The Two Lila Bennetts

by Fenton, Liz

I told him another call was coming in, and I had to take it. That I’d give him an answer by Friday. I know how it will look if I quit on him now. Will people think I no longer believe he’s innocent? I don’t want to condemn him. But what if I did agree to be his lawyer? How could I face Stephanie in court each day? And if I have to look at the case again—in the detail it would require—what will I find? I didn’t discover anything today, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Not to mention what Stephanie’s lawyers might uncover the second time around.

  My house is completely dark save for the soft glow of the lamp in the entry. I reach down to remove my heels and rub my throbbing feet. Out of nowhere I feel a burning sensation in my ankles, and the pain slithers up my legs. I sit down on the pine bench we picked up at a flea market last summer and grimace, the heat burning my calves. But suddenly the pain disappears almost as fast as it came. What caused it, I wonder? I start to grab for my phone so I can google it when I think I hear a sound. I freeze, holding my breath, waiting. But I don’t hear anything else. I wait a few more beats and still nothing. So I get up and head down the pitch-black hallway to the kitchen, stumbling slightly on a trash bag Ethan must have forgotten to take to the curb. I feel for the light on the wall of the hallway, and my finger hovers over the switch. A slice of moonlight coming in from a window in the living room reveals a shadowy figure at the end of the hall. My heart starts jackhammering in my chest.

  My assailant is back.

  How did he get inside? The front door was locked when I came in, I’m sure of it. My heart thrusting against my rib cage, I tiptoe back toward the entryway and grab the first thing I see—my shoe—and hold it up with the spiked heel facing the intruder. I press my back up against the wall, hoping he didn’t see me. Suddenly the light flips on, and I scream reflexively. It takes me a moment before I realize it’s Ethan.

  “You scared me,” I say, trying to catch my breath.

  “I live here, don’t I?”

  “Of course,” I say, caught off guard by his tone. “The house was so dark, and I thought . . .” I stop midsentence when I see Ethan’s pinched expression. Then I notice he’s fully dressed and wearing his shoes, something we never do in the house.

  He folds his arms across his chest and stares at me for several seconds.

  “Did I do something? Did I wake you?” I ask, wondering why he isn’t giving me a pass for being jumpy—especially after what happened to me last night.

  “Nope—don’t usually sleep in my shoes.”

  “Okay, then, what’s wrong?” I ask, dropping my heel next to its mate on the floor.

  He leans against the wall and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them he gives me a hard look, as if trying to see through me. Finally he speaks, slowly, as if he’s not sure I will understand him if he doesn’t. “I’m going to ask you something. And I’m only going to ask once. I need you to be honest with me.”

  “Okay,” I say, my heart starting to race again.

  He knows. I shake my head slightly. Deny. Deny. Deny. He can’t have any proof, only suspicions. I can talk my way out of this.

  “Lila, please do not lie to me.”

  “I won’t. I would never,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

  He cocks his head at me. He thinks I’ve already lied.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. It could be something else. Maybe he found the credit card bill for the $500 pair of shoes Chase talked me into buying last month. God, please let it be that.

  “Are you having an affair with Sam?”

  “What?” I say, widening my eyes to show my shock.

  “You heard me.”

  I weigh my options. I could tell him everything right now, but then I’d lose him. I know he will never stay with me if he knows the truth. And if he has a suspicious text message or an email, there’s nothing I can’t spin. Sam is my boss. We work together a lot. We see each other outside of the office—for work. We are also friends. He’s my best friend’s husband. I study Ethan’s face. He’s angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Not Jeremiah angry, but really, really pissed off. But there’s no way he could know for sure.

  “Answer me, Lila.”

  “No,” I say.

  He frowns, his face falling. He walks out of the room and comes back with the same beat-up roller bag he’s had since I met him—gray with brown pleather seams. He opens the front door and starts to walk out but then turns around. My stomach flips—he’s not going to leave. Right? We’re going to talk this out? He’ll give me a chance to explain?

  “Oh, I almost forgot to give you these . . .” He bends down and unzips the outer pocket of the suitcase. He slides out a navy-blue envelope with white trim and tosses it on the table. “I really wish you hadn’t lied to me. Maybe we would have had a chance if you’d told the truth. If you know what that is anymore,” he says, then holds my gaze for several beats.

  My voice is caught somewhere in my throat as I watch him leave me. I have wondered several times over the last six months what this moment might look like. Fear inching in during the times Sam and I were careless, paranoia that someone saw something, that Ethan would discover us. But it always felt a bit out of reach, as if I were in a dreamlike state, unable to imagine what it would actually feel like to have it happen. I could never have understood the searing pain that would rip me apart as Ethan walked away. How powerless it would feel.

  He sails through the door and slams it so hard, our wedding picture hanging on the wall shakes and almost falls. I steady it and walk slowly to the envelope. I touch the outside lightly, afraid of what the inside holds. Scared of how my life will change the instant I open it. I shake my head slightly. I let my guard down. And I’ve lost my husband as a result.

  My gut tells me what’s inside. But still, I have to look. Slowly I pull out the contents: two eight-by-ten photographs of Sam and me. They are both from two nights ago when I broke up with him—he has his hand tipped under my chin and is kissing me, his eyes shut, mine open wide. It’s from the parking garage—that same night. Right before I pushed him away and reminded him of the cameras above, of the people who could walk out and catch us. It is unmistakably us. Unmistakably Sam kissing me. And it does not appear that I’m trying to stop him. Even though I did. I think of the irony—that Ethan had me followed the same night I broke things off with Sam. If only it had been one day later. If only Ethan understood that it had been our last kiss. That I had chosen him, albeit a little too late.

  I fling the door open and call after him. “Wait, Ethan.”

  He’s about a half block down but turns, and I feel a burst of hope that he is going to come back, talk this through.

  I run to the bottom of the stairs and onto the sidewalk. “Did you know, before the pictures?” I ask. “Because your new book, about the cheating wife . . .” I let my voice trail off.

  Ethan lets out a shrill laugh, and a man jogging by looks over. “I thought about that.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Fuck, maybe part of me knew. Always knew that you were capable of this. Knew that our marriage was on the brink. Knew that you didn’t have the patience to ride it out. So maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something—trying to tell me to get my head out of the sand.”

  “Ethan—”

  Ethan holds up his hand. “Stop. There’s nothing more to say,” he says and turns down the sidewalk, away from me and our life together.

  I fall to my knees and start to cry, the pictures scattering to the ground. A woman walking her apricot poodle stops when she sees me and asks me if I’m okay. “Yes, I’m fine, sorry,” I say as I stare at the photos until they blur.

  But I’m not okay. It’s just another lie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WEDNESDAY

  CAPTURED

  “I have a present for you,” Q says when he returns later. It hasn’t been long. Maybe an hour? He nudges me much harder in the side than before. “Get up.”

  I flinch when his sneaker makes contact with my
rib cage and try to touch my chest, but the cuffs pull hard on the raw skin of my wrists. “Can’t you take these off?” I ask, still in the fetal position but holding my hands out in front of me. “It’s not like without them I’ll be able to escape.” I eye the heavy door.

  “Nope,” he says simply.

  “I need to use the restroom again,” I say, my cheek still pressed against the floor.

  “Oh well. You need a bath too, but you ain’t going to get that either.” Q smirks.

  I push myself up so I’m leaning on my right forearm, then roll into a seated position. It takes an embarrassingly long amount of time.

  Q watches me, his tough-guy stance in full effect—his shoulders are pressed back, his hands balled into fists at his sides. His mission is clear—to make me pay. But who set him on this path?

  Stephanie? Sam? Janelle? Franklin?

  Carrie? That possibility pains me to think.

  Adam from work? I haven’t considered him before, but he and I have always been rivals. And this would be something I could see him doing. I always thought he seemed like a man who would do anything to further himself. As the minutes clipped by, sometimes lightning fast and at other times painstakingly slow, everyone has begun to look like a suspect.

  My bladder burns, and I glance at the bucket. “Then can you turn around so I can go,” I say matter-of-factly. “Please,” I add.

  To my surprise, his shoulders relax, and his eyes don’t look as hard. “I’ll take you down the hall,” he says, then pulls me up, and we walk toward the door. My legs are wobbly from the absence of movement, my head light from lack of food and water.

  “Make it quick,” he says when we reach the bathroom.

  As I sit on the dirty toilet seat, I try to come up with a plan. Can I use my cuffs to knock him out? It’s doubtful. I might hurt him a little, but he’d immediately retaliate. And what would that look like? Maybe I could knee him in the groin? But with my ankles bound, I’m not sure I could. And if by some miracle I did succeed in getting away from him, how long before the person watching through the camera noticed? Before Q got up and followed me? Could I get to his knife? His gun? I hit a brick wall with every idea. I know the only way I’d have a fraction of a chance is if I could get him to remove the cuffs and the ankle bindings. But the odds would still be stacked against me.

  When I come out of the bathroom no closer to a plan, he’s squinting at something on his phone. He types quickly, and I try to see who he is writing to, but he pulls it away before I can. “Knock it off.” He gives me a shove, and I stumble forward. “That’s for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Sorry,” I grumble.

  “You should be.” Then he lowers his voice almost to a whisper. “Listen, don’t do shit like that, you hear me? Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” He stares at me, and I’m so close, I can see the spatters of gold in his eyes.

  Is he sending me a message? If he is, I have only one shot to say something impactful—to make him doubt the person behind that camera.

  I lean in and drop my voice to a whisper. “But you would be the one to have to kill me, right?”

  “Right.” I think I see something flicker in his eyes.

  “So why you?”

  “Because.”

  “But you’ll be the one who goes to prison.”

  “If I’m caught.”

  “When.”

  “What makes you so sure?” His voice lacks its normal confidence.

  “Are you already in the system, Q?”

  He shrugs. “What’s it to you?”

  “Your prints are everywhere. You’ve worn a mask, but not gloves. They’ll track you down if you have priors.”

  “What makes you think they’ll find this place at all?”

  “They will. Because here’s what the person you’re working with has failed to realize. Whether the LAPD actually cares if I’m found or not doesn’t matter. What’s important is they’ve held a press conference. The public knows about the case. The LAPD will take so much shit if they don’t solve it.”

  Q looks as if he hasn’t considered this.

  “Listen, you can still get out of this. I don’t know who you are. Let me go, and I promise I won’t tell anyone where I was. I’ll say I can’t remember anything.”

  “What do you think this is right now?” He shakes his head. “That suddenly we’re besties? Because I told you not to be stupid?”

  “No—but I don’t think you’re a killer.”

  “You don’t know shit about me. About the things I’m willing to do,” he says, but there’s something in his voice. I’ve clearly hit a nerve.

  “Okay,” I say, shrugging. “I guess I was wrong—I got the impression you were trying to protect me.”

  “Well, I wasn’t.” He pushes me into the room and locks the door behind us. The sound of the latch instantly makes a pit form in my stomach. But I also feel hopeful. Because, despite what he said, Q showed me a part of himself. I don’t think he’s convinced that killing me is the solution. So if I can work on him, use that sliver of doubt that’s inside him to my advantage, maybe, just maybe, I can get out of here.

  “Like I said earlier, I have a present for you.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” I say sarcastically.

  He takes off his backpack and unzips it. I watch as he pulls out a blue envelope with white trim. As I stare at it, I get a sense of déjà vu. As if I’ve seen it before. But why? At work, we only use manila or white. Never blue. As he unfastens the brackets on the back, there’s something about this envelope that’s sparking a memory. He reaches inside. I sense that it’s something that will tie me to Sam.

  But how could I possibly know that?

  He thrusts a piece of paper in front of my face. I have to pull my head back to see it clearly.

  It’s a photograph of Sam tipping my chin and kissing me in the parking garage at work.

  “You took this?”

  He nods. “Right before I followed you to the restaurant.”

  “You were watching us?”

  He nods. “Had been for a while. You really should use your blinker more, by the way. It’s not safe to just turn like that.”

  “What do you plan to do with this?”

  “Oh, Lila. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” He turns the picture around and looks at it. “You really do have a thing for Sam. It’s so clear.” He shows it to me again, points it at my face. “I think it’s his power that attracts you.”

  That’s true. But how does Q know it? How much time do you have to spend observing someone to see beyond their actions and into the motivation behind them?

  “How long have you been watching me?” I ask.

  Q laughs. “Does it matter?” He waves the pictures like a fan. “You’ve got bigger problems than my stalking timeline to deal with.”

  I feel dizzy. It takes me a moment before I can speak.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I sent them. The pictures.”

  “To whom?” I ask, but I know. I see Ethan walking to the mailbox and turning the key. Unsuspecting that his life is about to change in one instant. Carrie. Sifting through the stack of mail in her kitchen. Stopping when she sees one she doesn’t recognize. Opening it, her marriage, her life, everything imploding in that moment.

  “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you know the two people who received a copy,” Q says. “So why don’t you tell me the names of the lucky recipients of this photograph, Lila.”

  “Does it matter at this point?” I say, my voice low. First Janelle and my reputation. Now this. My marriage and my closest friendship, destroyed. If escape is possible, I’ll have nothing left once I’m free. Maybe that has been the plan all along.

  “It does matter.” Q steps closer. “Say their names.”

  “Ethan,” I say, lowering my gaze.

  “Ah yes. The soon-to-be ex-husband! I have to admit, he puts up with a lot of shit from you. But he won’t stan
d for this.”

  I nod. He’s right. This will shatter Ethan’s fragile ego. He always told me loyalty is the most important gift one person can give another. I guess a part of me always thought his love for me was indestructible, that the fact that I’ve muddled through the highs and lows of his moods made me infallible. How arrogant I’ve been.

  “And?” Q prompts.

  “Carrie,” I mutter. “Sam’s wife.”

  “And don’t forget she’s also your best friend! Although I’m thinking she’ll now be your ex-best friend.” He points to the photo. “Because this shit breaks all kinds of girl code.” He leans close to my face, and I can smell the spearmint gum he’s chewing. “Do you fuck over every single person who cares about you?”

  I open my mouth to speak, but he places a finger over my lips. “Don’t answer that. It was rhetorical.” Q walks to the door and looks back one more time. “Consider life as you knew it to be over.”

  For the first time, I know he’s not talking about killing me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WEDNESDAY

  FREE

  I tighten my grasp around the bottle of the Prisoner as I raise it to my lips. I skipped the formality of a glass after Ethan stormed out, screwing off the cork and sinking onto our worn caramel leather couch, the one we bought on a whim six years ago shortly after getting married. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other that day, the sales associate at the store trying not to stare as we kissed on the sofa.

  I close my eyes now and remember the way it had felt to lie between the sheets with Ethan, moving my hands toward his bare chest instinctively when I woke. I try to recall the desire I felt. It burned hot within me for how long? When did I start to turn away instead of reaching for him? Time is interesting that way. How did it slip through my fingers without me noticing? And now here I am, forced to face the present—the reality that it’s been years since I desired Ethan in a real way. The passion I once felt for him fell away slowly at first, and then it disappeared, almost as if it had never been there. And yes, I could blame my relationship with Sam. It certainly hasn’t helped to have someone else occupying my thoughts and often my dreams as I lay next to Ethan, my conscience betraying him even when my body wasn’t.