by HELEN HARDT
* * *
Jonah was late getting back from the pastures. I couldn’t call him because I had his phone. So I decided to call Dolores at his office.
“Steel Acres.”
“Hi, Dolores. This is Melanie Carmichael. Is Jonah still in the office?”
“Jonah hasn’t been in this morning,” the secretary said. “I just assumed he went straight out to the pastures.”
My heart nearly stopped. “You mean he didn’t go in this morning and ask you to make some copies of some old yearbooks?”
“No, Melanie. Sorry.”
My skin prickled, and my pulse raced. What was going on?
“So you haven’t seen him at all today?”
“No, I haven’t. Is anything wrong?”
I didn’t want to worry her. “Everything’s fine. Thank you.” I ended the call.
Now what? I bit my lip, drawing blood. Where was he? I paced around the house, Lucy following my heels.
Maybe he hadn’t gone into the office after all and had just been delayed out in the pastures. That would make sense. What didn’t make sense, though, was how he had forgotten his phone. That was so unlike him.
I looked around, finding nothing more in the kitchen and bedroom. I walked into the other wing of the house, to Jonah’s study. I gasped.
On his desk sat the four yearbooks.
There was no way he would’ve forgotten both the phone and the yearbooks.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
My adrenaline surging, I flipped on his printer and copier and quickly went through each yearbook, making the copies we needed.
Then I let the fear take me. My heart pounded and my nerves bristled. Nausea crept up my throat. Someone had Jonah. He wouldn’t leave without a trace unless someone had taken him.
Blood rushed to my head, and I was caught in a haze of white noise.
No!
I had to do something. The police. I’d call the police.
I quickly made a call to 9-1-1 and alerted the authorities that Jonah was missing. What next?
I let out a breath and rubbed my shivering arms.
I would have to call Talon. I just didn’t relish telling this man who had been through so much already that his big brother was missing.
My phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up and recognized Mills’s number.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Doctor, this didn’t take long at all. We got a name for your number. Definitely an Iowa area code, as you know, but as far as we can tell, the person with the number never lived in Iowa.”
Right. The number of the person who’d been stalking Jonah. Of course. I willed myself to stay in control. “Okay.”
“The number is registered to a female in the name of Selena Winters.”
“Jonah has never mentioned anyone by that name. Why would she be stalking him by phone?”
“With a little more research, we found out that Selena Winters is an alias. The person who uses this number is a retired newswoman living in Denver. Her name is Wendy Madigan.”
The phone flipped from my hands. I quickly picked it up, my pulse racing. “I’m sorry. Wendy Madigan?”
“That’s right. She’s had this phone number for nearly ten years. But it doesn’t get used very often.”
“Can you get her phone records?”
“Yes, ma’am. Working on it.”
“Great. Call me when you have something.” I hung up quickly.
Oh God oh God oh God.
The text I’d read forced its way into my mind.
Now you are mine.
She had him. Wendy Madigan had my Jonah.
I quickly called Mills back.
“Yeah?”
“Melanie Carmichael again. I need you to drop everything. Jonah is missing, and it’s most likely that he’s with this Wendy Madigan. I’ve called the police, but I want you on this. All I know is that she lives in Denver with her mother, but we need to find her. Scratch that. I don’t give a damn about her. I just need to find Jonah.”
“We’ll get on it, Doctor.”
“I don’t care what it costs. Please. Find him.” I ended the call.
Now I definitely had to call Talon.
But I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Chapter Twenty–Eight
Jonah
I opened my eyes to pastel blurs.
Where the hell was I?
I had gotten up at five a.m., showered quickly, and was filling my travel cup full of coffee when…
My mind was blank after that.
I was in a bed. A king-size bed crammed into a small bedroom. I wasn’t tied down, so I sat up.
Whoa. Really woozy.
I moved my knees over the side of the bed and stood, but my knees wouldn’t hold me. I toppled over on the floor.
Someone came rushing in. “Goodness, my love, you shouldn’t be up yet.”
I strained my eyes, but the woman in front of me was a blur. She had short hair, maybe blue eyes.
“Lie back down, Brad. You’ll be feeling better soon.”
Brad? I opened my mouth to argue with her but only garbled noises emerged.
What the hell was going on?
“I’ll be bringing in your lunch soon,” the woman said. “Once you’re feeling better, we can talk. I’ve missed you so much, Brad.” She left the room, closing the door behind her.
Brad. That was my father’s name. My father whom I didn’t know anymore.
My mind seemed to be working fine. It was my body that was having trouble catching up. What happened? Was I dreaming? Did I have a stroke? Why wasn’t my body working?
Drugs.
Someone must’ve drugged me. I had been in my kitchen, getting ready to pour coffee…
I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying to remember anything beyond that moment.
Nothing came.
I patted the back pocket of my jeans for my phone.
It wasn’t there.
Damn. I never went anywhere without my phone. I had set it on the kitchen counter because I was in the middle of reading an e-mail when I went to fill my coffee cup…
It must still be there.
What time was it?
I was supposed to meet Melanie back at the house so we could drive to Denver…
I tried standing again, to no avail. I would have to wait until whatever I had been drugged with left my system.
Think, Joe, think. What could be going on? Who would be calling you Brad?
The door opened again, and the woman, still a blur, came in with a tray.
I said nothing. Just sat, squinting, trying to make out who it was.
And then I knew.
Brooke Bailey had never been stalking me.
The person stalking me, who was now talking to me as though I were my father, was none other than Wendy Madigan. She couldn’t have gotten me here by herself. Someone was helping her.
Was I in Denver? How much time had passed?
Wendy set the tray down on a TV tray and brought it to me. “I hope you’re hungry. I made my famous beef stew. I remember how much you used to love it.”
Should I play along? Not like I had much choice until I could work my body. Right now I was tingling all over. From nerves? Probably. But maybe also from whatever drug she’d given me wearing off. Hopefully.
She hadn’t bound me, thank God, but she was probably locking the door behind her while I was in here. But the room was sunny and had a window. I could easily get out of here.
What to do until then? Appease her? That would probably be the safest thing, but it wasn’t in me to do that without trying to get out first.
“You made a mistake,” I said. “I’m not Brad. I’m his son, Jonah. Brad was my father.”
“Always the same thing, Brad,” she said. “Always trying to deny what has always been between us. That’s why I brought you here. That’s why I’ve been texting you. It’s time that you finally surrendered to our love.”
<
br /> She was crazy. My skin compressed against my muscles, and I remembered the last time I had seen Wendy Madigan. She had said more than once how much I looked like my father, more so than Talon and Ryan did. That much was true, and I recalled the way she’d stared at me, to a point where I’d become uncomfortable.
Now she had clearly flipped her wig.
I tried not to worry about my fate. Melanie would notice I was gone, and she would go to Talon and Ryan. They would put Mills and Johnson on the case, and I would be found soon. Still, I needed to try to escape.
“I’m ovulating, Brad. I think we may finally get that baby we’ve been wishing for.”
Nausea crept up my throat. Ovulating? Wendy was in her sixties. Not only crazy but delusional as well. No way was this happening.
“Enjoy your stew. I’ll be back to check on you later.”
“Look, Wendy, you know I’m married. Daphne and I have four children.”
“Silly, you only have three. Three boys. You say you love Daphne, but I was always your first and only love. You told me so yourself.”
All right. No wonder she thought she was ovulating. She was stuck in the past, obviously before Marjorie had been born. I could work with that. “That was a long time ago. We were just kids.”
“Not that long ago. You know as well as I do that we were always meant for each other. I forgave you when you impregnated that slut Daphne.”
I chilled. The need to defend my mother rose up within me, but would that be the right attack?
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about Daphne that way,” I said. “She is, after all, the mother of my children.”
Wendy stiffened, picked up the bowl of stew on the tray, and hurled it against the wall. “I was always supposed to be the mother of your children. You know that as well as I do. You took that chance away from me.” She pointed to the mess she had made. “Now clean that shit up.” She walked out the door, slamming it, the lock turning.
I had no intention of cleaning up her mess. I wasn’t hungry anyway.
I walked to the door to examine the lock. It was a deadbolt, so picking it was out of the question, especially since I didn’t have any tools. I could turn this room upside down looking for something, but I’d check the window first. I walked toward it and looked out. I was on the second story of what appeared to be a house in a decent neighborhood. Was this the same house Talon and I had visited in Denver? I had no idea.
The window wasn’t locked, so I unlatched it and slid it open. However, instead of a screen, another pane of glass had been installed. Not a huge problem. I could break glass, and I could probably jump to safety, even though I was on the second story.
When I heard the lock being tinkered with on the door, I hurried back to the bed and sat down.
Wendy walked back in, locking the door behind her. She looked toward the mess she had made with the stew earlier, looked at me, and then back at the floor. “Brad, please forgive me. You know how I get sometimes.”
How many personalities did this woman have? I tried standing again, and my knees wobbled a little less this time. I managed to stay standing for a second until she walked toward me and pushed me back down on the bed.
“You shouldn’t be up. You need to rest. Just lie down while I clean up this mess. Again, I’m so sorry.” She walked out the door for a moment and then came back with some rags and a shop vac. She worked quickly, as if possessed by a manic streak, and within ten minutes, the mess was gone.
Now, instead of beef and carrots, the room smelled like beef, carrots, and carpet shampoo. Great.
She slid the shop vac outside the door and then returned. “I’m so sorry, Brad. Please forgive me.”
I was at a loss. How should I approach this? Obviously, I should approach it as my father would have, but it had become increasingly clear to me that I didn’t know my father at all. How would he have acted?
Like the domineering man he had been. He had been a kind father, but he had been strict, teaching us responsibility and the value of hard work. He had been a sexist, to Marj’s chagrin, believing a woman’s place was in the home and not out on the ranch. I smiled. Marj had set him straight on that. Once she’d stood up to him, he had spoiled her rotten.
How would he have treated Wendy?
I had no fucking idea.
I knew one thing, though. He wouldn’t have put up with her little tantrum and throwing food.
I looked at her with all the anger I could muster…and I had a lot of it pouring through me at the moment. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, Wendy, I will walk out of here and never come back.”
She fell at my knees, sobbing into them. “Brad, please don’t leave me. You know we were meant to be together. You can’t deny it. You don’t love Daphne the way you love me. You know you don’t.”
Would I get further with her if I pacified her, told her I loved her? Or would I get further if I defended my mother? If only I knew what my father had done.
According to what Wendy had told Jade, Wendy and my father had been in love and had engaged in an affair while he was alive. Was that true? Or was it part of Wendy’s delusion?
She had been instrumental in covering up what had happened to Talon, and I still didn’t understand why my father had swept it all under the rug.
Maybe I could find out…
“I’m sorry, Wendy,” I said, “but I can never forgive you for your part in what happened to my son.”
Chapter Twenty–Nine
Melanie
I sat in Jonah’s kitchen with his brothers.
“Joe tried to tell me,” Talon said. “He thought something was off about Wendy Madigan, but I kind of brushed it off. She had been a huge help to Jade, and Jade spoke highly of her.” He shook his head. “I should have listened to my big brother.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Tal,” Ryan said.
“Yes, don’t,” I agreed. “Right now we have to find Jonah.” I sank my head into my hands.
Talon touched my shoulder. “Doc, it’s going to be okay.”
I let out a sigh. If only… I was in a position right now that I was never supposed to be in. Not only was the man I loved missing, probably taken by a woman who was clearly mad, but someone had to tell Talon what Jonah and I had learned from the yearbooks. That was never supposed to be me, but right now, I didn’t have a choice.
“We’ll get through this, Tal,” Ryan said gently.
He shook his head. “I still can’t get over it. One of those motherfuckers was here the whole time, and I didn’t know it. The fucking mayor. He congratulated me on my heroics overseas, officiated at that stupid-ass ceremony they did for me in town. And all that time…”
“I’d like to tear his fucking head off,” Ryan said, tensing.
“I think we all would, Ryan,” I said.
“And the other one… I was right. Jade’s mother’s boyfriend.” He shook his head again. “I was actually right.”
“You were,” I said.
“Funny,” he said. “It doesn’t feel good to be right.”
“Of course it doesn’t. It doesn’t change what happened to you. I always told you that your healing didn’t depend on finding those three.” I rubbed at my forehead. Now wasn’t the time for a therapy session. “But there is a silver lining to this cloud. We know who we’re looking for now. And they can’t hide forever.”
Talon stood, his eyelids heavy. “I don’t even care anymore, Doc. I just want my big brother back.”
So did I. Tears emerged at the corners of my eyes. I sniffled. “I’m worried and scared, just like you two. But we need to take solace in the fact that if Wendy has him, she probably won’t hurt him. After all, she was in love with your father.”
As I said the word “father,” my heart sank. The next step was to show Talon and Ryan the yearbooks—and the connection between Rodney Cates, Wendy, the three abductors…and Bradford Steel.
I doubted they’d take it any better than Jonah had.
>
I inhaled a deep breath.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
* * *
After half an hour of telling the story and looking at Talon’s and Ryan’s mouths wide open, we were all ready for a drink. Ryan played bartender at Jonah’s bar, mixing up a bourbon for Talon, a martini for me, and then, in a surprise twist, a bourbon for himself.
“I thought you were a wine guy,” I said.
“Today screams for something stronger,” he replied, taking a sip of his bourbon and then clenching his jaw. “We need to get out of here. We should be out looking for Joe. He’d be doing that for us.”
“True,” Talon said, standing.
I hadn’t been able to shake the nausea I’d been experiencing since I realized Jonah was gone. I’d thought a drink might be a good idea, but I couldn’t choke any of it down. “The police are on it. So are Mills and Johnson. There’s nothing more we can do.”
“The hell there’s not,” Ryan said, downing his bourbon like a shot. “Let’s go, Tal.”
“If you two are going, I’m going with you,” I said.
Talon turned to me, handing me the yearbooks. “You stay here, Doc. Joe would never forgive us if we put you in harm’s way.” He checked his watch. “Jade should be home from work soon. I’m going to text her and tell her to come stay with you. I don’t want you to be alone.”
“You’re crazy.” My blood was rushing through my veins. I could almost hear the whoosh. “I’m not staying here.”
“Please,” Ryan said. “Stay here. We need to know you’re safe. For Joe.”
For Joe.
They knew the words that would get to me. I would do anything for their brother. Finally, I relented. I would stay, but I elicited a promise that they would text me every half hour. I didn’t need to be worrying about them, as well.
“Why hasn’t Mills called? Or the police?” I pulled at my hair.
“Jonah’s strong, Doc,” Ryan said. “He’ll be all right.”
“I can’t lose him now. I just can’t. I don’t know how I’ll go on.”
“If Wendy loved our dad the way she said she did, she won’t hurt one of his kids,” Ryan said.
