Dark Lonely Lies (The Denton Family Legacy 6)

“I don’t know if I like her or not,” Jacob said.

“I do. She’s different, and considering Landon’s issues, I’d say that’s a plus in our favor,” Gabriel said, taking a seat in the office.

Rick looked at his two nephews. He hadn’t wanted to have kids where his now-dead brother Maddox had six of them, seven if you counted Gabriel, and whatever children he hadn’t laid claim to. For him, he just couldn’t bring himself to share Mandy. The fact they had to work was enough of a problem, getting in his way. He wasn’t about to add a brat into it as well.

“She’s the only way we’re going to bring Landon in. If we don’t do this soon, he’ll cause one too many problems we can’t fix. I don’t like to deal with the fallout of people and our associates thinking we can’t control one of our own. It doesn’t make us look good.”

“You heard the girl. Landon was completely besotted with Sarah. She’s gone. Dead. We can’t use this girl.”

“I think that girl is Landon’s real woman.”

“Look, she has no idea who that girl is. How do you even know if she’s Sarah’s twin?” Jacob asked.

“They were separated at birth,” Gabriel said. “It’s the only answer, right?”

“But all the details check out on Sarah. We had her thoroughly checked out. Sarah Smith is, you know, the proper child of her parents. They are her birth parents.”

“Having a kid is overwhelming, right?” Rick said. “What if Sarah was a twin but the parents got rid of Tulip at birth? They kept one they could manage, and the other they put up for adoption.”

“I can tell you if that was me, I’d be so pissed,” Gabriel said. “So wait, you think that between Sarah and Tulip’s twin thing, Landon got the signals confused? Like, he felt something for Sarah but it was kind of like a blur because of the twin thing? I have no other way of describing the twin stuff.”

Rick laughed. “That’s exactly what I think.”

“And if you?

?re wrong?”

“We pay Tulip and send her back home. She clearly needs the money. Believe me,” he said.

“Next question. We have no idea where Landon is, so how do we get the two to meet?” Gabriel asked.

“I’m going to leave that in Tulip’s capable hands. We know Landon hasn’t gone far. In fact, I’d say he’s got eyes on us all the time for him to know where we’re going to be, and where he’s not supposed to be. The boy is clever, I’ll give him that. We’ve just got to wait for the right opening and then he’ll be back with us.”

“Your plan has a lot of flaws.”

“I know but, so far, I can’t see you two coming up with a better plan, so we’ll go with mine.”

****

Landon sat back in the torn, old, stinking seat and clicked on the computer. He didn’t have many cameras within the house but he was curious now.

He’d hacked, or at least gotten one of his friends to hack into his home’s security to keep an eye on things. He didn’t have sound, which fucking sucked.

Squeezing the ball within his hand, he wondered who the girl was. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her but at least it wasn’t Tamsin. Nope, his sister was safe away from all of this.

Picking up his glass of whiskey, he took a sip.

“Should you really be drinking?” Jade Castillo asked. She came in with a tray carrying his dinner, which she put down beside the laptop.

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“No, but the last time you drank, I had to drag you all the way upstairs and it wasn’t nice. You complained of bruises for days. Now, stop drinking.” She took the glass from him. “And eat up.”

She disappeared out of the office and went back to the kitchen.

The place he’d been able to hide away in wasn’t found on any map. This was an old hunting lodge. It had been abandoned for years as it opened up into a giant forest, and a lot of new buyers didn’t want to deal with the environmental nightmare considering there was so much natural wildlife about.

He’d been here for a couple of months, and when the time came to move, he’d take Jade with him.