“It was a terrible time for you, Theo,” Ursula went on. “But it was an awful time for all of us. We thought we were going to lose you. Your father was terrified. You were like a wraith, so close to death . . .”

“Can we not talk about that?” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Ursula said. “I know it’s hard for you. Of course you feel guilty. But that woman was the devil. She deserved what she got.” Ursula drained her glass and cocked her head at what was left in the bottle. After a nanosecond’s hesitation, she refilled her glass. “I loved Caroline,” she said quietly. Her pale-blue eyes were watery. That was a side effect of too much wine, but I knew she was sincere. “My loyalty is to you, and your father, of course, but I tried to help Caroline in my own way.”

“Of course you did, Ursula.”

“It would have been better if she’d married into a different family,” she said. “Marriage to a Thraxton is sheer misery.”

I took that as a comment on my father, but it could just as easily have applied to me. “Did you tell Caroline that?”

“I believe the words passed my lips.”

Even my stepmother, who’d raised me as her own child, thought I was a monster. I couldn’t blame her. She knew everything about me and what I’d done.

“There is only one person I can think of who hates you enough to open up the Pandora’s box of your past,” Ursula added. “She would laugh to see your marriage crumble.”

I understood what she meant immediately. There were any number of people who wouldn’t mind watching my life fall apart, but only one who would actively try to destroy it.

CHAPTER 11 THEO

CHAPTER 11

THEO

I walked Ursula home, even though it was only across the street. Then I went back to morosely contemplating photographs on the wall of my bedroom. Had there ever been any photographs of Mirelle and me together? In this digital age, when people chronicled every mediocre meal, it seemed impossible that there weren’t any. But we’d met at a particularly dark period in my life, and I’d only spiraled further down afterward. I’d started using drugs like ketamine and midazolam when I was a teenager to block whispered words and violent images from my mind. Adding heroin to that mix had dragged me into hell.

I am full of hidden horrors, whispered the worst of the voices.

I picked up my phone. It was after ten o’clock, but Dr. Haven kept unusual hours. She answered on the third ring.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late. This is Theo Archer”—my best attempt at an alias was using my mother’s maiden name—“but I was really hoping to make an appointment with you.”