Silas (3 page)

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 saying 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.”