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I nod.
I’ll be there for Ava.
Because if what’s coming is what I think it is?
She’s going to understand those cards she’s drawn. More than ever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ava
My father is sitting in his brown leather recliner in the sitting room next to his master bedroom. My mother’s recliner sits on his other side, a reading table between them. The sunshine streams in through a bay window and casts its rays on the brown-and-gold Turkish rug covering the hardwood floor.
“Ava.” Dad nods to my mother’s chair.
I take a seat and absentmindedly grab the crocheted afghan that sits on the arm of the chair and spread it over my legs.
I feel chilly, as if all the heat has been sucked out of the room.
The color is back in Dad’s cheeks, but his eyes are sunken and sad.
“You’re looking good, Daddy.” It’s not a lie. Not really.
“Thank you. I’m very sorry that I scared everyone last night.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, Ava, it’s not okay. The Steels have always prided ourselves on remaining strong and stoic in the worst of circumstances. God knows, we’ve known the worst of circumstances. But I let something get to me. Something I thought I’d put behind me long ago. But, as seems to be the norm in this family, it’s creeping back up on me.”
“Wendy Madigan?” I ask.
He widens his eyes slightly. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Brendan figured out the second puzzle. It’s an acrostic, and it refers to Wendy Madigan.”
“Yes. Wendy Madigan.”
“So she’s Jeremy Madigan’s niece. Jeremy, who Brendan’s father bought the bar from, right?”
“Yes. Jeremy was her uncle. Her father’s brother.”
“What’s that got to do with the rest of the puzzle?” I ask. “What does it have to do with my grandmother?”
“Ava”—my father clears his throat—“Wendy Madigan is your grandmother.”
My jaw drops, and my skin chills further. If I thought the room was cold before, now I’m covered in icicles, and they’re poking me in the back of my neck.
“I don’t understand.” I gulp. “Am I not your child? Was I adopted, like Dale and Donny?”
The thought had occurred to me over the years because I’m so different from most of the Steels. But I didn’t take it seriously. I felt the connection to my mother and my father so strongly.
“No, Ava. You’re not adopted. You are the biological child of your mother and me.”
A heavy sigh of relief pushes out of my mouth.
“Not that it would make a difference,” Dad says. “You know we all love Dale, Donny, and Henry just as much as we love our own flesh and blood.”
“Yes, I know. It’s just… Dad, I’ve been questioning the foundation of this family, and my place within it, for a while now. I’ve been drawing cards—”
“Ava…”
“Just let me finish, Dad. I know you don’t take the tarot seriously—”
“To the contrary, Ava. I take it quite seriously because I take you seriously.”
“But anyway, I—” I gasp as something finally dawns on me. “Wait a minute. If I’m your biological child—yours and Mom’s—how can Wendy Madigan be my grandmother?”
“Because, Ava”—Dad clears his throat again—“Wendy Madigan is my mother. My biological mother.”
Chills again. I rub my arms to warm them away, but still, they permeate me, prickle me like icy pine needles.
The empress. My father’s mother.
“My father, Bradford Steel, had an affair with Wendy Madigan. I’m the result.”
“I…” My stomach clenches.
“I know this will be hard for you to digest, Ava. But you are still a Steel. Bradford Steel is my biological father, your biological grandfather. None of this changes who you are.”
I drop my jaw as images flash before me. All the cards I’ve drawn, and then the thoughts…
How I’ve never been able to feel Daphne Steel as an ancestor, but I felt another presence—a grandmother.
“I’m shivering,” I say through chattering teeth.
“I’m sorry to lay this on you, Ava, but clearly someone out there wants you to know. That’s why you’ve been getting these messages.”
“So she’s alive? This Wendy Madigan?”
“That’s what I’ve got our investigators looking into. Your mother and I didn’t figure this out until Thanksgiving Day, when we saw that second message that you and Brendan received. We figured the first one referred to a grandmother of some sort, but we didn’t understand the significance until the second. If she is alive, I will find out. I will find proof. Because you see, Ava, I saw her die twenty-five years ago. And your mother pulled the trigger.”
A cannonball plummets into my stomach.
“She was a cop,” I say, trying to make sense of this. “She… She did what she had to do.”
“She had left the force by then.” Dad sighs. “It’s a long story, but her father saved her life that day.”
“The father she never talks about.” The grandfather I once dreamed about…in a black cloud of evil.
“Yes.”
“Why doesn’t she talk about him, Dad?”
“That’s for her to tell you.”
