Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“There sure are.” I hold out my hand to Jack. “But I can’t say I’m unhappy that you’re related to us. It’s nice to have a new uncle.”
“Son,” Dad says. “Don’t be counting those chickens until we get the additional results.”
“Dad, you and I both know what those results are going to say.”
Dad shakes his head again. “How can this be?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says, “but I think between the three of us, we can put our brainpower together and figure it out.”
“You bet we will,” Dad says. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to figure out what the fuck is going on here…and what the Steel family has to do with it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ava
Dad sits with me at my grandmother’s bedside. I asked him to leave me alone with her, but he won’t.
“Don’t you need to go to the winery?”
“Have you forgotten I’m retired now?” Dad shakes his head. “I’m allowing you to do this because you’re my daughter and I love you, Ava. But no way am I leaving you alone with her.”
I gesture to Wendy, who’s asleep. “She is not any danger to me.”
Jemima enters the room, checks the monitors on the machines that she set up for Wendy. “Everything looks good. Her heart rate is normal. Blood pressure’s good. Pulse ox is good. For a woman her age, she’s in excellent health.”
“Which doesn’t explain why she kept herself in a self-induced coma,” Dad says.
“Only she can answer those questions,” Jemima says. “Dr. Parks is on rounds at the hospital now, but she’ll be back when she can. You know where I am if you need anything.”
Since Michaela has moved into the normal wing of the house, staying in one of the guest bedrooms, until this thing with Wendy is resolved, the staff wing has become the hospital wing.
“I don’t know what you think she’s going to tell you,” Dad says. “She’s lied her whole life. Spent most of her life in disguise. She’s a mastermind criminal. The woman won’t tell you the truth.”
Wendy’s eyes flutter open. “I’ve always told you the truth, my son.”
Dad doesn’t react to her waking up. Was he expecting it?
“Oh? Have you?” He scoffs. “All those years when you were an investigative journalist, all those years knowing you were my mother, but you never said anything. Not until it suited you to do so.”
“I wasn’t lying, was I?”
“Lying by omission is still lying, Wendy,” he says.
Lying by omission. The words strike me in my gut. That’s why Brendan is so angry…and I don’t blame him. I lied by omission when I didn’t tell him that my family paid for his damages.
Dad continues, “Plus, you knew my mother and father—”
“Your father and Daphne,” she says. “I’m your mother, Ryan.”
Dad narrows his eyes. “Only genetically. All those years you knew my mother and father were alive, living on that island. You knew what was happening on the adjacent island as well. The island that my father sold to that horrid corporation. Which turned out to be…” Dad shakes his head. “How can one individual be so sick?”
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for my children.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me I had a sister?”
“You never asked me, Ryan.”
“This is all such bullshit. My daughter here”—he looks at me with love in his brown eyes—“this very sweet soul, thinks there’s something of value we can learn from you. I’ve tried to tell her that’s ridiculous, but she’s her own person, my Ava. She wants to give you the benefit of the doubt despite everything she knows about you. And she does know everything. Ruby and I told her the truth about what happened twenty-five years ago.”
Wendy’s lips curve slightly. “Then that says something for me, doesn’t it?”
“Why did you reach out to me?” I ask.
She turns her head, looks at me. “Because you’re my granddaughter, Ava.”
“Okay, but why? You have another granddaughter. You have Gina. You have Lauren’s son, Jack. You have Pat Lamone.”
“I reached out to Pat also.”
“Yes, but you reached out to me first. Me…and the Murphys.”
“It will all become apparent soon.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Ava, I’m an old woman. There’s a reason why I checked myself into the hospital and a reason why I revealed certain things to Pat so he would come visit me.”
“Are you ready to tell me why?”
“I am. First I need to tell you a story.”
“For God’s sake, Wendy.” Dad huffs.
“Will you ever call me Mother, Ryan?”
“I did once. Don’t you remember?”
“You did.” She turns her gaze to my father. “You did it because you wanted information from me. You want information now, don’t you?”
“Yes, I want information, but I don’t want to experience the sickness I felt the last time I called you Mother. You’re not my mother, Wendy. You never were. Daphne Steel was my mother in every way that counted.”