Free Born To Be Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 3 by Jenn Stark

lips tightened. “ No , Sara. That’s what I’m trying to get across to you. When we recovered Sheila Rose Pelter’s body from the Mississippi River, we performed a DNA check to verify her identity. It came back with more information than we planned. You don’t share the same genetic markers. You’re not Sheila Pelter’s biological daughter.”
    Everything had started to spin. “And you think…”
    “It’s the only explanation,” Brody finished my words for me. “Someone paid a stranger to take care of you, from the moment you were born.”

Chapter Five
    It’s not every day you find out your whole life has been a lie.
    I was handling it as well as could be expected.
    “Hey, doll—whoa, what the hell happened to you?” Nikki slid into the booth opposite me, eyeing Brody while I focused on my bourbon. The Magician hadn’t reached out to touch my mind again, but that was okay. It was well on its way to being pickled.
    Beside me, Brody nodded to Nikki, the two of them exchanging cop glances without actually admitting to doing so. I’d stopped counting the drinks after about four, and Brody had done his level best to leaven each of my bourbons with a tumbler of water. I’d stopped counting those too, but at least I was well hydrated.
    When I didn’t answer Nikki right away, Brody waded into the breach. “This new attack on Sara brought up some old history that needed to be aired. Timing wasn’t great, but necessary.”
    “Old history?”
    “My mom,” I said, looking up at Nikki. I blinked, but it wasn’t the booze. Today Nikki had ditched her usual auburn coif and was going full ’60s starlet, complete with blonde wig, yellow minidress, and white go-go boots. She looked…exceptionally bright. “She wasn’t my mom, turns out. She was paid to take care of me. Paid well.”
    “Another round,” Nikki said to the waitress I hadn’t noticed beside us. I returned my gaze to my glass, and Nikki leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You had to have known this for a while,” she said, her attention on Brody. “Why bring it up now?”
    “Those posters you two found.” Brody rubbed his two-day beard. “I’m not sure how much you know about Sara’s last job in Memphis, but three of those kids were ours to track down. We couldn’t find anything on them, not even with Sara’s cards. Then all of a sudden, the woman we believed was her mother is killed, Sara’s house is blown up, Sara goes off the grid. If the man behind those attacks is back, she needed to know the full story.”
    “Three of the kids were ones you searched for,” Nikki repeated, tilting her head. “What about the others?”
    “They weren’t connected to our case at the time, but I’ve got inquiries out.” Brody sat back as the waitress arrived with more drinks. “They’re clearly connected now. No question in my mind that we’re dealing with the same guy.”
    “Viktor Dal,” I supplied. I slumped lower in the booth, willing the liquor to kick in. So far, it hadn’t done more than take the barest edge off the pain. “Some stuff on him has finally come through Brody’s people. Dal’s a Turkish black market dealer. Traffics in drugs and sex, but not Connecteds, not that anyone’s ever heard. His tastes run older by a fair margin for the sex trade too. Kids don’t make sense for his business. Psychic kids make less sense.”
    “You ever heard of him?” Brody asked Nikki.
    “No, which isn’t to say I would have,” she said thoughtfully. “Dixie might, if he’s mucking around in the Connected community.”
    “She doesn’t need to be a part of this,” Brody snapped back, and Nikki patted his arm.
    “Not saying she does, love chop. But she knows a hell of a lot of people, and she has for a long time. Wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
    Brody shrugged, but his tension had definitely tightened a few notches. He and Dixie had sort of a thing going. I hadn’t really begun to deal with said thing, and this didn’t seem a