Page 75 of Destiny

“Yes, by a couple of years, as I understand it.”

“Do you thinkyou’rethe product of artificial insemination?”

Ryan shakes his head. “No. My father admitted to sleeping with Wendy. But only once.”

“If she had his sperm, why didn’t she just inseminate herself? Why sleep with him?”

“Because of her obsession,” Ryan says. “She thought they were soul mates. She never could accept that he chose Daphne over her.”

The door clicks open, and Ruby arrives.

“Oh, Brendan. What are you doing here?”

“I have a question for you, Ruby,” Ryan says. “Where the hell have you been?”

Ruby sighs. “I wasn’t going to keep any of this from you, Ryan. But I had to check things out. I went to see Tucker.”

“The lab tech,” I say.

“Right. I assume Brendan has already told you what we found today.”

“Yes, and I have a theory of my own. I think Lauren Wingdam may be my full sister. I don’t think William Elijah Steel ever existed.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Ava figured it out, actually, and I know my mother. I know how her mind works…at least sort of. She referred to Ava as her first granddaughter from my father.”

“Avaisher first granddaughter.”

“Yes, but she specifically said granddaughter. Not grandchild.”

“Because she’snother first grandchild. Jack is.”

“Exactly. Think about how my mother’s mind works. She specified that Ava was the first granddaughter from Brad Steel. Jack, though he is technically her grandson, didn’t come from Brad Steel. At least, we thought he didn’t.”

“So you’re saying…”

“I’m saying she wouldn’t have specified granddaughterunless Jackalsocame from Bradford Steel.”

“That’s a little out there, Ryan,” Ruby says.

I’m glad Ruby said it, because I agree with her.

Ryan holds up a hand. “But it makes perfect sense with regard to my mother and her obsession with my father. I mean, why is there no mother on William Steel’s birth certificate? Everyone knows who the mother is. That’s where the baby comes from.”

“If you think Wendy forged the birth certificate,” I say, “why didn’t she just forge the name of a mother?”

“My grandfather was a lot of things,” Ryan says thoughtfully. “I don’t know a lot about him, only the few things my father told me. He tended to take a blind eye to ethics, which is why my father taught my brothers and me to be ethical. Even though he himself turned out to break his own rules. My grandfather wasn’t very nice to his wife, Mazie Bradford Steel. Mazie was in an accident after Dad was born, and she couldn’t bear George any more children.”

“All the more reason why he may have looked elsewhere to have another child,” I say.

Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t think so. He may well have had affairs, but I feel that my father was his only child. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have made arrangements for another? Another child of his body?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t know the man.”

“I didn’t know him either. But Ididknow my grandmother. And if George Steel had had another child, I’m almost certain he would’ve rubbed her nose in it.”

“So you think William Elijah Steel is Wendy’s invention?” I say.

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