He turned to scowl at the kidnapper, who Jake was handcuffing with a pair of plastic handcuffs.
“Answer me.” Andy struggled to get the cuffs off, to no avail. “I can’t go to jail. Please, Onslow, you promised me I wouldn’t go to jail.” His voice wasn’t the menacing growl it had been when he issued his threats. Now he sounded whiny. Almost pitiful.
With the kidnapper shoved into the corner of the van, Jake took a seat beside Onslow. “Something isn’t adding up here. Care to fill us in, Onslow? Or do you want the cops to take it from here?”
Simon’s father trembled, his eyes darting around. “No. No cops.”
“Dad, what’s going on?” Simon asked. “Do you know this man?”
“Yeah, I know Andy.” His father sighed heavily. “We work together at the canning company. It was his couch I crashed on before I came to see you that weekend, son.”
“Andy is the friend you were talking about?” Simon stared at his father in disbelief. “Why the hell would he kidnap you?”
“He didn’t kidnap me,” his dad replied, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “This whole thing was a set- up.”
It was like the oxygen disappeared from the van. Simon sucked in a breath, struggling to breathe. He gritted his teeth. “What the hell are you talking about?”
His dad stared down at his hands. “I wasn’t really kidnapped.”
For a moment, Simon didn’t understand what his father had said. Confusion was scrambling his thoughts, making it hard to find the right words. “Explain. Now.”
“I set this up,” his father said miserably. “We... I decided to fake a kidnapping.”
“This was fake?” Simon’s body went tight. He was on the verge of releasing all his pent-up energy and he knew he was liable to say something to his father that he couldn’t take back. “You faked this? Why?”
“I needed money from you,” his dad replied.
“All you had to do was ask me,” Simon said, his voice hard. “I would have given you the money you needed.”
“Onslow, why would you do this?” Heather asked softly.
His father glared at her, anger turning his features ugly. “Because of you. You just had to be right about him, didn’t you? His entire life is about you. He really seems to think the sun shines out of your ass—”
“Don’t talk to her like that ever again,” Simon growled. “You had better start telling me everything, Dad, or I really will hand you over to the police.”
“I’m sorry,” his father said. “I need the money for heart surgery and I didn’t have that kind of money. Andy here was supposed to get a cut of the cash for helping me. He made the phone calls and that video. He even roughed me up a bit to make things look more realistic.”
“Why the hell didn’t you ask me for help?” Simon demanded. “Why stage this?”
“If I asked you for money, I would look weak. Pathetic. After telling you I never wanted anything to do with you or your money, how could I crawl back and ask?” His father shook his head. “I’m sick, Simon. So, not only would I be asking you for money, but I’d be telling you about my health issues. Do you know how weak that would have made me look?”
“Is that why you came back into my life?” Simon demanded. “To get my money?”
His father nodded, his lips thinning. “Yes.”
“You didn’t want to reconnect because you missed me,” Simon said. “You just wanted my money. Money you didn’t even have the balls to ask for. I don’t know you at all. You’re a stranger to me.”
“So, the death threats on social media and that video were all a hoax?” Jake interrupted.
“Yes. I asked Andy to create some fake accounts and get his online pals to send those threats,” Onslow replied. “Honestly, that wasn’t even supposed to be part of the plan. I don’t know why I did it. I guess I was so resentful of your relationship with Heather that I tried to get your attention. Tried to see if you really cared about me.”
“You’re sick,” Simon forced out. “Not just physically. You treated me like crap when I was a kid. And then you ended up resenting the one person who believed in me. You tried to create a wedge between me and Heather.” The fact that he had been so blind to his father’s manipulations tore him up inside. He had put so much pressure on Heather in his effort to win over his father. And through all that, his father had been playing them. Pitting them against each other. If this hoax had been only about money, maybe he could find it in his heart to forgive. But his father had done it in some twisted attempt at revenge, and that was sickening.
“I deserve that,” his father said. “You were willing to risk your life to stop the kidnapper for me. I see that now. I see that you care.”
“He cared about you in spite of the way you mistreated him when he was a kid,” Heather pointed out. “Did Simon really have to risk his life for you to see that?”
“Please, son. I’m begging you to forgive me.”