“I’m not saying what he’s been through and what I’ve been through are equal. He’s had it much worse. I get that.”
I turned to Booker. “Tell us, then. What you’ve been through. How my father continued to control you after he let you go.”
“You can’t,” Colin said. “You can’t ask that of him. It wouldn’t make sense to you anyway.”
“And it makes sense to you?” Joe asked.
“Parts of it. I don’t claim to understand everything, but I understand some.”
Talon.
The name popped into my mind.
Talon might understand.
But Talon wasn’t here. He was in Denver with his sons, and he was living a good and happy life.
I wasn’t about to suggest he be brought into this mess.
“Why are you here, then?” I asked. “If you’re not going to give us the information we want, why?”
“I came to speak to Jade,” Colin said. “To say goodbye, probably forever. Cade and I are going away.”
“Together?”
“Not ‘together’ together. Just as two men who have something in common and need to heal. Far away from here.”
“Why?” Marj asked.
“My therapist suggested I get away, take some time to relax and truly work through what happened to me,” Colin said. “Cade showed up in Glenwood Springs where I was staying, and we talked.”
“You mean he didn’t try to harm you?”
“I thought about it,” Booker admitted. “But Colin was frightened, and when I looked at him…”
He saw himself. He didn’t have to utter the words. It was written in the sunken depths of his eyes. He saw another victim of Tom Simpson.
He saw someone who understood.
Colin continued, “I convinced him to come with me. We can work through this together. My therapist has arranged for us to work with his colleague in Bora Bora. We both have the money to do it. We have a lot in common.”
True. What they had in common was my father.
“And we’re supposed to just let you walk out of here,” Joe said.
“Yeah, you are,” Booker said. “The worst I’ve done is pepper spray the two of you and send some emails.”
“You stalked a little boy on the playground,” Marj reminded him.
“I didn’t stalk anyone,” Booker said.
“So that wasn’t you? You didn’t leave evidence to incriminate your brother, your sister, and Colin?”
“I did,” he said. “I was angry. I was hurt. Yeah, I took the cufflink I’d stolen from Tom the last time I saw him. I took one of my brother’s baseball cards and my sister’s stupid pet rock. I left them there to be found. But I swear I wasn’t there to hurt the kid. I recognized the boy. I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
“Right,” Joe scoffed.
“You have no idea. I saw what they did to him. What he went through. They made me…”
“Stop it,” Colin said. “He’s had enough.”
“No way,” I said. “They made you…what?”
“Watch!” Booker raked his fingers through his hair. “They made me watch as they tortured that kid! Is that what you want to hear? You want all the gory details? Because they’re all in my head, like a fucking cinematic masterpiece. Things I’ll never be able to unsee.”
“Easy,” Colin said.
I regarded Booker.
And again, I saw the scared little boy he’d been. Justin Valente, who’d been relentlessly bullied by a prepubescent thug and his band of lemmings thirty years ago.
I’d felt sorry for him then. I’d wanted to help him. So I did what I thought would help. I invited him to go camping with me and my dad. My amazing, great dad.
And I’d made things worse.
So much worse.
I cleared my throat softly. “Joe, we need to let them go.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Please.”
I could have said so much more. That he’d be with Colin, and Colin seemed to trust him. That these two men were my father’s last victims, and I owed them something. That they hadn’t asked for what happened to them, and they were trying to heal. Booker might have been set on revenge, but in his heart, he wasn’t a criminal. I could see it now. I could see it in his eyes. Those sad, sunken eyes.
Joe would balk at that last thing. What did eyes say? Never once had I seen a criminal in my father’s eyes.
Not once.
But my heart, my soul, was telling me to believe Colin and Booker. To give them the benefit of the doubt. They’d both been victims of the man who’d fathered me, and though I wasn’t guilty of anything, I felt some responsibility. I wanted to see them heal. They might see my father when they looked at me, but I wasn’t my father. I knew that now, and I could prove it to his last victims.
Booker would never again be the innocent little boy he once was, but maybe he could live a good life. Maybe he and Colin both could.
Marj took my hand, entwining our fingers together. “I agree with Bryce.”
Joe seethed, his jaw tight and tense.
“Please,” I said. “I can’t erase what my father did to them, but I can let them go in peace.”
Joe raked his fingers through his dark hair. He didn’t speak, but finally, he gave a slight nod.
“I just want to see Jade,” Colin said once more. “Only for a minute. To say goodbye.”
Marj sent a quick text. “She says to go on in. She’s in the bedroom.”
True to his words, Colin didn’t stay inside for long. Within ten minutes, he’d returned.
Marj hugged Colin.
Booker didn’t hold out his hand. Neither did Joe or I.
Some things were just too hard.
As they walked to their car and then drove away, I kissed the top of Marjorie’s head and whispered, “Vaya con Dios.”
Then my phone buzzed.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Marjorie
Bryce pulled his phone out of his pocket. He showed his phone to Joe.
“Damn.” Joe shoved his hands into his pocket.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We need to get the whole family together. Except for Melanie and the baby. I’ll talk to her myself.”
I gulped. “You guys are scaring me. What is it?”
Bryce pulled me into his embrace. “It’s okay, honey. It’s not bad news.”
I blinked.
Then I blinked again.
No. No. Couldn’t be.
“Motherfucker,” Ryan said slowly.
The boys were outside with the new housekeeper and nanny Talon and Jade had hired. Only the adults sat in the formal living room of the main house.
The adults.
And a ghost.
The ghost of my father.
Sounds buzzed around me. Talon yelling. Ryan yelling. Joe yelling. Bryce trying to calm everyone down.
Then only two words emerged from the cacophony of chaos.
“Baby girl.”
The voice. The voice that had comforted me as a little girl. That had scolded me, told me to work harder. That had apologized for leaving me only months ago. That had uttered its last words in this very house…