“Were you ever small for your age?”
“Nope, always the tallest girl in the class. God, it was painful before the guys in school shot up. And even after, I was still taller than half of them.”
I smiled. “You were always the most gorgeous too, I bet.” But I had to change the subject yet again. “I know this is a hard topic for you, but what exactly do you know about your mother?”
“I don’t know a lot. At least not firsthand, because I don’t remember her. I’ve seen pictures of course, and I look a little bit like her, though I have my dad’s coloring, same as the boys, but my face is shaped like hers, and my lips.”
I nodded.
“I know she was troubled. I mean, why else would she have killed herself?”
I nodded again. Marj was probably not the best person to be asking about Daphne Steel. The boys remembered her and would be able to tell me more. But so far, they had been tight-lipped about anything concerning family.
“Crazy,” Marj continued. “So I was supposed to die?”
“Yeah, and I’m sure glad you didn’t.”
“Me too.”
We laughed together and drank some more wine.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “I also checked out your parents’ marriage certificate. The official version in the Colorado database says your mom’s maiden name was Warren, like you guys always thought.”
“That is curious.”
I swallowed a mouthful of wine. “I don’t really know what to make of it all. Somebody somewhere got into the records database, probably a long time ago, and made those changes in the permanent records. It had to be someone pretty high up in the government to have that access.”
“Or my father paid for that access.”
I had wanted to say that, but I was glad she had. “I have given that a bit of thought. Especially since I’m pretty sure Talon paid off Toby’s Tattoo Parlor not to work with me.”
“Well, I’m not particularly proud of it, but one of the benefits of having this kind of money is that we can afford to buy certain things.”
Felicia opened the door and stuck her head out. “Dinner is ready. Is Mr. Talon coming home?”
Marj sighed. “Beats the heck out of me, Felicia. I think Jade and I will have our dinner out here, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’ll bring it right out. You want some more wine, ladies?”
Marj giggled. “Of course.”
Felicia brought us two plates of spaghetti and meatballs along with the bottle of wine we had opened and left in the kitchen. I inhaled. Mmm. Rustic tomato and beef. Nothing better.
We dived into our meals and were chatting about nothing in particular when Felicia came back.
“Pardon me, Miss Jade, but there is a Colin Morse here to see you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Talon
“What is it, Tal?” Jonah stood in his house, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks. “I was just about to take a dip.”
“Great. I’ll join you. We need to talk.” I walked past him into the foyer and through the kitchen out to his backyard, where his kidney-shaped pool was waiting.
“You brought your trunks?”
I shook my head. “I’ll wear my boxers. You know I don’t care about that.” I gulped down the lump that had formed in my throat. “I… I told Jade I love her.”
Jonah slapped me on the back. “Really? That’s great, Tal.”
“Really? Is it really great?” I tunneled my fingers through my hair. “You know I don’t have any business loving anyone, getting involved with anyone.”
“You have just as much business as anybody else. Especially if maybe you go back to see Dr. Carmichael again.”
“I don’t know if I can. I need to resolve so much. Which reminds me, I had a really weird revelation today.”
“Yeah? What was it?”
“One of those guys. Remember all that I ever remembered before was that one of them had that fucking phoenix tattoo on his forearm? Oh, and you’ll never believe this. Jade wants to get that exact same tattoo.”
Jonah jerked his head forward. “Say what?”
“Yeah, she saw it in a book at Toby’s. Out of all those fucking tattoos, she chose that one. Unreal. So I did a little research. The guy who designed the tattoo can’t remember who he gave it to, but said it was a fairly popular design twenty to thirty years ago. He only remembers putting it on someone’s forearm a few times. I’m going to see if I can get his records.”
“If he still has them.”
I let out a sigh. “Yeah. I know. He’s this old biker guy who says he was stoned half the time back then. I’m going to get a court order or something to go through his records.”