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“And?”
“She said, ‘pretty damned badly, Uncle Greg. Pretty damned badly.’”
“I’m thinking,” Buck says, “that by pretty damned badly, she did not mean abducted and hunted on an island.”
“I read between the lines a little.” Wallace grins.
I breathe in. Exhale slowly, trying to keep my cool. “So then what?”
“I told her how to put you out of commission for the night, and then the thugs in Manhattan took you.”
“So it was Taylor who put something in my drink on the plane.”
“You’re just so smart, Garnet.”
Garnet.
The name makes me shudder.
“What was it?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Something to make you puke.”
“Syrup of ipecac?” Buck asks.
“No. Something worse, but I don’t remember the name. This was a long time ago, you know?”
I grip the edge of the table. “Damn it, what did you give me?”
“Does it matter? You’re alive. It didn’t kill you.”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Don’t push this, Aspen. It doesn’t matter. It was over five years ago, and you’re in perfect health. You’ve been checked out.
Don’t waste the small amount of time you have on something insignificant.
“All right. So you got me out of commission, and they came and took me from my hotel room when Gloria wasn’t there.”
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the rest,” Wallace says. “I’m sure you remember every single detail.”
“I didn’t for a while,” I say. “But when I did finally? The only thing I wanted was for you bastards to pay.”
“Yeah? Chris Pollack gave the Feds my name.”
“We know that,” Buck says. “And now you have your revenge. He’s going to be put away for a long time.”
“Oh, he won’t have to wait that long,” Wallace says.
“So you have plans for him in the works,” Buck says.
“Nothing I’m going to tell you about.”
Buck nods.
He’s okay with Pollack getting offed, and frankly, so am I. If I had my way, Wallace would get offed too.
“Why did Taylor’s father cut her out of his will?” I ask.
“You’d have to ask him that.”
“She’s asking you, dickhead.” Buck says.
“How the hell should I know? He cut me out too. Wallace Leathers was a family business. Of course he, the older son, the golden child, got everything handed to him on a silver platter.”
“I’m thinking maybe he didn’t go around abusing women,” Buck says.
“You’d think wrong, then.”
My skin goes cold.
No. Taylor’s father?
“That’s not true,” I say. “Otherwise, he’d be behind bars just like you are.”
“The golden boy? And I do mean golden boy. Beautifully golden bronze, while here I am, devoid of melanin. Genetic mutation and all that.”
Something in his light eyes glimmers.
Actually glimmers, as if…
I’m not sure.
Is he telling the truth? Or is he lying?
No. Don’t go there, Aspen. Don’t go pulling at threads that have nothing to do with anything.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “Harrison Wallace is a good man.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“I think you’re forgetting who’s asking the questions here,” Buck says.
I clear my throat. “Maybe I will ask him why he disowned Taylor. I have another question. Why did you guys force Taylor and Nancy to get married?”
“So they’d be in one place. Easier to keep an eye on them.”
“You do know Nancy isn’t gay,” I say.
“Who the fuck cares?”
“All right. What else can you tell me? Anything else about how I ended up on that island?”
“That’s it in a nutshell, Garnet.”
“Her name is Aspen,” Buck says through clenched teeth.
“She’ll always be Garnet to me.” He waves to a guard. “We’re done over here.”
37
BUCK
“You did well, baby,” I say, once they take Wallace back.
She breaks down then. Sobs into my shoulder. Not giant racking sobs, but just quiet weeping.
“It’s okay.” I massage her back. “Everything’s okay.”
She pulls away and sniffles. “He’s so evil. It just exudes from him, like I could almost see it coming off him in waves.”
“I have a feeling he’ll have a rough night tonight,” Buck says.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say when I talked to the guard and asked if he could come back out, he made it pretty clear that they turn a blind eye to the law sometimes.”
“I don’t want anyone getting in trouble on my account. The guards, I mean. I don’t care what happens to Wallace.”
“These guys know how to cover their tracks. Do you think anybody really cares what happens to these people here? Sure, there are some people in prison who are good people who just made a bad decision. But most of them? They freaking deserve what they get.”
She nods. “All right. I just don’t want anyone else hurt. Except him. Except Wallace. I don’t care what happens to him.”
I don’t either. This guy hurt the woman I love, and he deserves everything he gets. Yeah, these feelings I’m having aren’t very honorable, but hell, I’m fucking human.
“Did you get the answers you wanted?” I ask.
“I suppose so. It’s pretty much what I expected. You heard it all. Taylor mentioned that she wanted me out of the way, and Uncle Greg took care of it. I honestly don’t believe Taylor wanted me abducted and abused.”
