deny it. “And…and the other Theresa…” I have no idea how to finish that sentence.
She doesn’t satisfy my curiosity. “It’s odd,” she says musingly. “I took everything I could from Adam, and for all these years, it’s never felt like enough. Maybe taking his only child would be.” My heart drops into my feet and I almost blurt, I’m not his only child, before she adds, “After all, he took mine.”
The world tilts on its axis. “My father…killed your son?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
A loud, crashing noise startles us both. I move instinctively toward the window, reaching its edge before Theresa’s commanding “Stop!” makes me pause. But I can see enough to make out a large black SUV barreling across the lawn. It’s such a bizarre, out-of-context, yet blessedly welcome sight that I almost laugh out loud.
“Tess!” A woman’s voice, loud and agitated, calls from downstairs. “Tess, someone is driving up to the house. Tess!”
“I see,” Theresa calls back. She looks remarkably calm for someone whose house might be plowed into any second. But the car stops a few feet from the front door, and, with a mix of relief and apprehension, I watch Uncle Archer get out of the driver’s seat.
“So you weren’t lying,” Theresa says. “Well. We had a good run, I suppose.” The hand holding the gun drops slightly, and I feel a surge of hope until her face hardens. “May as well see things to their inevitable conclusion. Come along.” She steps into the hallway, gesturing for me to follow, and crosses to the balcony staircase overlooking the second floor of the house. “Show our guest into the sunroom,” she calls downstairs. “Tell him Aubrey will be right there.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask anxiously. “Please don’t hurt him.” The thought of anything happening to Uncle Archer because he came after me makes me sick to my stomach.
“Downstairs,” she orders. The look in her eye is so deadly that I do what she says. She directs me—left at the foot of the stairs, right into the hallway, another right—until I’m in the doorway of a room that’s floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. At its center, Uncle Archer stands beside the woman I thought was Theresa Ryan.
“Aubrey!” he cries. He strides forward, mouth open to say more, until the real Theresa appears beside me, gun in hand. Archer stops short, his eyes boring into hers. “Oh my God,” he says hoarsely, one hand curling into his chest. “It’s true. It really is true. I thought there had to be some mistake, but…you’re not my mother.” The muscle in his jaw jumps. “If I’d ever gotten within ten feet of you before now, I would have known in an instant.”
“Possibly not,” Theresa says. “We see what we expect to see. But you understand now, I suppose, why I had to cut off contact.” Her voice doesn’t soften exactly, but it’s less steely when she adds, “Even with you, who’s relatively innocent in all this.”
“All what?” Archer asks. “Why would you do this? What did we ever do to you?” His gaze flits between Theresa, the gun, and me. “Is this about what happened to Kayla? Or to Matt?”
“Paula,” Theresa says. I have no idea who she’s referring to until the second woman steps forward. “There’s a chill in the air. Why don’t you light a fire in the south parlor, and then leave us to talk about—” She pauses, eyes glinting. “What happened to Matt.”
“Tess, are you sure?” the other woman says nervously.
“Positive,” Theresa says. Paula brushes past us into the hallway.
Uncle Archer takes a deep breath. “Matt drowned, and that’s awful, but—”
“Matt didn’t drown,” Theresa says sharply. “He was killed. That night at Cutty Beach? Matt would never have gone into the water on his own. He might have been drinking, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew what the undertow could do on a night like that. Your snake of a brother, Anders, told him that Kayla had been swept away by the tide and needed help.”
“Kayla?” Uncle Archer looks bewildered. “She wasn’t even there.”
Theresa’s lip curls. “No. And Anders was perfectly aware of that. He lied to get Matt in the water. He knew he’d probably never come out. And Adam—Adam was standing right next to them, and he let Matt go.” She’s shaking now, her eyes wide and shiny. “Adam just let him go.”
Adam just let him go. The words ring so loud in my ears that I almost