Yes.
“I’ll call,” I reminded Avery.
She wiped a tear, but the shimmer in her eyes remained. With the light coming in the window just so it reminded me of . . . My breath caught, and my knees went suddenly weak. I grabbed on to the back of the couch to keep from falling.
“What’s wrong?” Avery asked, grabbing my arm.
“Carly!” Delia rushed over. “Breathe!”
I gasped in air.
It couldn’t be.
Oh my Lord. It could.
It explained everything.
“Avery,” I said, barely able to get the words out. “Do you still have that picture of your mama kissing that man?”
“Yeah, why?” she asked.
My body trembled. “Can I see it?”
She looked at me oddly, but nodded. A few moments after darting down the hallway, she returned, a grainy color photograph in her hand. “Here.”
We all looked—even Haywood, who’d floated over.
“Is that . . .” Delia’s voice trailed off.
It was.
The man in the picture was Harris Jackson, and I’d bet my witchy senses that Twilabeth hadn’t been pregnant with Avery in the photo.
She’d been pregnant with Dylan.
Chapter Twenty-three
It had been a long car ride home, filled with bursts of chatter and long stretches of silence as Delia and I tried to process what we had learned.
It wasn’t too difficult to imagine how Twilabeth and Harris had met. It had to have been at the courthouse. He’d been a judge; she a secretary.
After that, however, everything was fuzzy.
I recalled Patricia’s panic at hearing Twilabeth’s name, and it made so much sense now. Twilabeth was tied to the biggest secret of Patricia’s life.
Dylan wasn’t her son. Not by blood, leastways.
Patricia had to have kept tabs on Twilabeth over the years, which was why she flipped out when Avery showed up at the ball. She recognized her as Twilabeth’s daughter.
Between the blackmail and Avery’s presence, Patricia had probably thought her carefully constructed world was starting to crash in on itself.
It reminded me of what I was thinking earlier, when my mama had threatened to kick ghostly booty . . .
There’s nothing fiercer than a mama protecting her baby.
Patricia’s vile behavior toward Avery that night at the ball had been an attempt to protect Dylan from learning the truth of his parentage.
I ached to think of how Dylan was going to react to the news, and I didn’t know how to tell him about it either.
I refused to keep secrets from him, but figuring out how to break this to him would take time.
Time I didn’t have right now.
Later. I’d think about all of it later.
Right now, there were other things I needed to do.
Delia had dropped me off at home and promised to check in later. She needed to go to her house to take care of Boo, and then she was going to see if there were any ghosts wandering around town that she could help cross over before midnight.
I had my hands full with the one ghost I had left, but wished her luck.
Dylan had left a note on my kitchen counter that the warrants for the Harpies’ bank accounts were being processed that afternoon. I wrote him a quick note telling him to check the Ramelle account first. I didn’t mention anything about Twilabeth and felt guilty already.
I left Louella in the care of the cats while I went looking for answers.
The first stop was Potions. I’d walked in just as my daddy was getting ready to lock up for the day.
The herbal scents that usually soothed me did nothing. I was in too much of a panic, feeling like the answers I was looking for were right under my nose.
“I don’t have long,” I said, collapsing dramatically across the counter. I’d clearly been spending too much time with Eulalie. “I just need to know if Doug Ramelle was with you and Mama when Haywood was killed. Not just before . . . and not just after. But during.”
I appreciated that my father didn’t fuss over my distressed state. Instead, he pursed his lips, squinted his eyes, and searched the recesses of his brain. “He left for a bit to get a fresh drink. As he came back with one just as Patricia let out that scream, I didn’t think anything of it. Did he kill Haywood?”
“It’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “And you just connected another piece of the puzzle. Thanks, Daddy.”
“Be careful!” he yelled as I dashed out the door.
I put my sunglasses back on, then took them off again. I knew if I came across a ghost right now that I would have to help it.
Delia would be proud.
I went directly to the Delphinium from Potions, rushing along the Ring with determination in my step. I needed to read Doug’s energy. All I needed to know was whether he was guilty or not. If he was, Haywood would have an answer and be able to pass on.
If he wasn’t . . .