I can almost understand that, being a father myself. So why are you helping me? Why do you want to give me information? Something here stinks big-time.”
He paused a few seconds. Then, “This isn’t over. The Feds are asking questions. Asking me questions because I won’t allow them to talk to my son.”
“Your son is an adult. You have no say in who talks to him.”
“I’ve held them off so far, but the bust on the island wasn’t completely successful. My son isn’t safe. You’re not safe, Simpson. And neither are the Steels.”
Chapter Twenty–Five
Marjorie
Jade was feeling better, so after getting the boys off to school, I drove to Grand Junction to visit my mother. I tried my best to get to the center once a week, but with Jade and the boys needing me, I didn’t always make it.
My mother, with a wrinkle-free face and only a few strands of silver in her nearly black hair, looked beautiful as always. Also, as always, she carried around her realistic infant doll—a doll she was convinced was actually me.
“Hi, Mom,” I said as cheerfully as I could.
“Shh,” she said, rocking the doll. “I need to get Angela down for her nap.”
I nodded. What did she think when I called her Mom? I had no idea, but she never argued the point. Since Dale and Donny had appeared in our lives, they had become young Joe and Talon to her. Ryan no longer existed in her mind, as he wasn’t a child of her body.
Ryan had come to see her once. After all, she’d been his mother for the first seven years of his life.
He’d never returned.
It was too painful for him.
It was painful for all of us. We’d all thought her dead until recently.
Daphne Steel laid the doll in the bassinet beside her bed. Then she turned to me. “What brings you here?”
“I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“The usual. The boys are at camp again. I miss them.”
Her doctors had told us it was best to play along. “Yes,” I said. “I do too.”
“But Brad came by.”
I stopped myself from jolting. I didn’t want to upset her. She’d never mentioned my father since his death months ago. “Did he?”
“Yes, he did. It was nice to see him. He’s at camp with the boys most of the time. Such a good father.”
I had a few bones to pick with that one, but I didn’t voice them. Brad Steel hadn’t been the ultimate father, though he had stuck around until I turned eighteen. He’d kept secrets from us, though. Major secrets, not the least of which was that he and our mother were both alive. He’d also kept Talon from getting the help he needed after his abduction.
I could never forgive my father. But my mother? Her insanity was not her fault. She’d been driven to it by my father and his actions.
“When did Father come by?” I asked.
“It was just yesterday, I think. He looks different.”
“How?”
“His hair has gone gray, mostly. But you know, he’s getting older. We all are.” She smiled and then cocked her head to the side.
Looking at my mother was like seeing myself in thirty-plus years. I was the only child who resembled her. Joe and Talon both looked more like our father, and of course Ryan had no genetic relation to her.
My mother spoke again. “He seemed shorter too. But you know, we shrink as we age, right?”
“How much shorter?”
“I don’t know. I could look him right in the eye.”
Odd. My father was at least six inches taller than my mother. I definitely had some questions, but I didn’t want to confuse her.
“Are you sure it was Dad?”
“Of course. Who else would it be?”
Who else indeed? I’d ask the nurse on duty later. “Would you like me to read to you?”
Reading was often how we passed our time. She lived in her own little world, so she didn’t understand anything I told her about Joe, Talon, and me or what was actually going on in our lives. She didn’t know they’d gotten married and were both expecting children.
“That would be nice,” she said. “Let’s read Austen today.”
My mother loved Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. We’d already gotten through Emma and Great Expectations. Now we were working on Oliver Twist and Pride and Prejudice. Funny how she always remembered which book we were reading.
I picked the book up off her table, sat down, and opened it.
Before I could begin, though, a nurse came in. “Time for your