The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game 3)

That was what he wanted. Her capitulation. The urge to pull her hand away was intense. “I came because I’m worried and I need your advice.” He’d like that. It wasn’t falling at his feet, but it was declaring her dependence on him. It was also the indirect way to get information she really wanted before she dropped the boom gate on him.

He gestured to his big leather sofa, patting the space beside him when he sat. She eased down next to him, fidgeted, then jumped up, gratified that he was irritated by her restlessness. “I’ve had a lot of time to myself to think and I’m worried. How did things get so bad so quickly outside that you’re going into lockdown?”

“It was always going to happen. It’s what we’ve been working towards.”

Less vague, asshat. “Everyone has been writing letters.” And talking about the shortage of handmade envelopes and other things like seed for next year’s planting and parts for broken farm equipment. “Will there be time to get all the new recruits in?”

“You’re feeling guilt. It can be a burden to know you’ll survive when so many will perish.”

He was good at this, always in character. She nodded, drifted across the room to a side table with a lamp and a pile of loose papers on top. They’d not been there before. She’d been over every inch of this apartment and while it was filled with luxuries and possessions others were denied, there was nothing contained here that was an asset in tearing Orrin down. “It’s true. I don’t want people to die.”

“They were incautious

. They deserve their fate. You’ll be safe in here. We all will.”

She shivered. Did he really think the rest of the world deserved to die? He was hideous. “I don’t feel safe. How long until we go into lockdown?”

“We have little time and much to get ready.”

She enjoyed talking to the goats more. She was getting nowhere. It was possible that once she announced she was expecting, he never spoke to her again. She needed to change things up. It wasn’t clear what large injections of cash were going to fund if there wasn’t going to be any further trading with the outside world and how they were meant to manage shortages. Best bet, Orrin was siphoning it off for his own use.

“Don’t you sometimes wish you could run away from all this responsibility?” she asked.

He was amused by that. “Haven’t I already run away?”

“If the world wasn’t on the verge of collapse I’d like to walk through a rainforest. Isn’t there some place outside you’re going to miss?” Somewhere he might run to when all this got too hard.

“The ocean. Yes, I will miss the ocean. As a boy I dreamed of living on a tropical island. Warm sun, blue skies, golden sands, palm trees, fish cooked straight from the sea.”

You couldn’t be more specific, could you? There were a dozen islands that were tax-free havens.

“I visited The Caymans once,” he said. “I’m sure they’re underwater now.”

Bingo. “I have something I need to tell you.”

“You could sit beside me while you unburden yourself.”

That wasn’t conducive to her well-being, so she remained standing.

“I thought at first that it was just the stress of arriving here, how different it was, how I struggled to fit in. I’ve been so tired and there have been other changes to my body. I’ve talked to the other women.” Enough to seed this lie. “I don’t think there is any doubt.”

Orrin’s expression shifted from indulgent cat with the cream to bad taste in his mouth. “Speak plainly.”

She used that as her cue to look down at the top page on the pile. Names and numbers in a spreadsheet. “I’m pregnant.”

He stood, looming over her. “No, that can’t be. No one will have touched you. No one disobeys me.”

She hunched into herself. “It’s been three months since I had a period.”

“You fucking little slut.”

Now whose mask had slipped?

“You had some last-minute fun before you arrived, and you weren’t careful.”

“I knew you’d be angry.” She backed away, bumping into the side table and knocking it over.

“Leave it.”