Tex's Revenge: Military Discipline, Book Two by Loki Renard

stinging bottom reminded her that it wasn't all fun and games with Tex. He might feel like a friend, but that was probably his job. It was probably his job to get close to people and then betray them, or make them betray themselves. She had to be vigilant, and she had to make sure that he didn't take her to the 'proper environment' for questioning too.
    “Stay strong, Zora,” she lectured herself. “Don't let him trick you.”
    Having washed herself from head to toe, she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel long enough to cover her from under her shoulders to her knees. The shower had made her feel better, but a lingering sense of doom still hung about her. She was not happy, not at all.
    Tex had used the motel's facilities to make them both a cup of tea and was sitting at the glass topped wicker table when she made her entrance. He waved her over to take a seat, which she did.
    “Okay,” he said kindly. “Do you want to tell me what is going on with you? Why did you panic out there?”
    “I've been kidnapped,” Zora said. “It's scary being kidnapped.”
    Tex cocked his head at her. “You weren't scared until I said I was taking you somewhere to ask you questions. In fact, you were anything but scared.”
    Zora fiddled with the handle of her teacup. “I wasn't scared before because I knew you'd let me go when you figured out I didn't know anything. But now it sounds like you're going to put me in a cell and interrogate me.”
    “Is that the only reason?” He looked at her with those oh so intelligent eyes and she did her best to make her expression inscrutable.
    “I think that's more than enough reason,” Zora said, putting her hands in her lap. “Look, you're ruining my life and you're scaring me and I don't know anything. Why won't you just let me go?” An unsolicited tear slid down her cheek as she made the plea. “I don't know anything about him anymore, not that I ever did anyway. He was always totally secretive.”
    Her words had a ring of truth to them. Savage always had played his cards close to his chest. He had always kept her in the dark, even now, months and months on she had no idea what was going on. For all she knew he really had just dropped her in Iron Horse and forgotten about her.
    “What sort of work do you do, Ms Matthews?”
    The sudden change caught her off guard. “I used to be an accountant,” she said, looking up at him.
    “But you're not anymore.”
    “No I'm a professional alcoholic and bum,” she gave a wry twisting smile.
    “Why?”
    “Eh,” she shrugged. “Why not?”
    Tex leaned forward, his eyes keen. “People don't just toss in the towel and move to the middle of nowhere for no reason.”
    “Maybe I was heartbroken when Savage dumped me,” she suggested. “Handsome man like that, leaves me, takes my heart with him. What's the point of going on?”
    Tex smiled thinly. “You're lying, Ms Matthews.” He had slipped into a very professional way of speaking and Zora got a glimpse of what it would be like to be sitting across from him in one of those plain austere interrogation rooms. It wouldn't be pleasant.
    “Am I?”
    “Here's a tip,” he said. “If you're going to lie, you have to at least make it sound plausible by speaking in the first person. You don't say 'maybe' as if you're making up a story.”
    “Maybe I do,” Zora replied flatly.
    Tex snorted. “Brat.”
    “I really don't know anything. I'm of utterly no use to you,” Zora repeated the words she'd said so many times before as if simply repeating them would somehow convince him.
    He nodded blankly.  “We'll find that out, won't we?”
    The threat of incarceration was there again, along with the impulse to cry. Zora held the tears back in favor of finding out what he really meant. “How? Are you going to torture me?”
    Tex's brow creased and he shook his head. “Torture is never useful unless you want to break someone. I have no reason to break you.”
    “So what are you going to