Page 117 of Over Her Dead Body

“I am.”

His eyes move to the gun.

“I didn’t know,” he tells the man. “She told me⁠—”

“This is not my husband.”

The man beside the bed grabs my arm. André looks at him.

“Neither is he.”

André looks between them. “Your husband has a lot of friends.”

I try to pull free. The man’s grip tightens. “Get up.”

When I don’t move fast enough, he drags me to the edge of the mattress.

I clutch the sheet against my chest. My feet find the floor.

André is still explaining.

“We only met tonight.”

Apparently, being held at gunpoint has not cured him of talking too much.

The man at the foot of the bed points at the floor.

André gets down immediately.

I have never seen anyone abandon a mattress with so little concern for what might be visible.

“Face down.”

He complies.

The man holding my arm picks up my dress and shoves it against me.

“Put it on.”

“Let go of me.”

He looks toward his colleague.

The gun shifts toward André. “Put it on or I will shoot your friend.”

“Please,” André says into the carpet. “It is a very nice dress.”

I stop pulling.

“Fine.”

He releases me long enough to dress. I get one arm through the wrong opening and have to start again. My fingers won’t manage the fastening.

The man turns me around and does it himself.

I look at the phone beside my pillow.

He takes that too.