Page 53 of Destiny

Dad flicks his ashes on the asphalt. “Yeah, but he was recommended by the Steel family.”

“My grandfather was a Steel.”

“An illegitimate Steel,” I say. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“How long have you known about your ancestry?” I ask.

“Pretty much my whole life,” Jack says.

“And you never wanted a piece of their pie?”

Jack shrugs. “I neverneededa piece of the pie. Mom and I came into some money not long after…”

“Not long after what?”

“Not long after she was raped. After she gave away my brother.”

“Really? Where did the money come from?” I ask.

“I was a kid, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions. But as I understand it, when my father passed away, he left a pretty sizable estate to my mother. But that’s according to my grandmother. Everything came through her.”

Dad rubs his jawline. “So William Elijah Steel… Maybe he did have some money.”

“It’s possible that his father, George Steel, knew about him,” Dad says. “Probably made arrangements. Siphoned off the money to give him a small estate.”

I nod. “That does make sense.”

“There sure are a lot of questions we need answered,” Jack says.

“There sure are.” I hold out my hand to Jack. “But I can’t say I’m unhappy that you’re related to us. It’s nice to have a new uncle.”

“Son,” Dad says. “Don’t be counting those chickens until we get the additional results.”

“Dad, you and I both know what those results are going to say.”

Dad shakes his head again. “How can this be?”

“I don’t know,” Jack says, “but I think between the three of us, we can put our brainpower together and figure it out.”

“You bet we will,” Dad says. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to figure out what the fuck is going on here…and what the Steel family has to do with it.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ava

Dad sits with me at my grandmother’s bedside. I asked him to leave me alone with her, but he won’t.

“Don’t you need to go to the winery?”

“Have you forgotten I’m retired now?” Dad shakes his head. “I’m allowing you to do this because you’re my daughter and I love you, Ava. But no way am I leaving you alone with her.”

I gesture to Wendy, who’s asleep. “She is not any danger to me.”

Jemima enters the room, checks the monitors on the machines that she set up for Wendy. “Everything looks good. Her heart rate is normal. Blood pressure’s good. Pulse ox is good. For a woman her age, she’s in excellent health.”

“Which doesn’t explain why she kept herself in a self-induced coma,” Dad says.

---