
“The scar on Will’s face,” she tried. “It goes down his jaw to his neck.”
Michael shrugged. “Anybody can see that.”
“His hand,” she said. “He was shot with a nail gun. I took him to the hospital.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. He stood slowly from the couch and walked over to where she was sitting. Angie tried to lean back as he put his hands on either side of her, bracing himself against the arms of the rocking chair. His voice was a low growl when he asked, “What did you tell him?”
Fear tightened like a band around her throat. “Everything…” She heard the terror in her voice, knew he would hear it, too, but her mouth would not stop moving, the words would not stop coming. “John told me…and I told…I told Will…”
He was gripping the arms so hard that the whole chair seemed to vibrate. “Told you what?”
“That you knew Aleesha!”
“Fuck!” Michael pushed himself away from the chair so violently that it almost tipped over. Angie’s legs flailed as she scrambled not to fall. “God damnit!” He lifted his foot to kick over the coffee table but stopped himself at the last minute. Slowly, his foot went back to the floor, but his fists were still clenched at his sides and he shook with fury.
Angie stared at his back, breathless with fear. Carefully, she stilled the rocking chair, inched her way closer to the edge of the seat. The floor creaked as she shifted her weight.
Michael turned and backhanded her so hard that she slammed onto the floor.
Angie lay there. She couldn’t move. Her head was still echoing from the impact.
“Get up.”
He didn’t have to threaten her. Angie tried to sit up but couldn’t. She pressed her face to the floor and closed her eyes, waiting for the punishment.
Nothing came.
“My dad left me when I was ten.”
Angie opened her eyes. She must have passed out, missed something. Michael was at the kitchen sink. He took a metal tin out of one of the cabinets.
He said, “You know what that’s like?”
Angie didn’t answer. She watched him open the tin, check the contents.
“John thought he had it hard. He didn’t know what hard was.” Michael waved a bag of white powder in the air. He was back to being that guy again, that normal guy he projected out to the world so that they wouldn’t figure out what a monster he was.
He said, “This is good stuff. You want some?”
She tried to shake her head.
“You didn’t want that last drink, either.” He smiled like it was funny. “Remember that, Angie-Ken’s big party? I got you a drink.”
She couldn’t remember, but she nodded anyway.
“Roofies, baby.” He sat down on the couch, putting the tin on the coffee table between them. “You gulped down a mouthful of roofies.”
Rohypnol. He had drugged her.
Michael laughed at her expression. He took a razor blade and a small mirror out of the tin and tapped some of the powder onto the glass. Angie watched as he chopped the coke with the blade. “You ever have a kid?” he asked, not looking at her. “I bet you’ve had about sixty abortions by now.” He kept cutting the coke, businesslike. “My son has problems. You know that.”
Angie willed her body to move. She was gasping with pain by the time she managed to sit up. At least she had managed it, though. At least she was no longer lying helpless on the floor.
“He’s retarded,” Michael told her, cutting the powder into four lines. He took a rolled dollar bill out of the tin and inhaled one of the lines. He made an “ahh” sound, then told Angie, “This is some good shit. You sure you don’t want some?”
She shook her head again.
“Don’t like being out of control? That’s what you said at Ken’s party when I handed you that drink.” He chuckled. “You drank it anyway, didn’t you? Could have put it down, but you gulped it like a damn fish.” He held out the mirror, offering, “Sure?”
“You broke my nose.”
“Your loss.” He put the mirror back on the table.
“Just let me go.” She was trembling so hard she could barely speak. “I won’t tell anybody.”
“You can’t honestly think you’re getting out of here.”
“Where’s Jasmine?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” He leaned his head back on the couch, studying her. “Don’t you want to know about John?”
“What about him?”
“Half that prison plowed John’s ass. I bet he has AIDS.”
Angie took deep breaths, coughed from the effort. Her wrist was throbbing with every heartbeat. The rope was tightening around her skin as it dried in the heat of the cabin.
“So, Tim, right?” He let out a short breath. “We got the diagnosis six years ago.”
Angie tested the ropes around her wrists, gently pulling to see if there was any give. “That must have been… hard.”
“It’s always about money, isn’t it?” He indicated the mirror on the table, the lines of coke. “That’s how I paid for it. Give the girls a little bump, let them help pay for my boy to learn how to tie his fucking shoes. State insurance won’t cover half the shit he needs. What am I going to do, let my child waste away in some home?”
Angie didn’t answer. Her mind processed his words, tried to make sense of them. Had Michael been selling dope to the girls, taking it in trade when he felt like it? He had been in Vice for at least ten years. His son couldn’t be more than eight. Tim had nothing to do with it.
“Then I had all that cash and nowhere to park it. Can’t put it in my account because Uncle Sam might get curious. Can’t leave it lying around because Gina might ask questions.” He pointed his finger at Angie. “Then, I figured, why not open up some accounts for my good old cousin Johnny? I already had his social security number from all that court shit my mom had lying around.”
Cousin. Angie didn’t know if Michael meant they were related or he was just using slang.
Michael said, “Wasn’t like I had to worry about him getting out.”
She felt her eyes wanting to close and fought to stay awake.
“Where are your questions, Angie?” The coke had made him more alert, talkative. “Come on, girlie. Ask your questions.”
Angie’s mind reeled. She couldn’t think of anything but, “You knew Aleesha Monroe.”
“Yeah, we go way back.”
Angie waited for him to figure out that she had lied before, but he was too wrapped up in his own story to take apart hers.
He said, “First day in uniform, I got a call to the Homes-got stuck in the freaking elevator. All the old-timers were busting a gut by the time they got me out, and there was Leesha, laughing right along with them.
At least, she was laughing until she recognized me.“ He wagged his finger. ”Nobody laughs at Michael Ormewood, Angie. Nobody laughs at him, and sure as shit nobody pushes him away.“
