“Patrick called not long ago,” Maya said, her voice glacial. “You took money from the Cliff’s Head last night.” When Lily tried to respond she raised a hand. “Don’t bother. We found it under your mattress along with Ash’s watch, my earrings and the pills.”

“What earrings? What pills?” Lily said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Have you been feeding me benzos?” I said, watching her closely, but her frown deepened. “Clonazepam?”

“What? No.” Lily’s voice went up three notches. Her reaction seemed genuine, but what the hell did I know? As far as I was concerned, she and I had only just met.

Maya held up the bag of pills, one eyebrow raised, her voice low. “You sure about that?”

Lily nodded, her head bobbing up and down, eyes darting from me to Maya and back again. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve never seen those before in my life. I’d never do anything to hurt you, Ash. I didn’t steal anything, I swear, and I certainly didn’t give you any of those pills. You have to believe me.”

“How?” I said. “When we found all this stuff under your bed.”

“I don’t know.” Lily’s voice filled with panic. “Someone else must have...” She stopped midsentence, slowly turning around to face Maya. “You did this.”

Maya put a hand to her chest. “Don’t put this on me.”

“God, I’m an idiot,” Lily said. “I thought you’d changed your mind. I thought you’d accepted me, us. But you haven’t, have you? I was right all along. You can’t stand Ash having anyone else in his life but you. You got me that job so you could get rid of me. You planted all this stuff in my room.”

“Can you hear yourself?” Maya said. “You’re insane.”

Lily grabbed my hand. “I didn’t do this. I’m telling the truth. About everything.”

“Are you sure?” Maya said. “Have you told him about Buffalo? About your conviction?”

“What?” Lily and I both said at the same time, her voice overpowered by the volume and intensity of mine.

“What conviction?” I urged, louder still.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Maya said. “Because I didn’t want to hurt you, Ash, and I thought maybe she’d changed, but Lily lied about who she is. Her name wasn’t always Reid. It used to be Hetherington.”

Lily blanched. “I changed it because—”

“You spent time in prison.” Maya put her hands on her hips as Lily opened and closed her mouth a few times. “Lily’s a con artist. She ran a scam with a guy called Dominic Martel. They had quite the thing going, stole thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive cars. It was all over the news.”

“Is it true?” I said, my voice hoarse, gruff.

“It was years ago,” Lily said, pleading with me. “It was a stupid mistake.”