almost an exact physical replica of his father, just like Joe was of mine. It happened. Genetics.
“Colin,” I said, “if you have more information for us, we need it. Now.”
“I’m trying. Sometimes my thoughts are all a blur.”
“I understand.” At least I tried to. He’d been through so much at Tom Simpson’s hands. He could hardly be expected to—
“Yes,” Colin said. “There’s something else.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Bryce
Marjorie’s touch helped calm me down a little.
But only a little.
“What?” I gritted out. “What else?”
Colin shrank back in his chair again, fear lacing his greenish eyes. I’d scared him, and I felt ambivalent about that. I was not my father, but the fact that I looked like him had to affect Colin. I understood, yet I didn’t. I wanted to separate myself from my father, wanted to cut every part of him from me.
At the same time, though, I didn’t.
I didn’t want to let go of the good times. The pleasant memories. My happiness as a child.
I had the best father in the world.
How many times I’d thought those words as a kid, even as an adult. He’d been so supportive when I brought Henry home, had doted on him, fussed over him.
My God, I’d left my son alone with that man.
Henry was fine. I had no doubt that my father had cared for him as much as he’d cared for me. I knew in my heart that he’d never been inappropriate with my son, as he never had with me.
So much going on in my head. I wanted to jump out of my skin to escape sometimes. I’d let go. I’d professed my love to Marj and committed myself to a relationship. I hoped I hadn’t succumbed too soon.
If I continued down this path of self-destruction and hurt her in the process…
I couldn’t.
I absolutely couldn’t.
“Start talking,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt.
“My dad told me something a while ago, right after Joe Steel rescued me.”
“What?” Marjorie asked.
“He said this wasn’t over. He’d find a way to make someone pay.”
“Your assailant is dead,” Marj said. “He’s already paid the ultimate price.”
Colin shook his head vehemently. “That’s not what I mean. That’s not what he said. He said he’d find a way to make someone pay. Someone. Not necessarily my assailant.”
“And you think he meant us?” Marj said.
“I don’t know what he meant. Honestly? My father blames me for what happened.”
“What?” Marjorie’s face reddened.
“I know it sounds terrible. But I’m a grown man, and I couldn’t fight off”—he looked meekly to me—“your father.”
A brick hit my gut. My father had been a big man, like I was, but Colin was hardly small. He was thin now, still recovering from his abuse, but he was six feet tall and, according to Marj, had been strongly built before.
“Are you saying he wants to make you pay?” Marjorie asked. “That hardly makes sense.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He thinks I’m weak. But that started long before your father…” He gulped.
“He’s manipulating you,” I said, more to myself than to Colin or Marj. “He thinks the more he tells you you’re weak, the stronger you’ll be.”
The words echoed in my head. I’d heard them, or some variation of them, before. From my father? No, my father was never unkind to me.
Yet as I said the words and then heard them again in an echo, it was my father’s voice that uttered them.
“Bryce?” Marj said. “You okay?”
I cleared my head quickly and nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’ve often wondered,” Colin continued, “what my father’s childhood was like. He never spoke of it, and his parents were dead before I was born.”
“How did they die?” I asked.
He stayed silent.
“A car crash, wasn’t it?” Marjorie said. “I think that’s what Jade told me.”
“Yeah,” Colin mumbled.
“So you don’t really know much about your father,” I said. “What kind of man he is?”
“Oh, I know what kind of man he is. I’m finding out more by the minute. Things I don’t want to know. Things that…”
I couldn’t quite read the tone of Colin’s voice, and for a moment, I felt a kinship with him. He both loved and hated his father.
I could relate.
“In my father’s mind,” Colin continued, “I should have been strong enough to escape…or better yet, to not be in the position in the first place.”
“Are you and he close?” I asked.
“In some ways. We were, anyway. Not anymore. Not the more…”
“The more what?”
“Nothing,” he said. “No, I’d say we’re no longer close.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Marj queried.
“It has everything