“Drugs?” Cheryl’s mouth dropped open, but there was a canny look to her eyes. “No. That’s impossible.”

“I’ve been told Brett fell in with some dealers in Montreal. He and Russell Loming were smuggling small quantities of drugs across the border and selling them in Burlington. Right here in Swanton, too.”

“Well, I don’t know where you get your information,” Cheryl snapped, “but you’re absolutely wrong about that.”

“Did Brett ever talk to you about Crissy? How things were for her and Abe at home?”

“All the time,” she said, relaxing slightly. “He worried about them constantly. I knew about Felicia and her . . . condition. Brett said it was getting worse. I floated the notion of having Crissy and Abe come live with us.”

“Did you really?” That wouldn’t have gone over well with Aunt Fee. I’d have thought that if anyone was going to broach the idea of relocating the kids, it would be my mother, but Felicia had made it clear she had no intention of parting with them. Still, it had always struck me as strange that Brett didn’t work harder to get custody, considering Felicia’s mental state and the disaster that was their home life.

Then again, he wasn’t exactly a model citizen, either.

“His plan was to file a petition for custody,” Cheryl said. “That was another reason why he quit gambling. He wanted to clean himself up, so when the time came he was clearly the more dependable parent.”

“Uh-huh.” The skepticism I felt was like a tickle in the middle of my back, insistent but too far out of reach to scratch. Clean himself up? Brett was dealing drugs to minors. He’d decided to quit, yes, but he planned to move immediately afterward, and he wasn’t taking Cheryl with him.

Something else about her claim bothered me. “Two more kids in the house in addition to Robbie. Wouldn’t that have put a damper on your romance?”

Cheryl said, “I’m not saying it would have been easy. Crissy was a wild one. But I thought it would be nice for Robbie to have some company.”

I almost laughed. Two hot-blooded teen kids who’d already hooked up, living under the same roof as pseudobrother and sister? It was like something out of a dirty movie. “I’ll be honest, Mrs. Copely, I’m surprised to hear you say that. Crissy and Robbie were an item once, weren’t they? Wouldn’t making them live together be asking for—”

“Robbie wasn’t interested in Crissy.” Cheryl said it through tightly drawn lips. “Whatever happened between them was in the past, nothing but a silly freshman fling. If he still had feelings for her, I never would have started seeing Brett.”

“Mind if I ask how you and Brett got together?”

“Robbie introduced us, when he started dating Crissy. He was quite taken with Brett—that’s not unusual for boys who grow up without fathers. We didn’t get together until long after they’d broken up. Robbie was very supportive. Crissy was not.”