“Don’t tell them yet that I’m going to give you the money,” Sebastian said. “I need to think about how I can do it without it coming back to me. Have someone else do it.”

Ava nodded. “They want us to take a polygraph. The FBI. To rule us out as suspects.”

“They want you to, or they asked you to?”

“Asked. Said it’s normal procedure—I get that—but still, it makes me nervous. What if they start asking questions about Grace’s biological father?”

“Has Charles told them he isn’t the biological father?”

“No.”

“Then keep it that way.” Suddenly Sebastian found himself on his feet. “I need to get to work on this. How many other people are on your list to get money?”

“Four more. Maybe five.”

“Go speak to them. Better to have as much money available as possible when the time comes. Sometimes banks screw up.”

Sebastian felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, reached for it. A text, from Ron: candice jackson flying to la later tonight.

Candice Jackson? Then Sebastian remembered: Paul’s last girlfriend. Ron had wanted to talk with her for a while.

“I need to take this,” Sebastian said. “How can I get in touch with you?”

“I wrote down my number for you.” Ava reached into her pocket, came back with a scrap of paper. He took it, and she placed her hands against his chest, leaned up, and kissed him on the lips—not a quick peck, and not the long, sultry kiss of two people madly in lust, but something more mature, more permanent. It was a kiss that said, You’re still in my heart. It said, I still love you. He inhaled the smell of her skin and hair, and in that moment, he felt like the before Sebastian, the original version, the boy who believed he was in possession of the kind of once-in-a-lifetime love that held the power to shape his destiny any way he wanted.

CHAPTER 35

ELLIE STOOD IN the kitchen, watching Sebastian and the woman he had called Ava through the windows above the sink. Ellie had no idea what they were discussing, even though she had cracked open the windows; Sebastian and Ava sat too far away, at the table on the other side of the pool, the two of them huddled together and speaking in the sort of intimate, hushed tones of a husband and wife confronting the sort of life horrors every human being feared but few ever faced.

Whatever their conversation was about, it involved the FBI. The guy lingering near the top of the driveway, by the basketball hoop, was a federal agent—he had that look and air about him. Ellie didn’t recognize him and wondered if he was one of Roland’s.

Why was the FBI here? Did the agent know what Sebastian really did for a living? Did Ava? If so, why would she bring a federal agent to Sebastian’s house? And why had the woman burst into gut-wrenching tears?