Twisted

by HELEN HARDT

  But there was something he did do. He gave hints. I had heard the whole story, about how Melanie had figured out where to find the information about the future lawmakers club. His mind didn’t work like a normal human’s. He dealt more in riddles.

  And what if…?

  What if that was why he’d hired Jade to be the assistant city attorney? What if that was why he had given her the assignment to research the Steels?

  Maybe that had been his way of finally bringing the two worst offenders, Simpson and my father, to justice. He thought Jade would uncover things and start thinking.

  And she had.

  Of course he must’ve known that would culminate in his own demise as well. So maybe that wasn’t how it had happened.

  Then again, according to Larry, he had let Talon go, and he’d paid dearly for that, almost with his life.

  It was all just too coincidental, otherwise. Damn it. Larry Wade had been feeding us clues this whole time.

  I had to go back in and tell Ryan what I figured out.

  No, I couldn’t do that. What if Larry was finally talking? One look at me and he’d clam up like a mute. I had to stay out here.

  I whipped out my cell phone to check my messages. I had turned off my ringer while we were talking to Larry. No new calls. Then I went to my e-mail. How was it possible that I had fifty-seven new e-mails since I had left the office only an hour before?

  All work and no play…

  I answered a few, until I got to one from an address I didn’t recognize. It was a government address, similar to the one I used. I just didn’t know the name.

  It contained only one sentence.

  Tell my son I need to see him.

  Wendy Madigan. She’d gotten hold of a cell phone again, obviously. She knew my number. She had texted me before. So why had she e-mailed me this time? Why not e-mail Ryan, if she wanted to see him?

  How was she getting our contact information, anyway?

  She knew I was a detective, so my e-mail address wouldn’t have been hard to figure out. A standard government e-mail for the city. All she had to figure out was the name. R.Lee probably hadn’t taken her too long.

  I wouldn’t e-mail her back. Besides, whatever phone she had stolen this time was probably back with its original owner by now. Or maybe she had found a contraband phone somewhere in the ward and had hidden it. The woman was cunning. I’d give her that. Still, I wasn’t going to respond.

  Instead, I logged in to work and traced the e-mail address. It belonged to one of the psychiatrists she was seeing for medication and therapy. Christ! How could a doctor be so negligent as to let a patient hijack his cell phone? She had graduated from orderlies to physicians.

  Something niggled in the back of my mind. Something Ryan had told me about his first meeting with Wade.

  Mathias isn’t dead, and even he isn’t the most dangerous.

  Not too long after that visit, we’d become embroiled in Ryan’s DNA test. None of us had given that statement a second thought.

  But according to Larry, someone else was even more dangerous than my father.

  I smiled to myself, not because I was happy, but because I had come up with something that I knew the Steel brothers wouldn’t.

  They would never suspect a woman. Not that they were sexist, or even chauvinist. They were just gentlemen. And now, because the woman I was thinking about was Ryan’s mother, they probably didn’t want to suspect her at all.

  Wendy.

  Larry had been talking about Wendy.

  And if he was telling the truth…

  Ryan was in no danger from Wendy. I felt that in the depths of my bones. She was, first and foremost, a mother.

  I didn’t think for a minute that Wendy would hurt any of the other Steels, either. She was so obsessed over Bradford Steel, she probably wouldn’t harm any of his children.

  Or would she?

  Had she been the mastermind behind Talon’s abduction? She had all but admitted that at one point, but she’d denied it several times over as well.

  I’m on to you, Wendy.

  She wasn’t as crazy as the Steels thought.

  No. She played her cards in a very calculating manner. When it benefited her to be crazy, she acted crazy. I had the sick feeling that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Wendy Madigan had never lost her grasp on reality. To the contrary, she used reality. She twisted it to suit her purposes. But she never did anything without having a damned good reason for her actions.

  Even he isn’t the most dangerous.

  My God. Ryan’s mother was the true mastermind behind everything.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryan

  “What is death anyway?” Larry asked. “Do any of us really know?”

  “Don’t try to wax philosophical with me. Just tell me the goddamned truth. Is my father dead, or isn’t he?”

  “Death is in the eye of the beholder.”

  I was sick to hell of this. “I think you mean beauty.”

  “Do I? As far as I’m concerned, I’m dead. I might as well be, stuck in this place.”

  “You’re stuck in this place because of your own actions. You of all people know that. It has nothing to do with death.”

  “Does it matter? Does it matter whether the person is truly dead, as long as they are dead to you?”

  “For the love of God, I just want an answer. We have reason to believe my father is still alive. That he faked his own death, or had it faked for him. What we don’t know is why. He’s our father, for God’s sake. You have children, Larry.”

  “Children I’ll never see again, because I’m here. See what I mean? I’m dead to them.”

  “Your children are better off.”

  He wiped sweat off his forehead. “I won’t disagree with you.”

  Interesting. Larry actually thought his children were better off without him. “Do you miss your kids?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “They don’t come to visit you?”

  “Would you come to visit me if I were your father?”

  I truthfully had no answer. I had visited my newly found mother, and from what I could tell, she had participated in the abduction of my brother, although not in quite the same way Larry had.

  “I’m waiting, Steel.”

  Did he really want me to respond to that question? “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I honestly wasn’t bullshitting. “It would depend. I know you’ll never admit it, but Theodore Mathias is the last of Talon’s abductors. That beautiful cop who was sitting beside me earlier is his daughter. You know that. That’s why you wanted her to leave. I could tell you that you have nothing to fear from her, but you wouldn’t believe it. She wants to see her father pay for all he’s done as much as I do. As much as my brothers and sister do. But still…” I had been about to tell Larry that Ruby had opted to see her father when he had to come into town months ago with Brooke Bailey. I closed my mouth. That was Ruby’s story to tell. Not mine.

  “What?”

  “I visited my mother.”

  “You only just found out that she was your mother.”

  “True. And I have a lot of questions.”

  “Did you get any answers?”

  “Some.”

  “I wouldn’t put faith in anything she says.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then why did you see her?”

  Why indeed? My mother’s relationship with the truth was contorted, at best. Mine, however, was not. And it came to me like a bolt of lightning right into my brain. Why I decided to share it with Larry, I didn’t know, but I opened my mouth to speak.

  “Because I wanted to. Because I wanted to see her.”

  “Well, my children don’t want to see me.”

  “You have young grandchildren, right?” Jade had told me that.

  “I do. And I never hurt them. I never hurt my children either.”

  “But you can’t say the same for Mathias, can you
? He didn’t stop at hurting children he was related to.”

  Larry flattened his lips into a thin line. The bastard still wouldn’t talk. Still wouldn’t give up Mathias. What the hell did Mathias have on him?

  Time to try a different tactic.

  “What do you know about my father’s will?”

  “A whole lot of nothing.”

  Larry never made anything easy. “Simpson and Mathias seem to think my father owed them something. That there was something in his will to that effect. Do you agree with that?”

  “Nobody owes me anything.”

  “That wasn’t my question. Why would Simpson and Mathias think my father owed them something?”

  No answer.

  “All right. Why would Simpson think my father owed him anything?”

  Still no response.

  “Tom Simpson is dead, Larry. You have nothing to fear from him.”

  Once again, his lips remained sealed.

  I stood. “I guess we’re done here. My offer stands. Whatever you want, Larry. My entire fortune for some answers.” I motioned to the guard but then shook my head and sat back down. I’d almost forgotten the most important thing—why I’d come in the first place.

  “Tell me about the ring the future lawmakers used to wear.”

  Larry looked over my head for a moment. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”

  “You had one, didn’t you?”

  “We all did. Your father paid for them, by the way.”

  That piece of news didn’t surprise me. After all, we’d already found out from Ruby’s uncle that my father had financed the future lawmakers. Tom Simpson’s ring was not a cheap piece of metal, either.

  “Did he? Why are you all of a sudden telling me things? Usually you’re so close-lipped.”

  He chuckled. “I have no idea. I just haven’t thought of that ring in years.”

  “Wendy says she didn’t have one.”

  “I’m pretty sure we all had one. Hers was smaller, made for a woman.”

  My mother wasn’t known for her truthfulness, so I’d take Larry at his word. For now, anyway.

  “There’s a symbol on the ring. Do you know what it signifies?”

  He looked thoughtful. “I don’t recall a symbol.”

  “Oh, come on.” And then I remembered. I had the ring! I pulled it out of my pocket. “This one belonged to Tom Simpson. Look here.” I gestured. “What does this bizarre symbol mean?”

  He took the ring from me and examined it. “Oh, yeah. I don’t know. Someone else designed it.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You don’t remember? Or you won’t tell me.”

  He stayed silent.

  “My father?”

  Silence.

  “Tom Simpson?”

  More silence.

  “Mathias?”

  His lips twitched slightly.

  “Okay. Mathias. That figures. Did he tell you what the symbol meant?”

  “I didn’t say he designed them.”

  I wished Ruby were still here. She’d be able to read him better than I could with her cop instinct. “Up to this point, you’ve refused to even say his name. But we all know it was him, that he’s the third of your heinous trio. And it doesn’t surprise me one bit to know he’s the brains behind this symbol.”

  “You’re wrong. I don’t know what the symbol is. Or what it means. Or who came up with it. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “We have our own theories,” I said. “So you’re telling me that you wore a ring that you had no idea what its meaning was?”

  “Hey, it was a ring. It was camaraderie, you know? We all had one.”

  “Where’s yours now?”

  “I hocked it long ago. I had some lean years in there. They deserted me after I let your brother go. After they tried to kill me, that is. I didn’t get back into their good graces until a few years ago.”

  I’d already heard that part of the story, so I tried to steer back to the ring. “He never told you what the symbol meant?”

  “Nope.” Larry twisted his lips into a sly smile. “But I can see why you want to know. The devil is in the details. Just ask your mother.”

  “Ryan!”

  I looked up. Ruby was walking swiftly toward our table. I stood. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay. We’re almost done here.” I looked to Larry. “She’s not leaving. Do you have any more information for me?”

  “No.” Larry motioned to a guard, who came and took him away.

  I looked to Ruby. “Why did you come back?”

  “I have a new theory,” she said. “And I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ruby

  I drew in a deep breath and gathered my courage. How was I supposed to tell the man I loved that I suspected his newly found mother was the mastermind behind everything?

  I couldn’t. Not yet. First, I’d tell him about the e-mail I had received from Wendy via one of her doctor’s cell phones.

  “Just what I don’t need right now. I’m beat. I can’t deal with her tonight.”

  “Lights are probably out in the ward by now anyway,” I said. “It can wait. You want to get something to eat?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good. What’s good around here?”

  I rarely ate out, but we found a Mexican place that had good reviews. Over dinner of carnitas and refried beans with pico de gallo, I told him about the card that had been found in Jordan Hayes’s apartment.

  “You can’t suspect Joe,” Ryan said.

  “I don’t, and neither does my boss. But the MO is familiar.”

  “Yeah. That’s how we found Colin’s business card in the guest room at Talon’s house. But surely Felicia couldn’t have gotten into Jordan’s apartment.”

  “Probably not, though we’re going to want to question her,” I said. “Most likely it was my father. Remember, Felicia said the guy who threatened her had spooky blue eyes. Same as Joe said, and same as Melanie said. My father has been wearing colored contacts to disguise himself. At least that’s what we suspect.”

  “Yeah, Joe figured that out too.”

  “So anyway, it was either my father or someone who was told by my father to place the card at Jordan’s. By the way, have you heard from those PIs of yours?”

  “Mills and Johnson?” Ryan shook his head. “Nope. They seem to have fallen off the face of the earth.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that. I’m going to look into it at work. I wonder…” I swirled beans around on my plate.

  “What?”

  “What if Mills and Johnson… No, that’s too farfetched.”

  “What?” he said again.

  “Mills and Johnson have been working with police departments in Colorado for years. They wouldn’t have gone to the bad side.”

  “Meaning?”

  “What if my father got to them? Paid them off to disappear?”

  “Would they do that?”

  “They’re mercenaries. They go with the highest bidder. And I’ve had the feeling my father’s been having financial trouble.”

  “We can out-pay your father.”

  “Maybe they don’t know that.”

  “Everyone knows about the Steel money.”

  “True. But what if he could out-pay your family? What if he dried up his coffers to get them off the case?”

  “I guess it’s possible. Our money is legitimate, from generations of hard work and solid investments. Crime can pay extremely well. Your father probably has billions in tax-free dollars stashed away.” He huffed. “And that’s what I just don’t get. Tom Simpson was obviously up to his eyeballs in this, yet he continued to live his modest life as the mayor of Snow Creek.”

  “His cover,” I said. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “Has the department dug up his stash?” he asked.

  “Not t
hat I know of. I’m technically not on the case. I just follow it very closely. Plus, anything concerning the money will go to the FBI. They’re already on it.”

  “He must have a shitload of money stashed somewhere.”

  “Yeah, he might,” I agreed.

  “Bryce could be a rich man one day.”

  “Only if he’s interested in dirty money,” Ruby said. “If the Feds find it—if it exists—it will be confiscated.”

  “Yeah. True.” Ryan finished up his plate. “I wonder…”

  “What?”

  “You don’t think any of the Steel money could be dirty, do you?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve considered that, and I don’t think so. Your father and his father ran a legitimate business. If your father has any dirty money anywhere, he was smart enough not to comingle funds.”

  “I hope so,” Ryan said. “It’s just…”

  “What?”

  “The Steel Trust is where we keep the bulk of our holdings. But the Shane ranch was deeded to the Steel Family Trust, which of course, none of us knew existed. Joe’s trying to get hold of the attorneys to figure it all out.” Ryan rubbed at his temples. “I just can’t wrap my head around it. My father had a trust none of us knew about. Could that be where he kept…?”

  I heard the words he couldn’t form. Where he kept the dirty money. I couldn’t say them aloud either.

  “Let me tell you,” he continued. “The four of us are going to be keeping a better eye on things from now on.”

  “Why haven’t you always done that?”

  “Because this was our father’s team of advisors, guys he trusted with his money. Consequently, we trusted them. And it’s not like we’re blue bloods or anything. We work our asses off at the ranch. We need the team to oversee the finances because none of us has the time.”

  He sounded like he was trying to convince himself, and I understood why. He didn’t want to admit that any of them had been negligent in letting the team handle everything. But he knew they had. Not negligent so much as overworked and trusting in their father.

  A man they no longer knew.

  “And another thing,” he continued. “Now that Mills and Johnson are nowhere to be found, we need some new PIs. We’ve got to find my father.”