“What happened to her?” Dylan asked.
His father snorted. “What the newspapers say, or the truth?”
“Both.”
“The newspapers said Audrey was kidnapped from the home and never seen again. The truth was so much uglier than that.”
Dylan wasn’t sure how it could be, but he was about to learn. He wasn’t going to be forceful with his father. Not ever again, not knowing what he’d been put through by his own father. “Tell me please. I need to know.”
“Audrey was unstable. She also was very cruel to my father. My understanding was, she put him in the hospital with injuries more than once. The last time sent your great-granddad over the edge. He had Audrey taken away and I guess put in some type of institution.”
That wasn’t exactly what had happened, but his father didn’t need to know Audrey was actually left all alone on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn’t been for some stranger on a country drive, she might not have survived. But Audrey didn’t know where she had come from or how she’d gotten there. They must have drugged her or something. That’s why Audrey never reached out to her real family just a few states away. Back then, it wasn’t like there was national news blaring every day on the TV. If you picked up something on the radio, you were doing well. And this wasn’t as important as the end of World War Two. At least to most people. “Dad, does this mean that the story about Audrey marrying a Henderson is true?”
“It is. And your great-granddad and granddad both knew. That’s why Lawson Steel was never allowed to do any business with them.”
Dylan absorbed what he was being told. There were still so many questions, but right now, he only had one more. “Do they know?”
“The Hendersons?” he asked. Dylan nodded. “Not that I’m aware of. Audrey was a very…sick woman. There was a lot of speculation about how she even got Henderson to marry her in the first place. Let’s just say, she was capable of some very unspeakable things. I asked my father what they were, but he wouldn’t say. He said Audrey made him and my grandfather look like saints. Honestly Dylan, I don’t want to know.”
He got it. His father was getting older and at this point, that kind of shit was just going to add a stress that no one needed. That didn’t mean Dylan didn’t want to know it all. The Hendersons were his blood relations. Audrey was his great aunt. What he wasn’t sure of was, how much of this did the Hendersons already know? Or was this their dirty little secret that they had kept hidden all these years too?
“Dad, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this information yet, but I think it’s something the others need to know.” Dylan was speaking out of his own feelings on the topic. He already knew Gareth would agree. The others, well he wasn’t sure. Charles probably was too much in a happy zone to want to hear this shit. That was a good thing. It’d give Dylan time to do more fact finding.
“Do as you wish with it. Just please, don’t tell me what you learn.”
“We won’t Dad. And I promise, this won’t go anywhere it doesn’t need to.” That meant the fewer people who knew, the better. But he was going to have a long talk with Gareth tomorrow. It might be time for them to take a trip to Boston. Sitting down with Brice Henderson will determine the next course of action.
Damn. Figures we have to be related to people with a reputation for always getting what they want. Must be in the genes.
He couldn’t let their time together end on such a heavy note, so when they were finished with their deep conversation, Dylan decided to accompany his father back to visit with Penelope. Unfortunately, that took longer than he anticipated, and they weren’t the only company there either.
“I don’t have long, but I wanted to check on my little niece,” Dylan said.
“And favorite sister-in-law,” Rosslyn teased.
“Of course. But I really only have a few minutes,” Dylan replied.
“Sounds like you have a hot date or something. Could it be that waitress from Mama’s Place?” Gareth joked.
Rosslyn’s eyes lit up. “Oh that would be wonderful. I’d love it if Penelope had someone close in age to grow up with.”
What the fuck!How did it get from a date to a baby? Oh that would be a woman’s way of thinking. Very dangerous. Many men had fallen into that trap, his brother Charles was one of them. She might be one, but that was enough to take down a room of men, especially with her newly acquired cohort, Penelope. Dylan knew it was time to get his ass out of there before Rosslyn was planning a wedding that wasn’t ever going to happen.
Ignoring Rosslyn’s comment he turned back to Gareth. “Sorry to disappoint you, but not everything revolves around women, Gareth.” Dylan wasn’t about to tell any of them that Gareth was right. Gareth already had a big enough ego and Rosslyn needed to focus on the baby, not on his love life. “But I do need to talk to you in the morning. My office at eight?”
“Damn. What happened to a nine-to-five job?”
Dylan laughed. “Then I suggest you get to bed early, because we have work to do.” He walked over, kissed Rosslyn on the forehead and said, “She’s beautiful just like her mother.”
Charles said, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
Rosslyn smiled, holding Penelope just a tad closer. “Come back any time, Dylan. You’re always welcome.”
Dylan knew that, but it was nice hearing it anyway. When he got into his car, he knew he was cutting it close to pick up Sofia on time. After his meeting with his father, his appetite was gone, but he couldn’t cancel on her, not on their first date. Sofia was already resistant to being with him. That would be just enough to make her question this. So, he opted to send her a quick text letting her know he was on his way, then increased his speed. He might not be hungry, but he was looking forward to her company.
She must have been watching for him, because as soon as his Austin Healy pulled up, she came out. “I guess you’re hungry,” he said.
“I didn’t want you to have to come up to the fourth floor for no reason.”