Silas Read online

  I had even tried to hire a nurse to come by and help her out at her house, but she wasn't having any of it. She had protested, said it was time for her to move here. I bristled at the idea. A nursing home? No thanks. But she had insisted it wasn't that kind of place, and on the phone she sounded happy.

  Until she called me a few weeks ago and said she wanted to see me. That had me worried, even though she said it wasn't an emergency.

  So I was back in West Bend, for the first time in seven years.

  I'd lied to Iver and the others, telling them I was flying somewhere and taking time off. My team knew nothing about my past or about my family. Of course, Emir probably had a dossier on me, but he had never said anything, so I preferred to think he'd refrained from using his tech skills to figure out everything there was to know about me.

  My team were the closest people in the world to me, yet they knew nothing about my past. And the only thing I knew about their pasts were the parts that involved grifting.

  Grifters were funny that way. We were masters at leaving our pasts behind, creating new lives everywhere we went, and shedding the old ones. My childhood wasn't as real to me as my present life, and I didn't want to taint my present with ghosts from the past.

  Except for Silas.

  I'd brought that part of the past right into my present. And it was amazing.

  But I needed to leave Silas back in Vegas, where he belonged.

  The door to her room was open, but I knocked anyway. "Nana?"

  Letty looked up at me from where she sat in her upholstered chair, dressed head-to-toe in a leopard tracksuit studded with rhinestones. Her face immediately brightened. "Tempest!"

  "Don't get up, Nana," I said, walking across the room to hug her. "How are you?"

  "Oh, you're a sight for sore eyes, honey," she said. "Sit, sit. Stay a while. You are staying a while, aren't you?"

  "A few days, Nana," I said. I could afford to take a few days in West Bend, I told myself. I doubted anyone would recognize me anymore, at least from a cursory glance. The last time I’d actually set foot in the town of West Bend, I was a gangly, awkward seventeen-year-old. And even if someone happened to recognize me, it wasn't like there was a warrant out for my arrest.

  There was also a part of me that craved the familiarity of West Bend. It was the only place I'd ever been truly happy, and I wanted a dose of that feeling again.

  "Let me look at you, girl," Letty said, pausing, her eyes trailing up and down my body, narrowing as she looked at me. "Have you lost weight? Are you eating enough? You look like you have dark circles under your eyes. Are you sleeping? Don't lie to me - you're not getting enough sleep. I can see it in your eyes."

  "Okay, Nana," I said. "Enough with the barrage of questions."

  "Oh, don't Nana me," she said. "What's the helmet for? Are you riding that death trap again?"

  I sighed, feigning exasperation but secretly happy with all the questions. It was a part of our routine that was familiar. "Yes, Nana. I'm sleeping. No, I haven't lost weight. Yes, I'm eating. Yes, I'm still riding the bike - I rode it out here from Vegas, in fact. Now, how are you feeling?"

  "Sit down, girl," she said insistently, motioning to the upholstered chair across from her. She waited until I sat down to start in on me again, clucking her tongue against her teeth as she shook her head. "You kids these days. I don't know why you'd want to ride on something like that. You're asking to be flattened by a semi-truck."

  I laughed. "Yeah, well, we can't all ride in horse-and-buggies, the way people did when you were a girl."

  Letty hooted. "Horse drawn carriages," she said. "Do you think I'm two hundred years old, Tempest?"

  "You don't look a day over a hundred and fifty, Nana," I said.

  She guffawed, her hand on her stomach, and finally caught her breath. "Oh, Tempest, I missed you and your sense of humor."

  I leaned forward in my chair. "Really, Nana," I said. "How are you doing? Be honest with me. Are they treating you well?"

  "Are you kidding, girl?" she asked, gesturing toward herself. "Look at me! I'm fucking fantastic. This place is paradise."

  I laughed so hard I nearly choked, hearing the words fucking fantastic come out of Letty's mouth. "Nana!"

  "Oh, hush," she said. "I'm eighty years old. I can say the word fuck if I want to."

  "Well, you seem like you're doing well, Nana," I said. "And you look good. I'm digging the leopard."

  Letty grinned. "It's got rhinestones for added bling," she said. "You have to stand out here, you know, keep up with yourself. There is a lot of competition here."

  "Who are you competing with?"

  "There are more women here than men, you see, so you have to make sure you’re in primo shape," she said. Her gaze lingered on my arms. "Did you get new tattoos? That one, with the bird there, near your shoulder - I like it. I think I need some ink."

  I laughed. "Nana, what the hell has gotten into you?"

  She leaned forward, dropped her voice low, her tone conspiratorial. "Who hasn't gotten into me, Tempest?"

  "Oh my God, are you talking about what I think you're talking about?" I asked. "Are you dating someone?"

  She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Oh, honey, I'm not dating anybody," she said. "I'm playing the field. A lot. All the time."

  My jaw fell open. "Nana, I don't even know what to say."

  "Oh yes," she said. "This place is heaven on earth. I mean, the accommodations themselves are so-so, and the food is infrequently edible, but my social life has never been better. I wasn't having this much sex when your grandfather was alive, God rest his soul." She made the sign of the cross, even though I knew she wasn't religious.

  "I'm glad you're having fun," I said, unable to stifle my chuckle.

  "Fun isn't even the word," she said. "I'm having the time of my life. There are eligible men with prescriptions for the little blue pill all over this place."

  "Oh, Lord," I said. "I'm not sure the staff here is equipped to deal with you."

  "They aren't," she said, matter-of-factly. "And don't you go tipping them off, either. You let me have a little fun before I die."

  "As long as you don't go dying on me," I said. "Not for a long time."

  "I've got a few years left in me," she said. "Don't you worry about that."

  "Well, if you keep partying like you're twenty-one, you might be kicking the bucket sooner than that, Nana," I said.

  "Well then I'll go to the grave whooping it up," she said. "Like a rock star."

  I laughed. "I missed you a lot, Letty."

  "It's so good to see you, Tempest," she said. "But there is a reason I wanted you to come by."

  "Not so you could regale me with tales of your debauchery?" I asked.

  "Well, if you want to hear them, I can tell you all about Mr. Johnson in room 122," she said. "He snuck over here the other night and -"

  I held up my hand. "Nana," I warned. "Do not tell me this story. I'll have to insist. Did you hear from my parents or something?"

  She shook her head, a dark look crossing her face. "Your parents," she said, scowling. "The more appropriate question is whether you, their only daughter, has heard from them."

  "I would tell you if I had," I said. "Of course not. I haven't heard from them since I went out on my own."

  "How are things going?" she asked, her voice just above a whisper. "I know you won't spill all your secrets, but have you taken down any bad guys lately?"

  I'd come clean with my grandmother years ago, told her I was following in my parents' footsteps, but with a twist on the con game. She'd smiled when I explained why I was grifting, said that righting wrongs the way I was doing was a "noble enough" profession. "Just got finished with a case, Nana."

  "Someone who deserved everything he got?"

  I nodded. "Definitely," I said. "And we got some money for the family he'd harmed, people who were really struggling."

  She smiled. "You