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“What the fuck does that mean? When the time was right? This poor man has been through hell. He’s been carrying this around for twenty-five years and is only just now getting the help he needs.”
“Talon had to decide for himself when to get help.”
“That is such bullshit! Someone should have helped him. His fucking parents should’ve helped him.”
“Calm down, Jade. I can’t say that I disagree with you. As much as I loved Brad, I didn’t agree with everything he did. But he felt he had his reasons. Number one was his clinically insane wife.”
“What? Are you saying Talon’s mom was certifiably nuts?”
“She was never diagnosed with anything, but based on my dealings with her, I’d say she probably had both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. Either that or narcissistic personality disorder.”
I didn’t know much about psychology, but I knew that double diagnosis meant trouble. “Why didn’t the woman get help? Maybe she wouldn’t have taken her own life.”
“Brad tried. She refused. She was a very troubled woman, Jade. But she did dote on those boys. I truly do think that she loved them. The girl though—I don’t think she ever really bonded with her. After all, she killed herself when Marjorie was barely two.”
“Maybe she had convinced herself that Marjorie wasn’t going to live after she was born so early. And then couldn’t deal with it when she did.” I was just tossing out words. I had no idea what I was saying.
“You may well be right,” Wendy said. “I really have no idea, and I can’t speculate. Daphne Steel was… Well, I’ll just say it. She was a mess.”
“All right, but none of this tells me why they didn’t turn Larry in to the police.”
“Part of it was the fact that he was Daphne’s brother. Her father begged her not to turn Larry in. Her father said that Larry was sick, that he needed help, and that prison would kill him. Still, Brad would have none of it, but Daphne… She wasn’t close to Larry. Like I said, they hadn’t grown up together. But she was close to her father. If ever there had been a daddy’s girl, it was Daphne Steel. So she thought about it. But in the end, she agreed with Brad that Larry had to be arrested.”
“Then why wasn’t he?”
“A day later, before he could be arrested, Larry ended up in the hospital. He had been severely beaten, most likely by the two other men who’d abducted Talon. Larry ended up nearly dying from the beating, but he never would name who they were.”
“Why on earth would they have beaten him?”
“Because, Jade, Larry is the one who helped Talon escape.”
Chapter Thirty
Talon
The dreams came again. I was back, walking on the outskirts of the Walkers’ small ranch, but it wasn’t Ryan with me, clutching at my hand. No. It was Jade. Jade, who looked up at me with innocent steely blue eyes, who trusted me to protect her.
But when the masked men came, and when they grabbed her, I wasn’t able to stop them. They dragged her away, all the while she was screaming, “Talon, help me! Help me! Help me!” Until she disappeared into the rundown shack.
I ran toward the shack, but my feet were stuck in mud. I was sinking in quicksand, and all around me, disembodied arms and legs came up from the mud to mock me.
“Help! Help!” I screamed. “I’m sinking! I’m sinking!”
In the abyss, a disembodied head floated upward, laughing at me.
“You couldn’t help me, Talon. I died anyway. You didn’t get here in time. And now you will die too.”
I stared into the dead eyes of Luke Walker.
“No!”
And then my head went under.
I held my breath as long as I could, but soon I was forced to breathe in. Mud, dirt, slime entered my mouth, my nose…
The end…
The—
