She walked out, without hurry, and continued to the outside, where she could find air.

“Well, she went about it wrong, but she seems level right now.” Cam got up, paced off some of his energy in the crowded office. “She sure doesn’t shake easily.”

“I wonder,” Anna murmured. She, too, was a trained observer, and instinct told her there was a great deal more going on under that placid surface than any of them might guess. “Having her on our side will, without question, help. It might be best if you left the two of us alone so I can talk with her. Phillip, you’ll want to call the lawyer, explain the situation, and see if he wants to depose her.”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.” He frowned thoughtfully at the fingers drumming on his knee. “She had a picture of Seth in her Filofax.”

“What?” Anna blinked at him.

“I went through her things before she got back to the hotel last night.” He smiled a little, then shrugged as his sister-in-law closed her eyes. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time. She’s got this snapshot of Seth when he was little, tucked in her Filofax.”

“So what?” Seth demanded.

“So, it was the only picture I found anywhere. It’s interesting.” He lifted his hands, dropped them again. “On another path, it could be that Sybill knows something about Gloria’s connection to Dad. Since we can’t question Gloria, we ought to ask her.”

“Seems to me,” Ethan said slowly, “that whatever she knows would’ve come from Gloria. Be tough to believe it. I think she’d tell us what she knows,” he continued, “but what she knows might not be fact.”

“We don’t know fact or fiction,” Phillip pointed out, “until we ask her.”

“Ask me what?” Steadier, determined now to finish it out, Sybill stepped back into the room and closed the door quietly at her back.

“The reason Gloria hit on our father.” Phillip rose so their eyes were level. “The reason she knew he would pay to protect Seth.”

“Seth said he was a decent man.” Sybill’s gaze roamed the faces of the men. “I think you’re proof of that.”

“Decent men don’t have adulterous affairs with women half their age, then walk away from a child conceived from that affair.” Bitterness coated Phillip’s voice as he took another step toward Sybill. “And there’s no way you’re going to convince us that Ray slept with your sister behind our mother’s back, then walked away from his son.”

“What?” Without realizing it, Sybill shot a hand out to grip his arm, as much in shock as to keep her balance as she reeled from it. “Of course he didn’t. You told me you didn’t believe that Gloria and your father . . .”

“Others do.”

“But that’s—where did you get the idea that Seth was his son, his son by Gloria?”

“It’s easy enough to hear it in town if you keep your ears open.” Phillip narrowed his eyes at her face. “It’s something your sister planted. She claimed he molested her, then she blackmails him, sells him her son.” He looked back at Seth, into Ray Quinn’s eyes. “I say it’s a lie.”