by Lisa Jackson
The fly in the ointment had been Rachel’s mother. Melinda had never been all that crazy about Lila being Rachel’s friend in the first place, and then Melinda had started to get suspicious. Melinda claimed to Rachel that she didn’t like Lila “chasing” Luke. But that was just the tip of the iceberg as she was beginning to get the idea that her husband might be infatuated with a girl barely eighteen. It hadn’t really mattered, Lila had told herself, because that marriage had already been foundering. Not really her fault. Lila had just pushed it a little faster to its inevitable conclusion. Along the way Ned had gotten jealous and weird and possessive and pissed as hell that she was still seeing Luke.
And then the night at the cannery. He’d come looking for Rachel that night—or had it been Luke, or even Lila? She’d never know now. But that night Lila had already decided it was time to end it. Despite the baby. She’d been determined to tell Luke she was pregnant and pass the baby off as his even though, in doing the math, she was pretty sure the child was Ned’s.
Of course, that night everything had blown up.
And Ned had become less attractive to her.
In fact, after the death of Luke, she hadn’t known what she’d seen in Ned other than the dangerous sex play and the fact that he was older and more worldly. She hadn’t wanted to think that just maybe she’d come on to his father to gain Luke’s attention. But after Luke’s death, her interest in Ned had gone stone cold and Lila had ditched him even though she knew deep in her heart she had been the final nail in the coffin in the Gastons’ marriage. And she hadn’t cared.
Instead, she’d looked around for another man to care for her and her son and spied Charles Ryder, attorney at law. Poor, grieving Charles, who didn’t know what hit him when she first showed empathy, then interest, and finally enticed sexual awakening to a broken man who’d thought his life was over with the passing of his wife.
But he’d been so, so wrong.
And, not only had Lila not had to deal with an ex-wife, because he was a grieving widower, but also there was that very interesting fact that he was wealthy as well, at least by Edgewater standards.
Even though he had three nearly grown sons, he’d not only married Lila but taken Lucas on as his own boy.
And now, despite the horror of Lucas’s involvement in the murders, Lila and Charles were still married. He hadn’t wavered in his commitment to her, nor had she to him.
They would be together until the day he died.
She’d make certain of it.
And, for her part, she’d take her secrets to the grave. At that thought she crossed her fingers, because Edgewater was a small town, people gossiped, and she already knew that Cade, her own detective of a stepson, was looking into the past. And then there was DNA these days. Lucas’s DNA would link him to Ned Gaston if the cops ever dug that deep. And then her lies would be exposed.
That would be a problem.
Already the gossip was sizzling through the town.
Hopefully it would die down.
She blinked, realizing she’d been daydreaming in the hypnotist’s serene little office. She found him watching her and wondered what he’d seen, what he’d gleaned, even what she’d said when she was under. It might be an issue as she suspected the thin, somber man, with his pencil nose and thin, hip glasses, of being a bit of a charlatan. There was just something to suggest that a few drops of snake oil might run through his blood.
“Are you all right?” he asked with that worried little smile she found irritating.
“Never better,” she lied, picking up her purse and leaving the check as always on the small table near the smoldering incense. Lemongrass, she thought idly as she walked out the door and slid on a pair of sunglasses to protect her eyes and hide the fact that she’d been crying. She saw a news van driving down the street, maybe looking for her, the mother of the killer. When once she would have welcomed the attention, had even gladly interviewed with that nosy gossip Mercedes, now she’d rather hide, couldn’t manage the false front she’d cultivated for years.
Inside, she was broken.
Lucas had been her life.
And he’d died, pronounced DOA at the hospital.
Just like Luke, the man he’d thought was his father.
Lila’s whole world, once filled with color, now seemed black and white and the town was changing again, Clint Cooper pulling out of all his real estate deals, wanting nothing to do with Edgewater, a reminder of his wife. So all the plans for that ugly old cannery would be scrapped and it would sit, hulking and rotting on the shores of the Columbia, filled with new horrors, new secrets, the gossip around it forever swirling.
She sighed and looked through her shaded lenses at the town where she’d grown up, where she’d resided all her life.
It really was true what they said, she thought, as she slid behind the wheel of her new Mercedes: What goes around comes around.
Just ask Rachel.
Now, for the first time, she really was a killer.
Lila’s heart turned to ice as she reached for an emergency cigarette.
The bitch had better watch her back.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I wrote Paranoid about the same time my sister, Nancy Bush, wrote Bad Things, her latest thriller. We were discussing the fact that the books were scheduled to be published around the same time and thought it would be a unique idea to change the structure of each novel to include scenes with a therapist. So we did it! And we loved it! I hope you see why. So, check out Bad Things by Nancy Bush for a book that will keep you up way too late at night!
