Flare, page 1
Flare
Steel Brothers Saga: Book Twenty-Three
HELEN HARDT
This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
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Copyright © 2022 Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Photographs: Shutterstock
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All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Continue reading the Steel Brothers Saga with Book Twenty-Four
Message from Helen Hardt
Also By Helen Hardt
Acknowledgments
About Helen Hardt
For Marit
S.I.G.I.
Prologue
Brock
I study my father’s profile as I sit on the passenger seat of his pickup. The two of us are driving across the Wyoming border. Donny and Dale were both unavailable, so it’s just Dad and me.
I wish my cousins were here for backup. I love my father—I do—but I feel like I don’t know him anymore.
He’s quiet. When my father’s quiet, I begin to worry. It means his mind is working. He’s thinking. He’s thinking about things that I probably don’t even know about. Sure, he came clean about some of the stuff, but it’s clear.
There’s a lot I still don’t know.
Finally I speak.
“Tell me. Tell me who tried to kill Mom. And why.”
He doesn’t answer at first. Instead, he stares at the road in front of us. Driving to Wyoming is driving through a lot of nothing.
Finally, “Your mother had a patient. Her name was Gina. She was Aunt Ruby’s cousin.”
I widen my eyes.
“Your cousin Gina was named after her. Anyway, she was a patient of your mother’s, and she committed suicide.”
My jaw drops.
“Except she didn’t actually commit suicide. That’s what we were told, at first. But the person who took her wanted your mother to believe it, so he kidnapped her and left her to die in a garage, tied up, while a car was running.”
I feel sick. My stomach’s about to come out of my mouth. How did she escape? I want to ask, but the words don’t come.
“You know how smart your mother is. She managed to get her wrists untied, got into the car, and backed it through the garage door. She was treated for carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Still, I say nothing. My beautiful mother. My brilliant mother. All this happened before I was born.
“Funny,” Dad says. “I haven’t thought about this in so long. But that’s how your brother came to be.”
“What?”
“Your mother was kept for several days, and she didn’t have her birth control pills with her. So she missed a few days, and when she escaped, and she and I got back together, she got pregnant.”
Pregnant.
Before they were married.
With this new knowledge, I feel a kinship with my father I never felt before. A different kind of kinship.
“So I guess you could say that if none of that had happened, we wouldn’t have your brother.”
Talk about a silver lining. “Look, I get that you love Brad. I do too. But for God’s sake, someone tried to kill my mother.”
“Yes. So much bad happened to our family during that time. So much we’ve all tried to bury. To keep it in the past. And when we do think of it, we try to think of something good that came out of it. The good that came out of your mother’s kidnapping is your brother.”
I pause for a moment. My father’s philosophy is not a bad one. Will I look back on what I’m going through someday and see only the good that came out of it?
So far, I’m not sure any good has come out of it.
The more we uncover, the more horror we seem to find.
“What you need to remember,” Dad says, “is that your mother lived through it. She saved herself. Part of it was luck, of course, but part of it was her own intelligence and shrewdness. She’s a clever woman. And I thank God every day that I have her and the two of you boys.”
I nod.
“Brock, our family made it through the horror of those years, and we will make it through this. I promise you that.”
“How can you make such a promise?”
“Because I will will it if I have to. That’s how much I love you and your brother. That’s how much I love your mother. That’s how much I love this entire family. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done for family.”
Then my father does something completely unexpected.
He laughs.
I turn to look at him, regard his profile once more.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“It’s not funny, Brock. Just something that occurred to me, and it made me laugh. The absurdity of it all.”
“Okay. You will have to clue me in here because I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“My own father,” Dad says. “That was my own father’s excuse for so long. For everything he did in his life. He did it for family. For my mother. For his children.”
I say nothing. I don’t like where this is going.
“And now here I am. Sixty-three years old, and I’m making the same excuses. We buried all of this for you—for your brother, your cousins—so you wouldn’t have to live with the darkness that our family had been through. And I’m laughing because…in the end, it didn’t work for my father. Everything he tried to protect my mother from, us from, came barreling into our lives twenty-five years later.”
And then I understand.
History is repeating itself.
Now.
The horrors of the past are resurfacing.
And I vow. I vow here and now as I stare at my father, his laughter finally subsiding, that I will never, never bury the past again.
“Tell me, then,” I say. “Tell me about your father’s half brother. The descendants who have come out of the woodwork. Do they have names?”
“Only one so far. The report came in late last night.”
“What’s the name, then?”
“It’s a grandson, or so he says.”
“Okay. Has he consented to a DNA test?”
“A DNA test may not be conclusive. We’re talking about a half sibling from two generations ago. Every family has second and third cousins floating around that have no claim to anything.”
“It’s a start, anyway.”
Dad nods.
“What else do you have? Anything?” I ask.
“A last name,” Dad says. “Lamone.”
Chapter One
Rory
I clear my throat. “Davey, like I said, I’m flattered. You’re very attractive and obviously intelligent and caring, but… Can I think about it?”
“Sure. You have my number.”
“I appreciate that. Part of me wants to say yes right now, but I guess…”
“You guess you should talk to this other person? This guy?”
“Yeah, I should.”
I need to do some serious thinking, and not just about what I might want with Brock.
About the fact that I may very well be carrying his child, and that changes everything.
“Not a problem,” Davey says. “It was nice talking to you again.”
“You as well. Bye, Davey.”
I end the call and then stroke my abdomen.
Until my phone buzzes yet again.
I don’t recognize the number, so I ignore it, but then I change my mind almost instantly.
“H
“You won’t get away with this,” says a distorted voice.
My stomach drops.
“Who’s this?” I demand.
The call goes dead.
Damn. “Hello? Hello, are you there?”
But the call was dropped. No way to trace it now. But at least I have the number. I quickly call Callie.
“Hey,” she says into the phone.
“I just got a phone call. A very ominous phone call that has my nerves on edge.”
“Okay, Ror. Calm down. What happened?”
“It’s a number I don’t recognize, but it appears to be a Colorado area code.”
“Okay.”
“It was a distorted voice. And all he said was ‘you won’t get away with this.’”
Callie is silent for a moment.
“Callie? Don’t leave me hanging here.”
“Can you come down to the office?” she asks. “I can have Donny run the number.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m still at the studio, and I’m done for this morning anyway.”
I haven’t heard from Brock today. And right now? I can’t be distracted by my growing feelings for him. Right now I need to figure out what’s going on with this phone call.
I walk the block and a half to the courthouse and enter the spacious lobby. Reception is a circular desk in the middle of the room, where, to the left, a hallway leads to courtrooms, and to the right is a waiting area for prospective jurors. It’s small, as we don’t have a lot of jury trials in Snow Creek. The city attorney’s office and the mayor’s office are upstairs.
“Hi, Rory,” the receptionist says to me.
“Hi, Elaine. I’m just going up to see Callie.”
“Is she expecting you?”
“Yep.”
“All right. Go on up.”
I ascend the staircase—it’s a circular staircase, which I always thought was off for such a small town—and walk toward the city attorney’s office.
Callie doesn’t have an office, just a cubicle, so she’s visible as soon as I turn the corner toward the city attorney’s wing. Her brown hair is tied back in her signature low ponytail, and she’s wearing a beige sweater and jeans. Casual. Nice. She’s on the phone and gestures for me to wait.
A few moments later, she ends her call. “All right,” she says to me. “Give me the number.”
I grab my phone out of my purse, pull up recent calls, and show her. “Here you go.”
“Colorado area code,” she says, more to herself than to me. “We can trace the number, but it won’t do us any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because it probably won’t amount to anything. Whoever we’re dealing with is…”
“Is what? This is Pat Lamone. How many numbers do you think he has?”
Callie chews her bottom lip.
“Callie…what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I need to talk to Donny. Right now.”
“You will not. You will not leave me hanging like this. That’s not fair, Cal.”
“It’s just… I feel like our problem is almost converging with the Steels’ problems. Has Brock told you anything about what they’re going through yet?”
“No.”
The thought jars me more than a little. Brock and I aren’t serious. We’ve had all of two dates, maybe four or five if you count all the times we’ve been thrown together. There’s absolutely no reason why I should think he’d confide in me about all his family issues. Still, it irks me. I want to be involved. I want to help him if I can.
I’ve got to get out of that mind-set. I have my own issues to deal with—naked photos of me potentially spread across social media.
“Sorry,” Callie says. “I’ve got to talk to Donny. I’ll only be a minute, Ror.” She rises, leaves her desk, and walks into Donny’s office without knocking.
What now? I plunk my ass down in her chair, which is surprisingly comfortable with good lumbar support. Several manila folders are splayed across her desk, and her computer is open to—
I wrinkle my forehead. The computer is open to the county page. She’s looking up properties. Properties here. In Snow Creek.
The property displayed on her screen? It’s owned by Carmelita Mayer—the same property where Pat Lamone is currently renting a room.
But even that isn’t the most interesting thing about the house.
There’s a lien on the property, held by the Steel family.
Held, specifically, by something called the Steel Trust.
What the heck is she researching?
She returns a few minutes later. “Donny has to talk to Dale and to Brock.”
“What for?”
“I gave him the number, and he’s going to work on tracing it. Then I asked if I could tell you what was going on with his family.”
“I don’t want to pry,” I say.
No lie. I’m not nosy or gossipy. What I do want, though, is to help Brock if I can. I don’t know why I feel that way. After all, we’ve only had a couple of dates, and I have my own issues to contend with.
“I know you don’t, but to tell the truth, Ror, I’m aching to confide in you. But I have to respect his wishes. Dale didn’t answer when Donny called, and apparently Brock is in Wyoming today with his father.”
I raise my eyebrows. “He is? He didn’t bother telling me.”
Callie’s cheeks blush a little. “I’m sorry, Ror.”
“Don’t be.”
“Is there anything I can do?” my sister asks.
I stand and return her chair. “Yeah. You can tell me why Mrs. Mayer’s property has a lien on it held by the Steel Trust.”
Chapter Two
Brock
I’m going to puke.
Seriously, I’m going to upchuck right here in the middle of my father’s pickup as we drive to Wyoming looking for dead bodies at GPS coordinates. As if that isn’t reason enough to lose the contents of my stomach.
Lamone.
My father didn’t just say Lamone.
“He claims to be a grandson,” my father continues.
“Let me fucking guess. His first name is Pat.”
“Patrick, yes.” Dad turns and stares at me, but then he moves his glance back to the road. “How the hell do you know that?”
I gulp audibly. Do I tell him what’s going on with Rory and Callie? I don’t exactly have their permission.
“Where’s the guy live?” I ask.
“He’s in Snow Creek. He’s been there for a while…a couple of weeks at least.”
“What about his father or mother? Which side is related to the Steels?”
“His mother’s side, apparently. That’s about all we know right now.”
“Pat Lamone went to school with Callie and Rory Pike,” I say.
“Yeah, he’d be about the right age. His parents lived in Snow Creek, but they moved after his junior year.”
“Yeah.”
“You know this guy?”
“Callie and Rory do.”
“Yeah, they probably do. They went to high school with him.”
“Have you talked to Brad? Brad would’ve been in high school then.”
“That was the year he was homeschooled,” Dad says. “Remember?”
Right. My brother was in a bad riding accident the week after school started his freshman year. Actually broke his back and couldn’t walk for nearly a year. Mom homeschooled him that year. After Mom’s laborious education and his doctors’ rigorous physical therapy, Brad went back to school the next year knowing more than any of his classmates and physically stronger than they were as well.
