I drew in a deep breath and gathered my courage. How was I supposed to tell the man I loved that I suspected his newly found mother was the mastermind behind everything?

I couldn’t. Not yet. First, I’d tell him about the e-mail I had received from Wendy via one of her doctor’s cell phones.

“Just what I don’t need right now. I’m beat. I can’t deal with her tonight.”

“Lights are probably out in the ward by now anyway,” I said. “It can wait. You want to get something to eat?”

“Yeah, that’d be good. What’s good around here?”

I rarely ate out, but we found a Mexican place that had good reviews. Over dinner of carnitas and refried beans with pico de gallo, I told him about the card that had been found in Jordan Hayes’s apartment.

“You can’t suspect Joe,” Ryan said.

“I don’t, and neither does my boss. But the MO is familiar.”

“Yeah. That’s how we found Colin’s business card in the guest room at Talon’s house. But surely Felicia couldn’t have gotten into Jordan’s apartment.”

“Probably not, though we’re going to want to question her,” I said. “Most likely it was my father. Remember, Felicia said the guy who threatened her had spooky blue eyes. Same as Joe said, and same as Melanie said. My father has been wearing colored contacts to disguise himself. At least that’s what we suspect.”

“Yeah, Joe figured that out too.”

“So anyway, it was either my father or someone who was told by my father to place the card at Jordan’s. By the way, have you heard from those PIs of yours?”

“Mills and Johnson?” Ryan shook his head. “Nope. They seem to have fallen off the face of the earth.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. I’m going to look into it at work. I wonder…” I swirled beans around on my plate.

“What?”

“What if Mills and Johnson… No, that’s too farfetched.”

“What?” he said again.

“Mills and Johnson have been working with police departments in Colorado for years. They wouldn’t have gone to the bad side.”

“Meaning?”

“What if my father got to them? Paid them off to disappear?”

“Would they do that?”

“They’re mercenaries. They go with the highest bidder. And I’ve had the feeling my father’s been having financial trouble.”

“We can out-pay your father.”

“Maybe they don’t know that.”

“Everyone knows about the Steel money.”

“True. But what if he could out-pay your family? What if he dried up his coffers to get them off the case?”

“I guess it’s possible. Our money is legitimate, from generations of hard work and solid investments. Crime can pay extremely well. Your father probably has billions in tax-free dollars stashed away.” He huffed. “And that’s what I just don’t get. Tom Simpson was obviously up to his eyeballs in this, yet he continued to live his modest life as the mayor of Snow Creek.”

“His cover,” I said. “It makes perfect sense.”

“Has the department dug up his stash?” he asked.

“Not that I know of. I’m technically not on the case. I just follow it very closely. Plus, anything concerning the money will go to the FBI. They’re already on it.”

“He must have a shitload of money stashed somewhere.”

“Yeah, he might,” I agreed.

“Bryce could be a rich man one day.”

“Only if he’s interested in dirty money,” Ruby said. “If the Feds find it—if it exists—it will be confiscated.”

“Yeah. True.” Ryan finished up his plate. “I wonder…”

“What?”

“You don’t think any of the Steel money could be dirty, do you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve considered that, and I don’t think so. Your father and his father ran a legitimate business. If your father has any dirty money anywhere, he was smart enough not to comingle funds.”

“I hope so,” Ryan said. “It’s just…”

“What?”

“The Steel Trust is where we keep the bulk of our holdings. But the Shane ranch was deeded to the Steel Family Trust, which of course, none of us knew existed. Joe’s trying to get hold of the attorneys to figure it all out.” Ryan rubbed at his temples. “I just can’t wrap my head around it. My father had a trust none of us knew about. Could that be where he kept…?”

I heard the words he couldn’t form. Where he kept the dirty money. I couldn’t say them aloud either.

“Let me tell you,” he continued. “The four of us are going to be keeping a better eye on things from now on.”

“Why haven’t you always done that?”

“Because this was our father’s team of advisors, guys he trusted with his money. Consequently, we trusted them. And it’s not like we’re blue bloods or anything. We work our asses off at the ranch. We need the team to oversee the finances because none of us has the time.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself, and I understood why. He didn’t want to admit that any of them had been negligent in letting the team handle everything. But he knew they had. Not negligent so much as overworked and trusting in their father.

A man they no longer knew.

“And another thing,” he continued. “Now that Mills and Johnson are nowhere to be found, we need some new PIs. We’ve got to find my father.”

“So you really think he’s alive?”

“I think he has to be. We found the death certificate that was clearly tampered with, and none of us actually saw his dead body. Plus, my mother says so.”

I opened my mouth to blurt out that he couldn’t take anything his mother said seriously, but stopped myself. If what I suspected about Wendy was true, we needed to start considering everything she said more critically. We needed to figure out how to separate the lies from the truth and the reasons behind all of them.

Right now, though, we both needed a break.

“Look,” I said. “I’m exhausted, and I have work tomorrow. Let’s sleep on this.”

He smiled. “Is that an invitation?”

No, it hadn’t been. What was I supposed to say? Before I could think of something appropriate, my cell phone buzzed.

It was a text.

Don’t go home tonight.