Page 38 of I Will Ruin You

Seventeen

“What are you doing in here?” Billy asked, flipping the lights on in his garage.

Lucy spun around. She was standing by the workbench, using the flashlight app on her phone to scan it.

“Hey,” she said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Looking for something?” he asked, stepping through the side access rather than lifting up the broad main door.

“A screwdriver,” she said. “One of the cupboard doors is loose. It’s a Phillips. Don’t you have one of those screwdrivers that has a bunch of different ends?”

“Yeah. But kind of hard to find in the dark, isn’t it?”

“I can never find the light switch when I come in here.”

It was, to be fair, not close to the door. But still.

“If you wanted a screwdriver you could have asked me to find you one,” Billy said.

“I didn’t want to bug you,” Lucy said. “You were asleep.”

And to be fair, again, that was true. He’d nodded off watching television in his basement man cave.

She looked away from him and noisily moved about some tools in a red metal box. “Here we go,” she said, holding up a screwdriver for him to see.

“You got my keys?” he asked. He was thinking about that key to the locker that was on the ring with his other keys.

“No,” she said. “I got my own.”

Again, true. She had a key to the garage, but not one to the locker. He continued to stand by the door, watching her. “You’re freaking me out,” she said. “There a problem?”

“You been out here before without me?” Billy asked.

“Uh, yeah, like all the time. I live here. With you. Although there are days sometimes when I wonder why.”

“If you need something out here, ask me. Those are the rules.”

“Excuse me?” Lucy rolled her eyes. “Are they written down someplace? Is there a form I fill out if I want a fucking screwdriver?”

Billy raised an accusatory finger as he closed the distance between them. She had her back to the workbench. He was half a foot taller and, head bent down, breathed into her face and said, “I keep very important shit in here.”

Still gripping the screwdriver, she said, “Well, then you should keep it somewhere else, because if I need a screwdriver or a hammer or some fucking duct tape I’m not going to go looking for it in the bathroom.” He stared at her long enough that she had to look away. “You’re being paranoid.”

“Some shit’s missing.”

“What shit?”

“The shit I hold for those people.” Lucy knew all about his side business, though she stayed well out of it.

“Don’t look at me. You think I’m nuts?”

“Well, it was somebody. The last order was short.”

“But you keep it locked up.” She glanced at the locker. “That look busted into to you?”

“You don’t have to bust into it if you have a key. Show me your keys.”

“What?”