Page 98 of Deadly Little Scandals

Before I could say another word, someone else beat me to it. “Olivia, please.”

It took me a second to place the voice, whose words hadn’t sounded like a plea so much as the kind of chiding John David typically received when he farted loudly—and intentionally—at the dinner table.

Olivia sucked in a breath and turned toward the voice’s owner. “Mama.”

Not Ellen,I realized as the speaker walked toward us.

“Lillian,” I said. I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

There was a split second of indecision on Aunt Olivia’s part, and then she turned the gun on my grandmother.

Lillian was not impressed. “For heaven’s sakes, put that thing away, Olivia. You’re being ridiculous.”

“She’s pathologicallyunhinged,” Victoria corrected.

Lillian spared her but a single look. “My condolences about your father, dear.” Because, of course, Lillian Taft would express condolences in the middle of a hostage situation. Without missing a beat, my grandmother turned back to my aunt. “Are we quite done here?”

She still has a gun pointed at you, Lillian. I don’t think that qualifies as “done.”

“Get over there,” Olivia ordered my grandmother. “With them.”

“Am I to believe you’re going to kill all of us?” Lillian asked. “You’ll do no such thing.”

Even with a gun pointed at her, she answered her own questions.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Aunt Olivia said. “Now move.”

“Kaci,” Lillian stated, exasperated, “I will do no such thing.”

The name—Kaci—froze Aunt Olivia in her spot.

“Kaci?” I repeated.

“You know.” Aunt Olivia’s voice shook, like Lillian knowing her real name was somehow more unfortunate than the fact that she’d been caught holding us hostage at gunpoint. “Did…did Ellen tell you?”

“My sister hasn’t spoken to me in forty years,” Lillian replied. “Thankfully, I am plenty capable of putting two and two together myself, though I will admit it took me some time.”

“What?”I said. “You knew?”

“Not right away,” Lillian told me. “Not nearly soon enough. I was grieving. I’d lost my husband. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing my daughter, too. When she came back, I thanked God and put it all behind me.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Aunt Olivia insisted. “I practiced. I got everything right.”

“You were perfect, sweetheart.” Lillian gave a faint shake of her head. “And Lord knows my Liv was never that. Her daddy spoiled her. I did, too, truth be told.” My grandmother managed a very small smile. “For years, I told myself that Liv had changed—that whatever she’d done to get over her daddy’s death had changed her. I told myself that she’d grown up. But last year, when I brought Sawyer back here, and I watched you treat her like she was your own…This summer, when I heard you and J.D. arguing and realized you were aware of her parentage…” Lillian closed her eyes. “That was when I finally let myself ask the questions I should have been asking all along. That was when I knew.”

“No,” Aunt Olivia said again. “You didn’t. You would have said something. You would have done something.”

“After twenty-five years?” Lillian asked. “To what end? You’re Lily’s mama and John David’s.”

I realized that Lillian still didn’t know that Aunt Olivia had faked her pregnancy with Lily, but right now, that hardly seemed to matter.

“You were my daughter for twenty-five years,” Lillian continued, staring atOlivia. “You triedso hard, and when I finally got past seeing what I wanted to see, I was able to catch a glimpse of something else. You were hungry, Olivia—not physically, but down in the depths of your soulhungry, wanting things in a way that people who grow up with everything never will. Weeks ago, I recognized that, and then I recognized you.”

“You didn’t know about me.”

“It had been years since I had seen you,” Lillian countered. “The resemblance was less uncanny then, between you and my Liv. You could have passed for sisters, but not twins. Genetics are funny that way. Ellen and I got less identical as we got older, and you and Liv…”

“You knew?” Aunt Olivia—I couldn’t bring myself to call her Kaci, the way Lillian had just once—seemed unable to get over that. “You knew about me, back when Liv was still alive? You could have come for me. You could have brought her. You could have…”