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CHAPTER ONE

JADE

The man stands in front of me as I sit in the chair. We’re in a small room in an abandoned building on the Camsburg campus. The man is tall, maybe 6’2, with dark hair that has flecks of gray in it. He looks handsome and sophisticated, wearing a black tailored suit. He has an average build, maybe a little on the thin side. His eyes are greenish-brown, his skin has a slight tan, and his face is just like his father’s. I hadn’t realized how similar they look. I’ve only seen a couple photos, but seeing him up close, he looks just like his dad, even more so than his brother did.

I meet his gaze, trying to remain calm even though my heart is pounding in my chest. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You know who I am?” he asks.

“Yes.”

But I don’t know what he’s doing here. Or what he plans to do to me. And I still don’t know who Walt is, the other man in the room.

I keep my focus on the man in front of me. “You’re William Sinclair.”

He stands up straighter. “I suppose it makes sense you would know that, given your interest in my family. Perhaps you thought you’d come after me as well someday.”

“Come after you? What are you—”

“It’s not going to happen, Ms. Taylor. ” He emphasizes the last name, my maiden name. “This little scam you’ve got going ends now. Whatever you used to blackmail my father, and are currently using to control my mother, it ends now. I will NOT let you continue this!”

I jump up from the chair. “No, that’s not—”

“SIT down!” He says it so loud and so forcefully that I freeze in place, afraid to move.

He waits for me to sit. I take a breath and slowly lower myself back into the chair. I’m about to tell him who I am but then he starts talking again.

“I must say, you definitely played the part well. The poor girl from Iowa, just trying to get a better life for herself. And you could’ve done it, Jade. I know all about your past. You were valedictorian of your high school. You had all A’s at Moorhurst. You’re obviously a smart girl. You could’ve succeeded in life and done quite well for yourself. But you didn’t want to wait for that success, did you? You didn’t want to put the effort in. You went to Moorhurst and saw all that wealth around you, and you wanted a piece of it. So you latched onto Garret.” He shakes his head. “I would’ve thought Pearce Kensington would know better. But you somehow managed to fool both him and his son.”

“I didn’t fool anyone. You don’t understand. If you’d just let me explain.”

“You’re right. You didn’t fool them. You blackmailed them, just like you blackmailed my father.”

This is not how I saw this playing out. I imagined meeting William some day, but not like this. Not with him yelling at me, accusing me of things I didn’t do.

“I didn’t blackmail anyone. I don’t know why you think that, but I’m telling you, I didn’t—”

“I found the documents, Jade. After my father died, I took over his finances and discovered that last spring, a very large sum of money was put into an account in your name. Fifty million dollars, to be exact. Then I did some more investigating and found you’d had five million of it transferred to a man in Iowa. The man who took you in after your mother died. I’m having him followed right now. And as soon as we have proof that he’s in on this scam with you, he’ll be arrested or dealt with some other way.”

Now I’m pissed. William can say and think whatever he wants about me, but he can’t involve Frank.

I bolt up from my chair. “You are NOT arresting Frank! He didn’t do anything! You’ve got this all wrong!” I look back at Walt who is still blocking the door. “Can you leave, please? I need to talk to William alone.”

Walt doesn’t move, so I turn back to William. “I need to talk to you alone. I need to tell you something. Something hardly anyone knows.”

“If you have something to say, just say it. But I’m telling you now I’m not going to believe your lies, Jade.”

“It’s not a lie. It’s a secret. And it’s the truth. I swear. But Walt shouldn’t know this. It’s better if he didn’t.”

“Walt’s part of my private security team. He’s worked for me for the past 12 years. There are no secrets between us.”

I glance at Walt again. I don’t know what his story is. Maybe he’s part of the organization or maybe he’s just a security guy. Either way, he can’t know my secret. He can’t know I’m a Sinclair. At this point, I’m not even sure I want to tell William, but if I don’t, he’ll do something to me and I don’t want to find out what that something is.

“I can’t say this with Walt in the room,” I tell William. “If you want to tell him later, that’s up to you. But right now, this needs to be just between you and me.”

William looks back at Walt. “Wait outside in the hall. But remain by the door.”

Walt does as instructed, closing the door behind him.

Remain by the door? What’s William think I’m going to do? Pull a knife on him? I’m half his size and I don’t have a weapon. I’m the one who’s afraid of him . I don’t know how he’s going to react to this. What if he doesn’t believe me? What if he still thinks I’m a criminal? What will he do to me?

My heart’s racing again and I feel sick to my stomach. I wish Garret were here. He knows William. He could explain all this better than me, and William might actually believe him. And Garret could stop William from doing whatever he’s planning to do to me.

William glares at me. “Go ahead.”

I take a deep breath, then look directly at William and say, “I’m your niece. Royce Sinclair was my father. I didn’t know until—”

“Stop right there!” He puts his hand up. “I am not listening to this. You may have managed to con some very smart, very important people, but you are NOT going to do it to me.”

“I swear to you, I’m not lying. Royce was working on a political campaign 20 years ago and he came to Des Moines during the caucus. He was there for a speech and he asked my mom out for dinner.”

William huffs as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Royce was married 20 years ago. He wouldn’t ask a woman to dinner. You should really work on your story, Jade. At least try to make it believable.”

“Would you just listen to me? I promise you, I’m not lying.”

“Spoken like a true con artist. You’ve been doing this so long you believe your own lies.”

“I’m not a con artist. I’m trying to tell you the truth. Royce wasn’t the man you thought he was. He did something really bad to my mom and—”

“How dare you speak of my brother that way!” His arms drop to his sides and he takes a step closer, towering over me. “Royce was a husband. A father. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a decent man. And I’m not going to stand here and listen to you make up lies about him and your mother in order to—”

“He raped her!” The anger I was trying to suppress suddenly explodes.

I didn’t want to tell William this and I didn’t think I ever would. I never thought I’d meet him. But here we are, face-to-face, and I can’t take another second of this. I can’t stand here and listen to him accuse me like this, making it sound Iike I’m the bad one. Like I did something wrong. And I hate the way he’s sticking up for his brother, the man who committed a horrible crime against my mom. The man who destroyed her life, and mine. The man who killed my mom’s parents. The man who tried to kill me and almost killed Garret.

William backs away, but I don’t see his expression. I keep my eyes on the floor.

“He what?” I hear William’s voice, but it’s so faint, it’s almost like he’s saying it to himself.

“He raped her.” I say it again, quieter this time. “Your brother raped my mom. She was my age and he asked her to go to dinner, but instead he took her to a cornfield and he—” My throat burns as I try to fight back the tears that are forming as I imagine the scene in my head. “He raped her. I don’t know what else he did to her that night, but it was bad. Really bad, and she—” I stop to breathe, but now I’m crying so it’s making it difficult. “He left her there to die. It was winter. It was freezing cold and he just left her on the side of the road.”

William stands there, not saying anything.

I take a moment to catch my breath, the tears continuing to fall as I think about what happened that night. I’ve never had to tell that story to someone, at least not all of it, like I did just now. And saying it out loud wasn’t easy. It still hurts when I think of Royce doing that to my mom. I can’t even imagine how scared she was when he took her out to that cornfield. And how awful it was for her to wake up in the hospital and have nobody believe her when she told them who did that to her. Only her parents believed her and then he killed them, leaving my mom with nobody. It’s so horrible I try not to think about it.

I wipe my eyes and look up at William. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. I didn’t even want to tell you that. I’m sure you loved your brother and I didn’t want you to have to remember him this way. That’s why I told Grace I didn’t want any of you to know about me. I told her I—”

“Jade!” The door swings open and Garret appears with Walt right behind him. Walt grabs his arm, but Garret shoves him back.

Garret sees me standing there, my cheeks still wet with tears. He races over and holds my face, his eyes doing a quick scan of me. “Jade, are you okay?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He pulls me into him, his arms in a protective lock around me.

“What the fuck is going on here?” He directs the question to Walt but then turns and notices William standing there. “What the hell? What are you doing here?”

“I was just. . .” William’s voice trails off. He seems out of it, like his mind needs time to process this.

“I told him,” I say to Garret. “I told him who I am and I told him what Royce did to my mom. But I don’t think he believes me.”

“Is that true?” Garret glares at William. “You really think she’d make up a story like that? You really believe your brother wasn’t capable of that? Did you even know him?”

“Garret, stop.” I motion to Walt.

“Get out!” Garret yells at Walt.

William nods at Walt, signaling him to leave.

Once he’s gone, Garret continues, his eyes on William. “She’s not lying. Your brother was a fucking rapist. And he left Jade’s mom there, hoping she’d die.” Garret holds me tighter. “Now you want to explain to me why you’re here and what the hell you’re doing with my wife?”

William wakes up from his daze. “How could this happen? How could I not know about it?”

Garret answers. “Because Royce paid people to keep their mouths shut. And if they didn’t keep quiet, he killed them. He killed Jade’s grandparents so they could never tell anyone the truth. He made it look like an accident.”

William’s eyes shift to the floor.

Garret huffs. “Yeah, I know it’s what you do. You. My dad. My grandfather. I know they make you do shit and cover it up, but it’s usually bad people, right?”

William doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at us.

“Whatever. I don’t even want to know. The point is that Royce did this on his own. The organization had nothing to do with it. Royce hurt innocent people. He destroyed lives. He killed people.”

William collapses down on the chair I was sitting in earlier. His shoulders slump and he rubs his temples with his hand. “Why didn’t he. . . why didn’t he kill her, too?” William looks at me. “He didn’t, did he? He couldn’t have. If he had, you wouldn’t—”

“He drugged her,” Garret says.

“Garret, he doesn’t need to—”

“No, Jade. He needs to hear this. Royce gave Jade’s mom some kind of hallucinogenic drug so everyone would think she’s crazy. That way nobody would believe her if she ever told anyone what happened. The pills caused her to have addictions. She started drinking right after Jade was born and she became an alcoholic. She couldn’t be a mother.” Garret gently rubs my arm as he holds me against him. “She wasn’t able to.”

William is now staring at me and it’s making me uncomfortable because I don’t know what he’s thinking. Does he still think I’m lying?

The room gets quiet again.

After what seems like a really long period of silence, William finally says, “You look like Sadie.”

“Yeah. I’ve met her.”

“So she knows?” William sounds surprised.

“No, she doesn’t know.”

“Jade went to a fundraiser at my house,” Garret explains. “The fundraiser was for Royce. That’s when Jade met him, but she didn’t know who he was back then. Sadie was there that night and that’s when Jade met her.”

“But Victoria knows.” He says it like it’s a given.

“No,” I say. “She doesn’t know either. But I met Victoria the night I met Sadie.”

“So who else knows about this besides my mother?”

“That’s it. Just you, Grace, and Garret. Oh, and Pearce.”

“My dad just found out.” Garret blurts it out, like he’s nervous or something. “Arlin told him. After Royce died.”

From the worried look on Garret’s face, I think I just spilled a huge secret. But why is it a secret that Pearce knew about me?

William nods. “I see. So when did my father learn about Jade?”

I answer. “After Royce died, Arlin found the police records from that night. They were in a file Royce had locked away in a safe. The file also had stuff in it about my mom and me. That’s when Arlin learned I existed. Later he came to see me and we got to know each other.”

“So my father didn’t know what Royce had done until he found those police records?”

“He knew Royce had been with my mom, but Royce told him it was an affair, not a rape. And he didn’t tell Arlin about the pregnancy, so he never knew about me. Until he found that file.”

William lowers his head, shaking it side to side. He seems stressed or confused or both.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you all that,” I say. “I wasn’t going to. In fact I wasn’t sure if I’d ever meet you. But when you showed up here and started accusing me of all that stuff, I couldn’t just sit here and not say anything.”

“What do you mean he accused you?” Garret asks. “Accused you of what?”

“He thought I had a scam going. He thought I was trying to get your money and Grace’s money.”

“What the hell?” Garret says it to William, whose gaze is still on the floor. “Why would you accuse her of something like that? Jade’s the last person in the world who would ever try to scam someone out of their money.”

“Garret, it’s fine,” I say quietly to him. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

“Where did you even get an idea like that? From that Walt guy?” He turns back to see Walt, but he’s still in the hall. “What’s the deal with that guy? Has he been following Jade around?”

“Yes.” William looks up at Garret. “Walter works for me. He handles my private security. I asked him to gather information on Jade before we reported her to the authorities.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You were going to arrest Jade? Seriously?”

William clears his throat. “You have to understand that from my point of view, it didn’t look good. As far as I knew, Jade had no connection to my family and yet fifty million dollars had been put into a trust fund for her. It didn’t make sense. The only explanation would be if she were blackmailing my father. It’s not like this doesn’t happen in our world, Garret.”

“Yeah, I know, but you could’ve done some more digging before you just decided she was a criminal.”

“I did. And I found that my mother had also given Jade a credit card and was paying her bills. You have to admit that looks suspicious. And then there’s the fact that your father allowed you to date, and then marry, a girl like Jade. The Pearce Kensington I know would never allow his son to even be friends with someone with her background. I assumed she was blackmailing him as well.”

“And where do I fit in all of this?” Garret asks. “Was I being blackmailed?”

“Sadie told me Jade had something on you. Something you didn’t want to go public and that’s why you had to marry her.”

Garret lets out an annoyed laugh as he shakes his head. “Sadie really said that?”

“Yes.”

“And you believed her? You know almost everything Sadie says is a lie, right?”

“You used to be friends with her. You used to date her. I thought maybe you two were still close. Maybe you confided in her about Jade.”

“Believe me, I didn’t. And Sadie and I are not friends and haven’t been for over a year. Everything Sadie told you was a complete lie.”

“I see.” He stands up from his chair. “Well, this is certainly not how I thought this would go today.”

“It’s not what I was expecting either.” I smile a little.

“Do that again,” he orders, his gaze fixed on my mouth.

“Do what?”

“Smile.”

It would normally seem like a strange request but I know why he made it. I have the exact same smile as Royce.

I smile for William, a big smile this time.

A stunned expression appears on his face. “Did you know you have the same—”

“Smile,” I answer for him. “Yes. I know.”

“Jade.” He extends his hand to me. “It was nice to meet you.”

This is so weird. He acts like we’re done here. So is this it? We just forget this ever happened and go back to our lives? Or what exactly do we do now?

Garret is still holding on to me but he lets me go so I can shake William’s hand.

“It was nice meeting you, too.” Actually, it wasn’t nice. It was a horrible way to meet him, but I say it anyway.

“I don’t mean to be abrupt but I need some time to absorb all this. And then maybe we could meet again.” He reaches in his suit jacket and pulls out his business card. He gets a pen out as well and writes something on the back of the card, then hands it to me. “My cell phone number is on the back. I only give that number to family. Feel free to call me anytime.”

I glance at the front of the card. It’s from Sinclair Pharmaceuticals, the company that made the hallucinogenic drug that turned my mom into the person she became. I’ve always wondered who else got that drug. They wouldn’t make it for just one person. So who else did they silence with those pills? And what other drugs do they make that are meant to harm people instead of help them?

On the card, under the company logo, it reads William Sinclair, CEO . As the head of the company, William knows exactly what goes on there, which means he knows they make drugs like the ones Royce gave my mom. It’s another reason not to trust him. And yet I want to. I want him to be good. I want an uncle. I want more family.

“Are you going to tell Grace that we met?” I ask him. “Or do you want me to?”

“How often do you talk to her?”

“I try to call her every few days just to check in and make sure she’s okay. I worry about her living alone. Plus, I know she’s lonely without Arlin around.”

He gives me a slight smile. “It’s good that you call her. I’m sure she appreciates that. I don’t call her nearly enough myself. Maybe once every couple weeks, if that.”

“Really? What about Sadie and her sisters? Don’t they call her?”

“No.” He lets out a harsh laugh. “Those girls only call her when they want something their mother won’t buy them. But Victoria buys them whatever they want, so no, they don’t talk to their grandmother much.”

“I didn’t know that. Now I feel bad. I should be calling her every day. I didn’t because I didn’t want to bother her. She always seems busy but I guess she was just acting that way.”

“It sounds like you two have gotten to know each other the past few months.”

“I spent a lot of time with her and Arlin last spring when Garret was—”

“When I was acting like an ass in front of the entire world,” Garret says, interrupting me. I forgot that William doesn’t know what went on last spring and how Arlin orchestrated the bad publicity stunt that ended up saving Garret from the organization’s plan for him.

“That was a difficult time for me,” I say, playing along. “But Arlin and Grace helped me get through it. I got to know them both really well. I went to their house almost every weekend.”

“Their house in the Hamptons?” he asks.

“Yes. We spent a lot of time on their sailboat and Arlin taught me—” My voice cracks and my eyes are all watery. Dammit. Every time I think of Arlin, this stupid crying starts. “He taught me how to sail. Sorry.” I wipe my eyes. “I just miss Arlin a lot.”

“I do, too.” William pauses, then says, “You know, maybe we should get together sooner rather than later. I’m flying out first thing tomorrow morning but perhaps we could have dinner tonight.”

“Yeah. Okay,” I say, without giving it much thought. I feel Garret squeezing my hand and when I glance over at him, he’s giving me a look like I shouldn’t have agreed to dinner. Maybe he’s right. I just met William and as much as I want him to be good, the truth is he could be bad like his brother. Grace said he’s not, but what if she’s wrong?

“I need to go back to my hotel and make some phone calls,” William says. “When I’m done, I’ll stop by your place and we can go.”

“You know where we live?” Garret asks.

“Yes.”

“Because you were spying on us.” Garret says it in an angry tone.

William nods. “ I wasn’t, but Walter was.”

“Did Walt take our garbage?” I ask William.

“I’m not sure. You’d have to ask him.” William goes out in the hall and says something quietly to Walt. Then the two of them come back in the room.

“Did you take our garbage?” I ask Walt.

“Yes. Several times. I was looking for receipts, bills, that type of thing.”

“Did you put it back after you looked through it?”

“I did. In fact, that time you saw the garbage can was empty, I had to hurry and replace the bags before you checked it again.”

“That explains it.” I look at Garret as I say it.

A few weeks ago the garbage can got knocked over by the wind and when I went to pick it up, nothing was inside. But Garret insisted there were two bags of garbage in there and when he went to check, they were there. I couldn’t figure out how they just appeared like that.

William is standing by the door. “I have your number so I’ll call before I stop over.”

“No,” Garret says. “Don’t come to the house. We’ll just meet you there.”

He nods, then disappears into the hallway, with Walt right behind him.

I turn back to Garret. “So I guess that was my uncle.”