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“I’m your mother,” Wendy said. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Then Ryan scoffed. “You’ve been lying to me for thirty-two years. Why didn’t you tell me you were my mother?”
“It was a secret.” She giggled like a little girl.
I wanted to tell Ryan not to take anything she said seriously, that she was crazy as a loon, but this was his mother. He was already upset enough. Eventually, he’d start worrying about having half of
her genes. It was a worry I was familiar with, being the daughter of Theodore Mathias.
“The cat’s out of the bag now,” Ryan said, looking at his hands.
“You mean you aren’t questioning it?” Wendy asked.
“No. My brothers did a DNA test. You are my mother. But in a biological sense only. I want nothing to do with you.”
“Then why did you come see me today?”
It was a fair question on Wendy’s part. I was wondering the same thing.
“I want to know the truth. The truth about you and my father. The truth about Talon’s abduction. The truth about…everything.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have that much time,” she said.
“Fine, then. We’ll start with my mother. Er…my father’s wife.” He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to talk about her. We’ll start with you. Why did you give me up?”
“For your father. I did everything for your father.”
“Oh?”
“Haven’t your brothers told you how much we loved each other?”
“They’ve told me you loved him. Were obsessed with him. So obsessed that you kidnapped Jonah because you were convinced he was my father.”
“Lies. I would never hurt any of Brad’s children.”
“You’re the liar. You basically told Talon and Joe that you were responsible for Tal’s abduction. That you orchestrated it to punish our father.”
I stiffened. What Jonah and Talon might not have told Ryan was that he was let go because he was Wendy’s son. At least that was Wendy’s story. Larry Wade’s was different. He still maintained that Talon was never meant to be taken.
From my limited dealings with Wendy so far, I knew she couldn’t be trusted.
“Brad knew not to cross me,” Wendy said, an eerie smile on her face.
This was getting nowhere fast. Wendy wasn’t yielding any information, and Ryan was just getting upset. I touched his arm. “Ryan…”
“What?”
“We should go.”
“No. I haven’t gotten anything I came for yet.”
“What do you need?” Wendy asked. “Anything. And it’s yours.”
He looked her straight in the eye. “The truth.”
Chapter Thirty–Six
Ryan
