Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 180(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 180(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes at the thought of the two of them approving anything I did or didn’t do. Kiss of Death was my club. They were just keeping an eye on it until I was ready to take over again.
“Does Gunnar know we’re here and what’s goin’ on?” Chains moved in front of me, leading the way up the stairs. The laundry room just inside the house off the garage was empty and almost sterile in its cleanliness. The kitchen we went through to get to the main stairs was the same. Not a dish in the sink. Spotless counter tops with nothing sitting on them except one large vase of fresh flowers. The room was dimly lit with the only light being on the baseboards lining the hall. Safety lights.
There were a few small tables with more fresh flowers. Enough that the hallway reminded me of the way a funeral home smelled. There wasn’t a speck of dust, cobwebs, clutter, or anything to suggest anyone actually lived in the place. From what I could tell, the whole fucking place was unnaturally tidy. There was nothing out of place anywhere I saw on the way through the house to the upstairs.
The closer we got to our destination, the more I could hear voices, one of them Hannah’s. She had someone with her in the room Knight indicated, but I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The sounds were pretty high-pitched. Could go either way.
I opened the door and Chains went ahead of me into the room. I followed, and Hawk brought up the rear. In the far corner of the room, the man I’d seen hit Hannah sat on a tall, white stool, his feet braced on the middle rung with his knees apart. Oddly, he was dressed in an expensive-looking suit but no socks or shoes. The whole corner was covered top to bottom in thick black plastic. Around the stool were what looked like thousands of roofing tacks covering nearly every inch of the plastic on the floor. There were also several large pieces of broken pottery scattered around the stool like they’d been dropped or thrown.
Dillon sat on that stool holding a… flower vase above his head? Like the one on the kitchen counter. And the ones on several small tables throughout the house. I stared at those flowers. Unless I was mistaken, every vase I’d seen had flowers arranged exactly the same. I’d done every mental exercise I could find in any book on psychology and improving your brain activity and all the shit in the prison library. I’d encouraged Gunnar to do the same. Both of us had practiced and practiced until we basically taught ourselves to have close to photographic memories. So, I was ninety-nine percent certain.
“Now, now, baby boy.” Hannah’s voice was deceptively sweet. Saccharine sweet. “No one is making you stay like this. All you have to do is get off the stool and walk away.”
“You put roofing tacks everywhere, fucking bitch!” Anger bloomed over Dillon’s face and he threw the vase against the nearest wall. The second he let the vase go, there was a harsh ZAP! and a shrill shriek erupted from his throat. “Give me another vase! Give me another vase!”
Hannah gave a sigh, like she was terribly sorry… for him. “You really should have thought your actions through, Dillon. I’ve already proven the pad is pressure sensitive up to three pounds.” She shook her head sadly. “I’ll have to go find another vase. I don’t have any more in this room. Exactly two vases of fresh cut flowers per room, unless it’s one of the suites like this one. Suites get three vases of fresh cut flowers. Remember, Dillon? You just broke the third vase.” She sighed again, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t want to break up the set in the hallway. That would make everything terribly mismatched. Like the time when you hit her over the head with the one on the left at the end of the hallway. She had to put Legos in her shoes while she walked to the flower store to get more, then walked home. No. I learned the lessons Carol paid for pretty well --” She was cut off with another ZAP! and a shrill scream from Dillon.
“Hannah! Please! Get me another vase! I don’t care from where! Please!” Dillon was frantic now. He stood on the stool rungs but was too awkward to hold the position no matter which bar he put his foot on.
“I can’t break up the set, Dillon.” She gave him a look of sympathy so sincere I swear she actually felt sorry for the guy. “You taught me and Carol the importance of appearances. The hallway is too public an area. This house might be our private residence, but you never know when there will be guests who’ll need to come down the hallway.”