Chapter 29
Luke
I clean up the way I always do—scraps in a garbage bag, adhesive capped, utility knife folded and pocketed. The basement looks different now. Padded walls, sealed seams, weatherstripped door. A room designed to keep sound from getting out.
I stand there for a minute. Listening.
Nothing from above. No muffled voice. No bedframe groaning.
It works.
I take the stairs up and find Marin in the kitchen. She’s got fresh coffee on, hair pulled back, a dish towel over her shoulder like she’s been cleaning. She smiles when she sees me—wide, easy, the kind of smile that’s designed to make you feel like everything is fine.
Everything is not fine. There’s a man strapped to a bed twenty feet above her head. But you’d never know it. She’s selling so hard the house itself almost believes her.
“All done?” she says. Bright. Like I’ve been fixing a shelf.
“All done.”
“How is it?”
“Quiet.”
“Perfect.” She folds the dish towel. Sets it on the counter. Pours me a cup of coffee without asking if I want one and slides it across like this is something we do. “What do I owe you?”
I give her the number. She’s already reaching for her phone before I finish saying it. Transfers it, done. Clean. Professional. Transaction complete.
Except she doesn’t walk me to the door. She stays at the counter, coffee in hand, smile still on, and asks me what else the house needs like she’s planning renovations instead of a hostage situation.
I take the coffee. I don’t sit down.
I think about what I heard.
Not the three words. The other thing—the argument. The rhythm of it. His voice spiking, testing, probing. Her voice steady, never rising, never breaking. She won that fight. I could hear it in the way his voice dropped at the end, the way hers didn’t.
But here’s what I keep coming back to.
He had the energy to argue. He had the energy to yell, to threaten, to test every crack in her composure. He’s strapped to a bed with cracked ribs and raw wrists and he’s using what strength he has to tear her down.
I’ve met men like that. Different packaging, same defect. Ryan McCall uses his fists. This guy uses his words. The damage lands in different places but the math is the same—a man who has something in front of him and can’t stop destroying it.
I’m not saying she’s right. I’m saying she kidnapped a man who’s not worth the rope.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I say. Set the mug down.
“Thanks for the soundproofing,” she says. Still smiling. Still selling.
I pick up my toolbox and head for the door.
“Lock up behind me.”
“See you around, Luke.”
I drive home the long way. Not thinking about whether I should have helped the man upstairs. Not thinking about right and wrong. Thinking about the way a man who’s being kept alive by a woman who loves him can’t find a single reason to be grateful.
I’ve held a man’s hand flat on a workbench and used a hammer for less.
I turn the radio on.
First time in two years.
I don’t find a station. Just static. But the silence was worse.