Page 156 of Perfect Pitch

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CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

A batch of contaminated fish was delivered to a chain of sushi restaurants in the Big Apple this week. If you ate at any of these locations, and are experiencing any of these symptoms, contact your doctor immediately.

The agony isn’t worth the wait.

—StellaNova

“Tell me what happened?” Fallon demands.

I groan, “I ate sushi when Mitch and I grabbed dinner with Trevor last night. I feel like complete crap.”

“Not that part. The part where your mother and Beckett aren’t talking.”

I reach for the warm ginger ale I’ve been sucking on. “Right.” Then I tell her the story about the supposed photo of my father carrying Erzulie out of a building the weekend of the Grammys. “The problem, Fal, is I can’t find it. There are all these references to it from the weekend we were in LA, but there’s no evidence of it.”

She frowns. “Do you think Ethan took it down?”

I sit up straight and immediately groan at the awful unsettling of my stomach. I shut my eyes to keep the room from spinning. “Bad idea.”

“Yeah. You lie down. I’ll text Ethan.”

“I don’t want to know why you have Uncle E’s number.”

Without hesitation, she replies, “Paige gave both his and Jesse’s to me. Said if I got into trouble at school and couldn’t reach her, I should call one of them.”

Makes sense. I listen to nothing but the occasional tap of Fallon’s nails on her phone screen before she says, “Shit.”

“Not Uncle E?”

“No, though he said it was good thinking.” Her hesitation is obvious before she asks, “Austyn?”

“What?” My voice is so tight it’s ready to snap.

“Is it possible... God, I don’t want to even ask this.”

“Then don’t.”

“You’re certain? Your father wasn’t with Erzulie?”

I let out a measured breath. I don’t know or want to know the specific truths about Beckett Miller’s speckled past. I do know his present is all about my mother. “He was devastated, Fal. I was standing right next to him when she called and flung the accusation right at him.”

“Ouch,” my best friend empathizes.

“You’re not kidding. He shut down. Completely. It took me and his whole security team to get him back on the plane to New York.”

“At any other time, I’d be grilling you about the fact you’ve flown on Beckett Miller’s plane now three times.”

“At any other time, I’d let you.” I shift slightly to avoid motion setting off my urge to puke.

“What does your mom have to say?”

“That’s just it.”

“What do you mean?” Fallon asks.

“I haven’t spoken to her in a week. I’m seconds away from asking Uncle E to track her phone,” I admit.

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