Dusk (Dangerous Web #1) - Aleatha Romig Page 0,41

worldly. Your friend wasn’t. Despite her odd string of homes, she was...sheltered. That’s not you, Lorna, is it?”

“What do you want from me?”

“Tell me about your grandmother.”

My grandmother’s face flashed before me, the gentleness in her gray eyes, and the love in her touch. I focused instead on the woman before me. “I have nothing to say about her.”

“Was she abusive?”

“What the hell is your problem?” Yes, I realized I was hardly in the position to argue, but at the same time, I wanted to know this woman’s endgame.

“I’m going to assume your question is rhetorical?”

“No, she wasn’t abusive. My grandmother was a wonderful woman. My grandfather, Clinton Pierce, was also a good man who worked hard. He died of natural causes when I was very young. My grandmother raised...me” —I wasn’t bringing my siblings into this— “until she died.”

“Hmm.” The woman leaned forward. “Now, tell me about Laurel Carlson.”

“Laurel...she is my sister-in-law. She’s who you wanted. That first day, those men asked if we were Mason’s wife.”

“Very good. Why were you at her home?”

“She’s my sister-in-law as you know.” If this lady knew the hospital where I was born, I could assume her knowledge was more widespread. “We were visiting.”

“Do you like her?”

Her question took me aback. I had liked Laurel when we were children and her father counseled at the local Boys and Girls Club. I’d liked her when she went off to college and when I’d mailed her the news of Mason’s demise. And then when she showed up in the tower, I remember being shocked. Of course, I was even more shocked when I learned of her companion, my brother. As I watched the two of them together and I saw what she’d done to return Mason to not only me, but to himself, my affection grew from like to more. I grew to love her.

I looked my captor in the eye. “I can’t recall ever not liking Laurel Carlson.”

The woman scoffed as she leaned back in the chair and tapped the fingernails of her right hand on the armrest. Her nose scrunched. “Really? She’s not a bit too goody-goody for your liking?”

“No.”

“Her Little Mary Sunshine attitude doesn’t get annoying to you?”

Instead of answering, I sat straighter. “How do you know Laurel?”

“So you’re admitting she possesses the qualities I stated?”

“No. I’m admitting that you seem to be speaking from your own experience. That isn’t how I see Laurel at all.”

The woman’s head cocked to the side. “Come on, Lorna. Who are you?” Before I could answer, she went on, “You’re no one, nobody. You were born in a hospital that provides indigent care. Your own mother was too strung out to want you or pay for your birth. Until you met your husband, you made a living cleaning other people’s shit—literally. You worked in a cheap hotel. Before that, you waited tables. In high school, while Laurel was in physics club and Latin club, you were working weekend nights at an all-night diner to have money for food. I don’t mean lunch money. It was more than food. You were paying for a room in someone else’s house because no one besides you gave a shit if you lived or died.”

I worked to keep my emotions at bay. I wanted to tell her she was wrong. Mason cared. He’d left for the military, but he was sending me money. I just was too stubborn to spend it.

Before I could, she continued, “And your fr-ie-nd” —she elongated the word— “the one that you were so caring toward, what was she doing? Oh, she was at an overpriced private school in the mountains of Colorado.”

I didn’t have an answer for this woman. Nothing she said was untrue, yet that wasn’t how it was with Laurel or Araneae. I’d never felt like a no one when I was with them. I never looked at their upbringing as making them better than me, only different. We all had different backgrounds. The men did too. It made our family eclectic and strong. Our bonds were formed over less superficial things than high school activities.

I forced a smile. “I’m sure,” I began, “it’s the lack of nutrients, or maybe the drugs you keep feeding me, but I’m missing your point. I don’t hate Laurel or Araneae. One is my sister-in-law and friend, the other is my friend.”

“Which one?”

“Which one, what?”

The woman sighed as she shook her head. “You figured it out, I want Laurel. You and Araneae were taken by mistake. Which