by Darby Kane
Lila froze. “You didn’t.”
She waited for Christina to laugh her comment off as a joke . . . but she didn’t. Lila’s amusement faded. Stunned respect took its place.
“Of course I did.” Christina’s bracelets jangled as she moved her hand around in the air. “Screw the people in charge who prioritize the rights of the pedophile over the rights of the kids to be secure and alive.”
Lila rubbed her forehead, trying to fight off a building headache. “I’ve spent close to two months trying to wrap my head around the man he really was.”
“Months?”
Lila closed her eyes at the slip. When she opened them again, she smiled. “I meant weeks.”
“Did you?”
All those feelings welling inside her, the same ones she tried to tamp down—anger and frustration, disappointment and surprise, the lack of regret when she turned on that gas and watched Aaron drift off forever, how she felt nothing when his body was found but surprise that someone stabbed him—bubbled up and poured over. She tried not to think about the twisting and turning inside her or talk about it because she couldn’t. But for that one moment, she let the words slip out.
“I thought I’d feel relieved,” she whispered into the quiet room.
“He ripped your life apart.” Christina sighed. “Blame him, not you.”
Christina always knew the right thing to say.
Lila never put much stock in friendship, even female ones. The one thing she’d learned over the last few weeks was that she’d been wrong not to take the lifeline when some women reached out over the years. Some people did deserve her trust.
Chapter Fifty
ROLAND WANDERED INTO GINNY’S OFFICE JUST BEFORE EIGHT with Chinese food. The smell had her head snapping up and her stomach growling.
He didn’t lecture her about her work hours or cause a fuss. He sat down across from her and started unloading the white containers.
“You retain your title as best husband in the world.”
“Of course I do.” He handed her a set of chopsticks. “And this is the part where I remind you that you—your work—is responsible for finding Karen and returning her to her parents. You did an amazing thing and have earned a night of rest. Everything else, all the other details, can wait.”
He knew what ate at her, the failures that poked and tore at her. He always knew. “Finding her now, after all this time, doesn’t feel as great as you think. It’s little consolation to her family.”
“Ginny, that’s not true. You brought her home. You gave them closure.”
She tried to open the carton, but her fingers tapped against the cardboard, not getting the leverage she needed to get the job done. “I was too late. We spun around in circles, looking for Aaron, thinking he was a victim, and—”
“You said the initial report is that Karen was killed before Aaron.” He took the carton of chicken and broccoli from her and opened it before sitting it in front of her. “That means you couldn’t have saved her if you were faster or smarter, neither of which you could have been. You worked this case hard from the beginning.”
She dug around the broccoli with her chopsticks. “I doubt Charles will see it that way.”
“He has a severe case of political nearsightedness. That’s not new.”
He was talking about the case a few years back. Another killer. One she’d figured out, but Charles and the man who held her job before her didn’t listen to her theories. Her suspect was a wealthy businessman who gave money in elections. She got shouted down and, instead of rallying, played the good soldier and took the back seat, and a young wife died. Finding Karen’s body brought all of those failure feelings rushing back.
Ginny glanced out at the main room outside of her glassed-in office and lowered her voice. “He’s worked more hours making sure our office got credit for finding Karen than I’ve seen him work on any case ever.”
“There’s a reason he hired you. You’re the one who gets in the muck and works.” He winked at her. “Ah, there it is. Your first smile in days.”
“Now I need to figure out who killed the killer.” But a part of her knew. She’d sensed the truth since the first time she met Lila.
Circumstance put them on opposite sides in this case, but she’d been fascinated with Lila’s façade from the beginning. Her indifference and total inability to fake caring about her husband’s fate, even though that turned up the spotlight on her, caught Ginny by surprise. She didn’t see Lila as vicious or psychotic. She saw a smart woman who’d been treading water her entire life and no one had bothered to throw her a life preserver.
“You will make sense of the case,” Roland said then stopped when he saw the look on her face. “What’s with the shrug?”
“Lila was involved. She either did it or acted with someone else—the boyfriend, maybe.”
“So you dedicate time to tracking her and proving that—” Roland’s voice cut off. “Another shrug.”
Ginny knew because she’d given the spiel to countless members of law enforcement and her boss over the last twenty-four hours. “There’s no forensic evidence that puts Lila or Ryan in that cabin. We should have found Lila’s DNA in Aaron’s car since they are married, but someone wiped it clean. Not even a stray hair.”
“Maybe Aaron had a partner who turned on him.”
The possibility kept kicking around in her head. It was one that let Lila off the hook, made her irrelevant in Aaron’s disappearance, so every time Ginny went there her brain rebelled. “Possible. I’m looking into his brother and his best friend, the principal who never noticed Aaron was messing with students.”
Roland rolled his eyes. He’d made his feelings about Brent not knowing known at home. To her husband, that omission made Brent partially responsible for what happened to the students. “Whatever the answer, you’ll ferret it out.”
They fell into a comfortable silence. The kind that comes with years of marriage and knowing every tick and bug the other person has.
After a few minutes of shifting food around in the container but not eating it, she put it down and looked at him. “What if there is a piece of me that doesn’t feel the driving need to follow this case where I think it will go?”
“Interesting.” He didn’t pretend not to understand. He got that this case had her conflicted and questioning what she believed.
“I mean, I do intend to solve it, but . . .” A strangling sound crept up her throat. “I don’t get to make the judgment calls. There’s evidence or not, and I go by that, wherever it takes me.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “But?”
“If Lila did it, I sort of get it. Her father did this unspeakable thing, then to have her husband . . .” She shook her head. “Forget it.”
She tried not to let her mind go there. How hard Lila’s life was as a kid and what happened to her back then shouldn’t change the direction of the evidence. But the background picked at Ginny. Some of the things Lila said about her mother and her thoughts on marriage. The eloquent way she spoke but how the picture she drew didn’t always fit reality. It was as if she’d been broken as a teen and never healed, and something inside Ginny rose up, wanting to get her help.
He moved the containers in front of him to the side and leaned in a little closer, as if he were sharing a big secret. “If it’s true you think she did it and can’t prove it, then I guess the question is whether you can live with that ending.”
That’s the one scenario that kept playing and replaying in her head.
He smiled at her. “And I think you just answered that.”
That’s what scared her.
Chapter Fifty-One
THE WORLD DIDN’T LOOK ANY CLEARER TO GINNY THE NEXT morning. She’d spent a sleepless night mentally running through the evidence, trying to find the hole she’d missed. More importantly, making sure she didn’t drop an obvious lead because it didn’t fit with what she thought should happen to Lila in the end.
She had a lot of t
ime to think because she’d been called back out to the cabin in the middle of nowhere. Driving there meant stopping for coffee. She’d need the caffeine to get through the ongoing search. The search Charles had told her she needed to attend because heaven forbid her face and their office not be all over the news one night this week.
Pete rolled in at his usual time, acting like this was a normal day. He wasn’t the guy who voluntarily put in extra time. He always would if she asked, but she had to ask.
He joined her on the drive, running through various theories until she started humming to shut him out of her head. Hours later they arrived and now he leaned against the front of her car. “After this, shouldn’t we bring Lila in again for questioning?”
She eyed him while she sipped on the last of her now-cold coffee. “What do you plan to ask her?”
His expression went blank. “I don’t understand.”
“You want to ask her if she killed her husband. We’ve asked that already.” She’d tried it head-on and going at it from an angle. She done it with Lila alone, before Tobias arrived, then again with him there. Pete had witnessed most of it and knew how futile it had been.
“Yeah, but things have changed.” He glanced around at the cars and people carefully walking the wooded property and taking in every detail.
“Not for her. If she killed her husband, she still goes to jail. The stakes are as high as ever.”
His expression morphed into a frown. “You saw the news. Public opinion has changed. Hell, that podcast is pushing the theory of Lila as vigilante hero. Karen Blue’s father came out and offered to testify on Lila’s behalf if the prosecutor was dumb enough to charge her. The office is getting calls making us out to be the bad guys for going after her.”
“And all of that suggests to you that we should press her harder?” They would keep at it, but his unrealistic comments had her mentally sighing. The naïve belief that politics and public opinion didn’t play a role in prosecutions would be burned out of him over time. She’d learned that early. He still hadn’t.
A member of the forensic team stuck her head out of the open front door and looked at Ginny. “We found something.”
Their focus immediately switched to the lure of potential new evidence. They stepped into the small bedroom. The bed had been shoved aside, and the boards underneath it had been removed to expose an open space. A metal box about half the size of a shoebox balanced on the edge of the opening.
“Should we wait for—”
“No.” She wasn’t in the mood for Pete and his suggestions right now. “Open it.”
The forensic analyst who alerted them opened the box. For a second all Ginny could see was her blue gloves as her fingers worked on the small hook before she peeked inside. A necklace. A hair tie. Socks. A bracelet. Other personal items that generally belonged to women.
Pete squatted down next to Ginny. “What is it?”
She’d seen this before when she’d worked on one of her first cases. A nurse who liked to “help” his older patients into the afterlife. So she knew. “Possibly trophies from his kills.”
“I don’t know much about jewelry but is that from three women?” Pete asked.
“It doesn’t look like just one.” A heaviness grew in Ginny’s chest. “Which means there probably are more bodies out here.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
LILA WASN’T IN THE MOOD FOR MORE COMPANY. SHE AND TOBIAS sat on opposite ends of the couch, not speaking. When the doorbell rang, Lila ignored it. When it rang a second time, Tobias grumbled and stood up.
“I’m not expecting anyone.” She thought that was good enough reason not to move.
“You’re a murder suspect. I’d rather not have SWAT knock a hole through your wall.” Tobias delivered the dramatic reasoning to match his dramatic sigh as he headed for the door.
Lila recognized the other voice. She didn’t run to welcome the unwanted visitor because a visit from Ginny was never good news.
“More questions?” Lila asked as soon as Ginny came into the room.
Ginny glanced back toward the now-closed front door. “You have quite a crowd of admirers out there.”
“Someone likes me.”
Tobias glared at Lila over Ginny’s head. “Where are we in the investigation?”
Lila noticed a few things at once. The envelope in Ginny’s hand and the way she dropped into the chair across from the couch, as if the muscles in her legs gave out. The exhaustion pulling around her eyes and her very serious expression.
None of that looked good.
“The forensic team took a long look at the cabin and surrounding area,” Ginny said, launching into her talk without any of the usual banter or back-and-forth she did with Lila when they talked.
“Okay.” Tobias nodded. “And?”
“Yara James wore a thin gold chain with a butterfly ornament on it. It was a gift from her godmother. It went missing when Yara did.”
A sloshing started in Lila’s stomach. A sort of rolling that built to a bucking. “You found it.”
Ginny didn’t acknowledge the comment as she looked back and forth between Lila and Tobias. “Julie Levin had this little plate with her name and a phone number on it. It fit on the laces of her hiking boots. Friends and family said she wore it as a precaution because she often went on long hikes by herself. She had it in case she got hurt or lost. She thought the tag would help anyone who found her.”
Their jewelry. Their belongings.
“Oh God.” Lila didn’t recognize her own voice, but she knew she’d said the words.
Her muscles grew heavy as reality hit and her body collapsed. The news shouldn’t have been a surprise. Once they found Karen’s body, some form of this was inevitable, but her mind sputtered and shock shook through her. She felt flu-like and achy, barely able to sit there as the truth spilled out.
“Both of those items were found in the cabin. Those weren’t the only items.” Ginny stopped to clear her throat. “The FBI is tracking the other pieces to see if they match up with any missing persons cases.”
More jewelry. Other women.
All those fishing and hunting trips when she welcomed the peace that came with having Aaron out of the house. He’d really been out there . . . doing what? Scouting women. Hurting them. Dragging them away to that cabin.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Lila doubled over in her chair with her hand over her mouth.
“I have photos of the contents of the box and was hoping you could look—”
“Maybe not now.” Tobias slid closer to Lila, with his hand rubbing up and down her back.
She didn’t want to be touched or comforted. She pulled away, trapping her body against the armrest as she struggled to breathe.
“No, it’s okay.” She had to force every image from her mind. Tangled and mashed bodies. Aaron’s smirk. “Let me see the pictures.”
Ginny hesitated for a few seconds before opening the envelope and dropping photos on the table. Each one showed a piece of jewelry or a personal item Lila had never seen. Nothing looked expensive. Just ordinary items that belonged to women who never expected that day to be their last day.
She’d hated Aaron for so many weeks. As she paged through the photos, only one thought ran through her head: I didn’t kill him soon enough.
She separated out one and slid the others across the table to Ginny. “None of these.”
Ginny’s gaze hadn’t wavered since she’d delivered her devastating news. She pointed at the one photo Lila separated out. “Is that familiar?”
Lila picked it up to get a closer look. A bracelet. Nothing fancy. A simple silver bracelet with an “A” charm on it and some scrapings on the back. “It’s the letter. Aaron’s mother’s name was Anna.”
“What are you saying?” Tobias asked as he looked at her.
Something. Nothing, really. It had to be a coincidence . . . but the moment she thought that, old doubts pricked at her. “I’ve never seen the bracelet, and the n
ame is common, but . . .”
Ginny continued to watch her. “She was killed by a hunter.”
“Yes. That’s the story.” Aaron and Jared told it. They’d profited from it by getting the trust.
Color returned to Ginny’s face. She looked more invested, more animated than when she’d first walked in. “You’re not sure the hunting story is true.”
“I don’t know what to believe. Aaron didn’t seem capable of . . .” She swept her arm over the table. “Well, any of this, when we got married.”
Was it that much of a reach to think he’d killed before they’d moved there? Back in North Carolina or when he was growing up?
“The FBI is bringing in ground-penetrating radar and other resources to survey the land around the cabin for additional bodies.” Ginny gathered the photos and put them back in the envelope.
One question hit Lila and wouldn’t retreat. “Did you figure out who owns the property?”
“Aaron.”
An off-pitch humming started in Lila’s ears. She inhaled a few times to make sure she wasn’t screaming out loud. “How is that possible?”
“It looks like he bought it under a corporate name years ago. Used trust money to do it.”
Tobias sat forward, right on the edge of the couch. “How did Jared not know that?”
“I intend to ask that question.” Ginny’s gaze switched from Tobias to Lila. “But I do wonder how you, as his wife, didn’t.”
“I had no idea. I have nothing to do with that trust.” That was the truth. The money wasn’t hers and never would be. Aaron had repeated that tidbit so many times during her marriage that she heard his mocking tone in her sleep.
“You have to admit that excuse sounds convenient.”
Ginny was a smart woman, but this part she’d gotten dead wrong. “Honestly? Nothing about being married to Aaron Payne was convenient.”
GINNY STAYED FOR another fifteen minutes. She walked through more questions and doubled back to some old favorites. Lila struggled to concentrate through all of it.
When Ginny finally left, Lila headed for the bathroom down the hall. She shut the door with a bang and turned on the faucet. For a few minutes, she stood there watching the water twirl toward the drain.