Silas Read online

  "When?"

  I shrugged. "Tomorrow, I guess. It's getting late today; it'll be getting dark soon and I don't want to be looking around back there by the mountain in the dark."

  Luke looked down at the table. "Oh," he said. "Yeah. No, I mean. I can't. Not tomorrow."

  Elias raised one eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "Do you have big plans?"

  "Shut up," Luke said. "I have plans. Plans I don't need to include you two shitheads in."

  Elias hooted before turning toward me. "Luke's social calendar is booked. Sorry, dude, you're going to have to do it yourself."

  "So, what did you need to talk to me about, Nana?" I asked. "Please tell me you didn't just want to gossip about your sex life."

  "I won't regale you with tales of my social life," she said. "Right now, anyway. I wanted to talk to you about the house."

  "What about it?" I asked. "I think we should hang on to it, Nana." I wasn't ready for her to sell her house, even if she wanted to get rid of it. In my twenty-three years, it was the only place I'd ever felt at home. That stretch of time in West Bend was the longest period of time I'd spent with her - hell, it was one of the longer periods of time I'd spent anywhere - and I had fond memories of it.

  I didn't want to let those memories go.

  Kind of like the ones I had of Elias.

  "I want you to look at the paperwork, dear," she said. "You have an eye for detail, and you understand a grift. I want to make sure I'm not getting conned."

  "What did you do, Nana?" I asked, my voice high. "Did you put it on the market? Did someone make you an offer?"

  She waved her hand. "No, no, nothing like that," she said. "But this company did, this mining company that might be moving in to West Bend. They've been making offers here and there to people - most of them have property in West Bend."

  "What's the offer?" I asked. "Is it fair?"

  "Well, now, I don't know," she said. "That's why I want you to look at it."

  "I don't think you should sell it, Nana," I said. "Unless you need the money, in which case I'll make sure you have it."

  "Honey, I'm not saying I want to sell it," she said. "I just think there's something hinky about this company."

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "Did they do something?"

  "That's what I'm wondering," she said. "I was going to do some research on the internet, try to find out about the company, but you know me and computers."

  I laughed. Describing my grandmother as technology-averse would be putting it mildly. "Yes, Nana, I know."

  "So I thought you could do some research on the internet, find out some more about them, figure out what they're up to."

  "You understand that I'm a con artist and not a private detective, right?" I asked.

  "Hush," she said. "Of course I do. But you need to have research skills to be a con artist. I know you do, and don't try to convince me otherwise. How else would you find out about companies you're going to grift?"

  I smiled. "You got me, Nana."

  She wagged her finger at me. "Don't try to pull one over on me. I want you to look into it. I have a weird feeling."

  I groaned. "Nana, you and your feelings."

  "I have reason to be suspicious," she said.

  "Okay," I said, sinking back into the chair and preparing myself for a long story. "I'm all ears."

  "You remember Esther Saint - Mrs. Saint?" she asked.

  My chest felt tight at the mention of her name. "Yes," I said slowly. "I know who she is."

  She nodded, her gaze penetrating. "I thought you might remember her," she said. "You and the Saint boy - Silas, was his name? - you got on well, as I recall."

  Got on well.

  That was an understatement.

  Don't think about Silas, I told myself.

  I cleared my throat. "What happened?"

  "He grew up to be a gorgeous young man, that Silas did," she said. "Those blue eyes of his...oh, he looks like a young Paul Newman. Do you know who Paul Newman was?"

  "Of course I know who Paul Newman is, Nana. He was in The Sting - it's practically required viewing for a grifter," I said absently, my mind racing. She was talking about Silas in the present. The image of Silas climbing out of the tub, water running down his muscled back and over his perfect ass, flashed in my mind.

  "Well, that Silas is Paul Newman good-looking," Letty said.

  "I'd heard he moved away from here," I said, my voice trembling.

  "Oh, he did for a while," she said. "He went to college for a year or two, I think, then dropped out and did some fighting. But he came back here a few months ago. Why? Are you interested?"

  I sighed. "I'm just curious, Nana, that's all." But my heart was racing. How the hell was Silas back in West Bend?

  "Uh-huh," she said. "Well, if your curiosity gets the best of you, he's staying out at Coach Westmoreland's place, has the apartment over the garage out there. Not that you're anything but curious."

  I ignored her. "Nana, what does any of this have to do with the property - or the mining company?"

  "I'm getting to that," she said. "Don't rush me. Esther Saint committed suicide not too long ago now."

  "Oh," I said. "That's terrible." Silas hadn't said anything, and I wondered why.

  "Well, I knew her," she said. "She was depressed years ago, miserable unhappy with that husband of hers. He was a real piece of work. No good, evil drunk if there ever was one. But I don't think she would have killed herself. They say she overdosed with pills and alcohol- but I know for a fact she didn't drink, on account of the husband being a drunk."

  I didn't know how much I believed what Letty was telling me. The only time I'd met Silas' mother, she'd seemed pretty out of it. Of course, she'd also taken a beating pretty soon before I met her, too. "I'm not getting what any of this has to do with the house, Nana."

  "The father had an accident, too," she said. "Some months back. It was out behind their place, near the mine."

  "The mine?" I asked. "They had a mine?" I racked my brain, trying to recall whether I'd seen a mine when I was at Silas' house that time. Who has a fucking mine in their backyard? I thought.

  "Oh, it's not the way you're thinking, honey," she said. "People around these parts did their own mining all the time, blasted into the sides of mountains. That stuff was regulated a lot less than it is now. You didn't have to have a whole company; you just needed a permit to blast away. The father used to sell coal in town to make ends meet- of course, he spent most of it down at the bar."

  "So there was a mining accident..." I prompted. I wanted to know what the hell had happened with Silas' family.

  He hadn't said a word about it.

  Of course, he wouldn't, would he?

  "Well, that's what they said it was. They called it an accident, said he was blasting in his backyard," she said. "Of course, I doubt anyone looked much into it. That man wasn't exactly beloved here."

  "No..." I said, less of a question than a statement. He was definitely not beloved by Silas. Silas hated his father. He wanted to get the hell out of West Bend as quickly as possible. I somehow doubted that he was heartbroken over his father's death. And from what Silas had told me about him, I suspected the town felt the same way. "But you don't think it happened that way?"

  "Well, I thought it did," Letty said. "And then Esther Saint killed herself. And that got me wondering. It didn't make sense to me that she would off herself after that dirtbag husband of hers was finally out of the picture. Besides that, there was the alcohol- she just wasn't a drinker. And she was seeing the Mayor."

  "What do you mean, seeing the Mayor?" I asked.

  "I mean, seeing him," she said. "Boning, I believe you youngsters call it."

  I laughed. "Yes, Nana," I said. "Boning. Is this something you know to be fact?"

  She shrugged. "I have my sources," she said.

  "Okay," I said. "What would any of this have to do with the property?"

  "Don't give me that look," she said.

  "