by Darby Kane
Tobias cleared his throat. “Have you heard anything? Done a search? Located his car?”
Pete started to talk, but Ginny stopped him with a small shake of her head. She needed to take this one. “We’ve put out a BOLO on Aaron, asking all of the local police departments—state, county, municipal, and university—to look for the car. We’ve talked with your neighbors, people at the school, and a few friends. His brother will be coming in soon.”
“I’ve driven in and around your neighborhood looking for signs of Aaron or the car. Some of the sheriffs have taken shifts looking in and around Cayuga Lake.” Pete leaned back in his chair with his arms folded over his chest. “Started the process to get some records we’ll need and registered Aaron with a national database of missing persons, NamUs. I’d like a recent photo so we can make fliers.”
Tobias nodded. “Sounds thorough.”
“As your client pointed out, it’s as if Aaron disappeared without a trace.” Ginny looked at the pair across the table until her gaze landed on Lila. “Which leads us back to you, Lila.”
“You’re investigating me.” Lila’s tone remained flat as she said the words.
“Is that a surprise?” Pete asked.
“No.”
Ginny bit back her usual explanation about the spouse and looking at him or her first. The two people sitting across from her knew the drill. They didn’t need to be baby-stepped through Investigation 101. “Then you had to know we’d find out about your past.”
For the first time since they’d met, Lila looked genuinely stumped. “What about it?”
Ginny pounced. “You don’t have one.”
Chapter Seventeen
THEY MISSED THE POINT. SHE HAD A PAST. MAYBE NOT AS LILA Ridgefield, but changing her name hadn’t wiped out the years of confusion and self-loathing that had come before.
“What’s your real name?” Pete asked.
“Lila Ridgefield.” She wasn’t playing games. She went to court, paid, testified about her reasons, and changed it. Forget shortcuts. She’d followed the rules because she didn’t want to mess up her chance of letting go of a life that sucked her down into darkness and left her bloodied and wallowing.
“You legally changed it.”
Of course Ginny would be the one to guess the right answer. From the interaction she’d had with the two investigators, Pete was by far the less experienced. He didn’t hold a poker face and would often spout off with a question she knew Ginny wouldn’t ask.
No, Ginny was the pro. The one who knew how to verbally bob and weave. The one who assessed every word and shook Lila into being extra careful.
There was no need to hide this part, so Lila didn’t try. “Yes, I did. The court sealed the case at my request.”
“Why?”
“Let’s put the brakes on for a second.” Tobias leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. “How is any of this relevant? It happened more than a decade ago, before she and Aaron even met, let alone got married.”
Pete met Tobias’s smile with one of his own. “An overachiever would know the answer to that question.”
As usual, Ginny took a more reasoned approach. “Right now the motive for the name change seems to be a secret, and all secrets are suspect when someone is missing.”
Tobias scoffed. “That’s kind of a broad rationale, isn’t it?”
The question seemed to put a ticking clock on Ginny’s patience. Her neutral expression morphed into exasperation. Everything about her demeanor said she’d sooner throw them both in a cell than continue with the questioning.
“She changed her name as an adult. Is she running from a juvenile crime? I don’t know, but I sort of doubt it. And the point is I can ask that the records be unsealed.” Ginny looked at Lila now. “It will take longer, but maybe that’s the goal. Put distance between the question and Aaron going missing. Make the investigation that much harder.”
Tobias shifted as if he wanted to answer for her, but Lila put a hand on his arm and went first. This was her part to tell. Her life. Her shame. “When I graduated from college I wanted a new start.”
“Okay.” Ginny blew out a long breath. “From what?”
“Life. My background. The family I left behind.”
“Be more specific.”
Lila understood the frustration in Ginny’s voice, but she actually wasn’t trying to evade the other woman’s questions this round. Everything inside her clenched in a desperate need to bat the words back. The topic chipped away at the life she’d made, at the progress she’d fought so hard to achieve. The urge to get in her car and not look back hit her so strong that it shook her.
You should be more like your friend, Carina. Look at Amelia in her pretty dress. Dance for me, sweetie.
Lila tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling to keep from throwing up. The memory of her father’s deep voice echoing in her head always touched off a roiling in her stomach. He’d make excuses to see Amelia. It happened for years. The way he would hover in the doorway whenever Amelia came over. He’d hug her and run a hand through her hair.
As a kid she’d been jealous. Why doesn’t Daddy like me as much as he likes Amelia? Now she knew the answer and it made her physically sick.
For a few minutes, no one said anything. The only sound in the room came from the air vent on the far wall. The slight whistle breaking through the silence.
“My . . . father . . .” She stumbled over the word. She hadn’t said his name in years or thought of him as a father for even longer. “He’s in prison. His name is Grant Fields.”
Ginny looked at Pete until she made eye contact. She then nodded toward the door. The chair legs screeched across the floor as he got up and silently left the room.
Lila got it. Pete would now race around and find the information about what happened. Every hideous detail.
She debated waiting for him to return and let him divulge the facts. The computer search couldn’t take that long, and maybe a few extra minutes would make the telling easier, though she doubted it.
When he didn’t immediately return, she started explaining. “It happened when I was fourteen. Though, really, I think the touching and leering had been happening for years. My father waited to make his big move.”
Pete eased the door open and stepped inside just as Lila finished the sentence. He held a handful of papers and placed a few in front of Ginny before sitting down.
“My father became obsessed with a girl named Amelia. He’d watch her. Acted like a father figure to her and claimed he needed to because her parents were divorced and her dad lived out of state. My father would go to Amelia’s events. I didn’t know that then, but found out later when I looked at the trial transcript as an adult.”
She stopped long enough to catch her breath. To see the concern on Tobias’s face and the resigned, knowing look on Ginny’s.
“My father was deluded, or so his attorney said. He talked about how once he figured out I’d had my period that Amelia likely had hers, which meant she was ready for him.” Lila blew out a long breath, trying to hold steady and get through this. “He said he was in love with Amelia and was convinced she felt the same about him.”
“I assume he acted on his sick feelings,” Ginny said in a quiet voice.
“He kidnapped her. Picked her up from school and, of course, she got in the car like she had a thousand times before.” The police said he admitted he told Amelia they were going for an early dinner. She was his secret weapon in teasing Amelia along. He promised they were going to get her then eat. “He owned a construction company and brought a trailer to sites. He kept her hidden in the back of one of the older trailers at the lot. Raped her repeatedly.”
Tobias put a hand on her arm and squeezed. “He put her through some sort of fake marriage ceremony first, which he took photos of. Had her dressed up as a bride.”
He’d actually tried to explain to the prosecutor that the fact he waited to force her to have sex until after his bizar
re wedding ritual made him the good guy. Lila could never forget that part of reading the testimony. Any part of it.
“After eleven days, all while he was out with the search teams pretending to try to find Amelia, she tried to escape. When he got back, she was screaming. He panicked and hit her with a crowbar to get her to stop. The hit killed her.” It was all an accident, he claimed. He loved her and would never hurt her. He totally ignored the horrible things he did to her, how he’d hurt her and scared her.
Tobias cleared his throat before offering the rest. “He dug a hole to bury Amelia. He was found a day later, lying in the hole and holding her body, saying he couldn’t let her go.”
“To this day, when he tells people his wife died, he’s not talking about my mother. He’s talking about Amelia.” That was the horrific punch line to the sordid tale.
“Amelia . . . She was your friend,” Pete added in a soft voice.
The word whipped through Lila. Best friend, but that fact only made what happened next worse. “She lived on our street. She’d been to my house a million times. We’d played together since kindergarten.”
Ginny never looked at the papers or the wall. Not anywhere but at Lila as she talked.
Now Lila returned the stare. “Wouldn’t you want to change your name and forget it all?”
Chapter Eighteen
THE INTERVIEW WENT ON FOR ANOTHER FIFTEEN MINUTES, BUT the emotional drain from the father-as-murderer reveal made progress tough. They all sat there thinking about the crime back then, assessing what it meant now. Ginny watched a shadow envelop the room and knew the others saw it as well.
Charles Gan, the elected sheriff and Pete and Ginny’s boss, stepped out of his office and watched Lila and Tobias leave the building. In his late fifties, his face showed every year of his time on the job. The omnipresent frown and wrinkled forehead were so familiar to Ginny that she got thrown off stride when Charles actually smiled, which was almost never.
He had weathered tough election cycles and one devastating year when a traffic call ended up with him working his son’s death scene. He never talked about family. Never drank. He lived for the job and didn’t tolerate mistakes on his watch.
He also wanted a “win” because the Karen Blue disappearance and the resulting bad press, questioning missed leads, had every law enforcement officer in New York on edge. “Where are we?”
Pete shrugged as he handed his gathered paperwork on Lila’s father’s past over to Charles. “With the missing husband? Nowhere, but we do have a better handle on the wife.”
Charles hummed as he read. The noises of the room, the phones ringing and officers moving in and out, faded into the background when he lifted his head. “Looks like she testified against her father. That sort of thing has to mess a kid up.”
“So does having your father rape and murder your best friend.” But Ginny knew there was way more they hadn’t talked about. She doubted that Lila and her mother got support from many sources. They likely were ostracized, made to feel like freaks and criminals.
She didn’t have to read the case specifics to know Lila shouldered the blame, took it on, at least in part, herself. Ginny heard it in every word, how they sounded ripped out of Lila when she talked about this one issue. Saw the thumping pain in Lila’s eyes as she relayed the bit of information she shared.
Charles nodded. “Is this father still alive?”
“In prison in Colorado, where Lila—then known as Carina Fields—grew up.” Pete flipped to the next page and pointed at a line there. “Only child. Went to live with a relative in Florida after her mom died.”
Ginny hadn’t gotten that far because she hadn’t wanted to show that much interest in the information while in front of Lila. “Died how?”
“Uh . . .” He skimmed down the page then shook his head. “Doesn’t say, but it happened after the trial when her father was awaiting sentencing.”
Ginny couldn’t imagine, but she couldn’t afford to get lost in sympathy either. “Devastating and awful, but none of this gets us closer to finding Aaron. I’d hoped the name change related to something she did, not her father.”
“Right.” Charles handed the papers back to Pete.
“Pete has been checking video from around Lila’s house around the time of the disappearance.” They’d only started the process, but Ginny remained hopeful they would get more.
“No video from their street yet, but I’m checking the alarm videos from every house. I got one from the florist shop across the street from the entry to their development. You can see Aaron’s SUV turns left at the light out of their neighborhood before four in the morning on the day he went missing, which was way earlier than Lila said he usually heads out,” Pete said. “We pick the vehicle up again going through some lights and then see it heading toward the school and around to the back entrance, but that’s where we lose it.”
“We can’t actually verify where it went at the school, but we don’t see it again, which is odd since it’s not there.” Ginny knew “odd” was an understatement, but she used the word anyway.
“Check again.” Charles made a sound that didn’t give away what he was thinking. “Do we know Aaron was the one driving around that morning?”
Ginny had reviewed the video with that in mind. “No. You can’t tell, but it does look like only one person in the car. The shadowed outline suggests someone wearing a tie.”
“Good work. Keep on it.” Charles nodded. “Also, do some digging into the father’s case and make sure it’s unrelated. I want us all to agree that what happened back then didn’t spin into something now.”
“Like revenge?” Pete asked.
“Possibly.” Charles turned to Ginny. “Also, the Ithaca Police Department offered us assistance on this, and so did the state police. Everyone is busy with the Karen Blue task force, but we can get reinforcements.”
“I appreciate it—”
He laughed, this hollow sound that lacked any sort of amusement. “No, you don’t.”
“—but everyone is spread thin enough already.” It was a good argument. Ginny refused to believe her stance had anything to do with Lila or wanting to win. For a safe area of the country, law enforcement was crawling all over the place. Fighting off public dissatisfaction only added to the load.
“Ever since the video of the police bringing in Karen’s ex-boyfriend for questioning got out, that podcaster has been digging up information,” Pete said.
The line between public and private information grew blurrier each day. Ginny did not want private citizens getting in the way in Aaron’s case. “There’s huge pressure on everyone to find her before the podcast blows up into a vigilante mess.”
Charles swore under his breath. “Armchair investigators.”
“They’re not all bad.” She believed that. Sometimes a person sitting in their living room held that one piece of information that tied everything together. She didn’t care if they came forward as a result of police pleading or a podcast, so long as they came forward . . . and didn’t mess up her case. “But as to bringing in the state police or FBI or whatever, I’d prefer to handle this in-house until we know more. Lila and Aaron lived outside of Ithaca, which makes this our case.”
“For now, but get something, and do it fast. I don’t want to get into a jurisdictional pissing match over a high school teacher.”
“Yes, sir.” She responded to an empty space because Charles had already headed back to his office and closed the door.
Pete stared after him. “Does he want us to make up evidence?”
“He wants us to find some, which means it’s time to put a lot of pressure on Lila.” Phone records and search warrants. Pick her life apart. Inadvertently, or maybe on purpose, put a target on her back.
“Sounds like she’s used to being under the microscope.”
Ginny remembered Lila’s blank expression and emotionless stare as she talked about her friend from childhood. “That doesn’t mean she welcomes it.”
>
Chapter Nineteen
GINNY USHERED JARED INTO THE EXAMINATION ROOM HOURS after Lila and her lawyer left. Pete followed a second later with coffee for everyone.
This was the informal talk. The getting-to-know-you part where she tended to shake loose information that would lead her where she needed to go. Her boss had given her the greenlight to press hard and demanded she make progress.
They’d started putting together profiles and timelines. Collecting security videos and records. But Jared was the brother, the one with the most intimate details about Aaron and, hopefully, some insight into Lila. He was a commercial real estate developer with a pristine reputation. No criminal record. No debts or addictions that anyone could tell.
Bottom line, he knew people, and none of them offered a negative word about him, except to suggest the man had an obsessive streak when it came to work. That likely also explained his lack of a meaningful personal life outside of his brother and sister-in-law.
He was also the one to benefit financially from Aaron’s death, though Jared seemed to have enough money without needing to stockpile more from his brother. Still, it was a possible motive she couldn’t ignore.
She smiled at Jared across the table as Pete sat down. “Thanks for coming in.”
Jared cradled the coffee cup in his hands. “Have you found anything?”
“Honestly, it’s as if Aaron walked out of his house and disappeared.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not his style?” Pete asked.
“Not remotely.” Jared’s attention flipped back to Ginny. “Do the security videos show when he left the house? Can you see if he was okay?”
“We’ll check those.” They’d run into a bit of a roadblock when the closest neighbor admitted that he’d turned off his alarm weeks ago due to a malfunction and hadn’t used it again. Lila and Aaron had done the same.
There were transcripts of calls between both couples and the alarm company. A technician visited both houses. Nothing turned up, which made the malfunction convenient and suspicious.