“I’m not talking about Wendy Madigan,” he said.
Wendy Madigan? Why would he bring her up? I looked to Joe, but he didn’t meet my gaze. “We are not going to talk about Wendy Madigan. Not at all.” He rolled his eyes toward me for a second. “Do you get my meaning?”
Wade arched his brow just a touch. “Sure. I get it.”
I didn’t. But whatever. I’d let Joe take the lead here.
“We’re here to talk about our father,” Joe continued. “We have reason to believe that he backed you, Simpson, and Mathias in your business—and I use the term loosely—dealings. I want to know how much money he gave you and what that business was.”
“This could take a while.”
“I don’t have anywhere to be. Do you?”
Wade sighed. “I was about to go there with you last time. Are you sure you want to do it now?”
Joe looked at me. Was I sure? Hell, no,
I wasn’t sure. But we needed to figure out the role our father had played with these three. The role he might have played in Talon’s abduction.
Just the thought nauseated me. Our father might have played a role in our brother’s abduction.
What kind of a man had Bradford Steel been? Truly?
I’d known him as a strict disciplinarian but loving in his own way. He taught all his children the value of a job well done and of a dollar earned. He taught us the business of ranching and to not take our fortune for granted. He was tough on us. But he was fair.
Never had I imagined there might be more to him than met the eye.
He was a good man. A good father.
How could he have gotten involved with three psychopaths?
“Find Simpson or Mathias. They can tell you more about your father than I can.”
Joe scoffed. “You don’t know? Tom Simpson is dead.”
Larry jerked backward, his eyes wide, forehead wrinkled. “How?”
“Shot himself in the head, rather than face what he’d done.”
Wade shook his head. “Lucky bastard.”
Jonah went rigid, and I knew why. If Larry killed himself or was killed in prison by another inmate, we couldn’t use him to get information. Not that he’d been overly forthcoming so far, but he had led us to the future lawmakers club and our father’s involvement.
“Lucky? Maybe. Mostly he was a coward. After all was said and done, the iceman couldn’t face the music,” Joe said. “At least you’re facing it.”
Buttering Uncle Larry up? Interesting move, Joe.
“Look, we’re going to figure this out with or without you,” I said. “With would be easier. I know Joe has offered to get you legal counsel. That offer still stands. Why won’t you roll over? One of the guys is dead. What does Mathias have on you?”
“You have no idea what he’s capable of. What they’re all capable of.”
“All?” I asked. “Who do you mean?”
“The future lawmakers, of course.”
“Oh, we know,” Joe said. “An innocent woman is dead because she got us the yearbooks we needed. Yearbooks that had been erased from the online database and stolen from the school library. She stole them from the archives, and she paid with her life.”
For a moment, Larry Wade almost looked like he felt something akin to sorrow, but it faded away seconds later. “It went too far. All of it went too far.”