Faye was good. Too good, actually. Sebastian thought back to this morning’s conversation at the kitchen table, when he’d confronted her with the photo. The story about her twin brother and her being a carrier—she had delivered it as flawlessly and smoothly as the lie she had just given to Candice.

Faye was clearly good at pretending.

“I don’t remember the parties much, either, just the one I told you about,” Candice said. “Canyon Road, I think, was the address.”

“Oh my God, I think I was there once. Guy owned it, David something.”

“Don’t know his name. Don’t know anyone’s name, really, because no one gave their names. Didn’t see faces, either—everyone wore these creepy, like, Victorian masks. The guy who owned the house, though—I remember Paul saying something about how the guy made his fortune through these gossip-type websites that catered to celebrities.”

“Was Paul tight with this guy?”

Candice thought about it.

“I think so,” she said after a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, probably. Paul told me once how he went to this guy’s place a lot, worked as his private trainer. But I’m not, you know, one hundred percent sure. Like I said, I don’t remember much from that period of time.”

“I don’t remember much, either, truth be told. There were a few times—well, a lot of times, if I’m being honest—that I blacked out. I don’t drink as much anymore. I’ve cut way back and— What?”

“You don’t seem that, you know, broken.”

“Everyone is broken in some way,” Faye said. “Some of us—”

Candice started to sob. Sebastian worked the real estate app on his phone, trying to gather information on the Canyon Road property, a part of him wondering if the guy who owned it could be a backer for Paul. Sebastian figured Paul had to have one—or at least one potential backer. Paul’s whole speech last night about wanting to torture him might have been true, but he knew Paul’s major hard-on pointed in one direction: toward building a blood empire. Sebastian had offered him his own and Paul had said no, which made Sebastian believe someone else was already in play—someone with very deep pockets.

“Hey,” Faye said gently, “it’s okay. I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. What’s so wrong with me?”

Faye didn’t answer—didn’t need to, Candice’s question being rhetorical. Sebastian heard Faye quietly say, “Hey,” and then she made a soothing, shushing sound, like she was trying to calm a colicky baby instead of a woman questioning her sanity. “It’s okay,” Faye said, and Sebastian pictured her sitting next to Candice, a hand on the woman’s shoulder, maybe even rubbing her back and shooing away onlookers while Candice Jackson wailed. It was the howl of the damned—the same sound his mother had made after hearing the judge’s verdict—and the sad, painful reality was that no amount or combination of soothing words or therapy or booze or drugs would ever be able to fully take away that mental anguish. Only death could.