Chapter 3

I stared, my eyes going wide with shock. So all of this today had been her doing.

I was just opening my mouth to speak when my mother, rushing to catch up, slammed into me and knocked me to the ground.

Cordelia took a few steps forward, then stopped, reaching out as if to help me up. I pulled away.

"I don't need your fake kindness."

Her face soured. "You think I want to bother with you? I only said something for old friendship's sake. Kerry genuinely loves Joyce. The two of them are meant for each other. You should give it up already."

With that, she turned and swept off.

Watching the way she stood guard over Joyce, I felt myself go hazy for a moment. Years ago, when Joyce bullied me into the water and I came down with a fever, it was Cordelia who grabbed a knife and swore she'd make Joyce pay. She'd had that same look in her eyes then.

She was still protecting her best friend that fiercely. Only now the person she protected wasn't me.

I dragged myself back to the basement I rented, and the moment I reached the door I found my things thrown out into the hall.

"You made the wrong people angry. I can't rent to you anymore. Get going."

I couldn't help a bitter laugh. My family, the man I'd loved, after hurting me the way they had, hadn't even meant to leave me the one roof over my head.

Hauling my few belongings, I thought I'd find a motel to get through the night, only to discover I didn't have even a hundred dollars on me.

The only option left was to go find Tristan. He'd taken plenty of money from me before, and today he certainly hadn't looked like a man short of cash.

I knocked, and the new tenant inside told me, "The family that lived here moved in about a month and then left. Said the son-in-law struck it rich and got them a new place. Somewhere out at Lakeshore Estates."

Three years ago, my mother told me the collectors had found their way to the house and torn it apart. So I rented this place for them and wired the rent on time, every month, for three years.

To keep from dragging them down, I never once showed my face. And it turned out they hadn't been living here for a long time.

I went to the address the tenant gave me. A gleaming, opulent mansion, not the least bit like people scraping by.

Yet every month my mother still found some new excuse to ask me for money.

I raised my hand to knock and saw her out in the courtyard, talking with Kerry.

"You swore to me you loved only Joyce. That's the only reason I agreed to let her marry you. Now that Thelma knows the truth, that you never died, don't you dare have a change of heart. If you do, I'll take you down if it costs me my life."

Kerry insisted, over and over, that he meant it, and only then did my mother let out a breath.

Three children in that family. Tristan got the attention because he was the boy, and Joyce, the youngest, got all the doting. Only me, the second daughter, had gotten nothing from our mother but her bias against me since I was small.

"I made chicken soup. Take it back for Joyce. She needs the nourishment more than anyone right now."

As my mother handed over the soup and turned, our eyes met. She stared at me warily, as if she'd seen a ghost.

"Thelma. How did you find this place?"