Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

Andy stared all of her hate into the woman.

Paula grinned, feeding off the rage. “If you need to piss, do it now. I won’t offer again.”

Andy tried to close the bathroom door, but Paula stopped her. She watched Andy labor to sit on the toilet without using her stomach muscles. A yelp slipped from Andy’s lips as her ass hit the seat. She had to lean over her knees to keep the pain at bay. Normally, Andy’s bladder was shy, but after so long in the car, she had no problem going.

Standing was another matter. Her knees started to straighten and then she was back on the toilet, groaning.

“Fucksakes.” Paula yanked up Andy by the armpit. She zipped and buttoned Andy’s jeans like she was three, then shoved her into the room. “Go sit down at the table.”

Andy kept her back bent as she navigated her way into the rickety chair. The side of her body lit up like a bolt of lightning.

Paula shoved the chair underneath the table. “You need to do what I say when I say it.”

“Fuck you.” The words slipped out before Andy could stop them.

“Fuck you, too.” Paula grabbed Andy’s left arm. She clamped a handcuff on her wrist, then jerked her hand under the table and attached the cuff to the metal base.

Andy pulled at the restraint. The table rattled. She pressed her forehead to the top.

Why hadn’t she gone to Idaho?

Paula said, “If your mother caught the first flight out, she won’t be here for at least another two hours.” She found an ibuprofen bottle in one of the bags. She used her teeth to rip off the safety seal. “How bad does it hurt?”

“Like I’ve been shot, you fucking psycho.”

“Fair enough.” Instead of being mad, Paula seemed delighted by Andy’s anger. She put four gelcaps on the table. She opened one of the bottles of water. “Barbecue or regular?”

Andy stared at her.

Paula held up two bags of potato chips. “You have to eat something or you’ll get a tummy ache from the pills.”

Andy didn’t know what to say but, “Barbecue.”

Paula opened the bag with help from her teeth. She unwrapped two sandwiches. “Mustard and mayo?”

Andy nodded, watching the madwoman who’d shot and kidnapped her use a plastic knife to spread mayonnaise and mustard onto the bread of her turkey sandwich.

Why was this happening?

“Eat at least half.” Paula slid over the sandwich and started adding mustard to her own. “I mean it, kid. Half. Then you can take the pills.”

Andy picked it up, but she had an idiotic flash of the sandwich squirting out of the hole in her side. And then she remembered, “You’re not supposed to eat before surgery.”

Paula stared at her.

“The bullet. I mean, if—when—my mom gets here, and—”

“They won’t operate. Easier to let the bullet stay inside. It’s infection you should be worried about. That shit’ll kill you.” Paula turned on the television. She channeled around until she found Animal Planet, then muted the sound.

Pitbulls and Parolees.

“This is a good episode.” Paula swiveled back around. She squirted mayonnaise onto her sandwich. “I wish they’d had this program at Danbury.”

Andy watched her use the plastic knife to evenly spread the mayo across the bread.

This should’ve felt strange, but it didn’t feel strange. Why would it? Andy had started the week by watching her mother kill a kid, then Andy had murdered a gun for hire, then she was on the run and kicking a thug in the balls and getting one, maybe two more people killed, so why wouldn’t it feel natural to be handcuffed to a table, watching parolees try to reform abused animals with a psycho ex-con college professor?

Paula pressed the sandwich back together. She tugged at the scarf around her neck, the same scarf she had been wearing two and a half days ago in Austin.