Possession: Steel Brothers Saga: Book Three (16 page)

I
texted
Jade to let her know I was still in the city. Told her I had some business keeping me here. It wasn’t a lie. I’d had a therapy session and then met with the guys about Kostas’s car. She texted me back that she and her father were at an Italian restaurant near the hospital and invited me to meet them there. So here I was, walking into Milano’s.

I found Jade and her dad and sat down between them at their four-top. Her father was looking at her, his eyebrows arched.

“That was Colin,” she said.

My nerves prickled. “What?”

“She just got a call,” Brian said. “Are you sure it was his number?” he asked her.

“Yeah. Unless he changed it. But then, who else would be calling me from his old number? This is great. It means he’s most likely alive.” She shook her head. “Thank God. If only he’d talked to me.

“He didn’t say anything?” I asked.

“No, he didn’t. Is there any way to have this call traced?”

“I don’t know,” Brian said. “And there’s something else you haven’t thought of.”

“What’s that?” Jade clutched the stem of her wineglass.

“It wasn’t necessarily Colin calling. All we know is that it was Colin’s phone.”

Their waitress interrupted us. They were both nearly done with their meals, so I ordered some chicken Marsala and a glass of Chianti.

“You definitely need to call the cops,” I said after the waitress left.

“I will,” Jade replied, “but all I have is Steve Dugan’s card with his office number on it.”

“No problem,” I said. “Steve’s a poker buddy of mine. I have his cell number. I’ll call him now.”

Jade bit her lip. “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday night, Talon.”

“So what? He’s been investigating this guy’s disappearance, and we just got a lead. Let’s let him know.” I quickly pulled up Steve’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Steve. Talon Steel.”

“Hey, Tal, what’s going on?”

“Jade just got a call from Colin Morse’s phone.”

“What?”
Steve nearly took my ear off.

“Yeah. We’re in Grand Junction, where her mom is in the hospital. About an hour ago, she got a call from Colin’s phone, but no one said anything, and then the phone eventually went dead. Any way you can trace where it came from?”

“Hell, yeah. I just need Jade’s number and the time of the call. We should be able to find something.”

I quickly gave him the information he needed.

“I’ll let you know if this leads to anything.”

“Okay, thanks. At least we know it was his number. Of course, it could have been anyone using his phone.”

“True enough,” Steve said. “I’ll get on it and let you know if it leads to anything.”

“Great. Thanks, Steve.”

By the time I was done with my phone call, my chicken Marsala had arrived. Not as good as Felicia’s or my sister’s, but not bad. Besides, I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything all day.

I thought about whether to tell Jade about what I’d been investigating this evening but decided against it. No need to worry her or her father right now.

I felt a little awkward sitting next to Jade’s father, but the two of them talked a lot, so I was content to eat my food and say very little. When I was finally done, I insisted on picking up the check, although Jade fought me on it. Finally I won out.

Jade’s dad had driven her over here from the hospital.

“Do you want to get a room for the night?” I asked her. “Or do you want me to drive you back to the ranch?”

“Since my mom is doing okay, I think I want to go back to my apartment tonight. Not the ranch. I don’t have anything there.”

A lump clogged my throat. “Okay.” I turned to her dad and shook his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Brian.”

“You too, Talon.”

Jade and I didn’t talk much on the ride home. She was clearly exhausted, and so was I. I hadn’t slept at all last night because I had been on the computer researching those bastards.

I ended up dropping Jade off at her apartment and kissing her goodbye. As much as I wanted to make love to her, I was just too tired, so I gave her a deep kiss and then left to drive home.

* * *

O
n Monday morning
, I was back at Dr. Carmichael’s office.

“I tell you, Doc, I really want to find out something about that third man. The one with the low voice. I think I may have identified the one with the tattoo and the one missing his toe. Of course, both of them have now disappeared. One way or another, I’m going to find all of them.”

“You’re very determined, which is a good thing. Remember, though, that only a few weeks ago, you weren’t sure you wanted to try to catch these guys. Don’t your drive for vengeance keep you from your goal, which is healing.”

“Don’t you think seeing the perpetrators behind bars will be healing for me?”

“It may not hurt your progress, but it won’t help your healing as much as you think it will. And if you become distracted and neglect your healing, yes, it could hinder you.”

“How can you say that?”

“Let’s put it this way. Say you’re a mother whose child was murdered. Or a father, for that matter. And the perpetrator is caught and convicted and will now spend the rest of his life in prison. Does that make you feel any better?”

“I would think it would.”

“Will it bring the child back?”

“Well, no, of course not.”

“Remember why you’re here. Seeking justice and putting your abductors behind bars won’t change what they did to you, Talon. Yes, I want them behind bars. I want them to pay for what they did to you and to all those other children. And I also want to know that they’re behind bars so they can’t hurt any other children as well. But that won’t change what you went through.”

“Jesus, Doc.”

“Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not in any way belittling your need to see justice served. I want to see justice served as much as you do. But whether or not those men are caught won’t change what happened to you and won’t really have any effect on your healing.”

“That doesn’t seem possible.”

“You can’t see it now because they’re still at large. But believe me. I’ve had so many patients who think that once they put someone who did them wrong behind bars, they’ll feel so much better. They don’t. It doesn’t work that way. Believe me, I wish it did. Of course, then I’d be out of a job.” She smiled.

I thought for a minute. What if someone had killed someone I loved? One of my brothers or my sister? Or—
God
—Jade? Would I feel any better seeing the killer behind bars? It wouldn’t bring Jade back.

“Okay, Doc, I see what you’re getting at.”

“I’m not telling you to stop trying to catch them and bring them to justice. Just don’t confuse that with your own healing.”

“Gotcha.”

“So you want to try to remember something about the third man, the one you referred to as Low Voice?”

I nodded. “The only thing constant about that entire time was the phoenix tattoo. But then recently I remembered that one of the others was missing a toe. So it seems possible that I might be able to remember something about the third one.”

“It’s certainly possible. But the phoenix tattoo and the missing toe are both very distinct physical characteristics about two people that most people don’t have. What if this third person didn’t have a distinct characteristic like that?”

“Surely there must be something I could remember about him. I mean, he did have a low voice.”

“But you said yourself that you’re remembering this as a ten-year-old, and your voice was still prepubescent. So all we really know is that this guy’s voice was lower than the other two.”

“Don’t try to talk me out of this, Doc.”

She smiled. “Talon, I would never try to talk you out of anything. But I just want you to understand going in that there may not be anything distinct about the third guy. What are the chances that all three of these men have some distinguishing characteristic?”

“I’ve got to try. I’ve just got to.”

“All right. Would you like to try guided hypnosis again? I have to warn you, Talon, it won’t be like the last time. Last time we went back to a dream you had recently. This time I would have to take you back to when you were ten years old, to witness the horrors that actually took place. Are you ready for that?”

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. Slowly I let my breath out, willing my hands to unclench from the armchair. I had to do this. Maybe finding those fuckers wouldn’t heal me, but at least I’d know they were getting their just desserts. I opened my eyes and stared at Dr. Carmichael with all the intensity I could muster. “I’m sure. Let’s do it, Doc.”

* * *

S
ometimes I dreamed about a beach
. We didn’t go to the beach much, but I’d been a few times in both Florida and California. I’d seen both oceans. Nothing was more fun than the waves. Joe and Ryan and I used to love playing in the waves, getting our trucks filled with sand, yet still going back for more.

My mother would call out, “Ryan, don’t go in any farther!”

But my little brother was not to be left behind. He followed me everywhere. And I in turn followed Joe. The beach was fun. The sound of the waves, the smell of the sand, the coconut oil sunscreen, the fish. Sometimes I walked off by myself, looking for shells. Joe and Ryan weren’t interested in that, especially Joe. My big brother loved the water and stayed in it the entire time we were at the beach. Although Ryan wasn’t as drawn to the water as Joe was, he had no interest in collecting shells, so walking along the beach was the one place Ryan didn’t follow me. I liked being alone. My little brother got on my nerves most of the time.

Sometimes I would lie on my beach towel and just let the sun shine on my wet body.

As I was doing now.

I let the rays soak into me, let their warmth infuse me.

Had I ever been this relaxed before? Maybe when I was riding a horse. But not any other time.

Sometimes I wished we didn’t live in Colorado. The mountains were beautiful and I loved them, but there was something about the beach…

Until I was plucked from my beach towel.

“You ready for some action, boy?” the one with the low voice said.

“I’m hungry,” I squeaked out.

“We fed you, didn’t we, boy?”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I’d lost track. Sometimes the third one, the one who seemed more like a follower, the one who was missing a toe, brought me three meals a day. Other times he didn’t come at all. And even if he did, I often threw up what I ate.

“You be a good little pussy for us, and we’ll bring you a steak dinner.” Low Voice cackled in my ear. “Would you like that, boy? Big juicy steak dinner?”

I closed my eyes.

“Get him ready for me,” said another evil voice.

Tattoo. His voice was the slimiest, the most demonic, the most evil. If it had a color, it would be black with red splotches. That’s the color I imagined when I heard him speak, as if evil were speaking.

And of course it was evil speaking.

I had ceased thinking of these three people as human. No human could do what they did.

I was biding my time. How long would it be before they got tired of me, killed me, and chopped me into splintering pieces like they had done to Luke?

I hoped it would be soon.

“I’ll get him ready for you,” Low Voice said. “I’ll get him nice and lubed up.”

I trembled, my body quaking. I didn’t want to tremble, but my body did it of its own accord. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what was going to happen. Not like the first time, when they had completely surprised me, completely destroyed my belief in anything good in the world.

“Assume the position, bitch,” Low Voice said.

Assume the position. Those dreaded words. It meant to get on my hands and knees.

I braced for the pain. The inevitable pain.

But it wasn’t the pain I felt first. It was his hot, rank breath on the back of my neck. Raspy breath, wheezing, a timeless breeze as I waited, suspended, for the sharp pain that would soon come. Like a metal spike, it did come. And I cried out.