She shook her head. "No. Nothing like that. He's been okay. But I want to go home. I want my bed, my clothes, my phone. I really miss my phone."
Her plaintive cry for her phone was so very Kelsey I almost smiled. "I'm going to get you home, but we need to deal with Dillon."
"How? He keeps saying he loves me. He doesn't want me to be hurt. He's all twisted, Willow. I think it's the weed, the drugs. He told me he knows everything about Gage and Melanie, but he can't tell anyone, because Tom Ryan will put him in jail or make sure he disappears. He says Gage and the sheriff were in on it together. I don't understand."
I didn't understand, either, but I didn't have time to figure it out. I looked around for a weapon. Running over to the kitchen, I searched for a knife, but there were only plastic utensils in the drawers. Dammit! I ran back to my sister as the front door opened, jumping in front of her. If the only way to protect her was to put my body in front of her, I'd do it.
Dillon came into the room, then halted, his jaw dropping in shock. "Willow! What are you doing here?"
"Saving my sister," I snapped. Although, I didn't know how I was going to do that. Dillon was a big, tall guy, and I had no weapons.
"I'm saving her too," Dillon said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket.
I was afraid he was going to pull out a gun, but instead, he took out several packets of ranch dressing and dropped them on the table. The gesture was so innocent; it was disconcerting.
"I didn't hurt Kelsey, Willow. Did she tell you I did?"
"No, I didn't say that," Kelsey said. "I told her I want to go home, like I've been telling you for days."
"You need to let her go, Dillon," I implored.
"I will let her go as soon as I know she's safe."
"She is safe. Tom Ryan is dead. You know that because you just went to his house."
"You followed me?" he asked in surprise.
"I did."
Dillon shook his head. "I never saw you. It doesn't matter that Tom is dead. I mean, it matters, but Gage is still free. He's still walking around."
"He's not free. Ben took him to the station."
"And Gage got away," Dillon said. "I just talked to Ben. I was only going to keep Kelsey until Gage was in jail, but now he's out there, and I can't risk Kelsey getting hurt, not after all this. Gage has to pay for what he did to Melanie. He probably thinks he'll get away with it now that Tom is dead. That's why he killed him. I just wonder if he knew…"
"Knew what?" I asked in confusion.
Dillon stared back at me. "You're not going to believe it."
"You're not," Kelsey added. "It's absurd."
"Tell me."
"Tom Ryan was Gage's biological father," Dillon said. "Gage was his kid."
His words were stunning. "How can that be?"
Dillon picked up the envelope I'd seen him carrying earlier. He opened it and pulled out several photos and a piece of paper, tossing them on the table. "I got the DNA test and the photos to show to Kelsey, to prove to her I'm not lying."
"That's why you were in the house."
"I wanted to find them before Ben did. I didn't want him to accidentally stumble upon the truth," Dillon replied.
I moved closer to look at the pictures. They were photos of a blond boy, the first one taken when he was about thirteen, then sixteen, then twenty. They were all of Gage.
"Eileen sent them to the sheriff," Dillon said. "So he could have pictures of his other son."
"I told you Dillon was crazy," Kelsey interrupted. "There's no way Gage is Sheriff Ryan's son."
"Look at the test," Dillon said, pushing the paper over to me.
It was a DNA test, the results proving that Gage was the sheriff's son. "My God, you're right."
"Eileen and Tom had an affair," Dillon continued. "Thirty-one years ago, she came to the island with her son, Preston. She was having problems with her husband, and she was thinking about a divorce. She was here for several weeks, and that's when she and Tom got together. But Eileen's husband showed up and begged for forgiveness, I guess, and she went back to him."
"What about Tom? Was he married to Linda then?"
"Not yet. He met Linda a few weeks after the affair with Eileen. He said sometimes he wondered if he didn't use Linda to get Eileen out of his head, not that he didn't love Linda, but he told me Eileen put some kind of spell on him. He couldn't seem to forget her. But they never got together again."
"When did Eileen tell Tom about the baby?"
"Not until Gage was thirteen."
I was surprised again. "Why would she wait that long?"
"I think she would have waited forever if she hadn't been forced to do something."
"How was she forced?"
"When Gage was thirteen, he got caught for shoplifting here on the island. Tom wanted to make an example of him to the other kids by letting him sit in jail for a few hours and then do community service. It wasn't that big a deal, but Mrs. Chadwick couldn't stand the thought of her son having any kind of mark on his record. She told Tom that Gage was his son and he had to protect him."
"Wow. He must have been shocked."
"Tom said he couldn't believe it. But he also couldn't say no to her. He loved her and he felt sorry for her. Her husband was always cheating on her, but he understood why she couldn't leave Sean. Eileen grew up poor. She didn't have anything. And Sean was her knight in shining armor. He took her out of a bad situation and gave her a beautiful life. She couldn't let anyone see it wasn't as pretty as it looked. After the affair, she became obsessed with keeping up their image of a perfect family. She just didn't have it in her to choose love over security."
Having known Sean and Eileen for a long time, a lot of what he said made sense. "Okay, let's say I believe all that. Why would Gage kill Melanie?"
"Because she was pregnant with his baby."
I felt like I'd just gotten sucker punched. "No way," I breathed. "And he killed her?"
"Yes. And the sheriff covered it up, because Gage is his son, because he had to protect Gage, and he had to protect Eileen's perfect family."
"How do you know all this?" I demanded. "Why would Tom tell you?"
"Because I heard some of it, and I saw some of it, and I had enough pieces to put it together. Eventually, he told me the truth, but only because he needed to make sure I didn't talk."
"What did you hear? What did you see?"
"I found out about the pregnancy from Melanie. The night she disappeared, I went down to Pope Beach to smoke. Melanie was sitting on the sand, writing in her diary. She was crying. She was really upset. She had just come from seeing Gage. And he'd broken her heart. I offered to go beat him up for her. I was trying to make her smile, but it didn't work. She told me I couldn't hurt him because he was the father of her baby."
"She actually told you that?" I didn't think I could keep being amazed, but I was.
"Yes."
"That's impossible," Kelsey put in. "Gage never slept with Melanie. He told me he barely knew her."