Ever see a spit take in real life? I never have.

Until now.

Silas pulls the glass away from his mouth and sprays the small table in the kitchen, his eyes going big as he looks at the enormous canvas, life-sized, about seven feet tall and four feet wide. I remember the painting, the pose one of me standing, drying off from a bath with a terrycloth towel, the side view the focus, my breasts dipping down, gravity making them look like grapes waiting to be plucked.

“Excuse me,” he says in a tight voice, grabbing a kitchen towel from a small towel rack next to the sink before Alice or I can react. As he cleans, he can’t help himself, staring at the painting. “Is that–is the model–”

“That’s Jane, all right,” Alice says, reading his mind.

He lets out a low whistle.

Now I blush.

“Pardon me,” he immediately says, regret filling his voice. “I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”

“What way? Like a straight human male who sees a beautiful, artistic rendition of a woman?” Alice asks.

“Uh, yes,” he replies, flustered. It’s adorable and hot at the same time. Silas is the only man I’ve ever met who can manage both.

Or maybe he’s the only man I’ve ever noticed being both.

He finishes cleaning and Alice takes the towel from him, grinning.

“I was offered seven figures for that painting,” she tells him, watching his reaction as he looks at it, spellbound.

“I don’t doubt it,” he says, not breaking away, his face fixed on looking.

“I refused.”

“That’s a lot of money,” I say.

“Money? I don’t need any more money. What I need is more beauty.”

“You have quite the talent, Ms. Mogrett.”

“I don’t need validation from you, Mr. Formal, but thank you.”

We take our drinks and move into the center of the studio. Painters have a way of creating a unique scene with their art. I didn’t understand that until I took my first painting class.

“Have you considered posing again?” Alice asks. Oh, she’s direct, all right.

“What?”

“Posing.” Alice sweeps her arm around the room, her hand resting in a position pointed straight at the wall of paintings featuring me. “You’re an exceptional subject, Jane. Always have been.”

“I just know how to sit still.” Silas remains standing, looking at his phone in one hand, holding the lemonade in the other. His eyes dance between his phone screen and my portrait, the painting winning.

“No. You know far more than that. If just sitting still were the sole criterion for being a subject, then door jambs and stones would be painted by the millions.”

I give a half shrug.

“You have the ability to turn stillness into emotion.”

“No, Alice–you have that ability.”

“I translate that emotion into a visual trigger. But I cannot paint what is not there.”

I can feel Silas listening.

I don’t care.

“You came to college an open, curious child. Yes, child–all eighteen-year-olds are children when you are my age. Hell, fifty-year-olds are, too.”

I laugh.

“And your sophomore year you changed.”

I stop laughing.

“It was like someone had taken all the light in you and dimmed it. You came back timid. Unsure. Fearful. You had a shadow following you everywhere that wasn’t yours. It co-opted you. That is why I reached out to you at school.”

“Huh?”

“When you are a painter, you see things no one else sees. It’s a gift and a curse. It’s like being the child of a politician,” she adds, her laugh bitter. “You spend every waking second trying to understand all the connections between people, events, and ideas so that you can see the whole picture, and then beyond.”

“Beyond?”

“Nothing in life is ever what appears on the surface. Shallow people like to pretend that the first layer is all that matters, but it’s only pretend. Child’s play. Very few people are that dim. They know deep inside that their obsession with the surface is a falsehood, a story they tell themselves to avoid the depth. In the deep, we have no control. In the deep, we’re at the whim and mercy of forces beyond our understanding.”

“Now you sound like you’re talking about religion.”

“Is religion really different from politics? No,” she says, answering her own rhetorical question. “Everything converges given enough time, Jane. Make it to ninety-two and you’ll understand.”

“I’m just trying to make it to twenty-five.”

Her sharp gaze unnerves me. “Which is why you’re here.”

“I’m here because you invited me. And thank you.” I down my drink. The vodka burns, but the mint soothes.

“You’re also here because you insisted. I know how controlling those bastards in Washington can be. You had to make this happen. Your persistence shows.” Clear eyes catch mine.

“I guess?” My uncertainty tears me to shreds.

“Embrace it, Jane. You’re stronger than you think. Look at what they’ve put you through.”

I just sigh.

“Now,” she says, walking to the kitchen and pouring me another glass of lemonade. The first one has loosened me up, the tension in my hunched shoulders and neck receding as the minutes pass. My muscles still burn, but I can feel the shoulders lowering.

I’m finally safe.

Alice pours a generous shot of vodka into my lemonade and hands it to me, smiling. Her eyes are curious, her look piercingly clear.

“Talk. I have all day. And tomorrow. The entire weekend for you, Jane. I want to hear everything, from the start.”

“You–but you already know it.”

“I know what the press has told me, which means it’s half true, half lies, and figuring out who is lying is a full-time job. I know you. I believe you. Give me your story, right here, in front of these insufferable blowhards disguised as bodyguard babysitters.”

Silas doesn’t react.

“And if there’s anything confidential you don’t want them to hear, we can fix that, too.”

Silas cocks an eyebrow.

“You want me to start from the beginning?” I ask with a pained laugh.

“That’s generally how stories are told, Jane.”

“What if I don’t want to start there?”

“Then start where it makes the most sense.”

“None of it makes sense.”

She nods. “Those are the hardest stories to tell.”

“Yes.”

“But they’re also the stories with the most meaning.”

“I have more than enough meaning in my life. It’s just that none of it is mine.”

“By telling your story, your way, you make it yours. You own it. Be fierce in your ownership of your life, Jane. No one else will make it easy.”

“How did you get so wise, Alice?”

“By telling a lot of hard stories. Mostly with paint.”

Silas looks at my painting and holds his breath.

I lick my lips, leaning forward to sip from my refreshed lemonade. Vodka spikes my taste buds. It’s refreshing. Nourishing. I guzzle half my tall drink and close my eyes, the cool glass, wet and full, giving my hand something to focus on. As I swallow, I’m aware of Silas’s eyes on me. I know that if I open mine, we’ll lock on each other.

So I don’t.

Because I need something that is all me right now.

“You know about what happened to Lindsay Bosworth almost five years ago,” I start.

“Yes. You told me.”

Silas’s head turns sharply in my direction. “You did?” he asks.

Alice waves him away. “Go on.”

“And I told you that it was an accident that I was there. That I found her. I needed to pee and ran back into the house while our other friends took off.”

“Yes.”

“After the police and ambulance came and took Lindsay to the hospital, my mother arrived. Took me home. None of our friends ever reached out. Not one. As soon as Lindsay was stabilized, I asked to see her in the hospital. Her dad agreed but her mother fought it. Was suspicious I had something to do with it.”

“I remember,” Alice says kindly. “It always bothered you, how Monica Bosworth treated you.”

Silas is listening openly. He says nothing.

“When my mom told me the senator and his wife were putting Lindsay in a mental institution, I was so mad. I knew Lindsay. She wouldn’t want that. But I also knew from my mom that they were doing it to hide her. Shield her from the press. And it was an election year, so...”

“When votes are your only currency, you protect them,” Alice says in a cynical tone.

“Exactly.”

“Wasn’t she in that mental institution for four years?”

“Yes.”

“That’s brutal.” Disapproval bounces off Alice’s face like sunbeams on a prism, blinding and predictable but still catching me by surprise..

“Yes.”

“Not a single friend contacted her?”

I almost drop my lemonade. Alice is sharp. “I did.”

Silas stops breathing.

“I sent letters they censored. So then I found a way to reach her through the darknet. Someone at the Island helped her connect.”

“Who?” Alice asks.

“I don’t know. But then one day, I got a cryptic Snapchat. All it said was, ‘I can help you with Lindsay.’”

“What’s a Snapchat?”

“It’s a kind of social media. You take pictures and write captions, like Facebook, but then the picture and caption fade after a short time.”

“Like writing someone a note and setting it on fire after they read it?” Alice asks, incredulous and judgmental.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Sounds stupid.”

“It is.”

“And yet you use it?”

“Yes.”

“So some anonymous person reached out to offer help.”

“Exactly.”

“Did you take him up on it?”

“I did. For four years, I did.” After years of lying, the truth feels like shrapnel working its way out of my wounded heart.

“You were the informant,” Silas says, setting aside any doubt about whether he was listening in, breaking the false pretense that he’s just an observer.

“Of course I was. I’ve been open about it.” It’s a relief to be so direct. I blame Alice.

And the vodka in this delicious lemonade.

“But I wasn’t the only informant.”

Silas suddenly moves closer to me, enthralled.

“I tried to reach Lindsay however I could. She finally found a worker at that institution who she could pay off. Her parents didn’t allow her much spending money–or maybe it was her therapist. I don’t remember. But about once a month, she could get regular unmonitored internet access for fifteen or twenty minutes. And after a few times of telling her whatever she wanted to know, I got this phone call.”

“From?” Alice asks, sitting up, clearly relishing the story.

“Some guy.”

Silas snorts.

“I still don’t know his name,” I say pointedly. “But the information he gave me to tell Lindsay was interesting. And right.”

“What do you mean, right?” Silas asks sharply.

“This was someone in Senator Bosworth’s inner circle. Someone who knew the family really well, and who knew John, Blaine, and Stellan, too.”

“You believed his info?” Silas asks, clearly doubting my intellect.

“Everything he said turned out to be right.”

“Like what?”

“It was mostly about John, Stellan, and Blaine. Lindsay was obsessed with revenge. Sometimes I’d try to tell her about their meteoric rise in their respective fields, but she never cared. Would cut me off, and instead ask where they lived, how the district attorney was using the evidence against them–”

“But no one charged anyone with a crime. That was the frustrating part,” Silas says, confused.

“I know. It was weird. Until I remembered how drugged they kept her at the Island.”

Silas’s face changes, a look of understanding replacing his confusion.

“Right. But who drugged her? Why did her parents let that happen?” Alice asks.

A slow, pleasant sense of being grounded infuses me. We’re talking about horrific events, but doing it in a really normal way. Silas is asking me questions, Alice is listening, and I’m telling my story.

My story.

I’m finally being treated like I’m not a pariah.

And oh, it feels so good.

“Who was this guy?” Silas asks, giving me some very skeptical side-eye.

I decide to take a big leap and trust him.

“I never knew his name, but remember yesterday? Right after someone bombed my car?”

“He was there?”

“No. But the radio show you forced me to listen to? The one about me? He was one of the people interviewed.”

“Jesus.” Silas leans against a small end table, blinking furiously, staring right at a smaller painting of me, clearly deep in his thoughts. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

I let my eyebrows rise and give him his skeptical look right back. “Why should I? Yesterday you weren’t exactly friendly.”

“And he is now? Jane, if you think this is friendly, we need to teach you the basics of psychology,” Alice cracks.

“Says the woman who greeted us with a rifle,” Silas says dryly.

“He’s starting to grow on me,” Alice says.

Me, too.

“I don’t need to be friendly for you to tell me mission-critical information,” Silas grouses.

“You’re a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Alice turns to him, stretching one arm over the back of the couch, giving him a regal look that could peel paint. “Who are you to demand more loyalty from Jane than she is receiving?”

“What?” Silas narrows his eyes and gives Alice an intimidating look.

It doesn’t work.

“You people have spent months convinced that Jane colluded with those depraved, spineless, evil little fleshbags. All the committees searched for evidence against her and didn’t find it. You know how Washington works,” she said, turning back to me. “If someone hates Jane enough, they would have dug up concrete proof by now. I don’t doubt someone hates Jane, but they’re not powerful enough to lock her up.”

“Just because they didn’t find evidence of criminal activity doesn’t mean Jane is innocent,” Silas replies.

“Are you really that stupid, Silas? Of course it does,” Alice argues.

“Jane’s hiding information from everyone,” he barks back.”Like this new detail.”

“Someone out there knows damn well about Jane’s informant. You know that.”

He glowers but says nothing.

“People in Washington have elevated planting fake information to an art form. It’s never about the truth. It’s about propping up your reputation so you can gain more power. What power do you think Jane is seeking?”

Alice’s question makes Silas squirm and frown.

He looks at me then, jaw set and face filled with restrained anger. “You’ll need to give me a full explanation of the informant. Dates, locations, all the ways he contacted you.”

“I can provide that.”

“Has he ever tried to see you? Hurt you?” Those last two words come out urgent, worried.

“No.”

He nods, blinking hard, clearly glad to hear it. “Good. One less issue to worry about.”

Right. I’m just a client.

“Let her finish,” Alice says, showing him her hand. “Quit playing DC cowboy and rushing in to bring the cows home. Give her a say.”

Silas grabs his phone and starts typing, ignoring her.

Alice pats my knee. “Tell the rest.”

“The informant stopped shortly before Lindsay was sent home. I was so happy. I’d missed her, and wanted to be there for her. We were good friends and what happened to her–I’ve always felt guilty.”

Silas makes a huffing sound.

“Not because I was part of the group who hurt her.”

“Then why?” Alice asks gently.

“Because I’ll always wonder–if I hadn’t left with the rest of the gang to go out to eat, would Lindsay have been saved somehow? Could I have stopped it, or prevented it, or...” My voice starts to shake.

“No. Those men were determined to hurt her. You couldn’t have stopped them,” Alice gently reminds me.

“And even if you’d tried,” Silas cuts in, his voice thick with anger, “you might have just become another victim, like Lindsay.”

I shudder.

“I know. Everyone says that. Everyone–my mom said it, my therapist said it, even Lindsay said it, later. Before. Oh, you know.”

“Later or before? Pick one,” Silas says.

“Later and before,” I stress. “Later, as in after their first attack. And before, as in before the second one.”

He doesn’t say a word.

“You’ve lived more trauma in five years than most people live in a lifetime,” Alice says sympathetically.

“Lindsay’s lived through far more,” I reply.

“That doesn’t take away your pain. And Lindsay’s mother is still alive. Yours isn’t.”

Tears well in my eyes.

Silas watches me, clearly wanting to ask more questions but being respectful. It makes me appreciate him, being treated humanely again. His questions aren’t intrusive. In fact, the more questions he asks, the more he sees me as multi-faceted, not just an evil little bitch who betrayed her friend.

“The newspapers said she died in prison,” Alice prods. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.”

Silas moves suddenly, crossing the room and returning with a box of tissues. He’s a blur through my tears. I pull out a tissue and wipe my eyes, a pool of emotion poured onto my skin.

Coming here was a smart move. I need to fall apart. I’d prefer not to do it in front of Silas, but while I have a few hard-won choices, I can’t expect to be given full privacy.

Yet.

“Jane, how did she die? The papers said a heart attack,” Alice asks, but I can tell from her voice she’s not convinced.

“That’s what they say.” I frown. “She died of a broken heart, I think. To the end, she swore she didn’t betray anyone. Every action she took was designed to protect me. But there were strange marks on her neck.” I let the implications of my words soak in. I don’t need to say more.

“You don’t throw another woman to the wolves and then kill yourself,” Silas jumps in, overriding the emotion of the moment. “She handed Lindsay off to those assholes. That isn’t what innocent people do.”

“She didn’t know! She didn’t until the very last minute. And they threatened her life, too, when the helicopter came to The Grove.”

“Your mother told him that Mark Paulson was escorting Lindsay back to the Island!” Silas is mad. “She told the senator that, and meanwhile she was handing off Lindsay to her rapists!”

Alice interrupts. “She’s not telling you the story, Mr. Formal. She’s telling me. So shut up and sit there and look pretty and just listen.” Her hand touches mine. “Go on, Jane.”

“There isn’t much more to tell.”

Silas makes a dismissive sound.

“Mom was in jail, being held on all kinds of felony charges. She spent months in there. I was barely able to see her. Meanwhile, she was vilified in the press, worse than me, depending on the news article or the slant. At least she was in jail,” I said, my voice filled with bitterness. “That sounds so selfish, but she didn’t have to deal with the full blast of it all.”

“I should have reached out sooner,”Alice says, her voice full of self-recrimination.

“No. Really. I probably wouldn’t have answered. It’s been a crazy seven months. Yesterday’s message from you came at the perfect time, right after the car bomb.”

“I saw that in the news.” She glares at Silas. “What on earth are you bodyguards good for? They bombed her car right under your nose.” Shaking her head, Alice stops, reaches for her lemonade, and finishes the glass.

I’m warming up, getting loose. As I drink part of my second lemonade, I watch Silas out of the corner of my eye. His tongue is rolling in his cheek, jaw clenched.

He doesn’t answer Alice’s question.

“You can stay here,” she declares as the ice in her glass clinks the second she sets it on the small table in front of us. “Live with me until this all settles down.”

“I can what?” I ask.

“Absolutely not,” Silas says at the same time.

“Who are you to tell Jane where she can live?” Alice challenges.

“I’m the contact between her and the people trying to protect her. I do have that authority.”

“No,” I say. “You don’t. You only have control over what I do because I let you.”

“Excuse me?”

The thought of giving him actual control over me makes me breathless.

“I mean that I could fight you and your bosses a lot harder. So far I haven’t, because I don’t have alternatives. Senator Bosworth gives me money to live on. Someone in the government pays for hotels and food. Maybe it’s him. Maybe it’s someone else. I don’t know. I’m told not to ask questions. When I do, I’m ignored anyhow. I’m completely at your mercy.” I look up at him, defiant and terrified at the same time. “But I could say no.”

“You can,” he agrees, nodding somberly, looking me in the eye and then away, frowning. “You absolutely can.”

“It’s settled!” Alice claps once. “Jane will stay here.”

“For the weekend,” I protest.

“For as long as you like,” she responds with a grandmotherly smile that makes me want to cry again. “Besides,” she whispers in a stage voice designed to let Silas hear. “The Secret Service hates me. I love pissing them off. You’re giving an old woman some great entertainment!”

Silas rolls his eyes.

“She’s not wrong,” he mutters.

“And,” Alice adds slyly, “you need to pose for me. I’ve been in an awful painting slump, and I’m not getting any younger.”

“Pose?”

“She can’t pose,” Silas says firmly.

“Why not?”

“If word got out, the media would go nuts. Former vice president’s daughter painting nudes of the current presidential candidate’s daughter’s turncoat friend?”

Ouch.