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10

Blaise

“Has that dirtbag contacted you again?” Granger paces in the kitchen.

As soon as I had the energy to acknowledge that the call did happen, and angry that he admitted to loving a sister I wasn’t aware of, I called Granger. Hearing the panic in my voice, he came over right away.

“No. I called the number, but it’s disconnected.”

“Figures he would use a burner cell.”

I follow Granger’s movement with my eyes. His jaw is clamped, and his eyebrows are slanted downward toward his nose. I pepper him with questions, realizing he probably doesn’t have the answers, but I have to voice my thoughts.

“Why did he choose now to resurface? Did he blow through the ransom money and is looking for a way to get his hands on more? But that can’t be it. I don’t have any to barter with, and my family won’t negotiate with him, not when he’s broken his promise. He says he knows me intimately and that I gave him the gift of time. You, the guys, and my cousins are the only guys I’ve been around.”

“Are you certain you’re not suppressing something that you’re unwilling to acknowledge?”

“Plain English, please.”

“All I’m saying is what if there was a guy but your mind is choosing to suppress memories of him because you’re not ready to admit he betrayed your trust and hurt you?”

Is Granger right?

Needing something to do so I don’t pull out my hair strand by strand in frustration, I fix Granger’s favorite breakfast—two eggs scrambled, four sausage links, and a bowl of fruit, and then pour him a cup of coffee, black, no cream or sugar.

“Did you put together a list of people?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Anyone from the groundskeepers to your grandfather’s driver to his team of lawyers could have overheard or have known about the recent change made to his will.”

I set his meal on the table, and sitting, I pick at my oatmeal.

“Your grandfather never once told you of his plans to cut you out of his will?”

“He eluded to it at his party.”

Granger sits and scarfs down his food. Food and exercise is how he deals with stress. I cup the mug in my palms, and sipping my coffee, I give Granger’s theory of suppressed memories more thought. What guy do I know or have known who has the deep gravelly voice my kidnapper has?

My kidnapper was in love with a girl he claims is my twin from when she was in her teens. He said I gave him the gift of time. Is he older? Is that what he means? If he was my age, sixteen, when I was kidnapped, his voice would sound more like a boy’s and with the occasional cracking, rather than a man’s.

I remember well my cousins going through the changes as they went from teenagers to men. Yet, comparing his voice from last night to the days and nights he spoke to me, his identity hidden by a ski-mask, his voice hasn’t changed in tone or pitch.

“You’re thinking awful hard, Blaise.”

I blink. Granger is right. I’m staring forward with the coffee cup cradled in my palms midair.

“What you thinking?”

“That I shouldn’t have snuck past my bodyguards the night I went to see Collins.”

“The night you were taken.”

“Yes.”

He wipes at the corners of his mouth with a napkin and studies me with his elbows resting on the table.

“Having you guarded twenty-four-seven should have started the moment your parents’ plane went down.”