by HELEN HARDT
I walked to my own bedroom, grabbed my phone, and pulled up my list of contacts.
Chapter Three
Bryce
I woke to my phone vibrating on the nightstand. Joe.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Come outside.”
I willed my brain to function. “Huh?”
“Come outside. Now.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.” He didn’t want to talk on the phone. I got it. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and pulled on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and my slippers.
I walked out of the bedroom to find my mom feeding Henry in the kitchen.
“Hey,” she said. “You were out late last night.”
“Yeah. Joe and I had a lot of business to discuss.” I kissed the top of my son’s head. “Hey, buddy.”
He gave me a sloppy smile, and I tousled his hair.
“Speaking of Joe, he’s outside. I’ll be back in a few.”
“Tell him to come in. I just put on a pot of coffee.”
I can’t. Someone might be listening. A shiver skittered across my arm. At least we’d be out of the house today. “He says he’s in a hurry, Mom. I won’t be long.” I walked out of the kitchen, through the small foyer, and out the door.
Joe stood across the street, next to his truck. He was dressed for work in jeans and cowboy boots. He even wore a black Stetson. I didn’t own a cowboy hat. Not that I needed one. It wasn’t a good look on me. At least I didn’t think it would be.
And why I was ruminating over Joe’s hat I had no idea. Anything to think about something other than what we were about to discuss.
Then a thought speared into my head. What if… What if Joe hadn’t come over to discuss Justin and the Morses? What if Marjorie had called him? What if he was going to kick my ass for breaking his little sister’s heart?
No matter. I deserved it.
I crossed the street. “Hey.”
“Hey. Sorry to freak you out this morning.”
Not Marjorie after all. I was relieved. A little.
“You didn’t. I just didn’t sleep well.” A lie. I’d slept fine—after making love to his sister. Marjorie seemed to be my anti-nightmare drug. I just hadn’t slept enough.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping great either. I hate keeping this from Melanie, but she’s in her third trimester and I don’t want to overload her.”
“Good,” I said, my tone a bit harsh. “Not just for Melanie, but we did agree to keep this solely between us.”
“Easy,” Joe said. “I haven’t forgotten that. But she’s my wife, and we don’t have secrets. At least we didn’t until now, and I don’t like the feeling it gives me.”
“I get it.”
“You can trust me, Bryce. You know that.”
“Yeah. Of course I do. What’s up?”
“I found us a hacker.”
“A hacker? What for?”
“To hack into the school system. To find Justin’s last name.”
I lifted my brow. “We just got done talking about keeping this between the two of us.”
“I haven’t told him anything.”
“But you found him. Someone knows you’re looking for a hacker.”
“No one knows.”
“How do you know that?”
He cleared his throat and adjusted his hat. “A friend of a friend.”
“Who’s the friend?”
He cleared his throat again. “I can’t say.”
“What do you mean you can’t say? I thought we were in this together.”
“We are. It’s just…”
My heart slammed against my chest. “Joe, you didn’t go surfing through the dark web, did you?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You think I have a clue how to get on the dark web? Christ, Bryce.”
“Then why can’t you—”
“Because I can’t. That’s why.”
“Sorry, Joe. Not good enough. This concerns us both equally.”
“I know that. But there are other things involved here.”
“What other things? Look, man, we’ve been friends our whole lives. I’ve got your back. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then be honest. I need to know what we’re up against.”
“We’re not up against anything. Not from this, anyway.”
“Then why can’t you tell me more?”
“Look. You’ve got to trust me on this.” He grabbed my arm—actually grabbed my arm.
I yanked it away. “Not cool.”
“Sorry. If I tell you, you’ve got to promise me full confidentiality.”
“That’s a given, Joe. Christ.”
“This friend of mine—I met him at a…club.”
“The Future Lawmakers Club?” I blurted out.
Joe’s eyes went wide.
“Sorry,” I said. “Bad joke.”
“Not a joke of any kind,” Joe said.
“So what club, then?”
“A lifestyle club.”
“Lifestyle? You mean swingers?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t share. It’s the…leather lifestyle.”
BDSM? My best friend was into BDSM? Whoa. I’d dabbled a bit in the past myself, but never to the extent that I joined any kind of club.
“There’s an underground community in the city,” Joe continued. “I used to be a part of it.”
“Okay. No offense, Joe, but TMI.”
“Yeah? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
Did he and Melanie…? I so did not want to know. “Uh…okay. No judgment here.”
“I’m not concerned about your judgment, Bryce, but there’s an unspoken rule in the community. We don’t talk about who or what we see there. Some of the people are pretty well-known, and if their names and involvement are revealed, it could hurt their business and everyday lives.”
“I see. So you can’t tell me who you got the name of the hacker from.”
“That’s right.”
“Do I even know the guy?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why—”
“Because I have integrity, damn it. That’s why. I don’t want people spreading word that I used to be a part of that club, and I won’t do it either.”
“All right. I respect you for that. Now tell me about this hacker.”
“He comes highly recommended. He’s damned expensive, but we need the information.”
I swallowed. I didn’t like the sound of any of this. “Why can’t we just ask Jade for the information?”
“You know why. We’d have to tell her what information we want and why. You didn’t want to use Mills and Johnson because you were afraid they’d put two and two together. Besides, we may need a good hacker for other stuff too.”
“Good point.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “I wish I could help with the cost.”
“Don’t worry about that. You know I’ve got it covered.”
“Should we meet with him in person?”
“He won’t meet in person. He won’t let anyone see his face.”
Yeah. Not sounding good so far. “Okay… Then how do we get him the information?”
“I’ll give him only what he requires. The year and the name. Tell him we need a last name and any other identifying information, address, whatever. I send it all in an encrypted file, and he gets back to me when and if he finds anything.”
“Does this faceless hacker have a name?”
“He’s called the Spider.”
A chill swept the back of my neck. “That’s a little creepy.”
“Hey, if you have a better idea…”
I shook my head. “I don’t. Go ahead and contact the Spider.”
“I will. There’s one other thing I’ve been thinking about.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t get how our memories are so fuzzy about that one camping trip. We were nine, Bryce, not three. We should be able to remember.”
I’d been t
hinking and wondering about that myself. I had vivid memories from the time I was four. Finding a dead friend at age nine should have been traumatic for Joe and me, and it should have been imprinted on our long-term memories.
But it wasn’t.
And I had come up with a plausible reason why.
Chapter Four
Marjorie
I sat with Melanie in her home office. “I’m glad you were free this morning. Thanks for squeezing me in.”
“Anytime. You know that.” She grabbed her notepad. “I’ve cut down my hours in the city so I can relax more at home. I’ve been seeing some patients via FaceTime. It’s working well so far. Anyway, you caught me on a slow morning.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Marjorie, I’ll always make time for you. How are you?”
How are you?
Three such innocent little words.
I’d come here for help, and Mel would help me. She always did.
So I would be truthful.
“Not good. Not good at all.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
That was Mel’s way. Get straight to the point and then let me take the lead. She knew I’d tell her everything in my own time.
“I almost had a relapse this morning.”
“Oh?”
“The razor blade.”
“The same one?” she asked, her eyebrows arched.
I swallowed as I nodded. I’d told her I’d gotten rid of it. Instead, I’d tucked it in the inside zippered pocket hidden in the bottom of my purse.
“You still have it?”
I nodded again, pointing to my purse.
“First,” she said, “don’t beat yourself up about this. We all have setbacks. It’s part of the healing process. You didn’t actually cut yourself, right?”
This time I shook my head.
“Good. That’s a win.”
“I don’t feel like I won anything.”
“Life hasn’t been the easiest for you, Marj. You’ve had to come to grips with your inadvertent role in Talon’s abduction and the truth about your mother and father. Now you’re taking care of Jade and the boys. That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“Responsibility I’m glad to take on.”
“I know that. We all do. Doesn’t make it easy. You’re a young woman, Marj, and your life is out there. You’re putting everything on hold. It’s a very selfless thing for you to do.”
“I thought…” I stared out the window at the ranch that was my home.
“You thought…what?”
“For about five minutes, I thought my life might be here.”
“It is, of course. What I meant was—”
I held up my hand. “I know what you meant, Mel. I do. But something else happened, something I thought might keep me here in Snow Creek. Even here on the ranch.”
“What are you talking about?”
I sighed. “Bryce Simpson.”
Melanie’s eyes widened slightly. She was trying to hide her surprise. Only Jade knew about my involvement with Bryce, and her word was as good as gold. Clearly he and I had kept our attraction under wraps. Melanie looked seriously astonished.
“What about him?” she asked.
Where to start? I stayed silent for a few seconds that seemed to stretch into hours.
Melanie didn’t try to prod me. She always let me go at my own pace. Finally, I opened my mouth.
“I’m in love with him.”
“I see. When did this happen?”
“I’ve had growing feelings for him for a while, and I’ve been attracted to him forever.”
“He’s going through a lot right now.”
“I know that. And I get it.”
“Does he have any idea how you feel?”
“That I love him? No. It doesn’t matter anyway because he doesn’t feel the same way.”
“How do you know that?”
Words came tumbling out then. I told Mel everything. All of Bryce’s and my encounters, our passion, how he told me I made him insane.
And our last encounter.
The note he’d left.
“It was devoid of even the slightest bit of emotion,” I said, choking back a sob. “And I almost… I almost…”
“But you didn’t, Marj. You didn’t.”
“Only because of Jade and the boys. They need me. I can’t be broken right now. I have too much to do.”
“The reason why doesn’t matter. What matters is that you didn’t succumb to the urge. You didn’t harm yourself.”
“He’s moving into the guesthouse, Mel. He’ll be living less than a half mile from me, and he’ll be working here on the ranch. How am I supposed to deal with any of that? The lovemaking was so amazing. He was so full of desire and passion. I swear the earth moved. How could he have been so passionate and loving but then turn so cold in the span of hours? How could it have meant nothing to him?”
“Have you considered that it didn’t mean nothing to him?”
“But the note…”
“The note doesn’t really matter. You’ve said already that he was honest with you from the outset that he wasn’t in a place to have a relationship right now.”
“I know. I just never expected him to be so cruel.”
“I understand,” Melanie said. “Bryce is not a cruel man, which makes me think something else might be going on here.”
“He’s not his father,” I said. “None of us thinks he is.”
“That’s true. But have you considered that maybe he thinks he is? And he’s trying to keep you at arm’s length because he’s afraid?”
I cocked my head. “You know, he’s been letting his mother pretty much care for Henry twenty-four-seven since everything went down. He says it’s because his mom needs Henry right now, but maybe…”
“Maybe Bryce is afraid to be close to Henry. Afraid of what he might become.”
“That’s silly.”
“Is it? He’s not the only one who’s had thoughts like that.”
I well knew my brother Ryan and his wife had both worried they’d turn out to be psychopathic like their biological mother and father, respectively.
“It’s easy for me or anyone else to tell Bryce that it’s unlikely,” Mel went on, “but it’s not so easy to get him to believe it.”
“I know.”
How well I knew. I’d had the same thoughts about my mother. She was far from a psychopath, but she was certifiably insane. She lived in her own reality where I was still a baby and Ryan didn’t exist.
Which reminded me. I need to touch base with the other nurse who’d been assigned to her the day “my father” had visited. Icy spikes dug into the back of my neck. Nothing had shown up on the visitors’ log, and it was certainly within the realm of possibility that my mother had imagined the whole thing.
Still, it niggled at me. With Dale having seen someone who spooked him, and with Colin Morse and his father acting strangely, I couldn’t help but think some stranger might be lurking around my mother.
I didn’t voice any of this to Mel. In fact, I’d neglected to tell my brothers. So much had happened in so few days that I’d actually let it float to the back of my mind.
I had to get in touch with Barry, the nurse, and I had to tell my brothers.
“Maybe you need to give him what he asks for. Give him the space. Don’t seek him out.”
“But I live in the main house!”
“I’m not saying you have to purposely avoid him. If that’s what he wants, let him do the avoiding. My guess is he won’t be able to stay away from you.”
“Why?”
“Because he hasn’t so far. He told you from the beginning that he couldn’t be with you, yet you say he came back to you twice after that.”
“What am I supposed to do if he comes to me, then?”
“That’s up to you.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “No offense, but that’s no help at all.”
“I can’
t make your decisions for you, Marj. You know that.”
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew that. Therapy had helped me a lot, but sometimes it grated on my nerves. Sometimes I just wanted the easy way out.
“I don’t know what to do. If he comes to me and wants me…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. We both knew the answer.
I’d give in.
I’d give in to Bryce Simpson every time.
Chapter Five
Bryce
“I don’t get it,” Joe said again.
I cleared my throat. “Mathias roofied Ruby.”
“Yeah. So?”
“And Talon only has fragmented memories of his time in captivity. He was probably drugged.”
“Shit.” Joe removed his hat and threaded his fingers through his hair. “You’re not thinking…”
I scoffed. “Sure I am. They obviously had access to all kinds of drugs.”
Joe’s skin reddened, and his lips drew into a snarl I knew well. This was mad Joe. Hothead Joe. And I didn’t blame him one bit.
“Your father drugged us?”
“We’ll never know for sure, but what other explanation is there? We didn’t remember for a long, long time, and even now the memories are fuzzy. But I have vivid memories of when I was younger than nine.”
I couldn’t say any more. I wasn’t sure why the thought of my father drugging us was so foreign to me. Hell, drugging us was the least of his crimes.
“Rohypnol,” Joe said, “can cause retrograde amnesia. Melanie told me.”
“Exactly. Once this happened, my father had to effectively erase our memories. I can’t think of any way to do that other than drugs.”
“Fucking bastard,” Joe said. Then, “Sorry, man.”
“Are you kidding me? I wish there were a worse word for him. I wish I could pry every atom of his DNA out of me.”
How true. I’d spent countless hours in the shower, scalding myself with hot water in a useless attempt to scrub and burn all of Tom Simpson out of my genes. Ridiculous, I knew.
I did it anyway.
“I suppose it’s still only conjecture,” Joe said.
“It’s the most likely explanation. He told us it never happened. We were nine, not three. We weren’t going to disbelieve something we’d seen with our own eyes.”
