by HELEN HARDT
As far as I knew, the mother of Dale and Donny Robertson still hadn’t been found. At least they were out of the hellhole they’d lived in for several months. Poor babies.
“Enough to make me question why you wanted to lure his children there. Why, Theo?”
“Because I knew it would draw someone else out, and I wanted to be done with this, once and for all.”
“You’re talking about Wendy,” I said. “She’s locked up. And you’ll still be put away for what you’ve done.”
“I told you I’d never see the inside of a prison cell, Ruby,” he said. “And I meant it.”
“Brad Steel told us you wanted out. You told me you wanted out.”
“I do. I will get out one way or the other.”
“Why now?”
“I’m old and tired,” he said, “but there’s something I have to do first. And I need your help.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Ryan
“Why in hell are you even asking me that? She’s a lunatic. You know that as well as I do.”
“She’s still your mother.”
“Do you want a relationship with her?”
“What I want has never mattered to her. Until she leaves this earth—or I do—our lives are intertwined. She’s seen to that.”
“She won’t entangle me in her web,” I said. “You can count on that.”
“Let’s get back to the subject at hand,” Joe said. “Like how the fuck you ended up on some rock in the Caribbean in a replica of this damned house.”
“You know that your mother got pregnant with Marjorie, and of course Wendy found out. She knew I valued my children more than anything, so the best way for her to get to me was to hurt one of them.”
“Larry always said that Talon wasn’t meant to be taken.”
“He wasn’t. Not permanently, anyway. They knew friends and family members were hands off.”
I wondered for a moment about Ruby and her cousin Gina, but didn’t want to sidetrack the discussion. That had happened much later, anyway.
“Wendy came to me and confronted me about your mother’s pregnancy. Then she demanded another payment for me breaking my vow. Five million dollars.”
“That’s the withdrawal that Jade found,” Joe said. “Wendy told us it was a payment for giving up her son. Though that didn’t make sense, since Ryan was already seven at the time.”
“No. I’d already paid her handsomely to give Ryan up. This was another payment, and again she threatened to take the documents linking me to the trafficking ring public. I felt I had no choice. Then she did the most heinous of things.”
“Really? Something more heinous than having a young boy tortured?” I said.
“Not more heinous than that, but she made it very clear to me that she paid Mathias and Simpson off with that five million. She paid them with my own money to take my son!” He clenched his hands into fists. “Wendy would have been satisfied to hurt either one of you, but Talon was younger and easier prey. She paid Mathias and Simpson to take him and… Well, you all know what happened. I don’t want to repeat it.”
“No.” This time, Talon stood. “I’ll say it for you. Don’t think you shouldn’t have to hear what those bastards did to me. They starved me, beat me, raped me, inflicted such pain on me that I couldn’t have ever imagined. They told me I was worthless. An animal. They made me beg for food, for a blanket. They taunted me with ice water when I was so thirsty I couldn’t even make tears. They made me say that I liked being raped…that I liked their big cocks up my ass.”
Our father closed his eyes, cringing.
“A ten-year-old boy! Your son! I cried out for you that first time. I cried out for Mother. No one listened. No one came. My twisted half uncle finally let me go. He did more for me than you did.”
My father’s head sank into his hands.
“Easy, Tal,” I said.
“Oh, hell, no,” Joe said. “Our father needs to hear this.”
I looked to Marjorie, who was about to burst into tears. “I don’t disagree. But she doesn’t.”
Marjorie choked back sobs. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Joe and Talon both shifted their gazes to our little sister.
“God. You’re right. I’m sorry, Marj,” Joe said.
“Yeah, me too.” Talon sat back down.
She nodded. “I know. I’m okay.”
“And I know I was spared because I was Wendy’s son.” Acid burned my tongue. “Let’s get on with it.”
Our father lifted his head and nodded. “Daphne was pregnant, and due to the added stress of Talon’s kidnapping, she went into premature labor. You all know that Marjorie wasn’t expected to live. But our baby girl did.”
“And I came home to a new sister,” Talon said. This time he had a soft smile on his face. “A beautiful baby doll. The only thing that convinced me there was some good left in the world.”
Marj smiled through her tears.
“But Daphne was never the same after that. She did her best, but dealing with a newborn out of the NICU and then with a child who’d been through hell… She loved you both very much, but it was too much for her. She began to fade away, until the mother you knew and loved was no longer there. She couldn’t touch any of you anymore.”
“Why didn’t you get her help?” Talon asked.
“I did, of course. But then someone else got involved.”
“Let me guess,” I said sardonically. “My mother.” This had Wendy Madigan written all over it.
My father nodded. “She began to threaten your mother, and in her already precarious mental state, I couldn’t have that. After what had happened to Talon, I knew Wendy was capable of anything. The best way to deal with it was to fake your mother’s suicide. Even Wendy never knew.”
I couldn’t find fault with my father’s words. If Wendy had known Daphne was alive, she would have told me. No one knew. Not until we found her on the island.
“All this time, you were the only one who knew she was alive?” I said.
“Yes. Until now.”
“Do you think Mother is safe where she is?” Marj asked.
“As long as Wendy’s locked up in psych, yes.”
“You stayed with us then,” Marj said. “Why did you eventually leave us?”
“I stayed until you were of age, baby girl. That was the promise I made to you the day you were born, and I fulfilled it. After that, I knew your brothers would take care of you, and I needed to go to your mother.”
“Does she know you?”
“On her good days, she does. I visited her often before I left here. She was in a private compound in Florida.”
“How did she end up in a replica of our house on that godforsaken island?” Talon asked.
“Another long story.” He sighed. “By the time you all were adults, your mother had made a bit of progress—she remembered the three of you that she had borne, though she was convinced you were still young—and she kept asking to ‘go home.’ I couldn’t actually bring her here, because everyone thought she was dead. Plus, I couldn’t risk Wendy finding her. Wendy had uncovered almost everything about me, so I had to use kid gloves where your mother was concerned. So I did the next best thing. When I ‘died,’ I knew I couldn’t move assets around because you kids would go looking. So instead, I took the money earmarked for my bequest to the Fleming Corporation and used it to construct the replica. It calmed your mother to be ‘home,’ but sometimes she still needed an escape from the sensory disruption. So I built the guesthouse.”
“The muted white,” I said, more to myself than to my father.
“Yes. Sometimes your mo— Daphne needs to be free from all stimulation, so I’d take her there.”
“Why that island?” I asked. “Adjacent to that awful place.”
He cleared his throat. “Because I own it.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Ruby
“If you think I’m helping you do anything, think again.”
> “You’ll help me with this,” he said, his tone low, and…was that a touch of remorse?
I must have been imagining it.
“What makes you think I will?”
“Because I’m going to find Gina.”
Franticness clawed at my gut. “Gina? After what you did to her?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Good thing.”
“I can say only this. I was desperate.”
“Desperate enough to rape your niece for years?”
“Yes. I know this doesn’t make sense to you.”
“This wouldn’t make sense to anyone, Theo.”
“I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m still not, but I’m not where I was. Things were…done to me. Things you wouldn’t understand.”
He had no idea that Brad Steel had told us about the training the three of them had endured. Still, I didn’t buy this remorseful act. I knew better than to believe his bullshit. But he knew how to get to me. No way would I say no to finding Gina.
“How could you let them have your own niece?”
“We were short. We had a contract to fulfill.”
“God. Do you even listen to yourself?”
“Ruby…”
“Really, Theo. You didn’t have to ‘groom’ her by raping her for eight years. You could have just taken her when you needed her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You got that right. None of this is simple. It’s sick and twisted.”
“I was messed up.”
I scoffed. “You think?”
“There are things you don’t know, that you wouldn’t understand.”
“I know the whole story, Theo. You were tortured and raped for money, to learn how to do it to others. One thing was different. You consented to that vileness.”
“Actually…I didn’t. None of us did.”
A brick dropped into my stomach. I said nothing.
“Wendy blackmailed us. All three of us.”
I stayed silent a few more seconds until I snapped myself out of my stupor. “What the hell could she have had on you? You hadn’t even gotten into anything that bad yet.”
“Wendy always had the upper hand. I tried to figure her out over the years. I never could. She was always one step ahead of us.”
“What was her failsafe?” I asked, not sure that I actually wanted to know.
“Documents, mostly. They linked us to some bad shit. More than just narcotics dealing.”
“Were they forged?”
“Most likely some of them were.” He paused for a minute. Then, “She dropped bits of information into the laps of her fellow journalists. They’d come after us, and then they’d hit a dead end. Sometimes they got pretty close, and we had to sweat it out. It was enough that she could keep us doing what we were doing.”
“She had that kind of power?” I said the words, but I knew the fallacy within them. She did have that kind of power. I’d seen it.
“Finally, she found out about you, Ruby.”
“So what?”
“She threatened you. That was enough to keep me in line.”
“Please spare me your father’s pride,” I said, trying to keep from gagging.
But he didn’t elaborate. “Ruby, listen to me. If you help me find Gina, I’ll make it worth your while.”
I would already do anything to help Gina. He didn’t have to bribe me. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “You don’t have anything I want.”
“You’re wrong about that. I can take you to your mother.”
* * *
I sat immobile for what seemed like hours after the call from my father. I hadn’t looked for my mother. Never. I’d been told she was dead when the authorities took me and made me a ward of the state. Then, when they found my father, I’d gone to him. That had lasted about six months before he tried to rape me and I escaped at age fifteen.
He’d told me recently that my mother had voluntarily given me up because she couldn’t take care of me. I’d thought he was lying.
He still might be.
But if there was a chance…
If my mother was alive, I had to find her.
My phone buzzed. My contact at the FBI.
“Hey, Finley,” I said. “What’s the good news?”
“Hey, Lee. Mostly good,” he said. “We’ve found the parents of all the missing children except for young Dale and Don Robertson.”
My heart sank. “Oh?”
“I guess I should rephrase that. We did find their mother. We found the remains of a woman near Estes Park. Gunshot wound to the head. No weapon found. She’s been identified as Cheri Robertson, the boys’ mother.”
As a cop, I was used to getting bad news. But those poor little boys… Tears welled in my eyes, but I choked them back. I needed to find out more. “So what now?”
“The local police are treating it as a homicide for now, but it looks more to me like a suicide. Just a hunch, though, because no weapon has been found yet.”
Finley had been in the business a long time. His hunches were usually correct.
“The boys are staying with their great-aunt, but she’s elderly and can’t take them permanently. We’ll begin looking for alternate arrangements.”
Alternate arrangements…
Two boys with mental health issues, ages seven and ten… The outcome wouldn’t be good. Alternate arrangements would be a group home. Adoption was almost unheard of for children past toddler age. And children who would need years of therapy to deal with the trauma they’d experienced? Not likely. Even if one found a home, it was unlikely the brothers could stay together. And they needed each other.
I bit on my lip. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I wish I had better news, Lee. I do. I know how much you care for the two boys.”
“Yeah.” I sniffed. “Thanks for the update, Fin.”
“You got it. I’ll be in touch.”
I was supposed to meet my father the next morning. Right now, I had to drive over to Talon’s and tell the Steels the news about Dale and Donny. They would want to know. Maybe they could pull some strings somewhere, or at least throw some money at a home to make it a better place for them. I didn’t relish telling them this.
Those poor boys had lost their mother after everything else they’d been through.
Swallowing back the sobs that threatened to overtake me, I began driving.
Chapter Forty-Five
Ryan
“Say what?” I said incredulously.
“I own the island.”
“The one where all that horror took place?” I shook my head.
My brothers said nothing, but their faces said it all. They were numb with shock.
“No. That one is owned by the Fleming Corporation. I own its sister island.”
“How in the hell did that ever happen?” I asked.
“Your grandfather bought the two islands from a private landowner before I was born. It was cheap land back then, and your grandfather believed real estate was the safest and best investment. After all, it was limited. He had an idea to build a lavish Caribbean resort someday, but that day never came. The ranch took all of his time, and between production here and other more lucrative investments, he was close to becoming a billionaire, so the islands fell onto the back burner. After his death, I decided to get rid of them.”
“So you sold one to the Fleming Corporation?”
“I did. That was before I knew the extent of what they were doing. I didn’t see the value your grandfather had seen in real property. I saw only a big expense. Do you know the kind of money it would take to build a resort of that magnitude?”
“Probably around the same amount it took to build a replica of this house behind concrete walls,” Joe said, rolling his eyes.
My father ignored the sarcasm. “Much more, actually.”
“So Wade, Mathias, and Simpson owned the island.”
“They did. Until they
sold it to the company they worked for. And even I don’t know who owns it now. But I kept the other one. When it came time for me to ‘die’ and move your mother ‘home,’ I used the other island to accomplish that goal.”
Joe shook his head. “Crazy. You can’t make this shit up.”
“Why don’t those islands appear on our list of assets, then?” Talon asked. Finally, the voice of reason.
“They’re owned by a special trust, for which I am the beneficiary. I set it up after your mother’s ‘death’ to make sure she was taken care of. Of course I couldn’t let anyone know it existed.”
“The Steel Family Trust,” I said. “We found it. You bought the Shane ranch and transferred it to the Steel Family Trust. You have loyal attorneys. They wouldn’t budge an inch.”
“They’re well paid,” my father said.
“How did you keep all of this from Wendy?” I asked.
“After so many years of dealing with her, I learned how to stay one step ahead of her. She can be manipulated. As you said, Ryan, you and I are her Achilles’ heels.”
“She told you to keep Anna away from me. I found the note in with your papers.”
“That shouldn’t have been in there.”
“Well, it was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They took Anna. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“Of course not! I bought their farm and later set them up to relocate to Hawaii.”
“Somehow they got hold of Anna.”
“That must have been your mother’s doing. If she wanted Anna away from you, that would have been one way of getting rid of her.”
My throat burned. So much evil, and a big part of it was sitting across from me behind that fucking desk, looking so high and mighty. The great Bradford Steel.
“You never stopped dealing with Wendy, though,” Joe said through clenched teeth. “She’s the one who identified your body when you ‘died.’”
“Yes. I needed her help with that.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? I couldn’t have one of you identify me, because I wasn’t dead. I couldn’t pay off a doctor or nurse at the hospital and risk a paper trail. She was my only option.”