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It was a simple enough payday. No one got hurt. The baby would be returned, the parents would get their correct children back and they could all retire with pockets full of Steele family cash.
Hurricane Hugo hadn’t been a part of the plan, but it made things easier. Nancy had no trouble swapping the infants’ ID bands in the chaos. She had access to the names and address of the couple that would take the Steele daughter home with them. Everything was going according to plan. Until it wasn’t.
Greg never expected everything to go so spectacularly wrong. He couldn’t have even imagined it because he hadn’t realized how bad his sister’s drinking had become. Or how serious her depression had gotten. She hid it well behind a cheery exterior. But the next thing he knew, his sister was dead and the Steele baby’s location was lost with her.
When Nancy went into the ground, he thought—or hoped at least—that that would be the end of it. For years, he watched his parents struggle with losing Nancy. The stress of it eventually killed their mother. Greg tried to move on with his life and put his criminal phase behind him. And he’d succeeded. He’d had a steady job, a nice enough apartment and a lady friend he went to dinner with from time to time.
Then Buster showed up one day pointing to an article in the newspaper about some big hospital mix-up thirty years ago. Now they had the piece of the puzzle they were missing—Jade Nolan was the Steele heiress. Buster was convinced this was their chance to get the payday they were owed at last. Greg wasn’t as enthused. He would’ve rather the woman just keep her mouth shut and let it go. He’d sent threatening letters and even ransacked her house to scare her off the case.
But as always, Buster got his way. Greg quit his job to help Buster plan. He wouldn’t need the work once he was rich, right? Then they kidnapped the Steele woman and for once in his life, he thought things were finally looking up.
As Greg looked around his childhood bedroom, he realized that his whole life had been a waste. Whatever he’d wanted to be, whatever he’d hoped to become had been taken from him. Taken by Nancy. Taken by Buster. Even taken by those mixed-up babies at the hospital. He couldn’t blame any of them for what had happened. At least not Nancy and Buster. It was too late for that with his sister in the ground and Buster vanished.
But it wasn’t too late to blame the Steele family. They dangled their wealth and privilege around town, just daring people to take a chance at getting a cut for themselves, then crushing anyone who tried.
For a while, Greg thought he could start over again. Maybe he could get the job back and give that lady friend a call. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that time was long gone. He was fifty-six, unemployed, broke and sleeping on a lumpy twin bed in his father’s home. He had nothing to offer and nothing left to lose.
And that made him dangerous.
* * *
Morgan looked up from her computer to find River standing in her doorway. She glanced at her phone, wondering what had happened to her receptionist and gatekeeper, then remembered she had left early today for an appointment.
Of all the days...
“That’s not excitement to see me,” River said as he stepped into her office and shut the door behind him. “It’s almost like you’ve been hiding from me for two weeks and finally got caught.”
“I haven’t been hiding. I’ve been...busy.” That was a terrible answer, but the best Morgan could come up with on the spot. She sighed and shut her laptop down, then she stood up and came out from behind her desk. She was hoping to intercept River before he sat in her guest chair and got comfortable, but he just sauntered over to the conference table and leaned against it instead. He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his gaze at her.
“Busy? Busy doing everything to avoid talking about what happened is more like it.”
Morgan’s tight lips twisted as she sought out the right words to respond. She had decided that honesty was not the best policy in this case, especially after all this time, but she hadn’t come up with a better story, either. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “It was rude.”
“Rude?” he chuckled. “Rude is saying you think I’m ugly. Or that dating me was the dumbest thing you ever did. Making out with me and then abandoning me with a serious case of blue balls is something else
entirely.”
She shook her head. “Were you always this crass and I just didn’t notice it?”
“No. But I also wasn’t this angry back then, either. I hadn’t met your father yet, of course, so my young idealism was still intact. But I just ran into him in the lobby. Seems you were right and he didn’t realize I was working with you on the housing project. He was really excited to see me,” he added with an upbeat tone despite the sarcastic bite of his words.
Morgan had been hoping her father would remain out of the loop concerning River, but unfortunately that hadn’t worked out. She was certain she’d be hearing about his concerns posthaste. “No, I hadn’t mentioned it. It didn’t seem like a good idea, especially coming from me. Contracts were already signed at that point. He isn’t involved with the project, so I was hoping it wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t very well explain to my brothers that there was a problem without telling them more than they needed to know.”
“Your family and their secrets. It’s not healthy the way you all keep them.”
Morgan shrugged and slumped against the table beside him. It wasn’t the best idea to stand this close to him, but it was better than looking him in the eye. When he looked at her that way, she was tempted to tell him everything she knew, and that was dangerous. “I’m sure we don’t have any more secrets than any other family. Ours just tend to be on a larger scale. More dramatic than most. I guess it just comes with the territory.”
“You mean with the money.”
She shrugged. “As they say, more money, more problems. And I guess more secrets.”
River sighed, standing silently beside her for a full minute before he spoke again. “What happened at the town house?” he asked quietly.
There were so many things she could say. Should say. And yet, she couldn’t voice any of it out loud. Maybe later. Once the houses were built and their project together was at an end, maybe then she could tell him about Dawn. Then, when he hated her, they could go their separate ways.
The side of his hand brushed against her fingers and stole any concerns from her lips. It sent a thrill through her no matter how hard she tried to tamp it down. Eventually, Morgan would have to face that she and River had something that just couldn’t be ignored.
“I got scared,” she said at last. That, at least, was true enough.
