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 know, when your mother took up with your father, I was devastated. I knew he was a con artist the moment I laid eyes on him. He just had that vibe about him. He ruined our relationship. And when she took you away from me when you were a child, I thought that the two of them would ruin you. But here you are, all grown up, standing on your own two feet and doing what's right."
I felt myself flush. "Well, I'm not exactly doing what's right," I said. "I'm breaking the law."
She waved her hand. "Pshaw," she said. "Sometimes people get away with doing terrible things, and the law never punishes them for it. Life needs people like you to set things right. Even if it's not necessarily legal."
"It's definitely not legal," I said.
Letty looked at me for a long time. "Legal or not, I couldn't be more proud of you, dear."
***
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SILAS
“So you don’t think I’m crazy anymore, huh?” I leaned back in the chair, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Please.” Luke grinned at me. “You’re always going to be crazy, little brother. But I think your theory about mom’s death has some merit, at least.”
"Is that why you're sticking around in West Bend, Luke?" I probed. "Because you're interested in who might have had reason to want our parents dead?"
Luke's face reddened. I couldn't recall a time I'd ever seen Luke blush. I glanced across the room at Elias, who grinned.
"No," Elias said, crossing the room and pulling up a chair at the kitchen table. "There's a girl, isn't there?"
Luke shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Luke has a girlfriend," Elias said, his voice teasing. "Shit, I wish Killian were here. He would give you hell, man."
"Shut up, you assholes," Luke said.
"If he doesn't want to talk about it, leave him alone, Elias," I said, suddenly thinking about my reaction to Trigg when he asked about Tempest.
Elias studied me, his eyes narrowing. "What are you doing, taking up for him?" he asked. "You're usually the one to jump right on something like this."
"Yeah, well," I said. "Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it because it's someone who means something to him."
"Stop fucking talking about me like I'm not in the room, guys," Luke said. "I'm sitting right here."
But Elias ignored him, still staring at me. "Since when did you become Mr. Sensitive?" he asked. "Next thing you know, we're going to be sitting around talking about our feelings. Maybe we'll start crying, too."
"Shut up," I said. "You're the one mooning over River."
"Yeah, because it's River," he said. "Have you seen her?" He couldn't stop grinning, and I knew he was happy. It was good to see it.
"Why don't we talk about what we started with?" I said. "Stop getting off track. Our parents' deaths."
I could feel Elias' eyes still on me, but he relented. "Fine. I still maintain the entire idea they were murdered is ridiculous. Everyone wanted the asshole dead," he said, referring to our abusive drunk of a father. "If he were going to be murdered, it would have happened in a bar fight out in the open, not in the abandoned mine behind our house."
"Or one of us would have killed him," Luke said darkly. But if was true. The fact that one of us hadn't murdered him was itself a miracle. "I just think it doesn't make sense that she overdosed with pills and booze. She didn't even drink."
"Lots of things didn't make sense when it came to her," Elias said. "She was erratic. But what's that saying - the best explanation is the most direct one, right? That's the case here. Stop looking for complicated ways to make sense of things."
"Maybe you're right," I said half-heartedly. Elias was in this hazy honeymoon stage with River, and I was sure that was part of his reluctance to think about any of this.
I couldn't exactly blame him. If I had something like he had with River, maybe I wouldn't be concerning myself with this bullshit either.
An image of Tempest lying on the piano as I buried my head between her legs flashed into my mind, and I shook it off. I wasn't going to have anything like Elias and River had, not with Tempest. Even if I might want to.
"No, he's not right," Luke said. "You both know she got an offer on the property right before she died. There's a connection. Silas, back me up - it was your theory in the first place."
"I already thought about that," Elias said. "But the property thing just doesn't seem related. The land is a shit piece of land outside of town, and she wasn't even considering the offer."
"Well, she wouldn't talk about it," I said. "That doesn't mean she wasn't considering it. Or that it was related."
"I just think we shouldn't be stirring up shit solely to stir it up," Elias said.
"Well, people are murdered because of personal or financial reasons, right?" Luke asked.
"Where did you get that?" Elias said. "Have you been watching crime shows?"
"Shut the hell up," Luke said. "I'm going somewhere with this. Those are the main reasons people are murdered. So if they were killed, it'd be for one of those reasons."
"Or random acts," Elias said.
Luke nodded. "Okay, or random acts."
"Well, we already ruled both of those out," Elias said. "The likelihood of the asshole being murdered for personal reasons disguised as an accident in the mine behind the house is low. And there's no reason for our mother to have been killed - she was fairly inoffensive."
Inoffensive, I thought, recalling how she'd destroyed the letter from Tempest, taken the money I'd saved to be with her. She'd ruined things between us. She was far from inoffensive in my books.
"The financial motivation might be there," Luke said. "If the company wanted her off of the property."
"So, what," Elias said. "Some mining company is just offing town residents that don't sell their land? It's a completely ridiculous idea."
"Well, what if that wasn't it?" I said. "Maybe the asshole found something in the mining area back by the mountain. Or maybe he was looking for something. It would explain why he was back there, when that mine had been abandoned for years."
Luke guffawed, the sound echoing through the kitchen. "Yeah," he said. "Abandoned because of you, Silas."
Elias laughed. "It's funny now," he said. "It wasn't funny at the time."
"No, it wasn't fucking funny," I said. Our father had kicked the shit out of me for what had happened, the way I'd lost him the mining permit that allowed him to sell coal to people in town when we were kids. It was the whole reason he'd wound up being the janitor at the high school, which was punishment enough for me all by itself. But before that, my punishment involved his giving me two broken ribs.
"Well, the explosion was pretty legendary," Elias said.
"Hell yeah, it was," Luke said. "Anyway, I came over here and told the same thing to Elias. But I went and poked around the property and didn't see anything, so I don't know what to think. I couldn't find that offer mom got from the company, either."
"I've gone back and forth on it in my mind," Elias said. "I just think it's a far more likely explanation that the asshole was drunk as a skunk and messing around in the mine and something fell on his fucking head. Blunt force trauma. The coroner's office said it was probably a rock. There were landslides back there."
I grunted a response. I wasn't sure what I thought. Hell, I didn't even know if I cared - it's not like I was that close to either of them. Besides, finding out that my mother had betrayed me the way she had when it came to Tempest had soured me on the whole thing.
Maybe it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to just run over to the property and take a look myself. "Maybe I'll just head over there and poke around," I said. "See what I can see."
Elias shook his head. "Don't expect me to join you," he said. "We're still doing stuff around the house."
I laughed. "Roger that," I said. "I have a pretty good idea of the stuff you're doing."
"Damn straight," Elias said, grinning broadly.
"Luke?" I asked. "Do you want to go with me?"
"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."
***
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TEMPEST
"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.