“Man, I hate to feel sorry for that guy, after what he did to Jade, but…” Talon shook his head. “Seems he saved the day here, though.”
“I know, man. I get your ambivalence, and I agree. He saved Marj. Plus, he didn’t deserve what my father did to him.” This time I shook my head. “No one did.”
“No,” Talon agreed. “No one did.”
I felt like an idiot. Talon was so strong and seemed so together. Sometimes I forgot that he had been among my father’s first victims.
“Sorry, man.”
“It’s okay. Sometimes I don’t think about it for days. My life is great now, you know? Then, times like this, it comes back in vivid images.”
I nodded. “You were alone all that time, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You never saw another kid?”
“I saw Luke. He was already dead.”
Nausea swept up my throat, and I grimaced.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Hey, no worries. I’m the one who asked. You never saw someone else? A kid my age, maybe?”
“You’re wondering about the kid you and Joe knew. Justin.”
I nodded.
“Sorry. I only saw Luke. And like I said, he was already dead.”
“Got it.”
It had been worth a shot. Justin Valente had to figure into this whole thing. I just had no idea how. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was dead or alive.
Though my instinct told me he was alive. Alive and in contact with Ted Morse.
But was my instinct worth anything? I wasn’t a detective like Ruby. She had honed her instincts over a decade of police work. I was a finance guy. I had good instincts about money and investments. Why would I trust my instinct about anything else? Especially something that had happened thirty years ago that I hardly remembered?
I needed to talk to Joe.
But that wouldn’t happen. Not until we all decided to tell him what was going on. He had Melanie and his new son to think of.
I knew Jonah Steel, though. Probably even better than his brothers or wife did. He would not be happy to have been left out of all of this. He’d understand why we did it, but he’d be pissed as hell.
Joe pissed as hell wasn’t a pretty picture.
“Anyone here for Alessandra Booker?” a doctor asked.
Alessandra Booker? The name sounded familiar. Right. Cade Booker. Alessandra Booker. Dominic Booker. Marj, or maybe it was Colin, had said the woman whose throat Colin had slit was named Alex. Was her real name Alessandra?
“I am,” I lied.
“And you are…?”
“A friend.”
“I need a family member.”