Unraveled by Her Read Online Free Page A

so that even if my phone were with me right now, my chances of texting for help would be as remote as my being suddenly able to blink like Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie, and command the ceiling of the mausoleum to morph into a magic carpet and whisk me away to safety.
    No, a phone won’t get me out of this.
    Only Robert will.
    But where is he?
    What has happened to him?
    I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt a single hair on his head.
    All I can do is pray that nothing bad has happened to him, and that nothing ever will.
    I’m currently trapped in a prison, so there is nothing that I can do right now to rescue him from whatever terrible fate these monsters have got in store for him, and the thought makes me want to weep.
    No time to wallow in futile displays of emotion, I hear Robert’s voice say to me, loud and clear.
    Time to work out how to get out of here, because my fate is obviously all down to me, and only me.
    In an attempt to take stock of my surroundings, I crane my neck and check out the adjoining bedroom. The big double bed is covered by a red fox-fur coat, a black leather military-style greatcoat, boxes of Georgiana Royale, and an open Vuitton beauty case with a mirror in the lid, filled to the brim with makeup.
    For a second I feel as if I’m back in college again, about to be introduced to my two roommates and hoping fervently that we’ll all like one another.
    Almost as if she can read my mind, Georgiana gives me a friendly smile, whisks into the kitchen, and, after a few minutes, serves me a steaming cup of coffee.
    “Thank you, Georgiana, I appreciate it,” I say, as disarmingly as I can manage.
    If she unties my hands so that I can drink the coffee, I’m going to fling it straight into her fucking face . . .
    But she’s clearly much too canny to make the mistake of doing that.
    Instead, she holds the mug close to my mouth and waits patiently while I drink the coffee.
    Then she opens a suitcase in the corner that I hadn’t noticed up till now and pulls out my vintage green dress (the same one I wore on my first lunch date with Robert, at Violetta, his restaurant in the Hartwell Gallery), underwear, and some flat shoes—not my usual stilettos.
    Pity, as stilettos could have been a perfect weapon . . . but Georgiana was clearly smart enough to figure that out, which is why I’m stuck with flats.
    “Good, Miranda, good. Now let’s get started,” she says, after she’s unshackled me and given me some momentary privacy in which to get dressed.
    When I come out of the bathroom, she takes me by the hands. “Beautiful,” she says, running her fingers up and down the back of them, first the left and then the right.
    Even from across the room, where Tamara is now back at the desk, polishing the barrel of the Glock, I can tell that she is bristling.
    “Feeling better now, Miranda?” Georgiana asks in a voice so warm and friendly that I wouldn’t be surprised if Tamara jumped up and stabbed her.
    If only . . .
    “Very much, thank you,” I say.
    My politeness is rewarded by Georgiana cuffing my right hand to another chain and attaching it to a chair leg, leaving my left hand free.
    For a second I toy with flying at her to claw her eyes out. But what would be the point, with the trigger-happy Mrs. Hatch watching me like a hawk, and the killer guard dog, Pluto, probably about to tear into the room any second and go for my throat?
    Before I can ask Georgiana to define what she means by “get started,” Tamara yanks my hair so hard that for a second I’m afraid she’ll snap my neck.
    “Over to the desk, bitch,” Tamara says. She forces me over to it, pushes me down on the chair, and slams a Montblanc fountain pen onto the desk so hard that I’m surprised she doesn’t dent it.
    Montblanc, the pen I used to write those interminable lines Robert ordered me to do over and over during my fourth dungeon test!
    That, though, is the happiest of all the memories I have that are associated with