17. Theo
17
Theo
T he aroma of freshly brewed coffee fills my kitchen as I lean against the counter, arms crossed, watching the dark liquid drip into the pot. Normally, the morning ritual is grounding—steady in the chaos. But today, it does nothing to quiet the noise in my head.
Last night’s meeting won’t stop replaying in my mind. Cyanide. Poison. The possibility that Bennett is Aubrey’s son. The pieces are all floating there, but they haven’t settled into a picture I can make sense of yet.
A knock at the door pulls me from my reverie. I glance at the clock—it’s barely past eight. Whoever it is, they’re starting the day earlier than I’d like. Too early for a casual visit.
I open the door to find my aunt Aubrey standing there. She’s wearing a flowing skirt with intricate patterns, the kind she’s always favored, paired with a simple black top. Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid, a colorful scarf woven through it. She looks the same as she always does—warm, put-together like she belongs in an old photograph of our family.
But for the first time, I wonder how much of that warmth is real.
“Aubrey,” I say, stepping aside. “This is a surprise.”
She smiles faintly as she steps inside, glancing around the room like she’s taking inventory of my life. “I didn’t want to call—I thought it might be better to talk in person.”
There’s a carefulness in the way she says it like she wants me to know she’s here for me but also needs to steer the conversation.
“Talk about what?” I ask, moving toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Always,” she laughs softly, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I wanted to talk about you, Teddy. You’ve been…busy recently. I just wanted to make sure you are okay, to check in.”
I pour her a cup and slide it across the counter. She picks it up, wrapping her hands around it for warmth, but she doesn’t drink right away. She never does. Aubrey lets her coffee cool first, always waiting until it’s just shy of lukewarm before taking the first sip.
“I’m fine. Just working on a few things.”
She hesitates, fingers tracing the rim of her mug before setting it down with deliberate care. Like she’s steadying herself. “Working on a few things… With that new boy in town? Bennett?”
I freeze for half a second before forcing myself to relax. She says it so casually, but the way she lingers on his name feels off.
“Yeah. Bennett.” I say not giving her his last name. Not yet.
“Helping him,” she repeats like she’s turning the words over, searching for their weight. “Teddy, I don’t mean to pry, but no one seems to know much about him. Other than the fact he’s writing a travel blog.”
I lean against the counter, crossing my arms, keeping my voice neutral. “He’s new. People don’t know him yet.”
She nods, thoughtful. “I understand wanting to give someone the benefit of the doubt. But you have to admit, Teddy, his sudden appearance… it’s curious timing.”
Her words are careful. Measured. On a first read, it sounds like she’s just being protective. But now, I wonder. Is she feeling me out? Trying to gauge how much I know?
My stomach tightens, but I keep my face still. “Bennett’s not the issue here.”
Aubrey tilts her head slightly, her expression unreadable. “I’m not saying he is,” she says gently. “I’m just saying to be careful. You have a good heart, and I’d hate to see someone take advantage of that.”
Her words soften the edge of my frustration. Aubrey has always been protective, but this feels different. Like she’s worried about more than she’s letting on.
The words should be reassuring. They used to be.
But now, they feel… off.
I can’t put my finger on it, not exactly. Maybe it’s the way she’s framing it—like she’s planting a seed of doubt in my mind. About Bennett. About Mo. About everything.
Why does it feel like she’s trying to get ahead of something?
I study her across the counter. The woman who practically raised me. The woman I never once doubted.
She’s watching me carefully, waiting for my response.
“I’m being careful,” I say, my voice even.
Aubrey smiles, pleased. But why does it feel like I just told her what she wanted to hear?
She hesitates again, I’ve never seen her this unsure before
“There’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Her voice softens. “You’re all the family I have left, Teddy. I don’t want to lose you.”
The quiet vulnerability in her tone makes my chest tighten. This is different. More personal.
She takes a deep breath. “Did I ever tell you about the night your parents had their accident?”
A sharp prickle runs down my spine. I straighten. “What about it?”
She exhales, her shoulders sinking slightly like she’s carrying the weight of years of silence too heavy to hold onto any longer. “Your father came to see me that night. Cassie had been filling his head with lies, saying I was responsible for George’s death—that I killed him because he got another woman pregnant.”
Her voice wavers. And for the first time, I see it. The years of grief, the weight of something she’s never spoken aloud.
“I made him some tea, tried to calm him down,” she continues. Her voice is measured, careful, like she’s making sure she tells it just right. So she doesn’t misspeak or get a detail wrong. “I tried to talk sense into him, but he wouldn’t listen. He was so angry, Teddy. So convinced I was the villain in all of this. I… I lost my temper. I didn’t know George had a child with someone else. I told him to take all of you and leave.”
Her hands tighten around her mug. The first real crack in her composure. “It was freezing that night. The roads were slick. I didn’t think—I just wanted him to go, and then… then they didn’t come back.”
A shuddering breath. A single tear slips down her cheek.
The raw pain in her voice cuts through me, sharp and unrelenting. I’ve never heard her sound like this, so vulnerable, so human.
“Aunt Aubrey,” I say softly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She shakes her head, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I don’t know if that’s true. But I’ve lived with it every day since.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy. Not uncomfortable, just… full.
When she finally looks up, her eyes are steadier, but still glassy. “I just want you to be careful, Teddy. With Bennett. With Selene. With all of this.” A pause, just long enough for her words to sink in. “There are things about this family—about this town—that you don’t know yet. And I want to protect you from them.”
I nod, my throat tight. This should feel reassuring, but it doesn’t sit right.
She stands, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles from her shirt. “Good. That’s all I ask.”
At the door, she glances back at me. “And Teddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let anyone make you doubt yourself.”
The words should be comforting. Instead, they feel like a warning.
She leaves, and I stay rooted in place, staring out the window, coffee cooling in my hands.
Aubrey has never lied to me. Has she?
For all her warnings about Bennett, all her insistence that she’s trying to protect me, a thought lingers, quiet but persistent.
What if she’s not just protecting me—but herself?
The sound of the exterior door off my kitchen creaking open snaps me out of my thoughts. My pulse spikes, and I spin toward the sound, my heart racing.
Grabbing a knife from the knife block near me I step closer, half expecting trouble when Orion steps around the corner and into my view. He looks completely unbothered, expression calm and unreadable. We lock eyes as he slips his lock picking tools into a sleek black case before tucking it into his pocket.
“What the hell, man?” I exclaim, lowering the knife I’d raised in self-defense. “You just picked my lock instead of knocking like a normal person?”
Orion shrugs as he steps fully inside my kitchen and shuts and locks the door behind him like he lives here. “Cute knife,” he says, barely glancing at it. “But I couldn’t chance you washing that mug before I got my hands on it. You should probably upgrade your security. That was way too easy.”
I shove the knife back into the knife block with more force than necessary. “It’s too early in the morning for this. Why are you breaking into my house and why do you need my mug?”
Without answering, he holds up an evidence bag in one hand and Aubrey’s discarded mug in the other.
“I’ve been following your aunt around all morning, waiting for the chance to collect a DNA sample from her. This was slightly more legal than breaking into her house. Ergo, evidence.”
I blink at him. “DNA? Evidence?” My stomach tightens, as I fold my arms over my chest. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Orion leans against the counter, completely unfazed by my irritation. His presence is deliberate, his posture just relaxed enough to make it clear he’s not in a rush, but there’s a challenge in his eyes.
“I need to know if she’s Bennett’s mom,” he says, his voice low and deliberate.
I stare at him, my jaw tightening. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Think about it,” he says, tilting his head slightly. “If she is, this could be the key that we are missing. All these tangled relationships, secrets, grudges. If Bennett is her son, that changes the narrative—blows it wide open.”
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing the kitchen. “This is insane. How are you even able to do DNA testing?”
Orion holds the evidence bag up like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “She left it behind. I don’t need her permission. I’ll send it to a friend or see if Morgan can do it.”
His tone is clipped, but there’s a determination in his eyes that makes it clear he’s not asking for my opinion. He’s already made up his mind.
I stop pacing and square my shoulders. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
Orion smirks, stepping just a little closer, sizing me up like he’s waiting for me to flinch. I don’t.
“Maybe,” he says, tucking the evidence bag into his jacket. “But I’m not the one holding a knife like it’s gonna help me win a fight.”
I glance at the knife block and exhale slowly through my nose. He’s trying to rattle me, but I don’t take the bait.
I exhale sharply, leaning against the counter. “Fine. Let’s say she is Bennett’s mom. What then? How does that help us?”
Orion glances toward the window, his expression shadowed. “Because if she’s his mother, it explains a lot. Her behavior after George’s death, the way she’s always kept herself just out of the spotlight. She makes sure she’s the gossip mill, but she’s never the one gossiped about. It also explains why she wants the town to think Cassie is the villain in this scenario.”
At the mention of Cassie, my eyes narrow. “What does Cassie have to do with this?”
Orion pushes off the counter, crossing his arms. “I spoke to her recently. She told me an interesting detail about your father.”
My stomach churns. “What about him?”
“She said she taught with him back in the day. Their classes were doing a unit on genealogy, this was back in ‘08, right before your parents died, and he submitted his DNA to one of those testing sites. Cassie said he was curious—wanted to compare the results to the family history he grew up hearing.”
I nod slowly, recalling how methodical my dad always was.
“When the results came back, all he wanted to talk to her about was finding out that he had a nephew somewhere. There was a biological match, as far as he knew, his brother didn’t have any kids. Since Cassie ran in the same circles as Aubrey and your uncle he went to her to see if she had any answers.”
Frowning, I ask, “And what did she say?”
“She reminded him of how Aubrey disappeared after George’s death,” Orion explains. “Holed up in her house for over a year, barely spoke to anyone. People chalked it up to grief, but what if there was more to it? What if she was hiding a pregnancy?”
I let his words sink in, my mind racing. It makes sense, but it’s hard to reconcile with the image I have of my aunt—the free-spirited, joyful woman who brings laughter wherever she goes.
“This is a stretch,” I say finally. “You’re speculating based on… What? Cassie’s word?”
“I’m following the threads,” Orion says firmly. “And the threads lead here.”
I shake my head, but I can’t deny the logic in his argument. The timelines, the secrecy—it all lines up in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Orion straightens, slipping the evidence bag into his jacket pocket. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
He heads for the door, pausing as he reaches it. “Keep your aunt close, Theo. If I’m right, she’s more dangerous than any of us realize.”
I nod, still trying to wrap my head around everything he’s just told me. As the door clicks shut behind him, I sink into a chair at the kitchen table, my coffee long forgotten.
A few seconds pass before the door swings open again, and Orion pokes his head back in.
“Oh, and Theo?”
I lift my head, exhausted. “What?”
He grins. “Change your damn locks.”
Then, before I can throw something at him, he’s gone.
I groan, rubbing a hand down my face. If Orion’s right, this changes everything.
And if he’s wrong… well, I don’t know what to believe anymore.