I was crying again, but not because of the angina attack.It had been Billy Grant’s funeral, and I’d watched Callie break into pieces the same way my mother had when my dad died.The pain of their grief had been difficult to witness.I couldn’t imagine how impossible it was to bear.
“How are you doing?”Ezra asked.
“Fine,” I reassured him.“Better.”
“Oh, my dear,” Augusta said, kneeling next to me.“You scared me half to death.”
“Angina attack,” I explained.“Apparently, it’s my new party trick.”
She shook her head but smiled.“At least you still have your sense of humor.”
“Sometimes, it’s the only thing that gets you through it.”
Augusta nodded.“I know the feeling well.”
Gilly, Pippa, Scott, and Jordy gathered around me.
“Help her out of the ballroom so she can breathe,” Gilly ordered.
“I’m fine,” I repeated, though my legs had yet to fully recover.
“You’re fine when I tell you you’re fine,” she snapped.
Damn, I’d really scared her this time.
“I’m sorry, Gils.But, hey, I really am okay.My heart is still working.”
“If something happens to you...”She let the implication hang.
“Nothing’s going to happen to Nora,” Ezra said.“We’re not going to let it.”He put his arm under mine and looped it around my back for support.“Getting some air is a good idea, though.”
His agreeing with Gilly’s suggestion gave her a little vindication.I cast him a grateful look.
“What happened?”he asked once we were on the other side of the double doors.“You were talking to Augusta one minute, and the next...”He scrubbed his face.“I’ve never seen you shake during a vision before.Not like that.”
“I know how Augusta and Carl are tied to all this.And I think it might give them one of the biggest motives of all.”
I flashed to Gilly asking Augusta and Carl if they had any children, and Carl responding,Not in this lifetime.Because her child had been born in another lifetime...one where she’d given him up for adoption.
“Billy Grant was her son,” I told Ezra.“Her biological son.She as much as said so in the vision I had of his funeral.”
“Well, that wasn’t what I expected,” he said.
“Expected what?”Gilly asked in a hushed voice.
“That Billy is Augusta’s son,” Pippa whispered.I guess she’d been close enough to overhear.I looked around to make sure no casuals were nearby.
“What?”Gilly whisper-screamed.“Billy was her son?”She shook her head.“That is a serious motive.If something happened to Marco, God forbid,” she crossed herself, “I would straight-up murder that person without an ounce of remorse.”
“Agreed,” Pippa and Jordy said in unison.
Ezra nodded.“Same.I’d like to think I’d stick to the rule of law, but murder would be more satisfying.”
“But wouldn’t she blame Callie, not Sebastian?”Pippa mused.“The leakedfakerecording was persuasive.Until Reese told me it was fake, I believed it.”
Jordy put his arm around her.“That’s how those deepfakes suck people in.You sell a lie often enough, and even smart people will believe it.”
Pippa frowned.“Which still begs the question...why Sebastian and not Callie?”
