“Jonah Steel?” one of them said.
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. She didn’t harm me, other than injecting me with something. I’m recovered now.”
They walked in. “Where is she?”
I laid down the weapon and gestured. “Over there.”
Now Wendy was cowering in the corner. “Officers? I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Are you Wendy Madigan?” one asked.
“Yes. I am.”
“Get to your feet, ma’am.” The first officer pointed a gun at her.
“I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You abducted this man, Jonah Steel. How do you think he got here otherwise?”
Her eyes misted up. “I wish I could tell you. The last thing I remember is… I think I was in Denver with my mother. Maybe… What day is it today anyway?”
“She’s got some kind of personality disorder. Or she’s just a great liar,” I said. “I don’t know how I got here. She drugged me with something. She’s been calling me by my father’s name. She only just came out of the delusion now.”
“Is this true, ma’am?”
She shook her head, closing her eyes. “No. I don’t remember…”
“She’s crazy,” I said.
The first officer nodded. He put his gun in his holster and grabbed a set of handcuffs. “Wendy Madigan, I’m placing you under arrest for the abduction, drugging, and false imprisonment of Jonah Steel. You have the right to remain silent. If you choose not to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, the court will provide one to represent you. Do you understand these rights?”
She nodded, biting her lip. I wasn’t sure she understood the rights at all. Clearly she was incapacitated. Her attorney would probably get her off on some insanity plea.
“Officer,” I said. “She has information I need. I was just getting her to talk when you burst in.”
“We’re taking her in, Mr. Steel. You can talk to her at the station. If it’s okay with her attorney.”
Shit. Now I might never get what I needed. She would no doubt end up in some psychiatric hospital strapped to a bed, and I might never be able to find out what had truly happened to Talon and why.
And then there was the issue of Ryan.
Part of me wanted to disbelieve Wendy. What she said couldn’t be true. But it made an eerie sort of sense.
How could my father have slept with this woman? I shook my head. He’d probably slept with her when he was in high school. That was when her obsession with him seemed to have started. She said herself that she had joined the future lawmakers club to be near him.
I heaved a sigh.
“You all right?” the second officer asked me.
“Fucking fine,” I said. “Just no closer than I’ve ever been to the truth.”
“What truth is that?” the officer asked me.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. How did you find me?”