As they walked closer to the residence, she said, “Wow, this is a gorgeous house.”
He jerked her arm, hard, and said, “It is, and it takes an awful lot of upkeep to keep it that way,” he said. “It’s been in the family for generations, so I won’t let it go now.”
“Ah,” she said. “You need money.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” he snarled. “And you’re worth money.”
“Wrong. No, I’m not,” she said. “I don’t know who told you that, but I’m really not.”
“Oh, I think you are,” he said. “I just have to find out who’ll pay.”
“Well, I’m the only one who would have paid for my sister, and there’s nobody else to pay for either of us, if you’ve got us both,” she said in a reasonable tone.
He didn’t even comment on that.
“Besides, it’s not money for us you want anyway, right? It’s actually her fiancé, isn’t it?”
“Are they actually engaged? God, he is welcome to her. All she does is complain.”
Astra hid her smile at his comment because that was such a perfect description of her sister. “That doesn’t mean she’s not terrified,” she said.
“Oh, she’s terrified all right. All she wants is him.”
“Well, of course she does. She loves him, and she’s been worried sick about him.”
“Well, he can have her, if we can find him ourselves.”
“And that’s where the trouble lies. So you weren’t the ones who kidnapped him?”
“Yeah, we were, and we stashed him with somebody, only that somebody moved him.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Ouch,” she said. “Betrayed from within. That sucks.”
“In a big way,” he said. “Now would you just stop talking.”
She was silent for a few moments, until they entered the big house.
He twisted her arm and said, “Wait here.” And he let her go. She stood here, rubbing her sore wrists and easing the pain in her shoulders. She looked around; the house had very little in the way of lights on. She didn’t know if that was because of the cost of the power or if it was part of the ambient mood he was trying to maintain. She turned and realized he hadn’t left; he’d just been standing behind her, looking for something. Something he then looped around her hands.
She looked at it in dismay. “Is that really necessary?”
“Don’t want you to do anything to get away,” he said. “One sister’s bad enough to look after. I’m not chasing around after the two of you.”
He dragged her forward into the kitchen, where her sister sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. Astra stared at her sister and asked, “Amy, are you okay?”
Amy hopped up, only her hands were tied too, and so were her feet. She looked up at her sister and started to cry.
“Oh, Amy,” Astra said. She walked over to her sister and, even though her hands were tied with a rope hanging off of them, she lifted them over her sister’s neck and just held her close.
“I trusted Rick,” Amy said.
“Remember that thing about trust?”
“No, you’re the one who never trusts anybody,” Amy said. “I’ve always trusted everyone.” She wiggled out of Astra’s hold and sat down again.
Astra didn’t say anything to that because it was true. It’s just that she’d always wished her sister wouldn’t trust everyone so easily. She sat down beside her sister and asked again, “Are you okay?”
Amy nodded and looked at her guard. “Not that he cares,” she snarled.
Astra was surprised to see that kind of spirit in her sister in this situation, but it was a good sign. She looked at her captor. “Any chance I could have a cup of tea too?”
He groaned, as he rolled his eyes at her. “What the hell do you guys think this is? Some kind of Taj Mahal?”
“I guess tea’s expensive,” Astra said apologetically.
He glared at her. “I’m not that broke.” With that, he turned and put the teakettle on the stove.
She watched every move he made. At the same time, Amy stared at Astra, hope in her eyes. Astra looked at her and asked, “What did Rick say to you?”
“Just that I had a bigger purpose.”
“Yeah, they’re trying to find Gregg,” she said.
“Find Gregg?”
Astra nodded. “Apparently they lost him,” she said, adding a certain emphasis to the word lost.
At that, Amy’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God, did they hurt him?”
“I’m not sure they’ve hurt him at all,” she said. “It’s just that he’s disappeared. They had somebody looking after him, but either that person betrayed them or something happened to him. The bottom line is that they can’t find Gregg now.”
“Maybe he got free,” she cried out joyfully.
“In which case, that’s bad news for you,” her captor said. “It’s not like I need you guys, if we can’t get him anyway.”
“Isn’t that the leverage you’ll use?” Astra asked him. “Telling Gregg that you’ve got his girlfriend and her sister, so he would come and trade himself for us?”
“You don’t know Gregg all that well if you think that’ll work,” he sneered. “That’s not the kind of guy he is.”
Her sister glared at him. “He is so. He is very honorable.”
The guy laughed. “God, where does she get this shit from?” he said. “Gregg’s nothing more than a mark, and he works for a company that’s an even bigger mark, and that’s it. The guy is full of all kinds of shit. The fact that he’s actually got you suckered into it just means you’re an easy lay.”
At that, her sister started bawling.
He turned around and said to Astra, “Get her to shut the fuck up.”
Astra immediately pulled Amy into her arms and whispered, “You need to be quiet.”
Amy’s sobs dampened down slightly. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You told me to stay put, and I didn’t listen.”
“Yes, I did,” Astra said in a wry tone. “But you never were very good at following instructions.”
Her sister sniffled and said, “I’m getting better.”
She didn’t say anything to that, since she hadn’t seen any sign of it. “I get that you just wanted out for a bit.”
“I wanted Gregg,” she said. “I thought for sure Rick could help. They work together. Gregg knows him. Rick knows the guys they worked with in the past. That’s got to be what this is all about,” she said. “It has to be somebody else from an old case that’s after him.”
“Maybe,” Astra said, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”
At that, their gunman turned and looked at her and asked, “What do you know?”
“I don’t know jack shit,” Astra said, with a smirk. “All I know is that he’s missing. I don’t know anything about the work he does. I barely even know this Rick guy,” she said. “Who is he?”