Free Don't Ever Tell by Brandon Massey Page A

burgundy sofa and chairs, an oak coffee table, a television broadcasting a soap opera, and the tall Christmas tree he had seen from the street.
    Photographs were everywhere. Pictures of Betty and her dead husband. Pictures of his wife. However, none of the shots of his wife were recent; he’d seen all of them before.
    But that meant nothing.
He propped Betty against the sofa. Her bosom rose and fell slowly, and her lips were parted, drool spilling over them, but her eyelids didn’t flutter. She would be unconscious for a few moments yet.
He locked the front door and cinched the curtains shut. Shadows sprang from the corners of the room, like old friends.
Brandishing the Glock, he swept the house, boots knocking across the floor. To his knowledge, Betty was spending her golden years living alone. But securing the scene was an old habit.
He also was seeking signs of his wife. He doubted that she lived with Betty, but she surely would’ve visited the old bitch often, and she might’ve left behind personal effects that would give him proof that she was in the area.
There was no one else in the house. He found nothing of his wife, either. Strange.
In a drawer in the kitchen, he found a thick roll of duct tape. Returning to the living room, he found Betty unconscious, but breathing at a faster rate. About to awaken.
He bound her thin wrists in her lap with a swath of tape, and wrapped up her bony ankles, too. He lifted her off the floor and placed her in a La-Z-Boy recliner.
He slid the coffee table across the carpet and sat on it, so he could look her directly in the face and analyze every nuance of her expressions when he spoke to her.
Her face in repose, Betty was a striking woman for her age. A thick, full head of gray hair. Healthy cinnamon complexion. High, sculpted cheekbones. Full lips. Based on the photos he’d seen of her in her youth, Betty had been quite the fox. She bore a strong, family resemblance to his wife.
“Oh, Betty,” he said, softly. “Wake up, old girl. I want to talk to you.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She was playing possum.
He popped open the switchblade and whisked the tip across the back of her hand, drawing a narrow line of blood.
Betty’s eyes flew open, and she let out a bleat of pain.
Violence had always been the most persuasive tool in a police man’s arsenal. The most effective means to get to the desired result. Betty was going to be dead before he left the house, of course—he owed that to his wife for her blistering betrayal—but the old broad might have some useful information to share with him.
“We need to chat,” he said.
Her honey-brown eyes glistened. She had eyes like his wife, too.
“I read in the paper that you might have escaped from prison,” she said. “You’re a fool to come back here, but then you never were very smart.”
He smiled—and sliced the blade across her other hand, carving a crescent moon-shaped wound. She issued a satisfying wail.
“Where’s my wife?” he asked.
“She’s not your wife any more, you idiot. She divorced you while you were incarcerated. Surely you know that.”
He waved the knife before her eyes like a hypnotist’s pendulum. She stared at it, gnawing her lip.
“Let’s be clear on one thing,” he said. “There was no divorce. I never consented to it.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you consented to it or not. In the eyes of the law, you’re divorced.”
“I am the law , Betty. Or have you forgotten?”
“Okay, Dexter,” she said. “You’re correct. I’d like to help you, I genuinely would. But can you first put away the knife, and free my arms and legs, please?”
“Don’t patronize me. It’s transparent and, frankly, coming from you, ridiculous.”
She lifted her chin defiantly. She was a proud woman and hated to be put in her place.
”Back to my first question.” He spun the knife around his fingers like a stage magician. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
He lowered the blade to her slender forearm.