missing since around the time Bodie’s car was tampered with.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and then the sweatshirt. What was she saying?
The police had told us that a female wearing a black hoodie was responsible for removing the lug nuts on two of Bodie’s tires the night of his accident. But I knew Thea wasn’t behind it. She’d been home that night, and Detective Dyck didn’t even consider her a serious suspect.
“Where did it come from?” I asked.
“I found it over there.” She gestured toward the corner a few feet from where she stood. “It was stuffed onto the middle shelf.”
My mother sighed heavily. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
Thea scowled at Mom, a look I’d never once seen on her beautiful face. Not even when Tristin was being a jackass. When her gaze flicked back to me, her expression softened, though she still wore a grimace.
“There’s more. Lily came after me with a knife.” She searched the floor and, finding what she was looking for, pointed. “There.” Sure enough, a chef’s knife with an eight-inch blade had slid under the counter. “And she admitted to poisoning my mother.”
“What?” Tristin barked, but if Thea replied, the sound was drowned out by the roaring in my ears.
She couldn’t have said what I thought she just said. My mother…poisoned Amber? No, it wasn’t true. Mom had issues, sure, but she wasn’t a murderer. She hovered and made brownies and spent too much time in her greenhouse. And, yeah, she’d always been a bit flighty and impulsive. Moody, even. But she’d also been fun and affectionate and—
Time moved in slow motion as Mom moved past me and lunged at Thea. I grabbed her around the waist just in time, but that didn’t stop her from shouting, “She’s lying. She’s trying to take you away from me.” She wriggled in my arms, attempting to break free. “To turn you against me. You believe me, don’t you?”
I looked from her to Thea and then forced my gaze beyond both of them. My mother was asking me to choose between them, and that was something I could never do.
Chapter Three
Thea
“Take Lily to her bedroom,” Tristin commanded in a voice I’d never heard from him before. It was hard, but it was anything but cold. Authority emanated from every pore as he spoke to Hayle and stepped in front of me, shielding me from my would-be attacker.
And I was more grateful for his presence than I could even comprehend. He might be shit at protecting me from himself, but I had no doubt he would stand between me and Lily forever, if need be.
“I d-d-don’t under-understand.”
My heart clenched as Hayle tripped over his words. I hadn’t heard a single trace of his childhood stutter since returning to Moss Harbor. But if it was going to resurface at any moment, this would be the one.
Because, what the shit?
I still couldn’t believe Lily had come after me like that. And her confession about my mother seemed like something out of a dream. Or a nightmare. I couldn’t decide which.
Tristin took a few more steps toward Hayle and Lily, stretching his arms out, as though he was herding them. “We’ll figure it out, but you need to get your mom out of here.”
She had finally stopped writhing and wasn’t even looking in my direction, so Hayle pressed a hand to her back. “Come on, Mom. Why don’t you lie down for a while?”
“Tea,” was all she said in response.
“Okay, we’ll get you some tea.”
Right before walking through the door into the house, he glanced back over his shoulder at me, a look of pure torment on his now-ashen face. I wanted to give him some sign of encouragement—reassurance that this would all be okay—but I had nothing to give.
Not when he was currently comforting the woman who had murdered my mother and had seemed intent on doing the same to me.
“Thea.”
Tristin was suddenly standing before me, and I lifted my head to meet intense aquamarine eyes. He pressed his hands into my shoulders. “Are you okay? Physically, I mean. Do you need to go to the emergency room?”
I shook my head.
My entire body was shivering, from the water now clinging to my clothes or because I was coming down from an adrenaline rush, I wasn’t sure. Probably both. But I didn’t need urgent medical attention. Hopefully, the pain rolling up and down my injured leg would be temporary.
With one hand still on my shoulder, he reached into