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“What might that be?” I asked.
“You’re a cop. You’ll know when you find it,” Ryan said.
“As a cop, I approach everything as suspicious. But I’ll do my best.” I leafed through the documents on my lap.
Nothing, nothing, nothing,
Until…
It was a death certificate. That alone wouldn’t raise my suspicions if it belonged to someone in the Steel family. But it didn’t. The name on the certificate was John Cunningham. How the hell did all these documents—from after Ryan’s father’s supposed death—get in the house?
I looked at the date. He’d been born around the same time as my father.
The same time as Bradford Steel…
“Ryan, when did your father die?” I asked.
“About seven years ago,” he said. “Why?”
So had this poor schmuck. “Was he about six feet three, two hundred pounds, by any chance?”
“About. Why?”
I handed him the death certificate.
He scanned it. “Ruby, what is… Oh, shit.” He handed it to Talon.
“Have any of you seen your father’s death certificate?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s around here somewhere,” Marjorie said. “What’s going on?”
Talon handed the certificate to Jade. “What do you make of this?”
She scanned the document.
“Did you ever check the number?” I asked Ryan. “The one your father supposedly called you from?”
“No. Mills and Johnson have been off the map, and that’s who we’d have do it.”
“Your new phone won’t show the call. All I need is permission to access your records, and I can do it through the department.”
“You’ve got permission,” Ryan said. “But I don’t want to take advantage.”
“Besides,” Talon said, “our father is not alive. We had him cremated, for God’s sake.”
“Are you sure?” Jade asked.
“Of course I’m sure. What kind of a question is that?” Talon said.
“Easy, babe. I’ll check this document against the database tomorrow. It may be nothing.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I asked, after texting the requisite department to get Ryan’s cell phone records, “who identified the body after your father died?”
“He was taken away in an ambulance,” Ryan said. “He had a heart attack and was dead on arrival.”
“Still, someone would have had to identify the body for the coroner,” I said.
“I don’t know,” Talon said. “Did either of you?”
