Pretty Little Wife

by Darby Kane

  She took out her cell and hit the app Aaron had set up in case she lost her phone. She’d added his on there, and she tried to locate it now.

  Nothing.

  “Does an unexplained joyride fit with his personality?” The voice followed the slam of a car door.

  Lila’s attention shifted, but then that was clearly the goal. A woman. Average height and weight. Curvy. A round, striking face with big dark eyes. Short black hair and a brisk walk. Lila didn’t recognize her at all. “Excuse me?”

  “Ginny Davis.” She held out her card. “Senior investigator.”

  Lila turned the card over in her hand, too on edge to see anything but a smudge of black lettering. “For what?”

  “C.I.D.”

  Lila looked at the woman but didn’t say anything.

  The woman explained anyway. “The Criminal Investigation Division of the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office.”

  Law enforcement . . . already? Lila tried to take a deep breath. Everything was moving too fast and in the wrong direction. “How did you get here so quickly?”

  “I called her.” Brent grumbled something under his breath. “Well, my secretary did. And your neighbor called someone.”

  The investigator nodded. “My office. We’ve received three calls this morning about a missing teacher. I was wrapping up another matter and agreed to swing by and see what exactly the issue was.”

  She’d stepped in too fast. Hell, they didn’t even have a body. And Lila had trouble thinking about anything else.

  “So you believe Aaron really is in trouble?” Brent asked.

  The investigator shrugged. “I have no way of knowing right now.”

  That sounded like the right answer to Lila. Smart and effective. It didn’t overpromise. It also matched the woman standing in front of Lila in a navy pantsuit. Not cheap but not expensive. The kind that mostly fit except for the slightly too long pants and a waistband that required a belt.

  She didn’t make any attempt to hide her visual once-over of the area, or of Brent and Lila. “Are you Mrs. Payne?”

  The name ripped across Lila’s senses, blocking out everything else. “Lila Ridgefield.”

  “Aaron’s wife.” Brent said the words in a rush, as if the women needed his guidance through the conversation.

  Ginny, because that’s how Lila already started to think of her rather than as some faceless, nameless investigator, didn’t even blink. “Several people seem concerned about your husband and his whereabouts. We likely don’t have anything to worry about. Most people show up within a day or two and have an explanation.”

  Yeah, that better not happen. “Your response really didn’t answer my question. Why are you here now?”

  “I’m doing a courtesy check only. Right now there’s nothing to investigate.” Ginny focused on Brent. “Mr. Little?”

  “Yes.” After a quick handshake, Brent returned to his position slightly behind Lila. “Aren’t you supposed to wait forty-eight hours before you start investigating?”

  “That’s a bit of a Hollywood myth based on the idea that grown-ups sometimes wander but usually come back. We don’t want to waste resources, but we don’t want to lose precious search time either.” Ginny’s eyebrow lifted as she looked from Brent to Lila. “Unless you want us to hold off for some reason.”

  “No.” Brent shuffled his feet and stammered for a solid minute before kicking out an answer. “No, of course not.”

  “If someone truly is missing, we’d rather know immediately and start working.” Ginny’s gaze switched to Lila. “Before the trail goes cold.”

  “Right.” Brent nodded as he regained his composure. “When Aaron didn’t show up today, I went over to their house and broke the news to Lila.”

  Ginny frowned again. “What news?”

  “That my husband isn’t where he should be.”

  Brent nodded. “She wanted to come to the school to see for herself.”

  The conversation struck Lila as obvious and not half as interesting as Ginny’s intense stare suggested.

  “When did you last see your husband, Ms. Ridgefield?”

  Now the questions would start. The need for explanations. The digging into her marriage. Taking apart every sentence, every choice, every piece of her life with Aaron. He’d gone missing, and the spotlight would shine on her, casting shadows everywhere. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and she would pay.

  She’d prepared for so many contingencies, but not this one. All of them depended on Aaron being found.

  Lila took a long breath. “Last night.”

  “Not this morning?”

  The verbal dance annoyed Lila. The detective or whatever she was had a job to do. Lila needed to find her husband and didn’t believe someone who didn’t know him, who might get sucked in by his outward charm, could find him faster than she could. “No, which is why I said last night.”

  Ginny’s gaze bounced from Brent to Lila. “Is Aaron the type to take a day off without warning?”

  That question was easy to answer because it was a point of pride to Aaron, which Lila found ridiculous. “Not at all.”

  “He’s had perfect attendance for the almost four years he’s been here,” Brent said as he shook his head. “Hasn’t missed a day. Even comes in when he’s sick, which is against the rules, but we make an exception. His record and personality are why we called your office immediately rather than waiting to see if he showed up.”

  “That’s who he is.” Lila wasn’t sure if that fact helped her or not, but she wanted the lead role in shaping that vision for any and all law enforcement who stumbled into the case.

  “Okay.” Ginny’s gaze lingered on Lila before she turned to Brent again. “I understand what you’re both saying, but is there anywhere—?”

  “On a weekday during the school year he goes to work. That’s the point.” The thumping in Lila’s head kicked up, threatening to swallow the last of her attention.

  Ginny’s gaze snapped right back to Lila. “Except today.”

  The noise from inside the school spilled out. Two boys yelled with hands raised as they stumbled outside and stepped in and out of each other’s personal space. No one crowded in or joined them in their amateur fight, but faces appeared in the door’s glass and a rapt audience formed.

  Brent’s focus shot to the door. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  He was off, with those long legs chewing up the feet between them and the brewing fight. The second he stepped in, the shouts of juvenile retribution cut off. After some finger-pointing, the chaos moved back inside the building.

  “May I call you Lila?” Ginny asked.

  If this were a game, then Lila would play, too. “May I call you Ginny?”

  “Sure.” The older woman dropped the clipped response before launching into a new topic. “Is there anyone you can think of who might want to hurt your husband?”

  Yeah, her.

  At any other time, under any other situation, Lila might admire Ginny’s style. She verbally zigged and zagged. Asked what she needed to ask, the usual initial questions, most likely, but Lila sensed Ginny didn’t care much about the answers. Fact-finding was not the purpose of this trip, at least not in the sense of hearing the one thing that might explain how a thirty-seven-year-old man vanished on his way to work.

  No, this back-and-forth was about sizing her up. Ginny’s gaze assessed every stray move and every swallow. She pinned Lila under an unseen microscope and gently poked around.

  Lila’s senses screamed at her to be careful. To cut this short before the anxiety crawling through her burst out of her like a bad horror movie. “He’s a high school math teacher.”

  “Teachers have enemies.”

  Lila refused to take the bait.

  “I’m trying to understand what we’re looking at here.” Ginny’s soothing voice, deep and calm, had a hypnotizing effect. “There were no car accidents in the area this morning with his make of car. No John Doe fitting his description at any
local hospitals.”

  “Aren’t you thorough?”

  A tiny smile broke over Ginny’s lips. “Always.”

  Lila forced the sensation rushing through her back—the one that shouted to pick flight over fight—as she watched the woman who might feign friendship and support but would likely become her adversary. And a worthy one.

  Ginny took out a small notebook and scribbled a few things down. She handled the situation with the confidence of a person who’d fought and clawed her way into the position she held and refused to relinquish it. As a black woman high up in law enforcement, she likely both earned respect and spent most of her day demanding it from men who would prefer to ignore her.

  “May I go home?” Lila asked, because the house would ground her as she tried to reason out what happened this morning.

  Ginny nodded. “If Aaron doesn’t show up by this time tomorrow, I’d like you to come to my office and—”

  “You can come to my house and ask whatever you want. Now or later, doesn’t matter to me.” When Ginny didn’t jump on the offer, Lila fell back on reason. “Isn’t that better? I’m inviting you in. You can walk through and look around. No need for probable cause or a warrant.” Lila found her first smile of the day. “Did I forget to mention I’m a lawyer?”

  She had to drop that piece of intel sooner or later. Now worked.

  Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “One of the people who called mentioned that you were a real estate agent.”

  Huh. Interesting. “Why does my career matter?” Not that this was a sensitive subject for her, but it was.

  “Technically, you mentioned it first.” A small smile came and went on Ginny’s mouth. “But if you’re asking why I know, the fact is in my notes. The person calling likely volunteered.”

  The tension snapping between them subsided. The air shifted, as if they’d reached more even footing. The gun and badge and whatever else Ginny carried in or under that suit might win most battles, but Lila had a few weapons of her own.

  “Anything else I should know about you?” Ginny asked.

  “I expect you to find Aaron. If you can’t do that, I’ll hire someone who can.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Lila realized she’d spoken her first lie of the day.

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “I know Aaron is not the only missing person in the area.” Lila had been following along on the news and listening to a weekly true crime podcast that highlighted the case.

  She’d done her homework before she launched her plan. The horrible backdrop of a missing woman might help blur the picture of what happened to her husband . . . of course, that all depended on Aaron staying dead.

  Ginny didn’t so much as twitch at being thrust in the heated spotlight for questioning. “Do you think the cases are related?”

  “I hope not, since you haven’t found her yet.”

  Chapter Five

  Three Weeks Earlier

  AARON SET THE PLATE IN FRONT OF HER. GRILLED CHICKEN and a salad. It was his go-to meal on his night to make dinner. They took turns when they ate in, but he took more food shifts than she did. Probably because her cooking skills extended to grilled cheese and pasta and not one inch further.

  Pasta. That’s what she really wanted tonight. She’d watched a cooking show this morning and now craved cacio e pepe. She’d never had it, but the idea of noodles with cheese and pepper sounded so simple and delicious that it made her despise the chicken without tasting it.

  Aaron stood there, looming over his side of the square table instead of sitting down. “You’re staring at the plate.”

  “It looks good.” Sitting there, moving the food around on her plate, all she could think about was how she’d folded her life into his. Her needs grew smaller and smaller, less important and less of a priority, until only broken pieces of what she thought marriage would be remained.

  The relationship didn’t start that way. He’d been a regular at the sandwich place across from her office where she went to pick up lunch and sometimes dinner. She’d see him and catch him glancing her way. They eventually met when he dropped a full travel coffee mug right in front of her. Stunned and stammering, he apologized and shot her a sweet smile.

  He was attractive in a nonthreatening way. A little quiet with a tough background she would learn rivaled her own on the pain scale. So she let him in. Let him as far in as she let anyone, which to be fair was not far.

  From the beginning neither demanded much of the other. They built a relationship based on companionship and understanding. He didn’t balk at her need for alone time. He liked to fish and was fine to do that without her. He provided stability and safety. When she thought about family, she thought about a home and dinner at the table and the absence of yelling. With him she had all those things.

  She’d never looked at Aaron and felt a breathy rush of desire or the need to strip off his clothes and have sex against a wall. They’d done that, but the zing she was supposed to feel never hit her. But it wasn’t just Aaron.

  For most of her life, she hadn’t felt the thrumming sensation. A few twinges of attraction, but the idea of purposely seeking out something fleeting, based on hormones and body parts that could disappear with the wrong haircut or by gaining twenty pounds, seemed like a waste of time.

  In reality, she’d spent her entire life running from that out-of-control dynamic in search of safety and would only base a marriage on the latter. Her fear sent her spinning into the arms of the very thing she sought to escape.

  “Jim told me a funny story today.”

  She couldn’t call up any interest in what Aaron had to say, let alone some boring story from a random guy. “Jim?”

  The chair legs scraped against the floor as Aaron pulled it out and sat down. “Biology teacher from Maine. The one with the thick accent.”

  She pretended to care as she moved the lettuce around on her plate. “Oh, right.”

  “He slept in his car last night.”

  They hadn’t gotten to that point, but Aaron did use the guest bedroom right now. Lila refused to feel guilty about that. He deserved to be banished. She’d wanted to pummel him, slap him—something that ended with a crack of skin against skin. Anything to break through the frozen mush of disdain she felt for him.

  But she had to wait. Plan. Make her move at the right time.

  “Why?” She put down the fork, abandoning any pretense of interest in the food.

  “He and the wife argued about money.”

  “I once read that money is the issue couples fight about the most.” Not them, not usually, but other couples. They had enough issues without adding stressed economics to the pile.

  “Well, it happened with Jim and . . .” Aaron flipped his fork around in the air. “I can’t remember her name.”

  Of course he didn’t. Aaron sucked at names. Not guy names. No, he knew the mailman’s name and the guy who worked at the coffee place he stopped at after his Saturday-morning run. Even the guy who’d sold them that overly bright blue paint for the bathroom last year. But someone’s wife or girlfriend, or a female colleague? He stumbled every single time. It was as if all women registered in his mind only in connection to some guy he knew.

  “Let’s make this easier. Call her Anne.” Lila reached for a roll. “Go on with the story.”

  “Right.” Aaron pushed the butter closer to her before talking again. “Anne . . . you know, that might actually be her name.”

  “I doubt it.” Her knife scraped across the plate as she scooped the butter up.

  “What?”

  She preferred the uncomfortable silence of the last few weeks to actual conversation. “You were saying?”

  At least once a week during their marriage he accused her of not listening or showing any signs of caring about his work, so she pretended. So much pretending.

  “Anne is a vet. She works at that animal hospital around the corner from that taqueria we like near Ithaca Commons.” Aaron stared at her for a few beats of
silence before continuing. “She makes something like three times what he takes home as a high school teacher, and it’s killing him.”

  Aaron had her attention now. The way he sat forward in his seat with his elbows balanced on the edge of the table. The excitement in his eyes and that insipid smile. It was as if he were internally cheering at the idea of a guy’s marriage crumbling thanks to a dented ego.

  “He tried to tell her that she made him feel inferior, and she told him he was.”

  Lila felt a sudden kinship with the nameless woman. “Maybe he is.”

  “Yeah, right.” Aaron laughed as he reached over and tore off a piece from one of the rolls in the basket. Didn’t grab the whole thing because he tried to limit his carb intake. He insisted only a bite was enough to satisfy him. “Then she kicked him out.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  He had the nerve to frown at her. “You’re not serious.”

  “I actually am.”

  “You take her side even though you don’t know her?” He popped the piece of bread in his mouth.

  “Neither do you, apparently.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

  “Let’s examine the fact scenario you laid out. Why does he care how much she earns? I assume they both benefit from her paycheck. The money goes into an account, or they’re like us, multiple accounts, and then the bills get paid.” She shrugged. “He should thank her for doing more than her share and be grateful. Then shut up.”

  “Look at you sticking up for Jim’s wife.” Aaron sat back in his chair, causing the wood to groan under the strain of his weight.

  “Sounds like someone should.”

  “At least you’re finally talking to me.” He sounded unhappy about that. “Aren’t I lucky?”

  Yeah, she’d screwed up and let her indifference slip, but what the hell. Defending the woman they’d renamed Anne made her happier than anything else in the house had for months. “I can stop.”

  “You’re too busy judging Jim and Anne to be quiet.”

  She snorted and liked the sound so much she did it again. “Don’t pretend you know her name.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m trying to have a normal conversation.”