Page 92 of Burn Falls

“I’m in the middle—”

“Get to the distillery. Now,” I barked.

“Is everything okay?”

“Do I sound like everything’s okay?”

“Is it—”

“Just fucking get here.”

“I’ll be there in two.”

I hung up the phone. “What do you know about your great-grandmother?”

“I just know that the whiskey we make is her recipe.”

“She’s from Ireland?”

“Yeah.” Calla slipped the frame out of my hand and started to open the back. “The date the picture was taken is on the back of the photo.”

She handed me the picture. February 14, 1946, was handwritten on the back of the photograph. Renzo and the woman appeared to be at a casino or nightclub, and I knew for a fact that he was a vampire at the time. He was turned in 1874, and he turned me in 1928. I knew that before the Great Depression, wealthy people traveled to Paris and other countries to party at the hot spots, and Renzo was definitely wealthy. There was a possibility he’d met her after I left Chicago.

As I stared at the picture, I sensed Athan outside. A moment later, he was in the office.

“What’s the big emergency?”

I shoved the photo at him. He took it and then his dark gaze met mine again.

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah.”

He turned toward Calla and repeated, “What the fuck?”

“She knows nothing,” I stated and snatched the picture back from him.

“I don’t understand how it’s possible,” Calla said again. “How did she know your sire?”

“The world’s a small place. Now you know why I move every ten years.”

“How old’s your sire?”

I quickly did the math because I knew Renzo was born in 1849. “One-hundred and sixty-nine.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Athan asked me telepathically, “Who’s the broad?”

“Calla’s great-grandmother.”

“Is he her great-grandfather?”

“She said no. And plus, he was turned seventy-two years before this picture was taken, so obviously he was a vampire.”

“Is this woman on her mother or father’s side?”