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“There are things even Ryan and I don’t know about his father,” Ruby says. “Things we will never know. Things that died with him all those years ago.”
“But you’re not just talking about Ryan’s father, are you?”
Ruby looks down at her latte cup, swishes the contents around a little. Then she looks up and meets my gaze. “No, I’m not.”
“Ava says you never talk about your own father.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I won’t ask you to tell me anything,” I say. “But I hope you’ll tell Ava. She’s feeling in flux right now, like she doesn’t know exactly who she is. The cards she’s drawn have got her pretty freaked.”
“I’ve always wished she wouldn’t take the tarot so seriously.”
“But she does, and I respect that.”
“I respect it too,” Ruby says. “I have the utmost respect for my older daughter. She’s an amazing young woman, and she’s accomplished everything without the help of her family’s money. That’s something I’m very proud of. But I’m a detective, an investigator. We work on facts, on evidence. Not on intuition and emotion.”
“I doubt that’s wholly the case, Ruby. I would bet, as a detective, your intuition serves you well.”
“Absolutely. I’ve followed my gut many times, and it led me to facts. But intuition alone is nothing without the facts to back it up.”
“When you’re a private investigator.”
“Yes. When you’re a private investigator.” She chuckles lightly, but then her face regains its gravity. “But you have to understand, Brendan. That’s my mind-set.”
“I do understand. Probably better than Ava does.”
“Ava has always had her own way of looking at things,” Ruby says. “Even when she was a little girl, I knew she was different. She was so in tune with nature, with the animals on the ranch. Quite frankly, I was surprised she didn’t stay on the ranch, take more interest in Joe’s or Talon’s professions.”
“Interesting. She never told me any of that.”
“This ranch is a beautiful place,” Ruby says. “And I think she considered staying. She loves all nature, but I think, in the end, she couldn’t stay because of her love for animals.”
“I see.”
“I’ve always been surprised that she still eats meat. When she was nine years old, she stopped going out to the north and northwest quadrants, where the cattle graze. She couldn’t bear the thought of…” Ruby shakes her head.
“So she cut herself off from it.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what she did. But it was okay, because she got close to Marjorie, and she learned to cook, to bake. That became her new passion.”
“Still, it’s apparent, in her love for the tarot and what it represents, that she still puts a lot of stock in nature and the universe.”
“She does. And she found a way to exercise those loves in a way that didn’t torment her.”
“Did she ever get close to any of the animals?”
“When she was a little girl, yes, she did. I remember one time, a calf was born, and she and Brock and David—our own Huey, Dewey, and Louie—were present at the birth with Joe and Bryce. She fell in love with that little calf. She named him Buster. But Buster grew up, Brendan. And he wasn’t good enough quality, by Joe’s estimation, to stable as a bull to impregnate the breeding stock. So of course, that meant…”
“That meant he became a steer. And we know what happens to steers on a beef ranch.”
“Exactly.”
“Jesus.”
“Ava took it better than I expected. But she never went up to the quadrants again, never went to see the animals that she loved. She started getting close to the horses on the ranch and, of course, all the dogs. She loves dogs. I’m surprised she doesn’t have one of her own, except that it would be difficult in that tiny apartment where she lives.”
“Her family means a lot to her,” I say.
“I know that. So this is going to be difficult for her. That’s why I want you to stay and wait for her.”
“I will.” I grab my phone. “I just need to make a few quick calls.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ava
I gulp as icy chills poke at me. “Why would the rest of the family be in danger?”
“Wendy Madigan, at least from the little I know about her, was an evil genius.”
“Dad, this isn’t a Scooby-Doo cartoon.”
“No, it isn’t,” he says, his expression serious. “I’m not being hyperbolic. She had a genius level IQ, and she was inherently evil.”
“Do you really believe people can be inherently evil?”
“I never did. Until Wendy Madigan.”
I swallow again. “There are no absolutes in this world, Daddy. That’s what you always taught me.”
“I did, and I believe that. There was some good in Wendy Madigan. Her love for me transcended everything. Her love for my father. But it was an obsessive love. Not a nurturing, kind love.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand how any of this happened. Why would your father…”
