Twisted

by HELEN HARDT

  “Yeah, of course. Come on in.” I wasn’t about to explain to him why the door had been locked. I got back into my bed.

  “So how are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

  “Good.”

  “Been eating, I see.” He eyed the takeout bag from Papa Tony’s. “That’s good. Any nausea?”

  “Nope. It’s all staying down.”

  “Good. Good sign. I don’t see why you can’t get out of here tomorrow morning.”

  “Any possibility of getting out of here tonight, Doc?”

  “Sorry. I’d rather have you stay. After all, you were out cold for about twelve hours overnight last night. You’re lucky you don’t have any signs of hypothermia.”

  Ruby walked out of the bathroom fully dressed, her cheeks blazing red. She looked to the doctor. “Oh, hello.”

  “Dr. Anderson, this is my friend Ruby Lee.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Ruby said shyly. “How is he doing?”

  “He’s doing great,” Dr. Anderson said.

  “Glad to hear that,” Ruby said. “Ryan, I should get going. I know your brothers wanted me to stay but…”

  I eyed her feet clad only in socks. “I understand. You probably don’t want to leave your shoes.”

  If possible, she became even more scarlet. I had to stop myself from chuckling. She had put on her androgynous clothing, but her hair still fell around her face and shoulders like a sheet of smooth ebony silk. She wore a beautiful “just fucked” look.

  She hastily put on her shoes and grabbed her small handbag. “I’m glad you’re doing well, Ryan.”

  “I’m getting out of here tomorrow. I’ll call you.”

  She nodded and left the room.

  “She looks familiar to me,” Dr. Anderson said. “I wonder where I’ve seen her before.”

  “She’s a detective with the Grand Junction PD. She’s probably been in here questioning people.”

  “That could be.” He stroked his cheek thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s probably it.” He made a few notations on my chart. “The nurse will be in to check your vitals in a few minutes. Be sure to keep that door unlocked, Mr. Steel.” He smirked.

  No reason to lock it now. Ruby wouldn’t be back.

  * * *

  Dr. Anderson had given me my walking papers early, during his morning rounds. Talon was due to drive me home in an hour. I didn’t feel like sitting around the hospital, so I walked over to a little dive café.

  An old man in a flannel shirt sat a few stools down, nursing a cup of coffee. He turned and looked at me strangely.

  “You have a problem?” I said.

  He shook his head and took the seat next to me. “No problem. You just look familiar to me. Have we met?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He put out his hand. “Name’s Mike.”

  “Ryan Steel.”

  “Steel. That’s why you look so familiar. You’re one of them Steel brothers, aren’t you?”

  “Guilty.” Sort of. We were almost brothers.

  “I’ve met your brothers. Nice guys.”

  “Yeah.” I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Nice guys.”

  A bleached-blond waitress in a pink uniform sidled up. “What’ll it be?”

  “What he’s having.” I pointed to Mike’s coffee. “And two eggs over easy, slice of bacon.”

  The waitress filled a coffee cup and set it in front of me.

  “How are your brothers doing?” Mike asked.

  “They’re good. Both married now.”

  “You don’t say!” A grin split Mike’s wrinkled face. “That’s great! They deserve happiness.”

  Just how much did this guy know about my brothers? I took a swig of coffee—might as well have been water with brown food coloring—and raised my eyebrows. “Do they?”

  “I’d think you’d be happy for them.”

  I sighed. “I am. And you’re right. They deserve it. They’ve been through a lot.” I took another drink.

  “So why don’t you seem all that happy for them?”

  I wasn’t about to tell a perfect stranger the details of my DNA. “Just got a lot on my mind.”

  Mike rubbed at his chin. “You may not believe this, but I talked to both of your brothers when they were kind of down in the mouth.”

  “How the hell is that possible?”

  “They both stumbled in to a little dive where I hang out sometimes. Makes this place look like the Ritz.”

  I looked around. If it made this shithole look like the Ritz, it must be something akin to an old latrine. “You don’t say.”

  “I do say.”

  “Why the hell would my brothers go into a dive?”

  “I asked them that. First thing I noticed was their expensive ostrich cowboy boots.”

  I looked down at my own feet…shod in expensive ostrich cowboy boots. “I suppose we seem pretty pretentious to a guy like you.”

  “A guy like me?”

  I sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean any offense.”

  “None taken. I’ve worked hard all my life. Never took a handout. And I make ends meet now, in retirement. I just miss my wife. She passed on some time ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah. But we all got to go sometime, I guess.” He motioned to the waitress. “More coffee please.”

  “It’s on me,” I said.

  “Thanks. You Steels are generous.”

  Generous? A shitty cup of coffee might set me back a couple of bucks. That was hardly generous.

  “By the way,” he continued. “I don’t consider you pretentious. I don’t judge people. Hell, I’d wear boots like that if I could afford them.”

  I looked down at my boots once more. These were my work boots. They were nearly trashed. I’d hate for him to see the six other pairs sitting in my walk-in closet.

  “You live around here?” I asked.

  “Not too far. The place I used to go—where I met your brothers—closed up last week. Some problem with their liquor license. It was a nice little bar and grill when I was younger, though that was some thirty years ago. Things change. Places change.”

  “And people change,” I added.

  “Yep, they do.” He took a drink from the steaming coffee the waitress had just filled. “Thanks for this, by the way.”

  “No problem. What brings you to this place?”

  “I’m seeing my doc over at the hospital for some routine stuff this morning, so I stumbled in here to wait. The bus only runs up here early in the morning, so I’ve got some time before my appointment.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah. Just routine stuff, like I said.” He took a drink and smiled. “Your brother with the funny name—Talon, I think—sent me a case of amazing bourbon called Peach Street.”

  That piqued my interest. “Yeah? That’s his favorite.” If Talon had sent this old man a case of Peach Street, the guy had done something spectacular to earn it.

  “It’s great stuff. So smooth. And the aroma.” Mike closed his eyes and inhaled. “Something special. I’m saving it. I only have a jigger every couple of days, as a treat.” He sighed. “I’m going to miss that old dive bar. Truth is, I get lonely. I like to get out, see people. Now that I’m retired and Melanie is gone, I don’t have a lot of human contact.”

  “Melanie? Joe’s wife’s name is Melanie.”

  “No kidding? He mentioned he knew a woman named Melanie, but I didn’t know she was someone special to him.”

  “Yeah. She’s a psychotherapist. They just got married in Jamaica.”

  “Good for him. And Talon?”

  “He got married at the same time. Her name is Jade.”

  “He told me he had a special lady in his life.”

  Again, I wondered who the hell this man was and how he somehow had my brothers’ confidence.

  “What about you?” Mike asked. “Any special lady in your life?”

  Yeah. One I wasn’t sure I could trust
anymore. Just like I wasn’t sure I could trust my brothers. I didn’t respond.

  “What’s her name?” Mike asked.

  “I didn’t say there was one.”

  He laughed. “You didn’t. But you would have said ‘no’ if there wasn’t. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that. What’s her name, son?”

  I smiled. I was beginning to see why my brothers had talked to this man. “Ruby. Ruby Lee.”

  “That’s a pretty name.”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  “You’re a good-looking fellow, even better looking than your brothers, I’d say, though don’t tell them I said that.”

  I’d heard that so many times it went in one ear and out the other. Ryan Steel was the handsomest Steel with the best personality. Who’d have thought that Brad Steel and Wendy Madigan could create a more handsome person than Brad and Daphne Steel? Genetics made no sense sometimes.

  Mike continued, “So I bet she’s tall, blond, and beautiful.”

  I chuckled. “Well, she’s beautiful.”

  “I got the other two wrong?”

  “She’s not short, but my sister is six feet, so most women don’t seem tall to me. As for the blond? She’s about as far away from blond as you can get. Her hair is nearly black.”

  “Still, she’s probably a model, right?”

  Again, I chuckled. “She’s a cop. A detective, actually.”

  “A working girl, huh? My Melanie never worked. But we were from a different time.”

  Actually, I couldn’t imagine Ruby—or Jade or Melanie, for that matter—ever staying home. “True.”

  “Glad your brothers are happy.”

  I smiled tersely.

  “What’s your beef with your brothers, son?” Mike asked.

  “No beef.”

  “Bullshit. You’ve tensed up every time I’ve mentioned them.”

  Damn. Did this man know everything about my life?

  “No beef,” I said again. “Except that they’re not my brothers.”

  “You’ll never convince me of that. There’s a huge resemblance.”

  “Yeah, we all look like our father.”

  “Must have been a good-looking man.”

  I took a sip of bad coffee. Thankfully he didn’t push the “they’re not my brothers” comment.

  “I had a brother once,” Mike went on. “We had a falling out a couple decades ago. Never spoke again. Mort died a month after Melanie. She always wanted me to make up with him, but I was too stubborn. I’ll always regret that. We were really close as kids.”

  “I’m sorry.” My heart went out to the guy.

  “Thing is, we weren’t even brothers in the biological sense. He was my stepbrother. My real father died in the war when my mother was pregnant with me. I wasn’t yet two when she married my father. My true father. The man who raised me. Mort was his son. His first wife had died in childbirth. Mort and I were nearly the same age, and people always thought we were twins.” He gazed wistfully at the ketchup bottle in front of him. “I miss him.”

  A brick hit my gut. “You considered him your brother?”

  “Well, he was. My father adopted me, and my mother adopted Mort. We were brothers in the legal sense.”

  “But you didn’t share a bloodline.”

  “Hell, what’s blood got to do with it? I don’t have any childhood memories that don’t include my father and Mort. We were brothers. I wish…” He stared into space again.

  “Mike, I don’t want to pry, but what was the fight about? When you and Mort stopped speaking?”

  “I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry. It just hurts too much.”

  My phone buzzed. Talon was waiting outside. I laid two hundreds on the bar and pushed them toward Mike. “That’s all right. Thanks, Mike. Eat my breakfast, will you? Give the waitress a nice tip, and keep the rest.”

  “You Steels are generous,” he said. “God bless.”

  “Back at you.” I left the bar and spied Talon’s truck across the street. I ambled over and got in the passenger side.

  I looked at my brother. Same old Tal. Wavy dark hair that he wore too long, a slight crook in his nose from where he had broken it long ago. Talon was my hero.

  I closed my eyes.

  * * *

  Talon and I had been walking for about an hour, looking for clues. Talon wanted to find out what had happened to his friend Luke Walker, Bryce’s cousin. I wasn’t that concerned about Luke. I just wanted to tag along with Talon. I always followed him. Joe thought I was a pest and didn’t want me around much. But Talon… Talon always made time for me.

  Our tummies were full. Mrs. Walker had given us oatmeal cookies and watermelon when we showed up at her door. “Y’all can look around if you want to,” she’d said. Her eyes were recessed and sad. “Just come back before dark. Do your mom and dad know you’re here?”

  Talon had nodded and nudged me so I wouldn’t talk. It was a lie. Mom and Dad didn’t know where we were, but Joe did. He’d tell them when he got home from school.

  “This is where they found the mask,” Talon said, looking around.

  I wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was a lot older than I was. I was only seven, but Talon was ten. Almost a grown-up.

  Nothing was visible. Even the Walkers’ house had faded from view this far out. The cattle must not have grazed in this area, because the grass was tall. It brushed our knees.

  In the distance stood a little shack.

  “Let’s go check out that building,” Talon said.

  I nodded. I’d do whatever he said. We traipsed forward.

  The wood was gray and splintered, old. Talon reached out to touch the knotty surface, when—

  Something grabbed me. “Talon! Auuuughh!” A large gloved hand clamped over my mouth.

  A man dressed all in black, even his face, stood between me and Talon. My heart tried to pound out of my chest. I had to pee so bad.

  But Talon was there. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt me.

  “You leave my brother alone!” Talon shouted.

  The other pair of hands lunged toward Talon, but before they could grab him, Talon ran into the man holding me, kicking at his shins. “Let go! Let go! Let go!”

  The other man had grabbed the back of Talon’s shirt. Still, Talon kicked.

  I closed my eyes, brittle fear taking over my body. A kick. Then a fist. Pain lanced through my body. I struggled against the hands gripping me, but I was too little, too weak. Couldn’t get away.

  Talon gasped and grunted, until a cry of “Motherfucker!” came from behind me and I fell to my knees in the dirt. Somehow Talon had gotten the hands to let go of me.

  “Run!” Talon yelled. “Run back to the house! Get Dad! Run, run, run!”

  I stood, dazed, immobile. I wasn’t going to leave my big brother.

  “Damn it, I said run!”

  One of the men shoved Talon to the ground.

  “Run!” he kept yelling. “Damn it, Ryan. Run!”

  I turned.

  I ran.

  * * *

  My brother had saved my life that day. Saved me from the torturous fate he’d endured for two months, a fate I was certain I wouldn’t have survived. Talon had been three years older, three years tougher. He’d been starved, beaten, raped…and he’d gotten out alive.

  I owed him my life.

  I had since I was seven years old.

  Now I wondered if I knew my brother—half brother—at all.

  We drove up to the guesthouse where I lived, and I got out of his truck. “You can go,” I said to him.

  “Nah. I’m coming in. I want to make sure you’re all right. You sure you don’t want to stay at the house with Jade and me tonight?”

  He’d already asked me that three times, and I’d said no three times. I was sick and tired of repeating myself.

  “Ry, you’re just not yourself,” he said as I opened the door.

  My golden retriever, Ricky, greeted me with licks and pants. I tousled the sof
t hair on his neck. “Hey, boy. I missed you.”

  Talon followed me in. Clearly he wasn’t ready to leave quite yet, even though I’d made it clear I wanted to be alone.

  “How about a drink?” he said. Then, “Never mind. You probably shouldn’t have any alcohol. We’ll just have some iced tea.” He headed to the kitchen and opened my refrigerator.

  Normally that wouldn’t have bothered me. We brothers always helped ourselves to each other’s food and booze. Today, though, I found it irksome.

  I no longer thought of him as my brother. My full blood brother. And I wanted to be alone.

  Talon poured two glasses of iced tea and carried them into my family room where he set them on the coffee table and then sat down in one of my leather recliners. “It’s time to talk this out, Ry.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ruby

  I walked into work with my hair in a high ponytail. I still wore the same white button-down shirt and Dockers, black today, but I’d never gone to work with my hair any way except up in the tight bun that sometimes hurt my head.

  Wearing my hair down had occurred to me, but my hair was so long, and it would get in my way as I did my work. Besides…baby steps. A ponytail was the next logical step after a tight bun. No one would notice anyway.

  Boy, had I been wrong. Eight people—yes, I counted—mentioned my hairstyle change before ten in the morning. I might as well have gone into work wearing a hula skirt for all the fuss they made.

  Ruby, your hair looks great!

  Nice change, Detective Lee.

  You look amazing with a ponytail!

  Could have knocked me over with a feather.

  By ten I hadn’t heard from Ryan, so I called the hospital and found out he had been discharged earlier. He’d said he would call me…

  No. I was not going to be that woman—that woman who waits on the edge of her seat for her man to call.

  I had work to do.

  My phone buzzed, and I picked it up. “Detective Lee.”

  “Ms. Lee?”

  The voice was female…and familiar.

  My pulse quickened. “Shayna?”

  “Yeah. It’s me. I’m sorry about the other day.”