by HELEN HARDT
Was I in a hotel room?
The man in black sat at a desk, writing something. I closed my eyes. Perhaps it was best to feign sleep. I kept my eyes slitted open enough to see what was going on through my eyelashes.
The man finished what he was writing, stood, and left the room.
I stayed still. What if someone else was here? I had no idea where I was. I didn’t even know if this was a hotel room. It could be a room in someone’s house for all I knew.
I had no watch, and I didn’t have my phone. No clock sat on the nightstand. Was it still dark outside? I looked around the room.
No windows. The light-blue walls were eerily bare. I was in a room specifically designed to keep me in.
I shuddered.
Talon had been kept in a room like this, only he hadn’t had the luxury of a bed to sleep on, and his walls were dark concrete, not light blue. Walls that caved in on him…
Like these walls were doing now.
Why had I decided to succumb? That wasn’t like me. My mind raced. I had to get out of here.
I stood.
Big mistake. My knees buckled beneath me, and I ended up on the floor. Whatever he had drugged me with was clearly still in my system.
I had to go to the bathroom, so I stood again, more carefully this time. A small door near the front of the room opened to a toilet and sink. And again I thought of Talon. He’d had only a bucket to use…
I quickly took care of my needs and then went back to the bed and sat, still dizzy, trying to figure things out. After a few minutes, I got up and walked around the room, holding on to the wall for support, looking for something, anything, to give me a clue of where I was and how I could get out of here.
I jerked when the doorknob moved.
The black-masked man opened the door and came in, shutting and locking it behind him. “Dr. Carmichael, I see you’re up.”
I turned and stared. I said nothing.
“I’m afraid you’ll be here for a little while. I hope you find these accommodations comfortable.”
“I’m sure you really don’t care about my comfort,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to ask me who I am? Why you’re here? I figure a shrink like you would be full of questions.”
“I don’t see the purpose of that. You won’t tell me the truth anyway.”
He guffawed. “You are a sharp one. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m hungry,” I said. It wasn’t true, but I figured if I could get him to leave to get food, I could continue my investigation, once my head was a little clearer.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said.
“Your tone doesn’t really indicate sorrow.”
“All right. I don’t give a shit if you’re hungry. There, does that make you feel better?”
“So your plan is to starve me to death?”
“No, you’ll be fine. But you can’t eat for a few more hours. If I gave you food now, you’d just upchuck. You know how these drugs work. You’re a doctor.”
I had no idea what he had given me, and I wasn’t hungry anyway. So I’d cooperate, wait this out, figure out what was going on.
Because I had changed my mind.
I would get out of this mess. I would get out of this mess, and I would apologize to Jonah for leaving him high and dry earlier today. Or was it yesterday? I had no idea.
Somehow, I would get back to him.
And I would tell him that I had fallen in love with him.
Chapter Thirty–Three
Jonah
Wendy Madigan opened her door. She had aged a few years, but she was still the nice-looking woman I remembered from long ago. Her hair was short now, but her blue eyes still sparkled.
She said nothing for a few moments.
“Wendy?” I said.
She shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…you both look so much like him. Especially you.” She nodded to me.
“Like who?” Talon asked. “Our father? I’m Talon, by the way.”
“Yes. I recognize you. Come on in.” She held the door open, led us to a living room, and gestured for us to sit on a silver brocade couch. “Can I get you anything? I made a pot of coffee.”
“How about a bourbon?” Talon said.
She laughed out loud. “That’s what your father would’ve said.”
Had our father been a bourbon drinker? He’d rarely drunk alcohol. I looked over at Talon. The inquisitive look on his face told me he hadn’t known that either.
“I’m not sure I ever saw my father take a drink,” I said to Wendy.
“Really? He did enjoy a good bourbon. I know it’s early, but if you want to drink, I do have some good stuff.”
“Yes, ma’am, if you don’t mind,” Talon said. “I know this is going to be a rough conversation.”
“What about you, Jonah? You’re Jonah, right?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You are the spitting image of Brad. It’s almost scary.”
I cleared my throat. “People have told me that before.”
She looked to Talon. “Not that you don’t look like him as well. But wow.” She stared at me again.
I squirmed, getting uncomfortable. I had been told before that I bore a striking resemblance to my father, even more so than Talon and Ryan. Why it was making me uncomfortable, I couldn’t say. Maybe it was the way she was looking at me, kind of in a wistful yet lustful way. I didn’t like it.
“What can I get you, Jonah?” she said. “You want a drink too?”
I shook my head. “Coffee for me. For now, anyway.” I wanted to keep my head. I was a little worried about Melanie. She hadn’t answered my call last night or this morning.
Maybe that was her way of telling me to fuck off. Maybe that’s why she had left yesterday so abruptly. Maybe she just couldn’t deal with—well, whatever this was between us.
Fine. I would learn to get along without her. Hell, we’d only known each other a few weeks.
Wendy went to the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with a bourbon for Talon and a cup of coffee for me.
“Aren’t you having anything?” I asked.
“Yeah. A stiff scotch. I’ll be back.”
Stiff scotch? She must have some interesting news to tell us.
I had met Wendy Madigan years ago, when I was a kid. She came around every once in a while, when she was in town. Evidently she had grown up somewhere near Snow Creek and had gone to high school with my father. In fact, rumor had it that they had been an item before he met my mother—a rumor that Jade had substantiated after her talks with Wendy. I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around that one.
I hadn’t seen Wendy in years, though. Even when she arranged the cover-up of Talon’s homecoming and heroism when he’d returned from Iraq several years ago, she hadn’t been in town. She had handled it from her base in Denver.
I imagined it had come as kind of a shock to her to see me now, my gray hair starting to sprout at the temples and in my beard. I did look a lot like my father.
She returned with her drink and sat down. “I don’t know where to begin.”
I took a sip of my coffee. This was Talon’s call. I would let him take the lead.
He took a drink of his bourbon and set the glass back down on the coffee table on the coaster she’d provided. “Let me tell you what we know so far.” Talon related what we had learned from Larry Wade—that he had helped Talon escape, that Larry was beaten to a pulp by the other two—or so he said—for allowing Talon to escape, and that he was also being held for the murder of Colin Morse, for which he was still proclaiming his innocence.
“He’s also claiming he never got paid off by my father to leave the state. But we have a five-million-dollar transfer on my father’s accounts that coincides with the abduction. We figure that went to Larry. Can you tell us if that’s true?”
“I’m sorry.” She stroked her cheek with her index finger. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Ja
de. I don’t know anything about a five-million-dollar transfer twenty-five years ago.”
Jade had believed her. But I wasn’t sure whether I believed her.
“All right,” Talon said. “I’ll accept that for now. But Jade also told me that you have information for me. Information you promised my father and mother you would only reveal to me when the time was right. The time is right, Wendy.”
She took another long sip of her scotch and sighed. “It was all such a long time ago, Talon. You really want to go back there?”
“Look,” Talon said. “We’ve already caught one of these guys, and I have an idea who another one of them might be. He’s still at large, and we have no idea where he is. I need to know everything that you know.”
“I wasn’t lying to Jade. I don’t know who the other two are.”
“The only reason we know one was Larry was because he supposedly helped me escape,” Talon said. “How did Mom and Dad find out it was him?”
“It’s a long story,” she said. “How much time do you two have?”
“As much fucking time as it takes,” I said, looking into her tired blue eyes. “We have as much time as it takes, Wendy.”
She sighed. “It started with Larry’s father. Your grandfather. Supposedly Larry was consumed with guilt. I’m not sure if that was the case. I’m not sure psychopaths ever feel guilt. But that was his story. He went to your grandfather and confessed what had happened. He said he couldn’t live with himself, that he had to tell someone, and that his father was the only one he trusted. Well, your grandfather had a few faults. If he hadn’t, Larry might have turned out differently. But for the most part, he was a decent human being. So he did what any decent human being would do. He told Brad and Daphne.”
“So his father sold him out,” Talon said.
“I suppose so. But what would you have done? You were his grandson, Talon, and Daphne was his daughter. Yes, he had to forsake one child for another. I never had children myself, but I can’t imagine how hard the decision was for your grandfather. He loved Larry, but he also loved your mother and you.”
“Jade said Larry was raised by his mother.”
Wendy nodded. “That’s true.”
“Do you know anything about her?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t, other than her name. Lisa Baines Wade. That’s all I know.”
I remembered the name from Larry’s birth certificate that Jade had uncovered. “Did she have any mental ailments?” I asked.
“Like I said,” Wendy said. “I really don’t know much about her.”
I wasn’t buying this. Wendy Madigan was a newswoman. Surely she had looked into this back in the day. I wasn’t ready to call her on that, though. I had to talk to Talon in private first.
“All right,” Talon said. “So my grandfather told my mother and father about what Larry had done. Then what happened?”
“Then it happened exactly as I told Jade. They threatened to have Larry arrested, but before that happened, he ended up in the hospital, presumably beaten by the two other men. At that point, when they realized the danger he was in, they agreed to let him go.”
“That’s what we don’t understand,” I said. “Why would my mother and father have let that happen? My father was a decent, honorable man. He wasn’t one to give criminals the benefit of the doubt, especially when the victim was his own son.”
“It was your mother,” Wendy said. “He did it for Daphne.”
“Why would he do that for my mother? And why would my mother have wanted him to?”
“Because she loved her father, and because her father loved Larry.”
I shook my head. “None of this is making any sense. My father could’ve just told my mother how it was going to be, that Larry was going to prison. That’s the kind of man my father was. He was domineering and controlling.”
“He couldn’t do that. Your mother would not have taken it well.” Wendy sighed and set her glass of scotch on the coffee table. “You do know, don’t you, that your mother was mentally ill?”
Jade had said as much, but she also said that my mother had never been diagnosed with anything. I had been fifteen when my mother took her own life and Talon only twelve. We remembered her as children remember their mother—as a loving, protective woman. Mentally ill? I didn’t know. But her half-brother certainly was. Maybe mental illness ran in the family.
“Jade said she was never diagnosed with any mental illness.”
“Not that I know of, no,” Wendy said. “Your father tried to get her help on several occasions, but she always said no.”
Something was wrong with this story. Something big. Talon and I needed to do some investigation on our own and then talk to Wendy again. She hadn’t told us anything we didn’t already know, except that Larry had confided in his father and that was how our parents found out.
“Wendy,” Talon said, “Jade said there were things you promised only to reveal to me. I need you to reveal those things now.”
She sighed. “Are you sure?”
Talon leaned forward, his dark eyes brooding. “Joe and I drove most of the night to get here. And now we want the truth.”
Chapter Thirty–Four
Melanie
Gina Cates first walked into my office on a Friday afternoon. Fridays were tough all around, especially the afternoons. I was tired and ready for the weekend, and so was the patient. But this particular appointment had been my first time available when Gina called Randi to schedule, and Gina had been adamant about getting in as soon as possible.
She was a young and pretty girl, with dark—nearly black—hair cut in a shoulder-length bob, brown eyes, and olive skin. She was shy at first, and I had a difficult time getting her to talk at all. Finally, halfway through the session, she broke down in tears.
“I can’t do this.”
“You can,” I told her. “If you want to heal from whatever is troubling you, you can.”
“It’s too awful.”
“I know. And I’m so sorry about that. But we’ll go at the pace you’re comfortable with, and anytime you need to stop, you just tell me.”
She nodded and stood. “May I? I’m more comfortable standing.”
“Of course,” I said. “Some people are more comfortable sitting, some lying on the couch. If you’re comfortable standing, I want you to stand.”
She looked around my office, her gaze finally resting on the globe on my desk. She walked toward it and lightly touched its surface. “I’ve always wanted to travel,” she said.
“Where would you like to go?”
“Someplace warm, where life is easy. Maybe somewhere in the Caribbean, where I would have no worries.”
“You can’t run away from your problems, Gina.”
“He would wait until I was alone and vulnerable. That’s how he got close to me. For a while, he would just cuddle me in his lap, telling me how beautiful I was, how he wished he had a little girl just like me.”
“Did your uncle have any children of his own?”
“No. He wasn’t married.”
“How did it feel when you sat in his lap?”
Her lips curved up into a smile but then quickly reverted to the straight thin line I was used to seeing below her nose. “I don’t want you to think badly of me.”
“I would never think badly of you, Gina.”
“You want the truth, then?”
“Yes, I want the truth. The only way we can work through this and get to your healing is if you’re honest with me. I won’t be able to help you otherwise.”
She looked down, not meeting my gaze. “At first…I liked it. It made me feel…special.”
“Why did it make you feel special?”
“Someone was paying attention to me.”
“Hadn’t anyone paid attention to you before?”
She blew out a breath in a whistle, Gina’s version of a sigh. “I didn’t have any brothers and sisters, and I didn’t have very many friends. I was really
shy and never made friends easily. My mom and dad both worked. I think they were more interested in their college students than they were in me.”
“Did you ever sit in your mother’s lap? Or your father’s?”
“Very rarely. They weren’t very affectionate to me. Or to each other for that matter.”
My heart went out to the young girl. Children needed affection. If they didn’t get it from their parents, they would go looking for it elsewhere—sometimes a teacher, a friend’s parent, a coach. Gina had gone to her uncle.
“Some people just aren’t as affectionate as others,” I said. Not that I excused her parents’ lack of affection toward her. I wasn’t quite ready to voice that thought, though. We’d only had a few sessions.
“I know I must sound like a needy little kid,” Gina said, shaking her head.
“All children want affection,” I said. “There’s no reason for you to feel like you were any needier than anyone else.”
“I look back…” She closed her eyes, shuddering. “I can’t believe I actually liked it in the beginning.”
“Gina, you’re not alone. You’re not the first child yearning for affection who got taken advantage of by an adult you trusted. It’s more common than you know, and though I don’t expect that fact to offer you any solace, perhaps it will make you feel a little better just to know that you’re not alone.”
She opened her eyes, tears emerging. “I wish, Dr. Carmichael. I wish it did make me feel better.”
“Believe me, it’s okay that it doesn’t. So you said you liked sitting on your uncle’s lap at first.”
She nodded.
“What was his name? What did you call him?”
“I called him Tio.”
“Why did he want you to call him that?
“I don’t know.”
“It’s Spanish for uncle. Was your uncle Spanish?”
“No. He was my mother’s brother. They were both born here.”
“All right. What did you do while you sat in his lap?” I cringed inwardly, knowing what horrors might come tumbling out of her mouth.