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“Will you tell him I came by? And that I’ll be back again in a few days?”
She nods, as if resigned, as if she already knows the truth I know—a few days won’t make a difference to Darren. “I’m sorry.”
Hope was right. “I’m sorry” is boring.
“What’s your tea for?”
The receptionist’s face flushes. She slides the cup behind the computer screen. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Outside, I debate where to go. There’s always work to get done at the Inn, but I haven’t had a day off in forever. Maybe I can surprise Hope at Emma’s game—see her in best-aunt-ever mode.
My attention snags on a woman being wheeled out by an attendant. She looks more annoyed than ill.
“My friend should be here any minute. She obviously should have left earlier. She knows there’s traffic on Main at this time of day.” The patient cranes her neck to see farther down the empty street.
Her hair is a tangle of limp knots hanging down her back. Her lips are pale without the ever-present shock of red they’re always painted with. She’s almost unrecognizable. Though I’d know that voice anywhere.
“Annette?”
Her gaze darts toward me, and within seconds, her face is buried in her hands and she’s crying.
I never saw Annette cry before. Some part of me assumed she was incapable.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, Will. It’s not.” She lifts her face from her hands. Her makeup is smudged where her fingers held her face. “That awful woman poisoned me. Or she tried to. Luckily, I made it to the hospital in time.”
“What?” My gaze lifts to the attendant. His expression gives nothing away.
“I know it was the tea Maeve gave me.” The hardness in her tone doesn’t fit with the tears.
I must have heard wrong. “You went to see Maeve? Why? I thought ...”
She sniffs. “I just wanted to help. The whole town’s changed since Maeve arrived. Even the sheriff’s drinking her tea now. He hasn’t been in for coffee in over a week. I thought it was time she and I had a face-to-face conversation. Woman to woman.”
“I don’t understand.” The words she’s saying are all familiar, but they aren’t fitting together in a way that makes sense. “You actually went to—”
Annette begins to wail. “She tried to ... she wanted to harm me.”
No. Maeve wouldn’t. Annette must be—
Rory’s hand. Maeve’s own admission that sometimes her teas do harm.
The warning bell from that long-ago conversation with Maeve begins to ring with insistence.
“It was so frightening. I drank it, and then suddenly felt so dizzy, like I might faint. And nauseous. And ... Will, she’s dangerous. More dangerous than I first thought.” Annette’s gaze finds mine, and her eyes widen. “Has Hope been drinking the teas? They’ve been spending so much time together, and she’s so trusting. Who knows what terrible things Maeve’s been slipping to Hope.”
Hope. The warning bell becomes a war drum.
From the beginning, my instinct about Maeve was right. She was dangerous.
“Will, did you hear what I said? We have to work together to get her out of town. She’s—”
“Dangerous. I know. I’ve seen her criminal—”
Annette’s hand snaps to my wrist. “Criminal what? William, tell me what you know.”
The promise I made Hope sits on the tip of my tongue. Terror fills my mouth. It’s not that I don’t trust Hope; she’s just too close to see the truth. She’s too good to see the bad in Maeve.
