Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Ms. Madigan—”
“Please, call me Wendy.”
“All right. Wendy. My father, Sean’s nephew, has tried very hard to unravel the mystery behind his death at Brad Steel’s wedding.”
“That was a shame, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. My grandfather was Sean’s older brother. My father’s named after him.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of who your father is, Brendan. Now tell me about you and my Ava.”
Her Ava? I look to Ryan, who simply shakes his head, clearly resisting an eye roll.
“Ava and I are…good friends.”
“Good friends? Or are you lovers?”
Her word takes me aback. What kind of grandmother uses that kind of language when talking about her granddaughter?
“Good friends,” I say. “Perhaps something more, but that’s not what I came here to talk to you about.”
“That’s what I want to talk about.”
“Listen,” I say, “Jack and I were at your daughter’s house, and we found the freezer that you hid in her basement.”
Wendy’s lips move slightly, but she says nothing.
“We’re taking the vials in for lab testing,” I say, “but we figure they’re probably decoys, Wendy.”
“Oh, they’re not decoys.”
“Whether they are or not is of no consequence. If they are frozen sperm, they’re not viable. They weren’t frozen correctly.”
“Oh, they’re viable.”
I look to Ryan again, and he shakes his head again. The woman is clearly delusional.
“What I want to know”—I grit my teeth—“is why you saved my great-uncle’s sperm?”
“And why I used it to impregnate my daughter?” she says.
I stop my jaw from dropping. “Yes. I’d like to know why.”
A smile cracks her lips. “Your great-uncle was a prime specimen. Like I said, you look just like him. Don’t you think it’s a good thing to keep prime lines going?”
“Okay…”
What is wrong with this woman? I have no idea what she’s getting at.
“I can only tell you this, Brendan,” she says. “Ava is the key.”
“The key to what?” I ask.
“The key to everything.” Then her eyes flutter shut.
Ava? I look again to Ryan, who shrugs. Then he gestures me quietly to leave the room.
Once we’re outside the door, he takes me aside. “She seems to think there’s something about Ava.”
“Ava is your child, isn’t she?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“I mean, she doesn’t look like you, not the way Gina does.”
“No. She looks like her mother. I trust Ruby. I watched Ava come out of Ruby, and I know Ruby was only with me. She got pregnant with Ava soon after our marriage. Besides, I know my mother. Ava wouldn’t be the key to anything if she didn’t come from me.”
“What the hell does your mother mean? The key?”
“You got me.”
“Ava is different,” I say. “She always has been.”
“She has been, but how could Wendy have even known that?”
“Well, you thought Wendy was dead, but she wasn’t. She changed her identity. Who’s to say she wasn’t watching Ava all this time?”
“You know as well as I do that we have excellent security.”
“Yes. Excellent security. So excellent that Brittany Sheraton got a message to Donny by putting something in his medicine cabinet in his room.”
“That was—”
But I keep speaking. “So excellent that a human trafficking cartel was operating on your property without your knowledge, and someone left that information for you.”
He clenches his fists. “You’re treading on thin ice, Brendan. Brittany Sheraton left the information. And Doc.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Ryan runs both his hands through his hair and sighs. “I’m not sure about anything anymore, Brendan.”
“Me neither.” I sigh. “We need to figure it out. We need to figure it out for Ava.”
“I agree with you. My mother seems to have some kind of hold over her. I’m not sure how or why, but it has to end.”
“She’s an old woman. She can’t live forever, can she?”
“You heard the nurse. She’s in good health. She could easily live another decade. Besides…” He grits his teeth. “The Steels are a lot of things, but we’re not murderers.”
I nod.
“What happened with you and Ava?”
“Nothing we won’t work out. She and I both have different things to focus on right now. I’m helping my father figure out this whole thing with the original Sean Murphy, and she wants to find out why your mother reached out to her.”
“Those two things don’t necessarily have to be at cross-purposes,” Ryan says.
I regard him. He’s being serious. I certainly do see the connection. “All right. I’ll reach out to Ava. I hope we can work things out, Ryan. I’m in love with her.”
Ryan offers a worn smile. “I know you are, son. And she couldn’t do any better than you.”
Ruby walks toward us quickly then. “Good, you’re no longer in there. I need to talk to you about something.”
“What’s that, babe?” Ryan asks.
“Something that just occurred to me. Something that may be related. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ava
My tattoo is covered in a clear plastic bandage so I can see the beauty of it.