Page 100 of The Sweetest Revenge

He didn't need to say them out loud.

Jail.

Or death.

The truth hung between us, cold and unforgiving as steel.

"Get everything put back and pack a bag. I need to let Sterling know I'm going to be late. Don't tell anyone where we are staying. Not even Mila and Journey."

I nodded, and he reached down, swiping Kacie's phone off the ground before disappearing.

I ran a hand down my face. My mom was a lot of things, but a killer?

She wasn't the same person I knew anymore, and I couldn't put anything past her.

CHAPTER45

ARIELLA

Sitting behind the protective glass, I pulled Zaiden's jacket tighter around me and pulled my feet into the seat. My gaze followed Zaiden as the team moved in unison during warm-ups before running drills on the ice. The sounds of their skates scraping the ice together filled the quiet arena. Each player dropped on all fours. The frog stretch. Leaning on their elbows, they let their knees slide wide on the ice, stretching their groin muscles.

The weather was shifting from summer to fall, and it was colder than usual for this time of year, but inside the ice rink, it was freezing. My chair shook as Journey and Mila dropped into the seats on opposite sides of each other.

"Please tell me I had to get up this early for something good." Journey dragged her beanie lower over her ears, sinking deeper into the seat until only her eyes were visible above her scarf. "Like Mark Matthews professed his love for me last night on his live, and I missed it."

A laugh bubbled up before I could stop it. Journey shot me a glare, which only made me laugh harder. Mark Matthews was a famous vlogger from the UK who didn't even know Journey was alive. "No, but we found Kacie's phone this morning."

The scrape of skates on ice suddenly seemed deafening in the silence that followed.

"What? Where?" Mila's voice cut through the sudden tension.

I gripped the cold metal of the bleacher seat, the chill seeping through my jeans. "My mom's closet."

Journey's gasp formed a larger vapor cloud. Mila went still, her normally expressive face frozen in shock, like the very ice beneath the players.

Journey's fingers curled around the sleeve of my borrowed jacket. "Why would your mom have Kacie's phone?"

"Zaiden's dad told him they never recovered the phone, but—" I paused, my throat dry. Each word felt like stepping further onto a frozen lake, testing which truth would hold my weight.

"So, unless they found the phone after he told him, I can only think of one reason."

Journey shook her head, eyes locked on mine. "Your mom is something sometimes, but I can't see her wanting to hurt Kacie."

I shrugged. "Yeah, honestly, I can't either, not even if Kacie found out about my mom and her dad, but I could see her going after Anne."

"Holy shit." Mila's voice dropped to a whisper, her eyes wide. "Kacie was driving Anne's car that night."

The pieces were falling into place—a puzzle I never wanted to complete.

I nodded, tracing a slow pattern on the arm of the chair. "I just can't figure out how she got Officer Tanner to help her."

Mila chewed her lower lip the way she always did when working through a problem. "Maybe everything that happened with Officer Tanner was a coincidence."

The puck skidded across the ice as Zaiden lined up his shot.

"Maybe."

The crack of a stick against a puck echoed through the arena. The goal light flashed red.

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