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“I know. He’s supposed to be dead. But Wendy said he’s alive.”
“Wendy’s crazy.”
“True enough. Still, someone claiming to be my father called me.”
“Did you tell your brothers?”
“Yeah. They think it was a hoax. But they also don’t know that Wendy told me he’s alive.”
“Did you check out the number?”
“I couldn’t. My cell phone went over a cliff, along with my car.”
Melanie had told me as much as she knew. None of us were exactly sure what happened, and Ryan couldn’t tell us because of a few minutes of retrograde amnesia. I stared at him, and gratitude warmed my body. He could have easily gone over the cliff with his car and phone, but he hadn’t. Whatever had happened, I was beyond thankful that he was here. Alive.
“My brothers didn’t ask much about it,” Ryan continued. “They started asking why I had answered the phone when I was going so fast—”
“Excuse me? Exactly how fast were you going, Ryan?”
“About one sixty when I picked up the phone. One twenty when I looked again.”
My heart nearly stopped. What if… Nope. Couldn’t go there. He was here. Safe. Concussed, but safe. I wouldn’t be a nag. That wasn’t what he needed right now.
“Okay.” I breathed out slowly, calming my urge to give him hell. “What happened?”
“I got a phone call. A voice said, ‘Ryan, this is your father.’”
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
Ruby, this is your father.
How had our fathers—if it was actually Ryan’s father who called him—said the exact same thing at nearly the exact same time? This was too eerie. For a moment, my mind hurtled to the impossible. Perhaps my father and Ryan’s had been together somehow, both deciding to make a phone call…
No. That was too outrageous.
Though they were both members of the future lawmakers club at the private preparatory high school they attended, and Brad Steel had backed my father’s “business,” for lack of a better word. I had no evidence that he’d continued backing it when my father, along with Tom Simpson and Larry Wade, turned to crime, though.
“Ryan,” I said, “I think we need to go on the assumption that Wendy was telling the truth, and that your father may be alive.”
“But so much that has come out of her mouth has been complete fabrication.”
“Not the most important thing. You are her son.” I hated sounding so blasé about it, but why beat around the bush at this point? We both knew the truth. We both knew my part in finding the truth. Ryan would eventually have to deal with all of that.
“Don’t remind me.”
“It doesn’t change who you are, Ryan. You’re still Ryan Steel.”
“Only because my father is still my father.”
“Yes. You have the same father as Joe, Talon, and Marj. You all share that. That’s huge.”
He grunted.
“And something else.”
“Now what?”
“Wendy might be completely off her rocker, but two things are crystal clear. One, she loves you. In her warped mind, everything she’s done has been for you.”
