“Or my father paid for that access.”

I had wanted to say that, but I was glad she had. “I have given that a bit of thought. Especially since I’m pretty sure Talon paid off Toby’s Tattoo Parlor not to work with me.”

“Well, I’m not particularly proud of it, but one of the benefits of having this kind of money is that we can afford to buy certain things.”

Felicia opened the door and stuck her head out. “Dinner is ready. Is Mr. Talon coming home?”

Marj sighed. “Beats the heck out of me, Felicia. I think Jade and I will have our dinner out here, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I’ll bring it right out. You want some more wine, ladies?”

Marj giggled. “Of course.”

Felicia brought us two plates of spaghetti and meatballs along with the bottle of wine we had opened and left in the kitchen. I inhaled. Mmm. Rustic tomato and beef. Nothing better.

We dived into our meals and were chatting about nothing in particular when Felicia came back.

“Pardon me, Miss Jade, but there is a Colin Morse here to see you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Talon

“What is it, Tal?” Jonah stood in his house, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks. “I was just about to take a dip.”

“Great. I’ll join you. We need to talk.” I walked past him into the foyer and through the kitchen out to his backyard, where his kidney-shaped pool was waiting.

“You brought your trunks?”

I shook my head. “I’ll wear my boxers. You know I don’t care about that.” I gulped down the lump that had formed in my throat. “I… I told Jade I love her.”

Jonah slapped me on the back. “Really? That’s great, Tal.”

“Really? Is it really great?” I tunneled my fingers through my hair. “You know I don’t have any business loving anyone, getting involved with anyone.”

“You have just as much business as anybody else. Especially if maybe you go back to see Dr. Carmichael again.”

“I don’t know if I can. I need to resolve so much. Which reminds me, I had a really weird revelation today.”

“Yeah? What was it?”

“One of those guys. Remember all that I ever remembered before was that one of them had that fucking phoenix tattoo on his forearm? Oh, and you’ll never believe this. Jade wants to get that exact same tattoo.”

Jonah jerked his head forward. “Say what?”

“Yeah, she saw it in a book at Toby’s. Out of all those fucking tattoos, she chose that one. Unreal. So I did a little research. The guy who designed the tattoo can’t remember who he gave it to, but said it was a fairly popular design twenty to thirty years ago. He only remembers putting it on someone’s forearm a few times. I’m going to see if I can get his records.”

“If he still has them.”

I let out a sigh. “Yeah. I know. He’s this old biker guy who says he was stoned half the time back then. I’m going to get a court order or something to go through his records.”

“Why don’t you just ask him to see the records?”

“I should have. I was freaking out so much over the whole thing that I didn’t think of it.” I rubbed my chin. “Now that you mention it, that’s what I’ll do. He’s very cooperative when I throw a few bills around.”

“Most people are, bro.” Jonah chuckled. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

I shook my head. “No. I had a revelation, like I said.”

“What was it?”

“One of the guys, not the tattoo guy, and not the one I remember having a really low voice. The third guy, the one who seemed to be more of a follower. Anyway…he was missing the littlest toe on his left foot.”

Jonah’s eyes bugged out. “How did you remember that all of a sudden?”

“Damned if I know. Things just come to me sometimes. Like a couple weeks ago, I had a dream or flashback or something, and I remembered those guys taunting me with a full glass of water that was just outside my reach. All of a sudden it made sense why I wake up in the middle of the night, pour myself a glass of water, and then stare at it and don’t drink it.”

“Talon, don’t you realize that if you went back to see Dr. Carmichael, she could help you with all of this? She could probably bring more memories to the surface.”

I scoffed. “You think I want to remember that shit? I remember enough of it as it is.”

“But don’t you see? These are clues. We could still catch these guys.”

“Are you kidding? Those guys have got to be long gone if they know what’s good for them. Not all criminals are stupid, you know.”

“Then why are you chasing the tattoo clue?”

Hell, I didn’t know. Because…because I had to do something. But why? I’d never had any urge to do anything about this before. It had been my cross to bear, and I lived with it. “I don’t know.”

“I think I do,” Joe said.

Not surprising. My older brother thought he knew everything. “You don’t know shit.”

He laughed. “Maybe not. But I think I know why you’re raring to do something now, why you’re following that tattoo lead. It’s because you want to move forward. Finally. Because of Jade.”

Jade. Somewhere, stuffed into the recesses of my mind, did I actually think I could heal? Become worthy of her love?

Did my brother know everything?

I chuckled to myself. No, he didn’t. But he might be right about this. Damned if I was going to admit it though.

“You got nothing to say to that?” my brother asked.

“Nope.”

Jonah let out a guffaw. “Means you think I’m right.”

“No comment.”

He shook his head, laughing. “Have it your way. But back to these leads. Any lead is better than none. So far we have a phoenix tattoo on the left forearm and a missing pinky toe on a left foot. That rules out the majority of the men in the world.”

“Yeah, I thought of that. So I ran to the computer and did a search, but nothing came of it. I’m not sure what I was thinking. There’s no database of guys missing toes out there.”

“I know you never wanted to do this before, but maybe it’s time we hire a P.I. Those guys could still be found. They could still pay for what they did to you.”