“I’m here for them. I swear it.”
I smiled into the phone. “I know you are. This whole thing is a miracle. Many women and children were rescued.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what they’ve been through.”
“You don’t want to. It wasn’t pretty.”
“I won’t press them for details.”
“That’s good. Let them come to you. They’ll both have therapists they can talk to. Just be there for them.”
“I will be, Ruby. Thank you for everything.”
I was smiling when the call ended. Though the FBI had done much more than I had, at least I had fulfilled my promise to Juliet. I had gotten her out of the dorms and into the nice Steel replica.
Damn. The Steel replica. Ryan was hearing the story of how and why that house had been built at this very moment. I couldn’t imagine the stories he’d have to tell me when I saw him this evening.
I got into the car and readied for the drive home, when my cell buzzed yet once more.
Sheesh! Again, a call from a number I didn’t recognize. It could possibly be Juliet, and I didn’t want to ignore a call from her.
“Hello, Detec— Er…Ruby Lee,” I said into the phone.
“We need to talk,” my father said.
Something surged within me at his voice—an emotion I didn’t quite recognize. “I don’t know what about. You should have surrendered yourself to the authorities, but as usual, you did your disappearing act.”
“How much did Steel tell you?” he asked.
Despite the fact that I’d learned my father had been to hell and back learning to train potential human slaves, I had no sympathy for him. He’d been well paid, and he’d gone into the whole thing with his eyes open. The same thing couldn’t be said for the poor innocent souls he ripped from their lives without their consent. Especially the children.
My heart squeezed in my chest.
As far as I knew, the mother of Dale and Donny Robertson still hadn’t been found. At least they were out of the hellhole they’d lived in for several months. Poor babies.
“Enough to make me question why you wanted to lure his children there. Why, Theo?”
“Because I knew it would draw someone else out, and I wanted to be done with this, once and for all.”
“You’re talking about Wendy,” I said. “She’s locked up. And you’ll still be put away for what you’ve done.”
“I told you I’d never see the inside of a prison cell, Ruby,” he said. “And I meant it.”
“Brad Steel told us you wanted out. You told me you wanted out.”
“I do. I will get out one way or the other.”
“Why now?”
“I’m old and tired,” he said, “but there’s something I have to do first. And I need your help.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Ryan
“Why in hell are you even asking me that? She’s a lunatic. You know that as well as I do.”
“She’s still your mother.”
“Do you want a relationship with her?”
“What I want has never mattered to her. Until she leaves this earth—or I do—our lives are intertwined. She’s seen to that.”
“She won’t entangle me in her web,” I said. “You can count on that.”
“Let’s get back to the subject at hand,” Joe said. “Like how the fuck you ended up on some rock in the Caribbean in a replica of this damned house.”
“You know that your mother got pregnant with Marjorie, and of course Wendy found out. She knew I valued my children more than anything, so the best way for her to get to me was to hurt one of them.”
“Larry always said that Talon wasn’t meant to be taken.”
“He wasn’t. Not permanently, anyway. They knew friends and family members were hands off.”
I wondered for a moment about Ruby and her cousin Gina, but didn’t want to sidetrack the discussion. That had happened much later, anyway.
“Wendy came to me and confronted me about your mother’s pregnancy. Then she demanded another payment for me breaking my vow. Five million dollars.”
“That’s the withdrawal that Jade found,” Joe said. “Wendy told us it was a payment for giving up her son. Though that didn’t make sense, since Ryan was already seven at the time.”
“No. I’d already paid her handsomely to give Ryan up. This was another payment, and again she threatened to take the documents linking me to the trafficking ring public. I felt I had no choice. Then she did the most heinous of things.”
“Really? Something more heinous than having a young boy tortured?” I said.
“Not more heinous than that, but she made it very clear to me that she paid Mathias and Simpson off with that five million. She paid them with my own money to take my son!” He clenched his hands into fists. “Wendy would have been satisfied to hurt either one of you, but Talon was younger and easier prey. She paid Mathias and Simpson to take him and… Well, you all know what happened. I don’t want to repeat it.”
“No.” This time, Talon stood. “I’ll say it for you. Don’t think you shouldn’t have to hear what those bastards did to me. They starved me, beat me, raped me, inflicted such pain on me that I couldn’t have ever imagined. They told me I was worthless. An animal. They made me beg for food, for a blanket. They taunted me with ice water when I was so thirsty I couldn’t even make tears. They made me say that I liked being raped…that I liked their big cocks up my ass.”
Our father closed his eyes, cringing.
“A ten-year-old boy! Your son! I cried out for you that first time. I cried out for Mother. No one listened. No one came. My twisted half uncle finally let me go. He did more for me than you did.”
My father’s head sank into his hands.
“Easy, Tal,” I said.
“Oh, hell, no,” Joe said. “Our father needs to hear this.”
I looked to Marjorie, who was about to burst into tears. “I don’t disagree. But she doesn’t.”
Marjorie choked back sobs. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Joe and Talon both shifted their gazes to our little sister.
“God. You’re right. I’m sorry, Marj,” Joe said.
“Yeah, me too.” Talon sat back down.
She nodded. “I know. I’m okay.”
“And I know I was spared because I was Wendy’s son.” Acid burned my tongue. “Let’s get on with it.”
Our father lifted his head and nodded. “Daphne was pregnant, and due to the added stress of Talon’s kidnapping, she went into premature labor. You all know that Marjorie wasn’t expected to live. But our baby girl did.”
“And I came home to a new sister,” Talon said. This time he had a soft smile on his face. “A beautiful baby doll. The only thing that convinced me there was some good left in the world.”
Marj smiled through her tears.
“But Daphne was never the same after that. She did her best, but dealing with a newborn out of the NICU and then with a child who’d been through hell… She loved you both very much, but it was too much for her. She began to fade away, until the mother you knew and loved was no longer there. She couldn’t touch any of you anymore.”
“Why didn’t you get her help?” Talon asked.
“I did, of course. But then someone else got involved.”
“Let me guess,” I said sardonically. “My mother.” This had Wendy Madigan written all over it.
My father nodded. “She began to threaten your mother, and in her already precarious mental state, I couldn’t have that. After what had happened to Talon, I knew Wendy was capable of anything. The best way to deal with it was to fake your mother’s suicide. Even Wendy never knew.”
I couldn’t find fault with my father’s words. If Wendy had known Daphne was alive, she would have told me. No one knew. Not until we found her on the island.
“All this time, you were the only one who knew she was alive?” I said.
“Yes. Until now.”
“Do you think Mother is safe where she is?” Marj asked.
“As long as Wendy’s locked up in psych, yes.”
“You stayed with us then,” Marj said. “Why did you eventually leave us?”
“I stayed until you were of age, baby girl. That was the promise I made to you the day you were born, and I fulfilled it. After that, I knew your brothers would take care of you, and I needed to go to your mother.”