Maggie took the box. “Thank you.”
“I should have thrown it out. I’m not sure why I didn’t.”
“Because you loved my mother and my mother is a part of me.”
Lilith’s brows flickered. “Perhaps.”
“Before I go, I need you to know something. My mother didn’t kill herself. She wouldn’t have done that. I know that with absolute certainty. She was happy. And shelovedbeing my mom. She was my best friend, and she never would have left me like that.”
“Then how do you explain her death?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” She swallowed, taking a deep breath before saying the next part. “But regardless of what caused my mother’s death, you were wrong to treat me the way you did.”
“I—”
“No.I’mspeaking.”
Her aunt took a step back, shock plastered on her face.
“You never even tried to love me. You took me in out of duty, then treated me like this wasn’t my home and I wasn’t your child and I was a problem that couldn’t be solved. I was hurting. I was going through the loss of the only person who’d ever loved me. And you dideverything possibleto make it worse, just because you could.”
A bit of color drained from her aunt’s face.
“I can’t change the person you chose to be,” Maggie said. “But I need you to know that you can’t hurt me anymore. Your words. The way you look at me. All of that’s onyou, andyouhave to live with that. I’ve found love and happinessdespiteyou doing everything possible to make sure it didn’t happen.”
For the first time ever, Lilith was silent. She didn’t say one word. And it wasn’t hate or annoyance on her face. It was shock and maybe a bit of guilt. But it was possible the latter was in Maggie’s head.
With the box on her hip, she turned and stepped out of the house, pulling the door closed behind her.
It was strange, but she actually felt lighter. Like her connection to Lilith had been this invisible weight on her shoulders, and she’d just set it down and left it right there in her aunt’s doorway.
She was halfway down the path when she noticed a woman leaning into Polly’s open window.
Maggie frowned. Nel?
She stopped behind her. “What are you?—”
Nel spun and gasped, colliding with Maggie. Both the box and Nel’s handbag dropped to the ground.
Thankfully, the box remained closed, but the contents of the big purse spilled everywhere.
Maggie lowered to the ground and helped Nel put everything back into the bag.
“What are you doing here?” Maggie asked.
“I was just passing and saw Polly sitting in the car.”
Why did she sound nervous?
On Maggie’s next inhale, she realized Nel smelled familiar. Not like familiar perfume, more like…bodywash? The same peach scent that Maggie used.
When she lifted and turned over a tablet that had fallen from the bag, her hand froze.
It washertablet. The one she hadn’t taken out of her packed boxes yet. And it was open to Facebook Messenger…with Ethan’s name right there.
Her skin turned to ice—and she looked up just as Nel pointed a gun right at her face.
The air in Maggie’s lungs froze. “Nel…what are you doing?”
