After I’d gone through what happened with Mark and my father the previous evening for about the nineteenth time, I was finally let go.

I was supposed to go back to the hotel, and I would, but Ryan had texted me that he’d be late getting into town because he was talking to his brothers. I could only imagine what about. So I decided to take advantage of some extra time and go visit my aunt and uncle, Erica and Rodney Cates. Erica was my father’s sister and had been in and out of mental hospitals her whole life. Their daughter, Gina, who had been a patient of Melanie’s, had supposedly committed suicide because she had never been able to deal with the sexual abuse by my father when she was younger.

My father—a fucking model citizen.

Melanie and I thought she had probably been murdered, most likely also by my father, who’d made it look like a suicide.

I was surprised when Melanie told me my uncle had dropped the lawsuit against her. Did he have new information? That’s what I aimed to find out. I drove to the townhome they’d rented in the city, left my car, and knocked.

I didn’t expect my uncle to answer, so I was pleasantly—or unpleasantly—surprised when he came to the door.

“Detective,” he said.

“I need to talk to you.”

He opened the screen door. “What the hell? Come on in.”

I entered and followed him into the living room.

“Have a seat,” he said.

I sat down on the couch.

“So what do you want?” he asked, sitting in a chair across from me.

“My friend Melanie told me you dropped the lawsuit against her.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad you did, but I want to know why.”

He stood and paced nervously before sitting down again. “Do I really have to tell you? You of all people should know what kind of a man your father is.”

“You’ve always known that, so I don’t buy it. Why did you drop the lawsuit? Do you have new information on Gina’s death?”

“Wouldn’t the cops get that before I do?”

“As far as the cops are concerned, it was a suicide. No one’s probing.”

“You are.”

“Yeah. I’m trying. But you know as well as I do that my father never leaves a trail. He’s been getting a little more nervous lately, though, now that Wade and Simpson are out of the picture.”

Rodney sighed heavily. “I never would have hurt my little girl in a million years.”

“Then why did you let my father hurt her?”

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit. You always knew what kind of man he was. How could you leave her alone with him? How?” I grasped the seat cushion to keep from standing and drawing my gun.

“You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand? That my father’s a maniac? Believe me, I get that. He would have raped me if I hadn’t gotten away. I’d probably be a slave to some drug lord right now if I hadn’t taken control of my own life when I was fifteen.”

“So you know, then.”

“That my father deals in human beings? Yeah. Your friend Wendy Madigan filled me in, though I had kind of figured it out on my own.”

“None of us ever meant it to go this far.” He rubbed at his forehead. “I never meant for Erica or Gina to be involved in any of this. It’s been hell on them both.”

“Since Erica is crazy and Gina’s dead, yeah, I agree. That’s hell for sure, especially when you could have prevented it.”

“No one regrets that more than I do.”

“You let this happen under your nose, Rodney. You don’t get the privilege of having regrets.”

He didn’t respond.

“I need to ask. Is Gina truly dead?”

“Of course. Why would you even question that?”

“Because I didn’t see the body. And it’s come to my attention lately that sometimes dead people aren’t actually dead.”

“We found her dead in the car in the garage. We cremated her.”

“So you actually found the body?”

“No. Erica did.”

“And you saw it later?”

“No. The coroner had taken it away by then.”

My mind whirled. “Let me get this straight. You never saw your daughter’s dead body?”

“No. I can see her in my nightmares, though.”

I nearly gagged. “Please spare me the sanctimonious sadness. You let my father rape her. She couldn’t have meant that much to you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“Believe me, I’m glad I don’t. But don’t change the subject. You’re telling me that you never saw Gina’s body? Only Erica did?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

I stood this time and paced around the room, my rubber-soled shoes catching on the worn-out carpet. “Are you sure about that? That Erica saw the body? That it was actually Gina?”

“Of course I am! Erica wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“Wouldn’t she? Or maybe she wouldn’t know the difference. Her mental state has never been stellar.”

“She loved her child! We both did.”

Again, I had to hold back a gag. As much as I wanted to argue the point that no one who let a child be raped loved her, I kept silent on that subject. “How much of a hold does my father have over Erica?”

“Erica knows what he is, but he’s still her brother.”

“I’ve seen the death certificate, Rodney. It says you were the reporting party. How could you report it if you never even saw a body?”

“Erica was beside herself. I had to be the one to talk to the authorities.”

“You’re lying. If the coroner came before you got there, he’d put down Erica as the reporting party. Don’t try to put one over on me.”

“I’m not. I swear.”

He sounded sincere, but that meant nothing. These future lawmakers had obviously been bred to lie. Whether it was a lie or not really didn’t matter. My father had somehow gotten into secured databases before to change records. The Steels had uncovered those doings. Someone could have easily changed the reporting party on Gina’s death certificate to Rodney. And in some offbeat way, it made sense that my father would do that to protect his sister from any possible interrogation.

“I need to talk to Erica.”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t want to see anyone. The nurse is with her now.”

“A live-in?”

“No. We can’t afford that. Insurance pays for a nurse for four hours in the evening.”

“I see. What if I ask the nurse if it’s okay if I speak to her?”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

He stood, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Because there’s no nurse. I lied. I figured if you thought there was a nurse, you’d leave her alone.”

“For Christ’s sake, Rodney, I don’t want to harm her. I just want to talk to her. Gina was my cousin. And as much as I’d like to forget my bloodlines, this involves my father. She might have information that could help me find him.”

“That’s just it. She doesn’t want you to find him.”

“After what he did to Gina? How can that be?”

“She’s afraid of him. We both are.”

I widened my eyes. I hadn’t considered that, though I probably should have. My father had a warped perception of loyalty to family ties.

“Please. I just want to talk to her. If she gets agitated, I’ll leave.”

“I’m sorry. No.”

Since the woman was crazy as a loon anyway, talking to her was probably futile. I decided not to push it. Maybe Rodney had other information.

“Look, my father was in town last night. He came to the station. He had to have had help. Did he get it from you?”

“No. He wouldn’t trust me to help him.”

“Who would he trust? Wendy?”

“Not likely, and she’s locked up in psych.”

“I know. Who else?”

“Simpson.”

“Dead. Who else?”

“Only one other, though they had a falling out a long time ago. And he’s also dead.”

“And who might that be?”

“Steel. Brad Steel.”

---

I sat in the hotel room, typing on my laptop. Ryan still hadn’t arrived, and I hadn’t gotten a text from him in a couple hours. I was starting to worry.

I’d also been worrying about how I was going to tell him about the conversation with my uncle, specifically that, according to him, Brad Steel was one of the people my father trusted…or at least had in the past. That didn’t bode well for Ryan’s father.

Rodney could very well be lying. I didn’t trust any of them as far as I could throw them.

But what if he was telling the truth? What did that say about Ryan’s father and his involvement in this mess?

I didn’t want to think about it. One thing was certain though. If Bradford Steel was alive, we needed to find him. Without him, there would be no closure for any of us.

I jolted when the door handle turned. Relax, it’s only Ryan.

I smiled as the door opened.