Lisa Unger - Sliver Of Truth

He nodded. “Any one of them. Including the CIA.”

I let the information sink in. “Now you’re just being paranoid.”

He looked at me as if I was slow. I was about to ask him about his mother when he rose suddenly.

“I think that’s enough for tonight. We can’t stay here for long, and you need to rest before we start moving again.”

I didn’t argue. There was so much more to say and countless questions to ask, but I had too much to deal with already. I was in brain overload; if I took on any more information, I’d lose something crucial like my ability to add and subtract. I let him lead me to a small bedroom off the main room. There was a rocker and a queen-size bed with a wrought-iron headboard and a patchwork quilt. He helped me beneath the musty sheets, then started another fire. I lay there watching him, thinking that my father had killed his mother and that such a thing did not bode well for our relationship-whatever that was. I wondered if I’d ever meet a man whom Max had not totally destroyed on a deep emotional level. That was the last thought I had before I drifted into a light and troubled slumber.

Twice during the night, Dylan brought me pills, which I took without protest. The second time, I saw him linger in the doorway. I couldn’t see his expression. I waited for him to say something, but after a minute or two, he left, closed the door softly behind him. I thought about calling him back and asking what he was thinking, but then I wondered if I really wanted to know.

THE MORNING DAWNED to rain. It tapped at my window, and for a second before I opened my eyes, I could almost imagine that I was back in the East Village just an hour or so before I saved Justin Wheeler and set this nightmare in motion. I imagined the myriad choices that lay before me, beginning with sleep in or hop up and race to the dental appointment that I’d canceled instead. Anything I’d done differently that morning might have saved me from waking in this strange place, a stranger to myself.

My sinuses were swollen but my side hurt much less. I slipped out of bed, put my feet on the frigid wood floor and walked over to the six-pane window, and peered out into a thick glade of trees. There was a doe and her tiny foal nibbling on grass in the misting morning rain. I held my breath and watched them. They were perfect and peaceful, oblivious to me and my chaos. It soothed me to watch as they meandered back into the woods until I could no longer see them. I felt safe, as if nothing could hurt me here.

I saw some clothes neatly piled on the rocker by the door. A blue wool sweater, a pair of beat-up jeans, and some Nikes in halfway decent shape that looked like they might fit. No socks. No underwear. But what did I expect?

There was a small bathroom off the room to the side of the fireplace. The fire burned well, as if it had recently been stoked. I entered the bathroom and mopped myself off in cold water from the sink, spent a few minutes staring in dismay at my hair. I checked the bandage on my side and saw that it was clean and decided to leave well enough alone.

The sweater was huge; I rolled up the sleeves. The jeans were a tad tight in the rump and the sneakers pinched my little toe. But okay.

When I walked into the living room, I expected to see Dylan standing sentry by the door, but he was dozing on the couch.

“Some watchdog,” I said.

“I’m not sleeping, just resting my eyes.”

I saw the gun in his hand then and realized he probably hadn’t slept at all. I should have felt bad for him but I didn’t. Part of me blamed him for all of this, though I couldn’t say why. I walked past him toward the door. He’d left my bag there and I bent down gingerly to pick it up and bring it over to the small dining table. I heard him sit up and felt his eyes on me as I rummaged through the contents, hoping I’d find what I was looking for. Near the bottom I did. I took the matchbook I’d found at Max’s apartment a couple of lifetimes ago and handed it to Dylan.

I told him where I’d found it, how I’d sensed that someone else had been there that day. “Does it mean anything to you?”

He held it up to the light of the fire. After a second, he nodded slowly. “I think this is from an after-hours club in London called the Kiss. This symbol is part of Descartes’s tangent-circle configuration. The Kiss is from a poem called ‘The Kiss Precise,’ which explains how each of the four circles touch the other three. Though Decartes’s ideas were pretty much confined to circles, I think the club owner kind of sees it as a symbol of how all things are connected.”

“Wow,” I said after a beat. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a math geek.”

He shrugged. “I guess I’m just full of surprises.”

That’s what I was afraid of.

“There’s a note inside,” I said. He opened the matchbook and read it, didn’t say anything.

“Who do you think Angel might be?”

He shook his head. “No idea.”

“We need to go there. And we need a computer to try our luck getting into that website. I’d like to check my e-mail, too, in case Grant sent me anything before he-” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. These were the things I’d been thinking about as I’d washed and dressed. I wanted to somehow take back control of my trashed existence. I didn’t like the broken person with the bleached blond hair, Max’s daughter injured and in hiding from various threats. I wanted to be me again.

“Are you up to it?” he asked skeptically.

“Not really. But what are our choices, sit around here waiting for the cops or for one of Max’s enemies to come after us? Better to be proactive, don’t you think?”

“I was thinking we should turn ourselves in,” he said, coming to stand beside me.

“No,” I said quickly, certainly. “Not yet.”

The thought of being trapped somewhere filled me with dread. A window was closing. If I didn’t find Max soon, he’d be gone for good like the ghost that he was. There’d be time to pay for whatever mistakes I’d made. But later.

I turned to Dylan and was surprised to find him so close.

“I fucked up, Ridley. You were right-we’re out of our league here.” It was a simple admission of error, nothing dramatic or even regretful about it. I liked the ease with which he could admit that he’d made mistakes. I think it’s a good quality in a person.

He put a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t like being so close to him, didn’t like his scent, the warmth of his body. I wanted to move away but found that I couldn’t, and moved in closer instead. He pulled me to him and then his lips were on mine. I felt heat travel through my body. It was in a desperate seeking of comfort that I let him kiss me, that I kissed him back. I felt his arms enfold me. He held me with conviction but also with care, with tenderness. Jake always kissed me with a kind of reverence, a painful gentleness. Dylan kissed me as if he owned me, as if he knew me. I pulled away from him, pushed him back, then slapped him hard. The sound my hand made against his face was a satisfying smack. It felt good. Almost as good as it had felt to kiss him.

“Asshole,” I said, hating my pulse for racing and hating the mutinous heat on my face.

“That’s three,” he said with a big smile. He put his hand lovingly to his face as though I’d kissed him there.

“You think because you’ve read a few of my e-mails, listened in on my conversations, that you know something about me.”

He put his hands in his pockets and cast his eyes to the floor.

“Well, you don’t. Okay?”

He nodded. I couldn’t see if he’d stopped smiling but I didn’t think so. I put my bag over my shoulder and walked toward the door.

“Are we going or what?”