Insatiable

by HELEN HARDT

  “…won’t hurt him.” I smiled. “Of course, it’s Saturday, and he’s probably at the hospital with Mel.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Ruby stood.

  Baby Brad had gained five ounces since his birth, and his skin was pink with a healthy glow. I kissed his little cheek before handing him back to the nurse to get his vitals.

  “You just missed Joe,” Melanie said. “He went out to get some supplies I need at the hotel.”

  Good. I loved my brother dearly, but Ruby and I wanted to speak to Melanie alone.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. “Hanging in there?”

  “I’m good. I miss being home, of course, but there’s no place I’d rather be than with my child. He’s everything I could have hoped for, and he’s thriving. Life is good.”

  “He’s beautiful,” Ruby agreed.

  “Are you and Ryan going to try soon?”

  “We were just talking about that.” Ruby rubbed her chin. “Ryan is so afraid of passing on the psychopathy from both our parents, but he’s finally calming down about it. I never thought of myself as mother material, for that matter, but seeing little Brad changes things, to be honest. I’ve been on the pill for so long, though. I thought I’d see a doctor first.”

  “Always a good idea,” Melanie said.

  “Says the doctor.” I laughed.

  “What’s going on with you two?” Melanie turned to me. “You doing okay?”

  What she was truly asking was, are you harming yourself? I wasn’t, thank God.

  “Oddly, I don’t feel overly traumatized by what happened. I guess I never really felt I was in any danger. Dominic was nice to me, and Alex was…well…Alex.”

  “All normal,” Melanie said. “But don’t be surprised if you don’t get over it as quickly as you think. You were traumatized, Marj.”

  I nodded. Mel was right. Mel was always right. Just because I wasn’t having nightmares didn’t mean my scar wasn’t tingling. “I’ll get help when I need it,” I said.

  “I know.” Melanie smiled. “Joe told me who Cade Booker is, and that Alex and Dominic are his half siblings.”

  “Cade Booker is a riddle,” Ruby said. “As cops, we can usually see a certain logic in the psychopathic behavior of an individual, but Cade…”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Melanie said. “Of course I can’t make any kind of diagnosis without a thorough physical and mental examination, but my gut tells me he has a personality disorder, most likely borderline. He might also have some kind of mild dissociative identity disorder.”

  “You mean split personality?” I asked.

  “Not in the sense you’re thinking. Just an ability to go outside himself when he needs to. It’s a self-protection mechanism.”

  I bit my lower lip.

  I knew well about self-protection mechanisms. I used physical pain to disassociate from emotional pain.

  Not a good idea, but I understood. I cleared my throat. “What’s borderline personality?”

  “It’s a disorder characterized by erratic and self-destructive behavior. The thing is, our personalities are formed by the time we’re five years old, so personality disorders can’t be blamed on any trauma that happened afterward, although such trauma can certainly exacerbate a disorder, as I’m sure it did for Cade.”

  “He was the son of a guy who ended up selling him for cash,” I said. “Probably enough to help him form a personality disorder at a young age.”

  “True enough,” Melanie agreed.

  “How did Bryce and Joe end up in Cade’s office anyway?” Ruby asked.

  A question I wanted an answer to as well. I hadn’t yet asked Bryce.

  “I asked Jonah about that,” Melanie said. “He said he’d done business with Cade in the past and thought he might know a hacker who could help.”

  “That’s no reason for Cade to douse Joe and Bryce in pepper spray,” I said.

  “Erratic behavior,” Melanie said. “It’s textbook.”

  “There’s still the question of Dale and the guy he saw stalking the playground,” Ruby said. “I’ve been thinking about that, and it concerns me. First, Dale and Donny both said all of their abusers were masked, so how would he recognize this person on the playground?”

  “Unless it was a person he recalled who wasn’t masked,” I offered. “Maybe whoever brought food didn’t bother wearing a mask.”

  “Doubtful,” Ruby said. “Even someone performing innocuous duties knew what was going on in that compound. He wouldn’t want to be recognized.”

  “Maybe it was his stance,” Melanie said, “or his clothing. Something about that person spooked Dale. He hasn’t been able to give me a clear answer as to why yet, but we’ll get there.”

  “If it was Cade Booker,” I said, “why would he do that?”

  “Erratic behavior,” Melanie said again. “It doesn’t make sense to a rational person.”

  “Plus the stuff he left behind,” Ruby said. “A cufflink that can be linked to Colin Morse, a baseball card that can be linked to Dominic Booker, and a rock that can be linked to Dale himself. It’s a head-scratcher even for me.”

  “What if it wasn’t Cade?” Melanie asked. “What if it was Ted Morse? He had access to Colin’s cufflinks. Maybe the one we found at Bryce’s cabin was the only one Tom had. Maybe Ted only gave him one.”

  “Why would Ted Morse want to stalk a ten-year-old kid?”

  “Money,” Ruby and Melanie said in unison.

  “There had to be money involved,” Ruby continued. “That seems to be Morse’s motivation above all else, including his own son.”

  I swallowed. “This is all conjecture. We really don’t know who the stalker is.”

  “True,” Ruby agreed. “It also could simply be Dale’s imagination.”

  “I don’t think so,” Melanie said. “I’ve talked to Dale at length about it. He’s sure the guy was looking at him. Stalking him. What’s in question is if he truly recognized the man. That part might be his imagination.”

  “Is Dale okay?” I asked.

  “Dale will be okay,” Melanie assured us. “He’s not done healing yet. Something this traumatic can sometimes be a lifetime journey of healing. But he’s making good progress, and he’ll lead a normal life. He wants to lead a normal life, and that’s a big thing.”

  I smiled. “I love him and Donny so much.”

  “We all do,” Ruby said.

  “I suppose we should get back to the ranch,” I said. “Those little boys will be hungry, and Jade isn’t much of a cook.”

  Ruby stood and gave Melanie a quick kiss on the cheek. “Call if you need anything.”

  “I will. Keep me posted on what’s going on. Joe tries too hard to protect me from everything right now.”

  I nodded.

  Boy, did I understand where she was coming from.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Bryce

  “I’ve looked myself.”

  I turned and jerked backward.

  “Brad,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “Now that you know I’m not dead, I didn’t think it would hurt to follow you out here.”

  “This isn’t any of your business,” I said. “It’s my father’s place.”

  “Actually”—he cleared his throat—“it isn’t.”

  My brows nearly jumped off my forehead. “Say what?”

  “It’s owned by a corporation,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah. I know that. But he left it to me specifically in his will. I just assumed my fa—”

  “Tamajor Corporation,” Brad interrupted. Then, slowly, “Ta-ma-jo-r.”

  “Brad, I don’t— Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  How could I not have seen it? Easy. I wasn’t looking. Brad Steel was supposed to be a damned corpse.

  “Talon, Marjorie, Jonah, Ryan.” I shook my head. “When the hell did you buy my father’s cabin?”

  “The corporation bought it shortly before your father killed himself. He was low on
cash, Bryce. He’d just paid a fortune for—”

  “Colin Morse,” I finished for him, my stomach turning over inside my abdomen. “Did my father know it was you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Brad said.

  “Why did he still leave it to me in his will?”

  “He probably didn’t get around to changing his will before he died.”

  “Why? Why would you want this stupid place?”

  “Why do you think? Evidence, Bryce. This place is full of evidence.”

  “But my father and the others are dead,” I said. “What good is any of the evidence now?”

  “For putting your father and the others away? No good at all. But it has other uses. For example, you got your mother’s inheritance back, right?”

  The gems now resided inside the safe at the guesthouse.

  “You know about that?”

  “I know pretty much everything your father has done over the decades. I’ve kept close tabs on him.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll never understand you. Why didn’t you have him put away long ago? All of them?”

  “It wasn’t that simple,” he said. “You know that. They had a lot of power, and Wendy had the most power of all. She’d threatened me with a fail-safe if anything happened to her and the other three—a fail-safe that turned out to be a hoax, but I didn’t know that at the time. She was a loaded gun, and I had to protect my family—especially my wife, who couldn’t protect herself.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’d heard it all before. I even understood it, for the most part.

  “So you know about everything hidden here.”

  “Not everything. Just what you’ve dug up so far.”

  That rustling in the trees. I’d been sure we were being watched.

  “I never thought it was you,” I said.

  “It wasn’t actually me. I had Dominic and several others watching this place.”

  That eerie feeling that I was being watched. Turned out it wasn’t just an eerie feeling. Never in a million years would I have thought it was my best friend’s supposedly dead father.

  “Are you the ones who bugged our phones, as well?”

  He shook his head. “As far as I know—and I keep apprised on all of my children and you—your homes and phones are not bugged.”

  I sighed. “Ruby said she didn’t see any evidence of surveillance. I should have believed her.”

  “Sometimes, the threat of being watched is worse than actually being surveilled. It’s a mindfuck, Bryce, and your father was the best at that.”

  “My father’s dead,” I reminded him.

  “He is, but in some ways, his legacy lives on.”

  “Legacy?” I scoffed. “They broke up the ring, Brad. What’s left?”

  “The mysterious phone calls you and Joe have been getting, for one thing.”

  “They’re from Cade,” I said. “They have to be. Though it’s always a different number.”

  “An easy tactic.”

  I couldn’t help an eye roll. “Why are you here, Brad? Why didn’t you dig up this stuff yourself?”

  “I had every intention of doing so. Just hadn’t gotten around to it. Believe it or not, faking your own death is kind of a full-time job.”

  “Am I supposed to sympathize with you?” I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy. I want only your discretion. You and my sons went after Marjorie, Daphne, and Colin when I had them put away safely in a safe house. Now they’re walking targets, and Cade Booker is a ticking time bomb.”

  “He disappeared,” I said.

  “He disappears from time to time, but he’ll be back. He has a score to settle.”

  “With Joe and me? We were kids.”

  “That’s not how he sees it.”

  “Then why not come after us? He pepper-sprayed us in his office. Why not just kill us then?”

  “First of all, you took all his weapons.”

  “So? We were indisposed. He could have left us there and gone and gotten another weapon.”

  “He was in his place of business.”

  “Again…so?”

  “I’m only guessing, but he has a certain image to maintain.”

  “He was the only one in the office with Joe and me. Everyone in his office knows that.”

  “But you and Joe didn’t file charges. Why?”

  Did Brad know about Joe’s past dalliances at the leather club? He seemed to know a lot. If he knew, he’d have to be the one to bring it up. I sure as hell wouldn’t.

  “What good would that do? He already got away with offing his parents. He’d weasel out of a tiny assault charge. He’s a lawyer, for God’s sake.”

  “True. And a good one. Too bad he never actually went to law school.”

  My eyes widened into circles. “Talon was right. The records were forged.”

  “You already had that figured out?”

  “It was a hunch. Was he ever with the FBI?”

  “No, he wasn’t. That was another cover story. But he is trained in FBI tactics.”

  “Then who trained him?”

  “Your father, Bryce. Your father trained him.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Marjorie

  Joe cornered me as we were leaving the hospital. “Excuse me, Ruby. I need a word with my sister.”

  Ruby nodded and went back into the room where Melanie sat with the baby.

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you two doing here?”

  “Visiting our nephew.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that. But not only that. Why else?”

  “Do we really need a reason other than to see your son?” I smiled sweetly.

  “No, you don’t. But I know you, little sis. You and Ruby aren’t that close. Why would you come together?”

  “We’re close enough, and Ruby is Mel’s best friend.”

  “She’s also an ex-cop. I don’t want you bothering Melanie with—”

  “Hold on.” I raised my hand to stop his mouth from moving. “We’re all in this, and Melanie wants to help. She’s the one person who might be able to shed some light on Cade Booker and why he’s doing what he’s doing. Ruby and I were curious, and you know what? Your brilliant wife didn’t let us down. She has a theory about Booker, a theory that makes an awful lot of sense.”

  “Still, I— Shit.” His phone buzzed. “I have to take this.”

  “Good.” I stood, tapping my foot on the floor. Joe infuriated me sometimes.

  Ruby peeked out from the doorway. “All done?”

  “As far as I’m concerned. Let’s go.”

  “Cade must know that Dominic was working on the other side,” Ruby said in the car as we were driving back to the ranch. “That’s why he used the baseball card. And Colin as well. He used the cufflink to incriminate Colin, since Colin had been a victim of Tom Simpson. He was giving us two suspects.”

  “He was going to throw his own brother under the bus?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah. Psychopaths will normally throw anyone under the bus.”

  “But then you have Tom himself, who went out of his way to keep his son away from this part of his life. Bryce is going crazy over it. He remembers Tom as a great dad, and it’s killing him.”

  “Has he talked to anyone?”

  “He’d planned to talk to Melanie, but then I got taken, and she had the baby early. There hasn’t been time.”

  “I kind of get it,” Ruby said, “in a weird way. My father was, in some ways, the worst of the three, but in the end, he saved my life. He also saved me from his goons when I was at the compound.”

  I opened my mouth, but she gestured me to stop.

  “I know what you’re going to say. He tried to rape me when I was fifteen. I haven’t forgotten that, and I haven’t forgotten all the heinous things he did to others. In the end, though, he saved my life. How can I not be grateful for that?”

  “Have you talked to Mel?”

  “Yeah. A little.
More as friends than as doctor-patient. She’s helped me see that it’s okay to have a good memory of a bad person. It’s not like they negate each other. My father was a monster, but I wouldn’t be here without him. I wouldn’t have this wonderful life I found with Ryan. So I’m grateful, in a strange way, and that’s okay.”

  “Bryce needs to hear that,” I said. “I’ve tried to tell him the same thing, but it will mean more coming from a professional.”

  “He will. Bryce is a decent guy. One of the good guys. He’s struggling with the fact that he always thought his father was the same. In fact, every memory he has of his father would indicate that. So his situation is different from mine and harder. I always knew what my father was. The fact that he had a smidgeon of feeling for his only child at the end doesn’t change who and what he was. What it does change is that I’m here, and I wouldn’t be if he hadn’t had that smidgeon of feeling.”

  “And Bryce has your feeling times a million,” I said softly. “Poor baby.”

  Ruby smiled. “I don’t know Bryce well yet, but I’m betting he’d hate being called a ‘poor baby.’”

  “I know he would, but I can’t help it. I feel for him. I love him so much, the way you love Ryan. I feel everything he feels.”

  “I know.” She pulled into the drive leading to the main ranch house. “He’s lucky to have you.”

  “And vice versa,” I said. “We had a rocky start, but I can’t imagine my life without him.”

  Talon was outside on the front deck when we arrived. Odd. He didn’t usually sit out front. He walked to the car as I got out, gesturing to Ruby. Ruby unrolled her window.

  “Can you stay for a few minutes? Dale wants to talk to you.”

  “Sure.” Ruby killed the engine. “Is he all right?”

  “I think so. He just says he remembers a few things, and he wants to tell all of us together, including you because you’re a detective.”

  “Was,” Ruby said. “But of course. I’m happy to help.”

  My heart beat double time as we walked into the house. Dale was sitting in the family room with Jade.