Would Wendy Madigan mind if I called her on Saturday morning? She seemed to genuinely care about the Steels, and she had told me to come back to her once Talon told me everything. At the time, I’d had no idea what everything was, but I sure did now, and I had many questions.

I took my dishes to the sink, refilled my coffee once more, and headed to my room. My cell phone was charging on the nightstand. It was ten o’clock, certainly not early by anyone’s standards. What the hell? I was on pins and needles to know what else she could tell me.

My pulse racing, I punched in her number.

“Hello, Jade,” she said into my ear.

“Hi, Wendy. I hope it’s not a problem to call you on a Saturday.”

She sighed. “No, I’ve been expecting your call. And I’m not surprised it’s during off hours.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I didn’t want to pry. I had a lot of other prying to do. “I had a long talk with Talon last night. He told me everything.”

“By everything, what exactly do you mean?”

Did she really expect me to spell it out for her? It had been so hard hearing it from Talon’s lips, and I wasn’t sure I could say it. “Wendy…”

“I need to know, Jade, before I can tell you anything else.”

“All right.” I sighed. “He told me about what happened to him when he was ten. That he was abducted by two masked men and held captive for almost two months by three men. He told me what they did to him.” I fought the nausea that crept up my throat. “And he told me of his eventual escape.”

“I see.” Silence for what seemed like hours but was probably only a couple of minutes.

“Wendy?”

“I’m here. I haven’t talked about these things in…well…twenty-five years.”

“Talon is in therapy, Wendy. He’s healing, but I think it would really help him to heal if he knew who these perpetrators were. So that they could be brought to justice. Do you know who they are?”

“Not all of them.”

God. My heart stampeded in my chest. That meant she knew at least one of them. And she could tell me. I could tell Talon. We could find him. We could lock him up for good.

“Oh my God. Who were they?”

“Before I tell you any more,” she said, “there are some things you need to understand.”

“I’m listening.”

“You were right about Larry Wade and Daphne Steel. They were half-brother and half-sister. Larry is Daphne’s elder by five years. They didn’t grow up together. Larry stayed with his mother. But they did know each other.”

“Why did the Steels try to cover up that relationship? Why would anyone care?”

“Because Larry was sick. And he was one of the three men who held Talon captive.”

My heart nearly stopped, and my bowels churned. Sickness oozed within me. I had always known he was backward, unethical, but this…

My God. Talon was right.

“Jade?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“I’m sure this is a shock.”

“No, not as much as it could be. Talon had already decided that he was one of them. I guess it’ll be good for me to tell him that he’s right.”

“Jade—”

“What I don’t understand, Wendy, is why didn’t they have him arrested twenty-five years ago? He should be in prison.”

“It’s a long story. I can give you the short version now. We’ll need to meet in person, maybe even with Talon, for me to tell you everything.”

“Oh, no. I want you to tell me everything now. You promised.”

“I will tell you everything. Right now I can only tell you the gist. I made a promise a long time ago never to reveal any of this except to Talon himself when the time was right.”

“What the fuck does that mean? When the time was right? This poor man has been through hell. He’s been carrying this around for twenty-five years and is only just now getting the help he needs.”

“Talon had to decide for himself when to get help.”

“That is such bullshit! Someone should have helped him. His fucking parents should’ve helped him.”

“Calm down, Jade. I can’t say that I disagree with you. As much as I loved Brad, I didn’t agree with everything he did. But he felt he had his reasons. Number one was his clinically insane wife.”

“What? Are you saying Talon’s mom was certifiably nuts?”

“She was never diagnosed with anything, but based on my dealings with her, I’d say she probably had both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. Either that or narcissistic personality disorder.”

I didn’t know much about psychology, but I knew that double diagnosis meant trouble. “Why didn’t the woman get help? Maybe she wouldn’t have taken her own life.”

“Brad tried. She refused. She was a very troubled woman, Jade. But she did dote on those boys. I truly do think that she loved them. The girl though—I don’t think she ever really bonded with her. After all, she killed herself when Marjorie was barely two.”

“Maybe she had convinced herself that Marjorie wasn’t going to live after she was born so early. And then couldn’t deal with it when she did.” I was just tossing out words. I had no idea what I was saying.

“You may well be right,” Wendy said. “I really have no idea, and I can’t speculate. Daphne Steel was… Well, I’ll just say it. She was a mess.”

“All right, but none of this tells me why they didn’t turn Larry in to the police.”

“Part of it was the fact that he was Daphne’s brother. Her father begged her not to turn Larry in. Her father said that Larry was sick, that he needed help, and that prison would kill him. Still, Brad would have none of it, but Daphne… She wasn’t close to Larry. Like I said, they hadn’t grown up together. But she was close to her father. If ever there had been a daddy’s girl, it was Daphne Steel. So she thought about it. But in the end, she agreed with Brad that Larry had to be arrested.”

“Then why wasn’t he?”

“A day later, before he could be arrested, Larry ended up in the hospital. He had been severely beaten, most likely by the two other men who’d abducted Talon. Larry ended up nearly dying from the beating, but he never would name who they were.”