The Two Lila Bennetts

by Fenton, Liz

  “Okay, let me think about it,” she says. “I’m definitely intrigued.”

  “Good. But there are two things you’ll have to be okay with.”

  “What?”

  “The fridge is always stocked with sugar and carbs. Which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.”

  “Okay, I can handle that. What’s the second?”

  “Most of the clients are probably guilty.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Janelle tilts her head back and laughs, and I join in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THURSDAY

  CAPTURED

  Q nudges me awake. Although I wasn’t asleep, I’d been floating in between the darkness of my reality and the lightness of my dreams.

  “Sit up,” I hear Q demand.

  I don’t move. I don’t open my eyes. I am through playing his games. I don’t think I’m scared to die anymore.

  He shakes my shoulder. “Lila.” The pitch of his voice doesn’t rise, but with my eyes squeezed shut, I’m able to detect the small shake in his speech. Wondering if I’m dead. If he’s pushed me too far. His warm fingers grasp my wrist, and I hear him exhale as he detects my weak pulse. “Come on.” He nudges me once more, gentler this time. I can feel him close to my face. “I brought some food and water for you,” he whispers and pulls me upright.

  I force my heavy eyelids open as he cuts the bindings on my ankles. He sets a sub sandwich on the ground next to me with a small bottle of water. I look at it blankly. I don’t want to eat. Drink. I want to be done.

  Q grabs the hoagie and brings it to my lips. “Eat,” he commands. I shake my head. “Dammit,” he swears under his breath. “I’m not a fucking babysitter,” he adds, glancing over his right shoulder at the camera. “Lila,” he says, sharper this time. “You need food.”

  “Why?” I mutter, my voice sounding foreign. “You’re going to kill me anyway. I overheard your conversation earlier. Can’t we get it over with?”

  He doesn’t take my bait. Instead, he pulls something out of his pocket. I stare hard, blinking several times. It’s a cell phone. “I’m going to let you make a call.”

  I shoot a look at the camera. The red light is still blinking, watching. “You’re letting me go?” I ask tentatively.

  Q laughs loudly, his eyes shining from behind the mask. “No, Princess. You’re misunderstanding. You aren’t going anywhere. But you still have some work to do.” He cups the phone with his large hand. “We’re going to ring Stephanie.”

  It takes my mind a second to register what he has said. “Vivian’s sister?” Is she the one behind all this, as I had originally suspected? “She wants to talk to me?” I ask.

  “I doubt it. She hates your guts,” Q says and removes a piece of tattered paper from his pocket, punching the numbers into the phone. “But you’re going to let her know that you’re sorry you defended Jeremiah and got him off. You’re going to apologize, because you knew the entire time that he was guilty.”

  “No.”

  “What did you say to me?” Q pulls a gun out of the waistband of his red track pants.

  I stare at the barrel, but my breath remains steady. I’m ready for it all to end. Although the competitive side of me thought I would’ve lasted more than, what, four days? I look away from the pistol. “I’m done being your puppet. Do what you need to do.” I brace myself for whatever is coming next. The sound of my breath is amplified in my ears. My heart is racing. Is this how my story ends?

  Q moves to the ground in one motion. “This isn’t a choice, Lila,” he says, and I’m not sure if he’s talking about dying or making the phone call or both. Either way, I hear desperation in his tone. It’s slight, but it’s wedged in there, between the syllables. I feel his hot breath on my ear. “Please get up and make the call,” he whispers quickly. Then he pulls back and yells, “You’d better get your ass up!” in a much harsher tone.

  I drag myself to a sitting position and study him. Behind the mask I can see his eyes are soft. His eyebrows are covered, but I sense they are drawn together, that his expression is one of concern. I don’t feel his contempt for me any longer. Something has changed. Or maybe I’m imagining it, a desperate figment of my imagination in the interest of my own self-preservation.

  “Okay. I’ll do it,” I say quickly. If I’m going to die, I’d love the chance to apologize to Stephanie too, to absolve myself of one more sin. But I also feel a small spark of hope ignite within me. My call to Stephanie could let the world know I’m still alive. To look for me, not my dead body. I begin to think of ways I could use this call to save myself. I don’t know where I am. Who has me. If Ethan is behind it all. Do I tell her as much as I can before Q grabs the phone? And how will Q punish me if I do? What will his boss direct him to do? Will I lose the sliver of sympathy he seems to have developed for me? “I’m not sure what you want me to say to her. I never found any evidence he was guilty.”

  Q holds the phone to his chest. “But you know he was. You didn’t put him on the stand. Isn’t that your move when you think someone is guilty?”

  “What?” I ask. I’ve said that exact thing to someone before. I close my eyes and force my mind to dig through the darkness. Was it Ethan? Sam? Carrie? “No. There are a ton of reasons you keep someone off.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Q says briskly. “Listen to me—all you’re gonna do is apologize and tell her why you are sorry. Nothing more. If you try to say anything else, I will shoot you before you can tell her anything that will help. And I have to warn you, it won’t be through the head or heart. I’m thinking knee? Foot maybe? So expect pain.” He says the words, but they don’t hold the intensity they once did. It’s as if he’s reading a script.

  Before I can think about it more, he presses a button, then holds the phone out. It’s black and nondescript, not the one I saw him speaking on earlier. Probably a burner. The police won’t be able to trace it—and that’s if Stephanie reports to the authorities that she talked to me. A dart of fear penetrates me. What if she doesn’t tell them or anyone else? Does her hate for me run that deep? It’s possible she might take pleasure in my situation. Her sister’s dead. Maybe she wants me dead too? The phone begins to ring. He has it on speaker. My chest feels like it might explode when I hear Stephanie’s airy voice say hello.

  “Stephanie?” I say, my eyes darting around the room. Looking for what? A clue that’s suddenly going to appear, indicating where I am? My surroundings are still the same concrete walls. The heavy metal door is still locked. Q is still wearing a mask. The camera light continues to blink.

  “This is she,” Stephanie says, snapping me back to our call. It sounds as if she’s in the middle of something. I can hear water running, dishes clanking.

  “This is Lila Bennett.” I say the words slowly. Talking to someone on the outside—even Stephanie—is as close to freedom as I’m probably ever going to get. I wish I knew what to say—a message I could somehow send—that would help me without getting me shot.

  The water turns off. “Lila? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “I wish,” I say. “It’s really me. Lila Bennett.” I say my name again to make sure she understands. “I’ve called to apologize,” I continue.

  “Then this can’t be Lila Bennett. She would never apologize.” Stephanie laughs lightly.

  “It’s me. It really is,” I say desperately, looking at Q, who nods at me to keep talking.

  “Nice try. Lila Bennett is missing. No one has heard from her in days. The police were here yesterday asking if I knew anything about it.”

  So the police are investigating.

  “I’ll prove it. You confronted me on the courthouse steps after the trial.”

  “Anyone could have seen that.”

  I look at Q, who mouths the words, Say I’m sorry. I put my pointer finger up, asking for another minute.

  I try again. “You told me karma was a bitch and you had no doubt I’d get mine,” I say, the words st
ill crystal clear. I’ve rolled them over and over in my mind so many times while here, wondering if she was right. That karma finally found me.

  Stephanie gasps. “Lila? Oh my God. Where are you?”

  The concern in her voice shocks me.

  The word kidnapped sits on my tongue, poised for takeoff. But Q still has the barrel of the gun pointed toward me. I don’t want him to pull the trigger. Can I take the risk that he won’t?

  Q is frozen in place, watching me intently. I think of the risk he and his boss are taking by letting me make this call in the first place. It makes no sense. Why? Is it that vital to them that I right my wrongs? No matter their motivation, it’s clear I don’t have much time left before I die, and it’s now important to me as well.

  “I’ve called about Jeremiah. I could never prove that he killed Vivian, but I felt all along in my heart that he did. I’m sorry I represented him. I’m sorry I helped get him off for the murder of your sister. I’m so very sorry.” And the truth is, I am. As I apologize, I feel that knot in my throat come loose. I sniff hard to hold the avalanche of tears back, but it’s useless.

  “Lila, what is going on? Tell me,” Stephanie pleads. “Maybe I can help.”

  My heart leaps at her kindness. “You can’t. Please accept my apology,” I beg, and not just because my life may depend on it. I also crave her forgiveness in the rawest of ways. If I really am to die soon, it would bring me peace to have received it.

  “I do.” She sighs. “I know you were doing your job. That you’re not the one who killed her. And I’ll never move on with my life if I can’t come to terms with that, or at least that’s what my mom keeps telling me. To forgive.” Her voice breaks a little.

  “My mom offers similar advice,” I muse through my tears, thinking of her. Wondering where she is. Has she slept? Is she camped out in the chief’s office asking him what new information he has about my disappearance?

  “Lila, quickly, tell me where you are. Who you’re with.” Stephanie’s voice is barely a whisper, as if she can intuit someone is listening. “I want to—”

  Q pushes me hard in the small of my back and rips the phone away. “That’s enough. This is not a coffee date!” He seethes quietly.

  “It’s possible it’s Ethan, my husband—please, I’m being held—” I yell out as Q hangs up the phone. I’m not sure how much of that she heard, if anything. I’m not sure she’d do anything with the information anyway. But I had one chance to let someone know, to possibly make it out of here alive, and I had to take it.

  Q moves closer to me, his finger hovering over the trigger of the gun.

  “It is Ethan, isn’t it?” I accuse, thinking of the many conversations we’ve had about Jeremiah. My uneasiness with the case. It all makes sense now. “Ethan!” I yell up to the camera. “I know why you did this. And I’m sorry. So sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know!” I begin to sob again, loud and messy, my stomach muscles tensing with each burst of emotion. How did I get here—convinced my husband did this to me? My exhaustion, hunger, and fear all join into a huge force, and I feel myself melting into the dirty concrete. Literally hitting rock bottom.

  Q’s other phone rings, and he pulls it back out, looking at the screen. “Yeah,” he answers and is silent for a moment before ending the call and observing me for several seconds. Finally he speaks in a reserved tone. “He wants you to know you did this to yourself.”

  And then my heart leaps from my chest as I hear the deafening crack of the bullet rocketing out of his gun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  FRIDAY

  FREE

  I jolt upright in bed, breathing hard. My hand instinctively reaches to the left side of the mattress where Ethan’s head used to poke out from under our silk sheets. But I’m alone to process the nightmare I woke from.

  I was in a concrete room. Dirty and disheveled. Bleeding. Hopeless. It was so real—I could feel my breath begin to grow more shallow with each intake of air. Two dark shadows stood over me. The last thing I could remember before I tore myself awake was the blinking red light of a camera.

  The feeling of dread follows me into the shower. It refuses to peel off as I scrub my skin with my loofah until it’s as red as the blinking light that haunts me. It feels like there’s not enough hot water in the world to rinse it off. I exit the shower and wrap myself in my lavender robe, the one Ethan gifted me for my thirtieth birthday. It’s thick and cozy, but it makes me sweat if I wear it after March. But Ethan had insisted that there would be days that I’d crave the comfort of it.

  Today is one of those days.

  I have important tasks to handle, and I can’t afford to be distracted by an errant nightmare. First up is Jeremiah, then Sam, then the Greenwood preliminary hearing. A trifecta to end my old life, needed in order to plant the seeds for my next one. I’m terrified, of course. But there’s a buzz of excitement as well, like a baby taking her very first steps. Unsure and wobbly at first, trying in vain to find her balance before she realizes how easy it really is. Then confidence. And finally, joy.

  My phone buzzes with a text from Chase, asking me what time I’ll be in. Be there in an hour, I text back and set my phone down, staring into the mirror. “You’ve got this, Lila.”

  I nod at Chase as I walk past his desk fifty-two minutes later. I’m never late, though I’m usually right under the wire. But not today. Today I need every spare minute I can get. “We need to talk,” I say, and he follows me in, shutting the door behind him. I sit at my desk and fill him in on my meeting with Janelle, and I say that I’m not taking Jeremiah’s case. And then I tell him the hardest part of all. Because I will miss working with him.

  “Quitting?” He laughs. “You’ve never quit anything in your damn life. Where are the cameras?” He looks around.

  I see that blinking red light again and shake it away. When I don’t so much as crack a smile, he runs his hand over his smooth hair. “Oh. You’re serious.”

  “Yep,” I say, getting up from the chair behind my desk and sitting next to him instead. “This is real.”

  “This feels like a major knee-jerk reaction to the attack earlier this week. Ethan leaving you,” he says, turning his chair so it faces me, his forehead wrinkled with concern. “It’s been an insane couple of days. Maybe you should think this through more.”

  “I have, trust me.” I offer him a sad smile. “I think it’s been a long time coming.”

  “But, Lila Bennett, this is who you are. The one who makes the tough calls. Does what needs to be done,” he says, and I know he doesn’t mean it the way it sounds. That being a conscience-challenged attorney is my identity. But the words still strike me hard and reaffirm my decision.

  “I don’t want to be that Lila Bennett anymore.”

  “But who am I going to shoe shop for now?” He smiles awkwardly and shifts in his seat.

  “I’m quitting, not moving to another country!” I laugh. “We’re always going to be friends. But depending on where I end up next, there’s a chance I won’t be able to afford four-hundred-dollar pairs of shoes anymore. You might have to start shopping for my footwear at DSW.”

  He gasps, then puts the back of his hand against his forehead. But it seems forced. “Never.” He smiles. “I’m going to stay here, though,” he adds. “I hope you understand.”

  “Of course,” I say. “You have an incredible future ahead of you. You’ll do it the right way. And if the person I’m recommending takes this job, the two of you will be a force.”

  Chase leans in. “I still can’t believe you’re leaving.”

  “I can’t stay here. I’ve changed too much.”

  Chase eyeballs me. “I’m happy for you, but do you think it will stick? It’s only been a few days. How do you know you won’t sink back into who you used to be?”

  I think a moment before answering. “Only time will tell. But I have no interest in being that person. I can only have faith in that.”

  “I’ve never been a big believer in fai
th. I’ve always thought actions speak louder.”

  I smile. “Well, maybe I’ll have to prove myself on both counts.”

  “Maybe you will,” he says quietly. “Have you considered that whoever sent Ethan those pictures and Janelle that email might want you to quit this job? That you’re playing right into their hands?”

  I take a deep breath, not sure I can find the words. “At some point I have to stop running from myself, from all the half truths and missteps and selfishness. Is there someone out there who clearly wants me to atone for the things I’ve done? Yes. And have they gone about it the very worst way? Definitely.” I think about how this person has dismantled my life brick by brick, how they’ve expertly exhumed every single skeleton from my past. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I need to own my mistakes.”

  “Never thought I’d see the day. Lila Bennett, deconstructed.” Chase smiles. “But I’m proud of you that you’re so committed to being good.” He nods at me, looks down for a moment, then back up. “And don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to miss that bad girl in you too. If she really is going on hiatus?” He winks.

  I smile back at him. “She is going on a very long vacation with a one-way ticket!”

  “Somewhere exotic, I hope. Jamaica?”

  “Farther. I’m thinking Indonesia. Bali!”

  “Oh, tell her to bring me back a handmade rattan messenger bag.”

  I smile at him sadly. I will miss him and his wicked sense of humor.

  I think about all of the people who would celebrate that Lila being shipped off to some remote island and reluctantly come to terms with the fact that whoever is uprooting my life has to be someone I care for deeply. A person to whom I’ve entrusted the darkest parts of myself.