by Meli Raine
“No, Mom. It’s fine.”
“Remember everything that has happened, Lindsay. Don’t let your guard down. From the night of the original attack to the online information Jane was feeding you to the kidnapping, she’s at the heart of everything. Ask yourself how someone can be connected to so many parts of this mess and not be implicated?”
Just then, Silas appears next to me, his presence much appreciated.
“Good question,” he says to Monica, who smiles at him.
“You ready?” I ask him. “Because we’re going.”
“We are?” one corner of his mouth twitches with a smile.
“I am.”
“Wherever you go, I go.”
I ignore him. “Thank you, Lindsay,” I say sincerely, motioning toward the bag that now hangs on my shoulder. “I really appreciate it.”
“Just stay safe.” She looks at Silas.
Monica glares at me.
“She’ll be safe,” he says, pointedly not looking at Monica.
“Good,” Lindsay says before Silas leads me out. “Because I think we need to talk more.”
I want to respond, but she’s pulled aside by a hissing Monica before I can, Silas tugging firmly at my elbow. “We need to go,” he says, the words redundant as his body moves me to the door that takes us to the SUV again.
“Don’t I need to say goodbye to the senator?”
“Not unless you really want to go back into that conference room and face everyone you just walked out on.” His look says I’d be crazy to do just that.
“Then no.”
He lets out a huff of amusement and into the SUV we go, ready for my trip to Alice’s home.
A haven.
A sanctuary I have now made happen.
This time, being in the backseat with Silas has a completely different feel. How in the heck did that meeting somehow clear the air between us?
“Lindsay was nice to you back there,” he says, making me startle in my seat. I turn and look at him in surprise. He’s initiating a conversation with me? Like I’m a real person?
“Um, yeah.” I pat the bag she gave me, which is on the floor between my feet. “She gave me some clothes.”
“She didn’t have to do that. You have funding to buy whatever you need.”
“I know. But it was a really sweet gesture.”
“She’s a good person.”
“And I’m not?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
“No, Jane, I didn’t. You inferred it. Big difference.”
I take a deep breath and steady myself, getting my bearings. He’s right. I’m living in a cloud of reaction, my nerves on edge all the time because I don’t know who is a threat and who is safe. When everyone around you questions your motives, the only sane reaction is to question theirs.
His words are coming at a time when I thought he was angry with me, disgusted and barely tolerating my presence.
Did Senator Bosworth’s order to investigate the “wacko” lead Drew talked about change Silas’s opinion?
I’m about to ask him that very question when he jolts, then reaches for his phone. It’s the personal one, with the picture of the girl on the screen.
“Gentian,” he says softly. “Mom? What?”
Now I know his mother is alive.
Something we don’t have in common.
“Is she okay?” he murmurs, turning away. “Can I call you back later?”
I reach for my earbuds and push them in, trying to signal to him that I am respecting his need for some privacy.
I don’t actually turn on my music, though.
“She is? Again? Damn,” he mutters. Real anguish is in that voice. I suspect if I turn and look at him, I’ll see it in his face, too.
Who is “she”? His sister? Niece?
Girlfriend?
Wife?
It’s suddenly hard for me to breathe, those last two ideas shoving my lungs aside. Silas’s personal life is none of my business, but it’s not like I have an easy way to distract myself right now. I have no apartment. No home. No job. I’m not in school, and my entire world has telescoped down to what I’m wearing, my phone, my purse, and Lindsay’s gifted clothing.
We’re primed to notice our surroundings. To read people around us.
It’s built into me to listen.
Let’s just say it’s not my fault I’m eavesdropping, then.
“And Kelly’s okay? Day care has her?”
Hmmm. Kelly must be the little girl. Is she his little girl?
“Good, good. Um, go ahead and get Tricia settled. I’ll handle the money. Just don’t give her any directly. I’ll make sure it’s done behind the scenes.”
Is Tricia his wife? Ex-wife? Why doesn’t he want people to give her money directly? This sounds bad, whatever it is.
“No, Mom, it’s fine. Really. Look, I can’t talk now. You know how work is.” He pauses, blinking rapidly. “Uh huh. Right. Ok. You too. Bye.”
Awww. How sweet. His mom still tells him she loves him. And he says it back, man style. It’s a lovely gesture and makes me more interested in how Mr. Silas Gentian works on the inside. Nothing about him adds up. All the pieces don’t typically go together to make this kind of whole.
He was a sweet, almost naive guy when I met him the first time. Security guys normally aren’t so fresh faced and nice.
He was stone-faced and cold when he began working with me a few days ago.
And now he’s… well, this. Whatever you call it, he’s a chameleon, changing as I learn more about him.
Do we really ever know anyone, though? Especially in this crazy political world. I don’t seriously think he would ever harm me, but one thing I’ve learned over the last six months is this: people have agendas.
And some people will do anything–including murder–to see their agenda through.
He hangs up and switches phones, clearly talking to Drew now. I look out my window and try to relax my muscles. My foot jiggles, an old nervous habit from when I was a kid. Mom used to tell me to stop, that it drove her nuts, and I smile sadly at the memory.
And then my brain hijacks me by remembering her in the morgue, dead, the marks on her neck plain as day.
I gasp, the image so brutally fresh, it might as well be on a billboard as we drive down the highway.
“What’s wrong?” Silas asks, tensing as he sits up and looks at me, eyes already scanning the area outside the moving car.
“I was about to ask you the same question.” I really don’t want to talk about my dead mom, so I deflect. “Your phone call sounded like something’s going on? Everyone at home safe and sound?”
He scowls. “It’s fine.”
Interesting. He’s lying. “That’s better than the alternative.”
He makes a dismissive sound and settles back in his seat.
The SUV turns onto a small airstrip, one that is so private, it’s only used by the government and people so wealthy, they might as well run a small nation. I’ve flown via private aircraft before, and I know how easy it is versus the commercial cattle call most of us only ever experience.
The difference is night and day.
As the SUV comes to a halt, Silas climbs out and walks away. I admire him from behind, his broad shoulders ramrod straight, his legs long and thick. Silas has a body that is just big all over, nothing but muscle, a body made for tailored clothing and aggression.
He talks to people in Air Force uniforms, men with more fruit salad on their lapels than hair on their heads. A salute, a handshake, a smile, and then he jogs back, just as our driver opens my door and I climb out clutching Lindsay’s cloth bag.
“Ready?” He motions toward a small jet on the tarmac.
“Yes. But we never let Alice know I’m coming.”
He smirks as he puts on sunglasses, the fading light of the day marking the passage of time. Silas turns to me and starts walking toward the jet, expecting me to keep up with him. �
��She knows. She definitely knows.”
The private jet is exactly like the others I’ve been flying on for the last few months. Stately without being ostentatious. Functional and sophisticated but not gaudy. It’s just us as we enter the plane. Silas takes a seat in the far back. There are four clusters of four seats, spread out. I stand at the entrance, uncertain. Do I sit with Silas? Find my own spot? Are we sharing the plane with other people?
Scratch that. How many people are going to Alice Mogrett’s house right now? Not fourteen other random government-affiliated people.
Tentative, constantly questioning myself, I move to the first cluster on the left and settle in, facing forward. I sink into the seat and take a deep breath.
Ew.
I need a shower.
Sweat coats my arms, the underside of my shirt a wet mess at the armpits. I’m still wearing the white shirt and maxidress I had on when my car was bombed. Lindsay’s bag beckons to me, so I open it. Inside, I find a lovely long dress with no sleeves, a flowing wrap to go over it, and simple slip-on sandals.
My eyes fill up yet again as I stare at the clothing. The one person in this complex web of deceit who has the most right to hate me–correctly or not–is the one who has shown me the most kindness.
“Jane?” I look up and twist in my seat to find Silas right behind me, holding a small pink shopping bag.
“Mmm?” I don’t want him to see that I am crying.
“The senator had this delivered here.” He hands it to me. I see something silky, lace-edged, inside.
My blood turns cold.
Why would Senator Harwell Bosworth buy me lingerie?
“Lindsay insisted you needed some, uh, private clothing.” Silas’s ears turn pink and he goes back to his seat. From there he adds, “The bathroom is behind me. Once we’re in the air, you can shower. Lindsay assumed you’d want to freshen up for your visit with Ms. Mogrett.”
Oh.
That makes much more sense. It was Lindsay.
“Why is she being so nice to me?” I mutter to myself, pulling out the items in the bag. A simple sports bra and basic women’s underwear with a little lace on them greet me, both in generic-enough sizes to fit me. Given my sweat-soaked, stained clothing, this will be a major step up.
I stare at the bag as the pilot starts to give instructions, his voice warm and friendly as he recites it all in a routine I’ve come to embrace. The takeoff instructions aren’t just an FAA requirement. They aren’t given simply to make sure passengers have an inkling of what to do in case of a true emergency.
They are also a ritual, designed to help calm you. My mom told me this a long time ago as she explained the theory of human behavior in crowds and how processes are designed to meet different needs.
“Don’t take what you see at face value, Jane,” she had said to me on one of our flights to D.C. “Every process, every system has a shadow purpose beneath it. The more you understand all the layers, the better.”
As the pilot drones on, Mom’s words make me think.
Why would Silas agree so easily to take me to Alice’s place?
To the point of clearing the path before permission was granted.
Nothing about Alice screams treachery. She’s so out of the mainstream. All of the character traits that Marshall derided are the very qualities that appealed to me when I was her student.
She doesn’t give a single whit what anyone else thinks.
And while she was born with a spirit few possess, she was also forged by her experience as a child of a rising politician.
Lindsay would like Alice, I think to myself as I snap off the tags for the bra and underwear, folding the garments neatly into the little cloth bag that holds the clothes from Lindsay. It’s too bad they won’t meet.
I set the plastic and cardboard tags aside as the airplane starts to move, taxiing down the small airstrip. We’re up and in the air within minutes, all the preliminaries so much easier with a private jet. Once the pilot announces we’re at cruising altitude, I unclip my seatbelt, pass Silas, whose eyes are closed, seatbelt on, and find the bathroom.
It’s big.
I’ve learned not to be surprised by how extravagant government-provided services can feel. This isn’t Air Force One, of course, but it’s clearly used for people at the highest levels. As I close and lock the bathroom door, I take a long look around.
Airplanes aren’t supposed to have bathrooms the size of my childhood bedroom, but then again, I’m not supposed to be here, either.
Not if life made sense.
The bright white tiles and gold trim make the room look like a piece of china, all polished porcelain. The room is lined with mirrors, a toilet against the side wall, the glass-enclosed shower taking up most of the room. A soaker tub with low-set jacuzzi nozzles takes up the remaining space.
I mean, it’s not enough to have a soaker tub in your private jet, right? Got to add that shower, too.
Stripping down turns into a show for myself, all the mirrors angled just so. I get an all-too-good look at myself as I open the shower door, bend to turn on the hot water, and wait.
I pause. I stare. I scrutinize, because that’s what I’ve been trained by society to do.
Look for the flaws.
We all have them, but a mirrored bathroom magnifies them. I’m not uncomfortable being naked in front of the mirrors, but as I look and notice my bruise, my cut, how my knees are pale, the tan line at my neck, I realize it has been a very, very long time since I’ve wondered how a man who wanted me would gaze at my body.
Would he search incessantly for flaws? Would he be tentative and careful or dominant and aggressive in his assessment of my features? Would he overflow with innuendos and compliments, want me all the time, devour me with his eyes?
Silas comes to mind, my normal resistance draining away as I step in the shower and begin to wash off the day. He shouldn’t invade my personal sexual thoughts. He is a handful of meters away.
And yet he does.
The shower feels so good, the water hot and lush. I’ll bet the showerhead is NASA-invented, refined and calibrated to some sensory precision that makes the rich and powerful feel that taking a shower is somehow better for people who deserve the best.
Lavender soap, shampoo, and conditioner greet my senses as I fumble, eyes closed, water in them. Washing the day off my body is a relief, one I took for granted until six months ago. My preferred bath scent is orange. If I were in my own apartment, I would have citrus soap and orange shampoo and lemon conditioner, all of those scents hand-chosen and carefully selected to please me.
When you’re essentially homeless, living where the government tells you to live, you get whatever other people provide you.
Lavender is really, really popular these days.
I position myself so the wall of water slides over my hair and down my back. I pause, asking my mind to trace the sensation of a single drop as I try to focus, pull myself together, make myself centered.
I don’t need it. Not where I’m going. But I’m taking my recharge time where I can get it.
A sudden jerk to the left leaves me hacking and coughing, my knee cracking against the edge of the now-open shower door, which slams back and nearly traps my fingertips. I move just in time, the floor slippery as hell, making me fall on my bare ass.
I get a big mouthful of shower spray, too, and choke my way through that.
“Just a little turbulence,” the pilot announces.
If this is a little, what’s a lot?
The floor seems even again, so I grab the shower door handle and pull myself up, hoping for no more injuries. My hip throbs, the long red streak from my ass to my knee clearly a scrape from slamming into the glass door.
Tap tap tap.
“You okay?” Silas shouts.
“Get back in your seat!” I call back.
“I’m not worried about me.”
“I’m fine.”
“You might want to hurry up in case we ha
ve more weather problems. Looks like we’re flying into a storm.”
Great. With my luck we’ll get caught in a tornado, crash, and people will find my bones after Silas and the crew eat me to stay alive.
What the hell is wrong with me? I laugh to myself as I get under the spray and finish shampooing my hair, rinsing it, then applying conditioner. My hands keep grabbing air long after my hair ends. I cut so much of it off in order to hide myself.
To blend in.
Really helped, huh?
Tap tap tap.
“Seriously, Jane. You need to stop the shower. Pilot says we’re–”
I don’t hear his next words because the shower goes sideways and all the soaps and shampoo bottles come flying at me like missiles thrown by an angry god.
My shoulder whacks into the soap dish and the shower’s hand-held nozzle points up at me, the arc of water strong, nailing me between the legs for a deeply erotic and highly disconcerting two seconds. I start to roll as the airplane rights itself, my leg bending, knee catching on the shower door as I fall, my body out of my control, wet and slippery, as much an object as the shampoo bottle, the soap, my washcloth.
I’m being tossed around like a toy.
“JANE!” Silas’s voice is powerful even through the door’s muting. “Say something!”
I open my mouth to do just that, but the wind is completely knocked out of me.
By the toilet bowl.
The round curve of it slams into my ribs, which bend in a sick, wet way as I rebound off it, the shower door opening again, my leg jerking out, the foot pointed and sliding into an opening between the glass shower wall and the hinged door.
And then the door slams shut on my ankle.
I scream.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
“JANE!” Silas bellows from the other side. “I’M COMING IN THERE!”
Oh, my God.
“No!” I cry out as the main bathroom door smashes open, Silas leading with his shoulder.
To find me naked, legs parted, ankle jammed in the shower door, my face smushed against the toilet’s edge.
