by Darby Kane
“Why weren’t you at the search?” Confusion showed on every inch of his face. “Really. It would have been so easy to do that one thing. To stop people from talking.”
Jared asked. Men on the nasty phone calls asked. Now Brent. It was as if the men in this town thought it was her job to go out and cry and wail on cue.
Never going to happen.
“Because we both know he didn’t go missing while hiking.” She knew Ginny saw the car leave the neighborhood because she’d followed up to ask why Aaron took off so early that day. It added a level of intrigue and confusion to the search. Lila wished it would point the spotlight elsewhere, but she knew it didn’t.
Brent leaned his back against the side of his car. “Your presence would have made people feel . . .”
“Better? That’s not my job.” Neither was this conversation, and her patience for it waned.
He sighed. “The kids are scared.”
The parents should be. Brent acted like he cared about their welfare, and she knew he did on one level. But if he were paying attention and less worried about being Aaron’s buddy, he might have noticed the problem. He might have been able to protect those girls from Aaron’s lies and grooming.
Unless he knew and didn’t care. The thought whizzed into her head and right back out again.
“You should get them a counselor. Let the kids talk about Aaron.” Maybe one of the girls would reveal some of what was on those sickening videos. “They need it.”
Brent took a deep inhale as his gaze wandered over the neighbors’ houses. It took a few seconds before it landed on her again. “The investigator isn’t going to let this go. You know this is just the beginning, right?”
He still viewed her as the only suspect. Probably not a surprise, but not comfortable for her either. He could work on the press and on Ginny. On Jared. “I should hope not.”
“I want to believe you didn’t do something . . .”
She looked at him, really looked. The dark circles under his eyes spoke to his exhaustion. He came off as deflated. The steam he’d built up on the way here had all but disappeared. Under it all she looked for something more. Brent had a reason to go to the school early each day. He was the principal. He had access to the grounds and the parking lot by the field. And he would have saved Aaron.
He’d been pushing her, and she wanted to shove back. “I’d think I’d earned your trust by now. The things I know about your marriage . . . I’ve never shared them. All those times when you hid out at our house, or spent the weekend with Aaron instead of with the kids, as promised.”
He stood up straight again. “Are you threatening me with something?”
“I’m trying to make a point.” One conversation kept spinning in her mind. She and Aaron agreed on how he should handle a certain uncomfortable request Brent had made, but Brent didn’t know that. “If the investigators are going to look at people with motive, they might talk to you.”
His mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You asked Aaron for a loan. He said no.”
The last of that fiery anger vanished. His skin took on a chalky white hue.
“Why do you think we fought?” It wasn’t true, but all she needed was for him to think it was. To get him twitchy and panicked. To make him mess up.
“I don’t believe you.”
She had his attention now. “Ginny will.”
Chapter Thirty-One
THE LONGEST DAY OF LILA’S LIFE GOT LONGER WHEN SHE pulled up to her house a few hours later after a drive to calm down. She saw the message. White paint splashed across the brown garage door in a scrawl.
WHERE IS HE?
MURDERER
STUPID BITCH
The words crisscrossed one another. Looked like two different sets of handwriting. Not that she was an expert on such things.
Cassie stood in front of the doors with her hands on her hips. Seeing her there smashed through the last of Lila’s energy. She didn’t have the strength to argue with one more person today about how much she sucked.
She really needed Cassie to shove her nose into someone else’s life and leave her alone.
A mental debate started as she turned off the engine and sat there. She could unload on her busybody neighbor and possibly end the unscheduled visits for good. The idea of walking right past her, ignoring her, sounded even better.
When Cassie turned around and waved, Lila didn’t wave back. But then she saw the bucket in Cassie’s hand and noticed how some of the words looked faded. Her mind refused to take in the visuals and come up with a reasonable explanation.
Forcing her legs to move, she got out and walked toward Cassie. Each step brought her closer to reality. The bucket with soapy water. A scrub brush in Cassie’s hand. A can of what looked like unopened paint.
Tobias was out talking with local defense attorneys, trying to get a sense of how Ginny operated and what they were looking at going forward. He’d teamed up with one, in case the worst thing happened and Ginny arrested her without a body or evidence.
That left Lila and Cassie. Here, with the hate-filled graffiti.
“What are you doing?” Lila heard the confusion in her voice.
“Cleaning up.”
“Why?” Because it’s not as if she’d been all that nice to Cassie. She’d ignored half of what she said. Made excuses not to spend time with her.
Cassie pointed at the doors. “This is not okay.”
“Are you worried about property values?” It was a shitty thing to say, and she didn’t put much heat behind the words, but Cassie standing there struck her as so odd that Lila came out swinging.
Cassie dropped the brush in the bucket and ignored the small splash and water dripping off her pants. Her fingers were red, likely from the cold and from clenching the brush.
“I know you think I’m nosy.” She held up her hand as if to quiet Lila even though she hadn’t rushed in and said a thing. “But I watch over you, visit unannounced, and walk by because I’ve been there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You go for these long walks on your own, even more so lately. You spend weekends alone. When Aaron is here, he’s often outside with his brother or friends.”
“That’s a lot of surveillance.” Which made Lila nervous. She couldn’t afford to have Cassie know her secrets.
“My first husband spent seven years convincing me I was worthless and unlovable. That I didn’t deserve friends and couldn’t handle money. He took everything from me, including my self-respect. Then the hitting started.”
A rush of regret pummeled Lila. “Cassie, I didn’t—”
“Of course you didn’t. You didn’t know him. You didn’t know me back then.” She glanced away. The pained expression came and went, coupled with a quick gnaw on her bottom lip before talking again. “That’s how they win. They destroy you in silence until you’re afraid of speaking out. They attack you in your own damn house, where you should be safe.”
The words tumbled and spun in Lila’s head. She’d spent so much of her marriage mentally insisting Aaron wasn’t abusive. He was different and a loner. A guy who needed validation but not a lot of attention. None of which was surprising in light of how much he’d lost as a kid. Lila understood. She wasn’t easy either, so they made sense together.
Then she found the videos. He came out fighting. Gaslighting her with ease, as if he’d been using it against her their whole marriage, and she realized now that he had. So much lying and subterfuge.
Looking back, she wondered how much of his behavior she forgave and explained away. She viewed their marriage through a clouded lens and didn’t see abuse, but she was beginning to question if what she saw and accepted as truth was real.
His first instinct when she became a threat to him was to wrap his hand around her throat and squeeze. The clench of his fingers against her skin—so vicious and primal—slashed through her feelings for him, leaving them shredded and forgotte
n.
The right word abandoned her, but “abusive” might not be so far off as she once thought. He had abused those girls. He’d preyed on them. Her knowing that changed everything. It broke something inside her.
“Look, you don’t have to talk about what life is like in your house.” Cassie wrapped her jacket tighter around her body. “I’m just saying I saw how he looked at you sometimes, how he treated you. There was this whiff of superiority about him even though you’re the lawyer and clearly smarter.”
Cassie saw through him. Most people who knew them both would praise him, but Cassie praised her. The unconditional support left Lila stumbling and a bit breathless. “I don’t know what to say.”
“He did this thing where he played up his hero image at the school and around town.” Cassie clamped her mouth shut as her eyes filled. She swallowed a few times before starting again. “It all was so familiar.”
Lila’s gaze went back to the garage door. The accusations, those words . . . weren’t totally wrong. Not in her case. She deserved to be called out and ridiculed. She had killed her husband . . . or at least tried to. If she had to do it again, the only thing she would do differently was make sure the bastard was truly dead. She had no remorse.
Cassie followed her gaze. “So, no. You don’t deserve to be put under a microscope and dissected. He did.”
Past tense. Because she knew.
Lila wanted to ask how Cassie got away and what she’d lived through. Lila never viewed the other woman as a survivor. She had a quiet husband, clearly her second, who seemed nice enough and didn’t get into people’s business. The relationship made more sense with the new information. Lila had thought of Cassie’s husband as plain, but now she wondered if he was safe. Kind and nonthreatening. Things that should be automatic in a spouse but weren’t.
“And if what people say and what they think about you is true, that’s your business.” Cassie reached for the brush again. “That investigator won’t hear anything different from me.”
A free pass for murder. God. Lila spent every hour thinking she was alone, but maybe not. “Cassie.”
“After I tone this down, you’ll need another coat of paint to get a clean line.” Cassie nodded at the can. “I took a paint chip to the hardware store, and they matched the color.”
“Cassie.” This time Lila touched the other woman’s shoulder as she said her name.
“Yes?”
Cassie didn’t demand the details or have to be convinced. Lila had a support system, but the circle was small and tight, and she didn’t share the truth with them. She wouldn’t with Cassie either, but she sensed, for the first time, that if she did Cassie might get it.
Lila wasn’t sure what to say, so she said the first thing that popped into her head. “Come in for tea.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Five Weeks Ago
NOW THAT SHE HAD A PLAN, SHE NEEDED TO FILL IN THE DETAILS. There was no good way to do this. Every minute of research made Lila heave. The first day, she choked and swore and broke two mugs before getting a bit more control.
All told, it took her four days of looking through high school yearbooks and studying social media to find the girls she’d seen in the videos. And those were only the girls she saw . . . she knew there were more. She suspected this went back to North Carolina, probably before.
Of the faces she recognized, one girl was still in school. A senior and not in Aaron’s class. She’d dropped out of field hockey, and Lila feared Aaron was the cause.
The other two women graduated from high school last year. One went to college out of state. She kept the photos from her time on the team and in Aaron’s class in her history online. Smiling photos, seemingly innocent. Whatever time Aaron stole from her appeared not to be problematic because she even referenced him in comments. All positive, with perky little emojis.
The third woman went to the community college nearby. Eighteen. That put her at seventeen when she made the video, maybe younger. Lila remembered being that age and not being nearly as savvy and wise as she thought she was.
This young woman recorded every moment of her life in photos and videos. Up until the month before, she showed off products she bought and modeled new clothes. She had big group photos and some with her and a few friends. None of her older high school photos or information suggested she was on the field hockey team. She never mentioned Aaron or popped up in photos with him.
There were comments on some of the clothing photos about going out with her “secret” boyfriend. She would have been a senior at the time. Last year. In her world, likely the equivalent of decades away from where she was now.
Over the last few weeks, the photo subjects changed. She posted inspirational quotes almost daily, along with pictures of her school apartment and complaints about the cost of textbooks.
Regardless of when the posts were dated, in every photo she wore her straight blond hair down, flowing over her shoulders. The realization made Lila wince. She could hear Aaron’s voice talking about how women should have long hair, not short. They should let it grow . . . as if their hair were for his pleasure only.
Lila tried to ignore that as she sat in the driver’s seat of her car with her hair pulled up in a bun. The college had a few visitor spots close to the admissions building, and she parked in one. The position gave her a front-row seat to watch.
Lila knew from the other woman’s posts that she often came here and sat by this tree. Today the surveillance worked. Sitting this far away, Lila couldn’t really make out her face. Not when she was looking down, reading or studying but definitely not paying attention to the two guys behind her who kept glancing her way. But it was her. Blond and very pretty. Big brown eyes and a round face that Lila knew could light up with a smile.
The live version seemed more serious, more involved in school. This was the second time Lila had come looking for her, and both times the woman had sat alone. Gone were the big crowds and high school T-shirts.
Lila debated talking with her. Going up and introducing herself and assuring the woman none of what had happened was her fault. Because this wasn’t about adultery or making Aaron pay in a divorce. This was about ensuring he took responsibility for hurting this woman, for playing with her emotions and taking advantage of her.
On some level, Lila also needed to know the younger woman was okay. That she hadn’t been too late to notice something terrible happening from inside her house like she had been all those years ago with her father and Amelia.
She opened her car door but then shut it again. The woman could be angry or, worse, think she was actually in love with Aaron . . . or vice versa. She might not want help or revenge. There were so many “ifs” and worries and things that could go wrong.
Aaron would pay. Lila just had to figure out if she needed this woman to make that happen.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Present Day
BY THE NEXT MORNING, TELEVISION TRUCKS AND REPORTERS had camped out at the end of Lila’s driveway. She was surprised it had taken them this long.
She could see her neighbors scurry away from the fray if she watched out her front window, so she closed the curtains and didn’t look. Instead, she sat at her kitchen island and tried to think of a new plan. The not knowing what came next plagued her. She had allies she’d never expected, like Cassie, and doubters that took her by surprise, like Brent.
Through it all, Aaron hovered in the background, waiting to pounce. She didn’t understand the delay. Even if he weren’t close enough to watch every moment, the notes suggested he was nearby. He had to know she was under siege. He’d relish that. Seeing her squirm and panic.
Tobias stayed with her. He grabbed groceries to save her from a potential battle with the public. Jared came by, but now, seven days out from disappearance day, she’d become a shut-in with the alarm set, the news permanently off, and a makeshift weapon nearby at all times.
If Aaron’s goal was to slowly make her unravel, that she could
understand. Only by force of sheer will did that not happen. She focused all of her energy on staying up and moving. Anxiety crashed over her, sending her to the floor of her closet last night, but she rode through it. He would not win by pounding her mentally and physically into the ground.
If he wanted to pop up and insist she tried to kill him, she’d bring out the videos. The extra set sat in a safety deposit box at a bank thirty miles away in an institution she otherwise didn’t use for banking. She had made arrangements for them to automatically be released to the police and press if anything happened to her.
Mutually assured destruction. That was the plan. It might not be perfect, but if she was going down, then people would know why. After every single piece of dirty laundry got aired, they could decide if her vigilante justice was so wrong after all.
What she really wanted was for his body to turn up and for the games to stop. She’d planned this to give herself an out, and she wanted to take it. Running without answers would leave everything undone. But a part of her thought it might be time to hand over the videos and tell the truth.
She glanced over at Tobias. He lounged on the couch with a mountain of paperwork around him. He’d suffered through meetings with other lawyers in the area about strategy. He’d met with Jared. Tobias had even managed to sweet-talk Brent into admitting Aaron had never said anything that would suggest Lila did something to him.
His meeting with Ginny was, as he described it, bumpy. Lila would have been disappointed in Ginny if Tobias had any other reaction.
“The police aren’t telling us what, if anything, they’ve found.” Worries about Aaron getting in the house and planting something incriminating swam in her head from day one.
Tobias snorted. “You haven’t been arrested. Take that as your answer.”
Lila could see him winding up to ask a series of questions. She couldn’t blame him. If this spun out, he’d need as much information as possible to defend her. There was a limit on what she would say. She refused to drag anyone deeper into her decisions, but she could divulge the things that had put her on her current course.