Twisted

by HELEN HARDT

  Ruby

  What a day! I gulped down some cheese and crackers from the vending machine for a quick lunch when my phone rang with a number I couldn’t identify. Southern California area code.

  “Detective Lee.”

  “It’s…Shayna. Shayna Thomas.”

  “Shayna!” I said too loudly. I lowered my voice. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” Her voice shook. “I’m at a pay phone at a gas station. I don’t think I was followed.”

  “Shayna, if you think you’re being followed, you need to notify the police.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. It might be all in my mind.”

  Though I still had no concrete proof that my father was involved in any way with Juliet and Lisa’s disappearance, my intuition was on overdrive. After the phone call I’d received from my father after the last time Shayna called me, I knew he was at the helm. Proving it was another story. I’d been on his tail so many times, only to have him elude me. He never left any evidence that was enough to lead to his arrest.

  But he would. With Larry Wade and Tom Simpson now gone, my father was getting nervous. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones.

  “Just be careful. Don’t put yourself in danger to call me. Promise me, okay?”

  “I won’t. But I had to talk to you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I got a text. All it said was ‘help.’ I can’t help thinking it was Juliet or Lisa.”

  “Was it from a number outside the US?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It said ‘private.’”

  “Damn.” I bit my lip. “Sorry. It could be a hoax. Someone trying to play with you.”

  “I know. I thought of that. I just have a feeling it was one of them. I got chills when I read it.”

  I had always trusted my own intuition, so I again resisted telling Shayna to discount her own. Still, I didn’t want her walking into trouble either. “I know you can’t forward me the text, but someone needs to get a look at your phone. Your local PD can unblock the number.”

  “Yeah, I know. But…”

  She was scared. I could hear it in her voice as it trembled across the line.

  “Look. Never mind the phone. I can access your cell records and get the information for you. My office can run the check. Okay?”

  “But what if they find you looking?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. Just keep yourself safe. That’s the primary objective here. Tell me you understand that.”

  “I understand. I’m just afraid…”

  Of course. Shayna wasn’t worried about me. She was worried about herself. I had to protect her at all costs, even if it meant not looking into the number.

  But what if it had come from Juliet or Lisa?

  I closed my eyes and exhaled. It didn’t matter. I had to put Shayna’s safety first. I couldn’t go chasing dragons when another’s security depended on me leaving them alone. I’d make another call to the LAPD when I got off the phone.

  “I won’t look into it right now,” I assured her. “Please don’t worry. It will be okay.”

  “Thanks for listening to me. Really. I’m so freaked out.”

  “I’m here for you.”

  “I have to go. Bye.” The phone clicked dead.

  I let out a breath of air. Now what? Before I could think what to do, my phone buzzed.

  Of course. Dear old Dad. He’d called the last time Shayna had contacted me. I answered without looking at the number. “What is it?” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Ruby?”

  Shit. It was my boss. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else. What’s up?” I tried to sound nonchalant.

  “Come down to my office. We have a lead in the Jordan Hayes case.”

  * * *

  Jordan Hayes had been a young woman working as a receptionist at Tejon Preparatory High School, where my father and the others had been students. She was the one who had gotten Jonah and Melanie access to the yearbooks they needed. Those books had allowed the Steels to uncover their father’s involvement with the future lawmakers club. The books in question had been deleted from the online archives and stolen from the school library. Jordan Hayes had gotten them from an off-site facility and given them to Jonah Steel. She had paid for that indiscretion with her life.

  I couldn’t help but think of all the people who had paid with their lives for coming into contact with my father. As I sat across from my boss, Mark Wilson, several faces emerged in my mind’s eye. Luke Walker, a blur because I hadn’t known him personally. Gina Cates, my beautiful cousin. Talon Steel. At least my father hadn’t taken his life.

  “So you see what I mean?” Mark said.

  I widened my eyes. “Sorry?”

  “You’re a million miles away, Ruby.”

  “I apologize. What have you got?”

  “A business card. Tucked under the carpeting in Jordan Hayes’s apartment.”

  Tucked under the carpet? Why did that sound so familiar to me?

  “And you’ll never guess whose business card it is. Jonah Steel’s.”

  I fought the tightening in my throat. “Jonah Steel?”

  “Yeah.”

  My mind raced. “I remember. Jonah Steel’s wife, Melanie, said he gave Jordan his business card when they first went to the school looking for information.”

  “It could be the same card,” Mark said. “But I don’t buy it.”

  “Why not?” My blood chilled. Surely Mark wasn’t thinking Jonah had anything to do with Jordan’s death.

  “Number one, it was lodged under the carpeting. It’s doubtful Ms. Hayes would have taken the time to hide the card under her carpeting.”

  “Right. I know that.” And that’s why it sounded so familiar to me. I remembered now. The Steels’ private investigators, Trevor Mills and Johnny Johnson, had found a business card lodged under the carpeting in one of Talon’s guest rooms. This couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “Number two, you say Steel handed Ms. Hayes the card?”

  “As far as I know. That’s what Melanie told me, anyway.”

  “Funny thing, then. The card we found has no fingerprints on it. Not a one.”

  “See then? Jonah Steel didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Of course not. First of all, he most likely wasn’t wearing gloves when he handed Ms. Hayes the card. Second, what kind of a moron would go into a woman’s apartment, murder her, and then leave a calling card lodged under the carpet?”

  Thank God. “For a minute I was sure you were going to go after— Oh, never mind.”

  “You know me better than that, Ruby, but this card was left by someone for a reason. We need to figure out what that reason is.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I could talk to Mark about the card found in Talon’s home. The Steels hadn’t gone to the police about the break-in and the rose left on Jade’s pillow. It turned out that it hadn’t been a break-in at all. Someone, most likely my father, had threatened Talon’s housekeeper, Felicia, and forced her to leave the rose for Jade. Why? We could all only guess. I had given up long ago trying to figure out why my father did anything. Until I had the Steels’ okay, I had to keep quiet about the similarities in the placement of the cards.

  “So there are no prints,” I said.

  “That’s right. So what’s the next step?”

  “Figuring out who would want to frame Jonah Steel, I guess.”

  “Yeah. You have any idea?”

  If he only knew. “I do have a few ideas, Mark. Why don’t you let me handle this?”

  He pushed the file toward me. “It’s all yours, kid.”

  Though being called kid would probably bother some detectives, I let it roll off my back. I had grown up at fifteen. I had never really had the chance to be a kid, so I kind of liked the term. “Thanks, Mark.” I took the folder. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Go home. You look like shit.”

  I chuckled. “Thanks.
I’ve just been burning the candle on both ends.”

  “That vacation didn’t do you a lot of good, did it?” he said. “And then you came back early too.”

  I hadn’t explained to Mark the reason I had come back from Jamaica early—because of the kidnapping of Juliet and Lisa. Though the resort hadn’t closed down, they’d offered refunds and allowed people to leave if they wanted to. Our party had stayed for the wedding and left the next day.

  “You know me. Workaholic.”

  “This can wait till tomorrow, Ruby. Go home and have some ‘you’ time.”

  “I’ll think about it.” I left his office.

  But there would be no thinking about it. Once the workday was over, I was meeting Ryan at the prison to see Larry Wade. He was already in the city now, presumably talking with Bryce Simpson’s uncle about the future lawmakers ring. I hoped he was getting some good information.

  I plopped the new file down on my desk. My phone, which I had left on my desk when I went to see Mark, blinked with a missed call.

  A number I didn’t recognize.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ryan

  “That’s right,” Chase said. “The phoenix.”

  “The phoenix is a symbol of Lucifer? The devil?” Bryce asked. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “My guess is that you never studied the occult,” his uncle said.

  “Not in this lifetime, no,” Bryce said.

  A vise tightened around my abdomen. The phoenix was an image I was well acquainted with. Ruby’s father, Theodore Mathias, had a phoenix tattooed on his forearm. Talon had told me about how he remembered the image from his captivity, how it had been both heaven and hell—the symbol of those who menaced him, yet also a symbol of escape. Of course he hadn’t realized all of that until he went through therapy with Melanie. He had been very open with me about what he had learned about himself and those two torturous months he had endured.

  He had treated me like a brother.

  Again the knife sliced through my gut. My hero. My brother. Talon.

  He, Jonah, and Marj had all assured me time and time again that I was still their brother in all the ways that counted. We did, after all, share the same father.

  “…can never know for sure.”

  I wasn’t sure whether Bryce or Chase had spoken. Here I was, learning about a ring my father wore, the symbol upon which could mean anything, and I was stuck having a little pity party, feeling sorry for the fact that I had a different mother from my siblings.

  Get over yourself, Ryan. There are more important things here.

  “Can never know for sure what?” I asked.

  “We can never know for sure whether the symbol was meant to be twisted the way I’ve twisted it,” Chase said. “It could simply be a symbol they created themselves that had its own meaning. There’s just no way to know.”

  But I knew.

  In my gut, where the dagger was still twisting, I knew.

  I doubted that my father and the others worshipped the devil. No, they wouldn’t have wasted their time on worship of anything. Simpson, Wade, and Mathias had worshipped only the almighty dollar. Greed was their motivating factor, and when they had figured out that more money could be made by breaking the law than following it, they had gone to the dark side.

  The evil side.

  That was what those symbols meant. The symbol of Lucifer. The phoenix.

  Evil.

  * * *

  Ruby and I sat in the visitors area at the prison, waiting for a guard to escort Larry Wade to see us. I hadn’t yet told Ruby about what Bryce and I had learned from Chase Walker. I hadn’t been able to form the words yet. But I had to tell Larry, and Ruby would hear it then. Larry would know whether we were right.

  The guard escorted him to the table, and Larry Wade plunked down. Both of his eyes were blackened today, and he had a cut on his upper lip.

  “Seems your fellow inmates aren’t treating you very well, Uncle Larry,” I said.

  “I’m not your uncle, boy.”

  Another brick in my gut. He was right. He was the half brother of Daphne Steel, so he was half uncle to my siblings, but not to me.

  “I’d say that’s a good thing,” I said. “One less psychopath I’m related to.”

  Ruby touched my forearm, the warmth of her fingertips seeping into me. She was showing me her presence, trying to soothe me. Problem was, I was currently unsootheable.

  “You’re not related to me,” he said. “But that mother of yours is the queen of the psychos.”

  He didn’t have to tell me. “I didn’t come here to talk about my mother.”

  “Who’s this?” He gestured to Ruby.

  Ruby flashed a badge. “Detective Ruby Lee, Grand Junction PD. We’ve met.”

  “She’s with me,” I said. “Obviously.”

  “I’m not here on police business,” Ruby reiterated.

  “Then why are you here? Cops make me nervous.”

  “She’s here because she’s a friend of mine,” I said. “How did you know I was aware of my true maternity, anyway? You’d have just shocked the hell out of me if I wasn’t.”

  “I keep my ears to the ground,” he said.

  “You do?”

  “People talk. I listen.”

  “Who the hell is talking about my maternity? Why would anyone in here care?”

  “I didn’t say it was anyone here.”

  “Are you saying you have other visitors? Who the hell would want to see you?”

  He scoffed. “Kid, you have no idea.”

  “I have a pretty good idea,” Ruby said. “You know I can easily get access to the visitors log, don’t you?”

  “You think anyone who visited me left a trace of who he might really be?” Larry laughed, wincing. Then he eyed Ruby, narrowing his eyes. “Shit.”

  “What?” I said.

  “You’re her, aren’t you?”

  “Who?” Ruby asked. “Who do you think I am?”

  “No one.” Larry motioned to the guard.

  “Not so fast,” I said, grabbing his cuffed arms. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I have rights, you know. I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “The guards may think you have rights, but as far as I’m concerned, your rights ended the day you took my bro—”

  “Damn it!” Larry whisked his arms away. “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “We know that’s a lie,” I said. “You tortured and raped him just like the others.”

  “I had nothing to do with taking him. Ask him yourself. Two men took him. I wasn’t one of them. I fed him, for God’s sake. And I’m the one who fucking helped him to escape.”

  “And that absolves you from the crimes of rape and false imprisonment?” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Look, kid, you know who your mother is now, but I still have other secrets to keep.”

  I had to stop myself from standing up and punching him in the fucking nose. “What are the secrets worth to you, Larry? Because I’ve got all the money in the world.”

  “You think your brother hasn’t already offered me money?”

  “I know he has. He offered to pay for the best defense lawyer in the state. You turned him down. I’m going to offer you something else.”

  Larry eyed Ruby again. “I won’t say a word with her here.”

  “She stays,” I said.

  Ruby grabbed my arm. “It’s okay. I can go.”

  “No, I want you here. You have every right to be here. There are cops swarming all over this place.”

  “I don’t think the fact that I’m a cop is the issue”—she turned her gaze on Larry—“is it, Mr. Wade?”

  Larry said nothing.

  He knew who Ruby was. She’d told us that she’d visited him before. So far, Larry had refused to roll over on Theodore Mathias. Surely he must know that Ruby had no loyalty to her father.

  Or did he?

  I had no idea. I had never faced Larry Wade on
my own, but maybe I could get some information.

  “All right,” I said to Ruby. “Don’t go too far.”

  “I won’t. I’ll be outside when you’re done.” She got up and left the visitors area.

  “All right, Larry,” I said. “Do your damnedest. What can you tell me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on. I got rid of her. You can talk now.”

  “I know who she is.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out. You didn’t seem to recognize her at first, but she’s visited you before.”

  “He speaks highly of her, you know.”

  “Who does?”

  “You know who.”

  Damn, this man was a pain in the ass. He still wouldn’t say the motherfucker’s name. It didn’t matter. We already had proof that he was the one we were looking for. And he obviously had something on Larry Wade.

  “Does he?”

  “Yes. Says she’s smart as a whip. Said he’s had to work twice as hard the past eleven years to stay off her radar.”

  “She’ll get him,” I said. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “She won’t,” he said, wincing. “He wins. He always fucking wins. Never gets caught. Never slips up. Simpson got lazy. But not him. He’ll never surface.”

  “I can assure you, his days of winning are numbered. You’re locked up. Simpson is dead. My father is dead.”

  He arched his eyebrows slightly.

  “Or am I incorrect about that? Is my father not dead?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ruby

  I was just as glad to be out of Larry Wade’s presence. This was far from the first time I had spoken with him, and he never remembered who I was. At least that was what he claimed. He made my skin crawl more each time. Clearly he feared my father. He had seemed to fear Simpson too, when he was alive. He had systematically refused to roll over on the two of them to either me or the Steels, no matter what we offered.

  Maybe Ryan would be able to get the information out of him while I was gone.

  No. Why delude myself? That wouldn’t happen. Larry was a game player first and foremost. He would never roll over.