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Using the rope hanging nearby, I tied her to the chair. I barely got her to cooperate. The expired Vicodin in Achille’s bathroom, probably for a long-ago injury, still packed a punch. She had nodded off while I wrapped the rope around her chest, but I needed answers to my questions. I dunked a bottle into a bucket of ice water. Then I poured it over her hair.
She woke up, sputtering. Water drenched her face as she snapped her head back. Her brow furrowed as she glanced at her bound arms.
“Wh-what the hell?” she stammered.
I turned on the spotlight Achille had used on Xaden, and she flinched. “This should help you wake up.”
She groaned. “Turn it off. It hurts.”
I smiled. “Already complainin’, huh? You’re not as tough as the man you hired to kill me.”
“What?”
I grabbed a pair of rusty pliers from Achille’s toolbox. I held them to the light. The moment Becky’s beady gaze fixed on them, she let out an earsplitting scream.
“Please, please…don’t!”
I pulled up a chair and sat down, facing her. “Tell me what I need to know, and I won’t have to.”
Tears leaked from her eyes. “Let me go, and I swear, I’ll forget all about this. Please, my husband’s waiting for me.”
I played with the pliers. “You don’t have a husband.”
She stiffened.
“I figured somethin’ was up when I saw you and my future brother-in-law at my engagement party. When you left the bathroom, you ran into Romeo. You seemed to know him, which was strange. Then he took you somewhere else to talk. I followed. He didn’t see me, but I was there. Listenin’. He said enough to make me realize I couldn’t trust anyone in that family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You lied to me about your husband. Pretended he was at home, but Travis hasn’t been there in months.”
Her lip quivered. “He was kidnapped.”
I refilled the bottle. “By who?”
“The Costas. They’ve been holding him ransom. I-I’ve been trying to keep it together and?—”
I poured more water on her head.
She shrieked as it spilled down her blouse and soaked through the fabric. I splashed more on her face. Her mascara slid in grimy rivers down her cheeks. She looked like a drowned rat.
“S-stop it,” she sputtered.
“I will when you stop feedin’ me lies.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Two weeks after my sister passed, your husband was declared a missing person. One would think you’d be shattered over that. I can’t even imagine.”
Her teeth chattered. “S-so? What’s it to you?”
“You said he was traveling.”
She shrugged, shivering. “How I ch-choose to d-deal with Travis going missing is n-none of your business.”
“Yeah, but he’s not. You know where he’s buried.”
She trembled. “I don’t.”
