“I’m not. I swear on your mother’s life.”
“Sell it to someone who believes you. Remember how I told you Mom was asking for her puppy? We found it. It was tucked away in the crawl space, like you said.”
“Did it bring her comfort?”
“No, it did not.”
“I’m sorry, son. You’ve lost me. What the hell are you trying to say?”
He regarded me a moment, one eyebrow raised. Then, “Are you saying you truly don’t know?”
“Who raped your mother? No, I don’t! Do you think if I did, I’d have let them live?”
He stayed silent for another moment, never dropping his gaze from mine.
Then, “You always loved her.”
I nodded. “I always loved all of you.”
“If you’d known, you’d have killed them.”
“Of course!”
Another moment. Then, “I don’t believe you.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t kill them when they did the same thing to Talon.”
Reality suspended itself for a moment. My son’s image blurred, and white noise invaded my head. White buzzing.
The chickens have come home to roost.
A voice.
So like my own.
Words. Couldn’t make them out. Just buzzing, but in my own voice.
Until something gripped my shoulder.
The guard stood above me. “You all right here?”
I nodded.
Because you didn’t kill them when they did the same thing to Talon.
“Joe,” I said.
“What?”
“Are you telling me that Tom Simpson, Theo Mathias, and Larry Wade are the three men who raped your mother over forty years ago?”
“Yes.”
“How? How do you know?”
“Mom. That’s the secret. Mom intercepted a delivery for you when I was a baby. She made a call, and the person gave her the three names. Mom wrote them down. Then she hid the small piece of paper inside her stuffed puppy.”
My son’s words buzzed in my head, and my body felt trampled, as if I’d been hit by a semi. “Then she…what?”
“She didn’t remember, or something. She buried the information inside her mind.”
God, her dissociative identity disorder. It had protected her all those years. Dr. Pelletier had been right.
“She didn’t remember,” I said, “but another identity did.”
“What?”
“Daphne has dissociative identity disorder. The trauma of the rape caused her to split off. She eventually broke completely from reality after Talon’s abduction and Marjorie’s premature birth. God, if only I’d known.”
“She’s been carrying this secret a long time.”
“Why? Why didn’t she tell me?”
His eyes turned even colder. “What would you have done?”
Because you didn’t kill them when they did the same thing to Talon.
What would I have done?
I’d let the bastards live to save my own hide. Wendy would have had me jailed for things I didn’t do. I thought I could save Daphne. I thought I could save Talon.
All the while, I let those demons live and violate countless others.
None of it mattered now.
Tom, Theo, and Larry were all dead.
All dead, thanks to my sons.
My sons, who were better men than I could ever hope to have been.
Jonathan Wade isn’t who you think he is, son. Be careful.
Everything fell into place. Jonathan Wade. He knew. He fucking knew. And he lied. To save his son.
I stared at my firstborn, and I oddly understood Jonathan’s dilemma.
How do you choose between your children? How do you make Sophie’s choice?
Answer?
You don’t.
Not when you can save them both.
The descent to evil for Theo, Tom, and Larry had begun far sooner than I ever suspected.
Larry Wade had raped his own sister. Raped his own nephew.
But in the end, he’d freed Talon.
In the end, he’d led Jade to the information that would help my sons and their wives figure everything out.
In a way, he’d done more for my children than I had.
I’d let the bastards go.
While Jonathan Wade lied to save his son, I hadn’t been able to tell the truth to save my own. Who was the weaker father?
Though I knew the answer, I couldn’t bring myself to think the actual words.
What would you have done?
I hadn’t answered Jonah’s question, and after all this time, my son deserved the truth.
“I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You let them go after you found out about Talon.”
“I did. To save my own ass. But if I’d known who they were before—”
“You’d have done the same thing. Wendy would have held something over your head, and you’d have done the same thing.”
I had no lies left in me. “I would have.”
He said nothing. Just stared at me, the phone glued to his ear. But he didn’t stand and leave, and for that I was grateful.
“Jonah.”
Silence, but he was listening. The phone stayed at his ear.
“You’re a good man. You, your brothers, your sister. All great people.”
“No thanks to you.”
I deserved that. I wouldn’t fight it. “No thanks to me.”
“There were other notes inside the stuffed animal,” Joe said. “Mom knew a lot more than she ever let on.”
“One of her alter egos knew,” I said.
Jonah nodded. “That makes an eerie sort of sense.”
“What else did you find in the toy?” I asked.