“Uh, Theo? This could be our culprit.” He held up a hammer.
As Theo got closer, his gut tightened. The handle of the hammer was wrapped in duct tape.
“I don’t believe it. That’s Chelsea’s hammer. What the heck?”
Rico stared at him strangely. “Chelsea? Why would she…?”
“She wouldn’t,” he snapped. “Do you have a bag, so we can see if there are any prints?”
Rico nodded and tucked the hammer carefully inside his bag. How had Chelsea’s hammer gotten here?
Theo clenched his jaw. “It wasn’t Chelsea. Besides the fact she has no reason, she hates heights. She gets dizzy being on a step stool. It’s obviously someone she trusts in her house.”
“I don’t like this, Theo. I’ll make sure to get this hammer to Aiden and see what he can do.”
“Yeah. I was hoping, since it’s been a month since the car accident, that it was all a weird coincidence, but this? They may not be in a hurry to get rid of me, but they’re darn serious.”
Chapter twenty-three
ThethumpingofBandit’stail, along with his rough tongue licking her hand, had Chelsea looking around and blinking a few times. Carefully, she placed her mug back on the coffee table and took a deep breath.
The awful fog had come back. The one inside her head and not out near the ocean. Why? Had she taken her pills recently? Getting up, she stumbled to the kitchen and reached inside her purse. The bottle was gone. Theo had taken it and had them analyzed. Yeah, she remembered that now. So that meant…no. Please, no!
The mental illness wasn’t only from the medication.
As she dropped into a kitchen chair, Bandit came over and whimpered, then his nails clicked on the new ceramic tile floor as he padded to the back door. She let him out, then stood on the back porch breathing deeply of the clean, fresh air. Maybe she’d been inside too long, and the paint fumes had overwhelmed her.
Except the painters had finished all the rooms almost a month ago. There were no fumes left. There went her last hope.
Glancing down at her watch, she startled at the time. After dropping Jordan off at school—she and Theo had decided one day a week over the summer was enough to see her friends—she’d come to the cottage. There were still things to be done, though much of the major renovations had been finished. After making herself a cup of tea, she’d scrolled through websites looking for the type of furniture she wanted for each room. Yes, they could use some of Theo’s, but much of his stuff had been secondhand when he’d gotten it before they’d met. It didn’t look like he’d bought anything new since then.
Bandit sniffed around by the rocks near the ocean, so Chelsea went back in to rinse out her mug. But there was already a mug in the sink. Did she drink two cups of tea? Why didn’t she remember?
A deep hole opened in her chest, and frigid ice filled it. Would she end up like her mother, leaving Jordan alone? The fact Theo was nothing like her father eased her mind a bit, but how was this fair? She’d only just found her daughter.
Heading back outside to see where the dog had gotten to, she heard Mrs. Cullen singing in her garden. The woman had a beautiful voice. Chelsea had loved listening to her when she’d visited her grandmother as a child.
Bandit trotted back as Chelsea stole across the grass to hear her neighbor sing. The dog’s bark made the music stop, but then the woman’s head popped over the hedges.
“My goodness, Chelsea. I didn’t realize you were out here. Sorry to disturb you with my noise.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Cullen. Your singing is lovely. It’s wonderful to hear.”
The woman blushed and waved her hand in the air. “Please, call me June. We’re all adults now, aren’t we?”
She didn’t feel that way at the moment.
“How are you getting about since you’ve been back? I noticed your car’s been missing most nights. Is the house still uncomfortable? I know it was left unattended for so long.”
“My husband and I decided we’d stay with him until the whole house is renovated, then we plan to move here permanently. It shouldn’t be too much longer.” As long as she was with Theo, it didn’t matter where they were.
“That’s wonderful, dear. That husband of yours certainly is a looker. And far nicer than…well, I mustn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Are you talking about my dad? I know he did some things I don’t understand, but everyone still thinks he was so great because he took care of my mom when she was sick.”
“Sick? Bah. Sick of that man, maybe.”
“My mother had a mental illness.” That wasn’t easy to say, but Mrs. Cullen must have known this. “I…uh, I think I have one, too.”
