Silas Read online

  “How do I know this one is real?” I said.

  “Because it is.”

  I scrutinized the license. “So, you really weigh this much, or did you drop five pounds of the total like my sister always does?”

  She snatched it away from me. “You ass.”

  I just shrugged.

  “You’re rude.”

  I grinned at her. “Sorry.” I wasn’t sorry. I wanted her. Bad. I didn’t think I’d wanted a girl this bad in a really long time.

  “You should be sorry,” she said. “I am this close to walking out of your life right this instant. And you would never see me again.” She held up her fingers inches apart to show me just how close I was to losing the pleasure of her company.

  I feigned hurt. “You’d leave me? I can’t understand that. Who’s been showing you all the best places to hang out in Morgantown?”

  “Well, if you hadn’t noticed, that asshole just confiscated my ID. So it’s not like I can actually get in anywhere else.”

  I nodded. “That is a problem.”

  “I might as well just go back to my hotel.”

  “You’re staying in a hotel?” I asked.

  “Yeah but not alone, so don’t get any ideas.”

  I took a step back. “Wait, are you trying to tell me that you’re not available or something, because you’re really kind of a tease if—”

  “No.” She blushed, and she was even prettier. “I’m here with my mom, okay? I’m a lame-ass nineteen-year-old who’s staying in a hotel room with her mother. That’s the real truth about me. I’m not nearly as exciting as I’ve been pretending to be.”

  I cocked my head. “I don’t know. I’m pretty excited.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re bad.”

  “I’m not,” I said. I stepped closer to her. “I promise you. I’m good. I’m very good.”

  “You’re full of yourself is what you are.”

  “You’re pretty self-confident yourself there.” I raised my eyebrows. “So, uh, you got a curfew? Your mother going to be annoyed if you don’t come home at a certain time?”

  She shook her head. “She thinks I’m with my brother. He goes to school here. I told her I was heading to his place. I said I might be out late.”

  I nodded. “I see.”

  “But I can’t get in anywhere without my ID.” She hugged herself, looking down at the toes of her high heels and laughing ruefully.

  “Well,” I said. “The way I see it, there are two options.”

  She looked up. “There are?”

  “We could go someplace that I know never cards.”

  “We?” She grinned. “You still want to hang out with me even though I’m a lame-ass?”

  “There is nothing about your ass that is lame,” I said. “And yeah, I could be convinced to spend some more time with you. I mean, I got nothing better to do. And I know you’d be really sad without my company.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right. What would I do without you?”

  “You’d be lost,” I said. “Lonely. Depressed. I light up your life. Face it.”

  “I don’t know how I’ve made it so long without you.” She was still grinning. Geez, she was gorgeous. “So, what’s the other option?”

  “We could go back to my place,” I said. “I brew my own beer. And I don’t have a problem with sharing it with people who are under twenty-one.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really,” I said.

  “Well, that sounds like an interesting option.”

  * * *

  A loud, jangling noise cut into the air, waking me up immediately.

  I sat straight up in bed, knocking the girl whose arm was on my chest off me.

  “What the fuck?” I growled.

  She tumbled out of bed and wandered across the room to get her purse.

  I took in her nude body. She was very nicely put together. Long legs, a curvy ass, perky tits. Did I remember anything about her?

  That fucking noise was making it impossible to think.

  She got her phone out of her bag and pressed some buttons. Mercifully, the noise cut off.

  “Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Okay, okay. Things were coming back to me now. Her name was Christa. She was nineteen, and I’d had to bring her back here because she couldn’t get into the bars. She’d found my Irish whiskey and insisted we take shots. After that…

  Well. She was naked.

  Odds were we’d had sex.

  Why didn’t I remember that?

  She thrust her hands into her hair. Her boobs bounced. “Where’s my underwear?”

  “Come back here,” I said. I was hard. It was morning, and it wasn’t like I didn’t wake up with morning wood most of the time, but there wasn’t always a girl as hot as she was to stick my dick in. Or… well, a lot of times there was a girl. But usually, by the time the morning rolled around, I wasn’t interested anymore .

  She began picking up articles of her clothing and throwing them over her arm. “Seriously. Do you know where they are?”

  The fact that she was on the opposite side of the room and not next to me should have been against the law or something. I wanted my hands on her. I wanted my mouth on her.

  How could I not remember fucking her?

  “Who needs your underwear?” I said. “Come back to bed.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “I can’t. I’m late.”

  “Blow off whatever it is,” I said. I got up out of bed. I enjoyed the fact that she didn’t seem the slightest bit self-conscious about her nudity. I hated it when girls tried to hide themselves.

  “No,” she said, “I can’t do that. I’m supposed to have breakfast with my brother’s fiancé. I’m in her wedding, and I promised her we’d hang out, and I have to on try on this dress, and…” She rubbed her face.

  I grabbed her hips and pulled her against me. “One of my friends is getting married. If you ask me, he’s too young. I don’t think people should rush into stuff like that.”

  She put a hand on my chest and pushed. “Whoa. Down buddy.”

  “Down?”

  She gave me an apologetic look. “Not now.”

  I took a step back. “Okay, well, maybe later.” I didn’t have any memory of having sex with this girl, and she had a fucking amazing ass. I needed a do-over. I didn’t make a habit of doing it with the same girl more than once, but I could definitely make an exception for this. “What are you doing tonight?”

  She winced. “Oh. You mean, like, a date or something?”

  I shrugged. “You could call it that I guess.”

  She gave me a pained look. “You know, you seem like a really nice guy. And I’m sure that there are lots of girls that would be interested in you—”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Are you giving me a let-him-down-easy speech?” I was the one who gave girls those kinds of speeches. She was saying my lines.

  “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t put it that way.” She picked up her jeans and began wriggling into them sans underwear. “Look at it this way. I live in Texas. You live here. There isn’t really any future—”

  “Fuck a future, I just happen to think you’re hot,” I said. “You’re not leaving tonight, are you?”

  “Well, no, but I still don’t think—”

  “Me and you, we had a good time last night, right? All I’m suggesting is that we might have a good time together tonight too.”

  She buttoned her jeans, chewing on her lip. “Well, it wasn’t bad.”

  “What?” I said.

  “You were very… energetic.” She smiled at me. It was completely different than the sexy, flirty smiles she’d given me last night.

  “Energetic?” I raised an eyebrow. “Look, I got girls leaving my house in tears day in, day out, because they can’t get enough of me.”

  She shrugged, fishing her bra up off the floor. “That’s nice.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “What? You say
ing it was bad?”

  “No.” She patted my arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. You’re very sexy.”

  “You’re patronizing me?” I didn’t believe this. “All right, I blacked out last night. I’ll admit it. Maybe I was off my game. But that’s why you gotta give me another chance to make it up to you.”

  “Sorry, Silas. I’m just not much in the habit of having sex with the same guy more than once.” She pulled her shirt over her head. “But thanks for everything. You have great Jameson’s.”

  She slung her purse over her arm and went to the door.

  This girl was complimenting my whiskey, and she seemed to appreciate it more than my dick? What alternate universe had I stepped into this morning?

  She opened the door. “It was nice to meet you.”

  I started after her, but then I realized I was still naked.

  I looked down at my cock, which was still sticking up like a ramrod. “You let me down last night. You let Christa down. I’m ashamed of you.”

  * * *

  By the time I got downstairs, she was gone. I even went outside, but I couldn’t find her on the sidewalk or anything. Had she walked away? Had she called a cab or something?

  The sun was bright and cheery in the blue sky. It was taunting me.

  My head was pounding a little bit from the amount of alcohol I’d drunk the night before. I knew from previous experience that the best way to knock my hangover on its ass was to pound some water and then sweat like crazy. I’d lift some weights in the basement and then maybe do some cardio. Afterward, I would feel like a new man.

  And I could plot out how I was going to find Christa again.

  It was kind of a point of honor now. I had to fuck her again. I had to prove to her that I was not horrible in bed.

  I went into the kitchen and got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator.

  Sloane was in there. She was chopping up onions. “I’m making egg white wraps. You want one?”

  I considered. “Okay.” It might help my hangover to have something in my stomach.

  I spied the piece of paper proclaiming that Derek Rolf was in town. “Hey, Sloane, did you see this?” I picked it up.

  “See what?” she said. “Hey, that girl who just left? She was—”

  “Never mind her for a second.” I handed her the paper. Sloane was always giving me a hard time about how many girls slept over here. She said that I was acting immature, and that I needed to stop being a manwhore and grow up. I told her that I liked being a manwhore.

  She also got on my case about scaring off her dates, whenever she had them.

  I swear I didn’t mean to do that. She was my twin sister, though, you know.

  I didn’t want her ending up with a guy who would treat her like, well, like the way I treated girls.

  I guess that’s hypocritical but whatever. Last year, in my American Literature 102 course, we read this guy named Walt Whitman, and he had this quote. “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”

  I contained multitudes too.

  Sloane looked at the paper. “Derek Rolf? That’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Damned right it is,” I said.

  She snatched the paper from me. “Silas, this is tomorrow.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Well, what about the wedding?”

  “The wedding isn’t tomorrow,” I said.

  She sighed. “Right, I know, but this is going to get in the way, don’t you think?”

  “It doesn’t have to,” I said. “Maybe we can take him out clean. We’ll scope out his hotel, put a bullet through the window. Done.”

  She set the paper down and went back to the onions. “That going to be enough for you? You don’t want to kill him up close and personal?”

  Damn it. She knew me too well. She was my twin after all. We had shared a womb. It meant that we understood each other better than anyone else did.

  “If we do it through a window, it’s going to be me,” she said. “We both know I’m a better sniper. You going to be okay with not even pulling the trigger?”

  I sighed. “Maybe. Maybe I could be okay with it. The important thing is that he ends up dead.”

  She set down the knife and took the cutting board over to the stove. She dumped the onions into an already-sizzling skillet. “I know you, Silas. You’re going to want to look into his eyes and tell him exactly who’s killing him and why. And I don’t care what you say. An operation like that never goes off clean.”

  I leaned against the counter. “Look, you going to help me or not?”

  She sighed. “Of course I will. But I don’t want to tell Leigh.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I already let Griffin think that I was letting it go.”

  “You told Griffin about Rolf?”

  “I thought he might help,” I said.

  She turned away from the stove. “After what he went through with Marcel? He’s sworn off killing people. The only way he’d pick up a gun again is if someone he cared about was in danger, and you know it.”

  “Well, Rolf kills people,” I said. “And other people care about those people.”

  “And Rolf killed Sylvia, right?” She went to the refrigerator and got out a carton of eggs.

  I flinched when I heard the name. “Yeah,” I said quietly.

  “And you cared about her.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  She cracked an egg. “Which is why I’ll help you. I promised I would. So we’ll figure it out. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I went over to her and wrapped my arms around her. “Thanks, Sloane.”

  “You’re crushing me,” she said.

  I laughed, releasing her. “How long until the wraps are done?”

  “Maybe ten minutes.”

  I opened up my water bottle and guzzled. “That’s not enough time to lift weights.”

  “You hungover?”

  I shrugged. “Little bit, maybe.” I’d actually had more to drink last night than usual. It was pretty rare for me to black out.

  “What’d you do last night?” she said.

  “The usual, I guess,” I said.

  “Well, but there wasn’t a girl here,” she said. “I mean, unless you count Griffin’s sister. Why’d she stay here instead of with Leigh and Griffin? Is it because they don’t have a spare bedroom?”

  I set down the water bottle. “What are you talking about?”

  “Christa,” said Sloane. “Griffin’s little sister, Christa. I saw her leaving this morning?”

  “Fuck,” I said. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Hi there,” I said into the phone. “I’m looking for someone who knows about the arrangements for Derek Rolf. Your department brought him to the college to speak, right?”

  I’d been transferred quite a few times, but that was all right. I thought I might be getting somewhere now. Talking to people on the phone beat thinking about the fact that I’d unknowingly had drunken sex with Griffin’s little sister.

  Griffin’s really hot little sister, who had a great ass.

  Damn it.

  “We did,” said the girl on the phone. “What do you mean by arrangements?”

  I was doing my best middle-aged guy voice. A slightly-older-sounding guy wasn’t as threatening to a younger woman. She’d cut me some slack if I flirted, and think it was cute. And I needed her to cooperate and not be freaked out. “Well, this might be a little out of the ordinary, but I’m a really big fan of Derek Rolf. The things he’s done for the state of West Virginia and for wildlife preservation in general are astounding, and I’m really excited that he’s going to be in town.”

  “We all are.” She’d gotten a wary tone to her voice. She knew I was going to ask her for something, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to give it to me.

  I couldn’t let her continue to feel on edge like that. I needed to put her at ease.

  “You
are?” I said. “You personally, or that just something they make you say?”

  “Oh.” She laughed a little bit. “They don’t make me say anything. I’m a student work-study. I picked to work for this department because I’m passionate about the environment. So, of course I’m actually excited about Mr. Rolf.”

  “Wow,” I said, injecting a bit of embarrassment into my tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t doing a good job or anything like that. You’ve been great so far, and I’m just sticking my foot in my mouth. I’m really sorry… What was your name again?” People in service positions tended to be treated like nonentities most of the time. They responded really well to being seen as a person and valued. That is, if you were trying to manipulate them. Which I was.

  “Megan,” she said. “And it’s okay. You’re fine.”

  “Thanks, Megan.” Reassurance was better than wariness, but I didn’t quite have her in the palm of my hand yet. “Geez, do you have to deal with idiots like me all the time? It’s amazing you’re so patient.”

  “Don’t be silly, sir. You’re not being an idiot,” she said. I could tell from her tone of voice that she was smiling.

  “Oh, don’t call me sir,” I said. “I’m Gary. You probably won’t remember that or anything, because you talk to people all day…”

  “Answering the phone is one of my duties, but I also do a lot of other stuff. I’m basically a glorified secretary. Well, actually, not-so-glorified.”

  “Really? You should be glorified. You’re great, Megan. You’re aces.”

  She laughed. “What can I do for you sir—Gary?”

  “Uh, well, look, it’s just a little thing. I want to send Mr. Rolf a gift basket at the hotel where you guys are putting him up? You think you could tell me where that is?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well… I don’t know if I’m supposed to give that out or not.”

  “Right, because of crazy people who would go and bother the heck out of him, I guess.” I sighed. “I should have figured. Never mind. I wouldn’t want you to make any exceptions for me, Megan. You have to do your job the best you can.”

  “You just want to send him a gift basket?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just a small token of appreciation. For everything he’s done.”