me to believe…”
“What, Colin? What?”
He sighed, cleared his throat, fidgeted, and then sighed again. “That my father was behind my abduction. That he”—again with the throat clear—“sold me to Tom Simpson.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Bryce said when I called him.
“Hey, I need to talk to you and Joe.”
“We’re outside the office building. I can put you on speaker if you want, but I’m not sure we should be—”
“Sorry. I know you don’t want to talk on any of our phones, but this can’t wait. This is big. Put me on speaker. Can anyone hear you where you are?”
“Only the steers. It’s Marj,” he said, presumably to Joe. “She wants to talk to both of us.”
“What is it, Sis?” Joe asked.
“I just talked to Colin.”
“Where are you?” Joe asked. “We should speak in person.”
“No,” I said adamantly. “At this point, I don’t care if anyone hears us. Colin did have a pair of gold cufflinks. They were a gift for high school graduation. He described them, and they sound like they could be a match to the ones we found at the cabin and outside the school playground. Only one problem.”
“Yeah?” Joe said.
“He never wore them. They were always in the top drawer of his dresser at his parents’ house.”
“Are they there now?”
“He doesn’t know. He’d have to go to Denver to find out.”
“Then he needs to go to Denver.”
“He refuses.”
“Why?”
“Because”—I paused a minute—“he thinks…”
“He thinks what, Marj? At this point, we don’t have to tiptoe around this. What does he think?”
“He’s been doing more research. Apparently he had a feeling, but he didn’t tell us that night at the hotel. Not until he had proof. And he didn’t want to find proof… In fact, he still can’t quite substantiate…”
“Sis, come on,” Joe said. “What are you getting at?”
I cleared my throat. “He didn’t want to tell me this, but I pushed. I pushed hard, and he finally buckled.”
“What? What did he tell you?” Bryce asked.
“This is so awful.”
“What, Marjorie?”
“He found some documents. They weren’t overly clear, but he’s pretty sure—”
Nausea crawled up my throat in an acidic trail. I didn’t want to tell Bryce. Didn’t want to tell him his father was even more of a monster.
“—that his father sold him. To your father.”
Stark silence on the other end of the line. Neither Bryce nor my brother spoke.
I cleared my throat. “I told him that probably wasn’t the case.”
Still silence.
“I mean, your father and the others never dealt in men, right? Just children”—I bit back the gagging in my throat—“and women. Right?”
Still nothing.
“You guys okay?”
But of course they weren’t. Especially Bryce. In one day, Bryce had found out his father had bought his son for him and a young stud plaything for himself. If what Colin said was true, it wasn’t hard to believe. If Tom Simpson could buy his own grandchild, he could certainly buy a grown man.
“Come on,” I said. “You’re scaring me now.”
Bryce, then, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Sorry, Sis.”
“It’s okay. I’m pretty sick about it myself.” And if I felt sick, I could only imagine how Bryce was feeling.
“I wish we knew how all of this fits together,” Bryce said. “My dad. Colin. Ted Morse. Justin. The guy in the gray hoodie at the school.”
“Don’t forget the Spider,” Joe said. “He’s still missing.”
“And the rock and the baseball card and the cufflink. Ruby thinks the cufflink was a plant.”
“I trust her instincts,” Joe said.
“I do too,” I said. “But someone wants us to think Colin was where gray hoodie guy was.”
“You don’t think—” Bryce began.
“God, no! Colin is a shadow of his former self. He’s not going to go skulking around a school playground. What would he have against Dale and Donny or any kids? Also, Dale thought he recognized the guy. We know Colin wasn’t anywhere on that Caribbean compound.”
“Whoever the gray hoodie guy is, he somehow got his hands on Colin’s cufflink,” Joe said.
“Or one that’s identical to it,” Bryce added.
I walked away from the bench where Colin and I had sat, and—
Chapter Forty-Seven
Bryce
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Did you hear us?” I asked. “About the cufflink?”
Nothing. Maybe her battery had gone dead. If it had… Was someone listening in? Had someone…?
My heart hammered into itself, my chest heaving. “Marjorie? Sweetheart?”
“Sis,” Joe said, his tone panicked. “What’s going on?”
“Marj! Marj!” Franticness strangled me like a noose of fire.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“Did she say where she was?” Joe asked.
“No. I just assumed she was home. But now I’m not sure.”
“Fuck,” Joe said, pulling out his phone. “Keep that line open. I’m calling the cops.”
“Marj!” I shouted again into the phone. “Marjorie! Talk to me! Damn it!”
“The cops are on the way,” Joe said. “Keep that line open, whatever you do.”
He didn’t have to make the demand. No way was I severing my only line to the woman I loved.
No fucking way.
“We’re coming, baby,” I said into the phone, hoping she could still hear me. “We’re coming for you. I love you, Marjorie. Be strong. I love you.”
Epilogue
Now I have what I need.
Continue reading the Steel Brothers Saga with Book Twelve
Coming January 28, 2020!
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