Pretty Little Wife

by Darby Kane

  Ginny’s eyes closed for a second as if she were absorbing the words as she heard them. “Depression can—”

  “Stop. No lectures. Not on this topic.” Lila wasn’t interested in granting her mother absolution. “I know what depression is. I get that a kid can’t see the difference between a mother’s pain and her own, and that as an adult I need to understand mental illness and not take her choices personally.”

  “But?”

  “But we still end up at the same place. My parents both had a choice to make about what mattered to them, and in neither case was I the answer.” They left, and her life spiraled. They gave up and she was supposed to take it and be fine. Well, she’d never been fine or complete . . . or forgiving.

  People thought silence meant the absence of noise, and sometimes it did, but other times it screamed so loudly she had to fight not to cover her ears.

  Not one to stand still for long, Pete shifted. He held out for a few more seconds before talking again. “What does this have to do with Aaron and his students?”

  “I didn’t help my father groom and then kill Amelia. I was totally blindsided and confused by what happened.” Lila spoke directly to Pete then switched back to Ginny. “The same is true with Aaron. I didn’t know about whatever sick needs he had, and if I did, I wouldn’t have helped him.”

  Ginny’s gaze wandered over Lila’s face, studying her. “But would you kill Aaron for doing the same thing that ripped your family apart?”

  “Okay, wait.” Tobias sat up straighter in his chair. “That’s a big jump.”

  Pete snorted. “Is it?”

  Ginny appeared to ignore both of them. “You couldn’t punish your dad. You were young and vulnerable. But you’re an adult now. You know the flaws in the justice system. You understand that some men lie and get away with it.”

  Lila nodded. “All true.”

  “You couldn’t help Amelia, but you could punish Aaron.”

  Lila had been wary of Ginny’s brain and instincts from the beginning. She always was the smartest person in the room, constantly watching and listening. While the men preened and fought for the mic at press conferences, she hung back. Glory and election wins didn’t motivate her. Justice did.

  Her concepts of right and wrong were naïve and simple. Lila wanted to poke holes in the logic and laugh, but Ginny had an air about her that demanded respect. Lila had given it to her from the beginning because she was the one person Lila feared in all of this.

  Lila shot back with the only bullet she had—a mix of misinformation and subterfuge. “You’re looking at this the wrong way. Knowing what we know now, it’s clear Aaron hurt the very children he was tasked with protecting. That would have caused a lot of anger. Created suspects. Ones you never would have thought to look for because you’ve been focused on me.”

  “You sound like a lawyer,” Pete said.

  Lila didn’t break eye contact with Ginny. “I am.”

  “And she’s right.” Tobias put his hand on Lila’s thigh in a subtle gesture to rein it in. They’d used the unspoken communication during countless cases and in numerous meetings. The signal said let me handle this one. “You’ve pointed this investigation in one direction only, Ginny, and ended up missing Aaron’s true nature and his crimes. I doubt people in this county are going to take that well.”

  “Is that supposed to be a threat of some kind?” Pete asked.

  Ginny crossed her arms in front of her. “Or, Tobias, people might think Lila hid the evidence about Aaron’s misdeeds to protect her comfortable lifestyle. Husband with a trust fund. Beautiful house. No pressure to work unless she wants to. Enjoys time with a hot professor on the side.”

  Pete whistled. “It’s not a bad setup.”

  The openness that usually radiated from Tobias dried up. “Try suggesting any of that fantasy in the press, and I’ll sue everyone in this building.”

  Ginny made a noncommittal sound before turning back to Lila. “What was that big fight about? The one that happened a few weeks back that had Aaron sleeping at his brother’s house?”

  A good shift. Lila had to give her adversary credit for never taking the easy way out of a conversation. “I didn’t like how much time he was devoting to the school.”

  “You, who likes her time alone, wanted more attention?” Ginny scoffed. “Nah. Don’t think so.”

  “Even I have limits.” And Aaron had found them.

  THE QUESTIONING WENT round and round for another twenty minutes. By the time Ginny and Pete stepped into the hallway, Ginny needed a glass of wine and something to kill the headache spreading down her neck and through every limb.

  Ginny tipped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for a second. They stood just out of range of the main room and the view from Charles’s office. She needed the quiet to mentally untangle the discussion. The part about Lila’s upbringing and feelings on abandonment from her parents struck her as genuine. The most real thing Lila had ever said. Her voice had shaken and her eyes had turned glassy as she’d spilled the personal details. Every cell inside Ginny told her that Lila had revealed a bit of honest weakness in those moments.

  She’d offered a confession wrapped in a therapy session. Nothing Ginny could use in court, but almost as if, on some level, Lila wanted her to know she killed Aaron for a valid reason. For the girls he’d gone after. For making Lila relive that horror and be unable to stop it. Not for the sex or the weirdness or for any other reason, but for the girls.

  “What the hell was that about back there?” Pete whispered the question, keeping it between them only for now.

  Ginny didn’t have the patience to discuss the concept of nuance with Pete. “Where is Samantha?”

  “She’s waiting to talk with you and the sexual assault specialist.” He glanced at his watch. “The specialist is on the way over.”

  The expert worked with all of the local units and had been almost exclusively attached to the state police during the Karen Blue investigation. Ginny needed her now. “We have to watch the videos frame by frame. If Samantha is right about other girls—”

  “Seems convenient.” Pete was already shaking his head. “No one at the school hinted at this.”

  Maybe . . . but maybe not. “Circle back to the one teacher who didn’t give Aaron a glowing report and poke around. There might be something there.”

  Pete nodded. “Right.”

  “And you asked what the hell that was back in the room.” Ginny pointed at the closed door that separated them from where Lila and Tobias sat. “That was motive. Tobias knows it. The really strange thing is Lila knows it, too, but offered up the videos anyway.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know yet.” But Ginny silently vowed to find out.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  JARED SAT IN A DAZE. LILA COULD SEE THE CONFUSION IN EVERY line of his body. He’d slumped down in one of the chairs in the sheriff’s office waiting area. Ginny warned that his questioning would be next, but, for now, she left him out there with her. Stewing and shaking his head.

  He leaned down with his elbows resting on his thighs and stared at the linoleum floor between his feet. “I don’t understand.”

  Lila glanced at Tobias before trying to reason this through. “Jared, listen to me.”

  “Girls.” Jared shook his head but never lifted it.

  Tobias shifted out of the way as two men walked through the open area and into the main room where the employees sat. He looked out of place here, as he did in most places. The expensive suit and perfectly shined shoes. He was smart and loaded and totally in control of his surroundings. Lila hoped he would help her maneuver through the mess she’d made.

  “His students. Girls on the team.” Jared made a groaning sound as he looked up. “How does Ginny know this woman is telling the truth? She gets things wrong. Really wrong.” The metal chair made a cracking sound when Jared sat back hard in it.

  Lila hadn’t seen that side of Ginny, and the
idea intrigued her. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s asked me about you and your background. She suggested the existence of the trust fund proved motive, first for you and then for me, once she realized the money came to me if anything happened to Aaron.”

  “When was this conversation?” Tobias asked.

  “A week ago. In the middle of asking if Aaron had life insurance and, if so, who would inherit it, she brought up how Aaron’s trust would go to me if something happened to him.” He shrugged. “I’m assuming she searched his bank accounts and found the trust.”

  Lila knew the answer to that one. She’d fed Ginny the information, hoping to derail her for a short time as Lila chased down confirmation for herself. Sounds as if that one plan went the way she intended.

  “I’m assuming the insurance goes to you?” Tobias asked her.

  “I don’t think Aaron going missing has anything to do with money.” It also wasn’t much of a motive. Aaron didn’t believe in insurance. He thought paying money now to receive a possible settlement later amounted to waste. He insisted her getting the house and having a law degree was protection enough against future surprises.

  Little did he know she’d be the one leveling the surprises.

  Tobias pushed away from the wall and came and sat with them in the rickety chairs. “Asking about money is routine. Ginny would be incompetent not to, and she is anything but. Having a woman come forward and make the sort of allegations we’re talking about here is the exact opposite of routine. Ginny can’t ignore the claims.”

  “You think Aaron touched . . .” Jared looked around the room and dropped his voice after looking at the couple across from them. “That he . . .”

  “With Samantha? Yes, I think so.” Lila knew so, but softening the truth struck her as the decent thing to do in these circumstances. Jared had enough harsh reality in front of him to face without adding to the pile.

  “But the things she’s saying about Aaron are . . .” His gaze focused on Lila. “Jesus, I don’t know how you’re processing this.”

  “There is a video. You can hear Aaron’s voice. He’s talking to her, and it’s . . . graphic.” Pete dropped that bomb into the middle of the conversation as he walked up and stood behind Tobias’s chair, hovering over them.

  “Okay, but . . .” Jared’s usual cool demeanor kept slipping. He stammered and seemed to lose his words. “Is the video real?”

  His cluelessness or unwillingness to “get” it, whichever this was, proved too painful for Lila to let slide. Before she could try again, Tobias spoke up. “Jared, come on. There’s a suggestion this is an ongoing thing for Aaron.”

  Suggestion? Thing? No. Too neutral. Lila couldn’t tolerate downplaying his behavior, not now that it was finally out in the open. “You mean that he’s screwing all of his female students.”

  Pete nodded. “Some, yes.”

  A flurry of activity started down the hall. Uniformed officers scurried around, and Ginny’s voice rose over the din, talking about cars and a long drive. She turned the corner and came to a stop in the doorway in front of them.

  Her gaze bounced around the room before landing on Pete. “We need to move out.” She turned to Lila next. “Go home and we’ll contact you.”

  Pete looked as confused as Lila felt. “Something is more important than this?”

  “Yes,” Ginny confirmed with a curt nod.

  “Are you kidding me?” Jared stood up. “You drop this bombshell and then you—”

  “We have Aaron’s phone, which means we have his GPS.”

  Ginny’s words cut through the noise in the office and the emotional floundering inside of Lila. “You found something.”

  “An address.”

  “Where?” Tobias asked.

  “Go home and wait.” Ginny motioned for Pete to follow her. A few steps and they were out the door and gone.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  GINNY REFUSED TO THINK OF THE NERVOUSNESS BOUNCING around inside of her as excitement. It amounted to energy. The fuel she needed to tolerate the long drive and see whatever there was to see once she got to the end.

  She rode with Pete and a sergeant Charles insisted on sending along. They spent the almost three-hour drive shifting between silence, mindless talk, and theories about their destination.

  They’d turned from the highway, onto a two-lane road, to a dirt path full of potholes and divots, to what amounted to a gravel driveway in a densely wooded area, thick with untrimmed trees and overgrown shrubs. Finally landing at the large parcel, marked off with a high fence but with no visible structures from the road, did not ease the wariness pounding through her.

  She got out of the car and greeted the local police with obligatory handshakes and words of assurance about working together. Police cars littered the thin path from the road, more than a quarter mile into the clearing. She looked up, her gaze following the long line of the trees that soared into the sky and covered any peek of blue or clouds above the crowns.

  People talked around her. Officers spread out, taking careful steps as they moved around the exterior of what looked like a one-room cabin. Off to the left was a small shed, on the verge of toppling over. A barn with cracked and scarred wood looked like it may have been painted red at one time but now blended into the scenery in a dull brown.

  There were closer places to home to bring his students. Motels and rental cabins around Cayuga Lake. This location, out of view, away from everything, struck her as a place someone would go if they couldn’t afford to get caught.

  She ignored the shiver that raced through her as she took a few steps closer to the three stairs leading to the cabin’s porch.

  Pete broke away from the officer he’d been talking to and met her at the front of the car. “This is in the middle of nowhere. Owen over there says he grew up in the area and went camping in and around Moose River Plains, which isn’t too far, and even he didn’t know there was anything back here. Said a spot near here was earmarked as a campground years ago but then a private party bought it.”

  “Interesting.” Aaron liked camping and fishing, but Ginny doubted he used the property for either. The woods thrummed with an ominous vibe. Tree limbs twisted and entwined above and around her in shapes eerily reminiscent of outstretched arms. She tried to imagine campers running around, laughing, but the only sensation she picked up was fear.

  “Owen said they did a quick check outside after you called and advised we were on the way. Didn’t go into the buildings, but these three structures are the only ones they found. No other outbuildings that they could see.”

  “There’s nothing around here for miles.” The kind of place where a person could scream and not be heard. Run and not get away.

  A chilling thought that refused to leave her mind. Truth was nothing about the area said fun and camping. This looked like miles of untamed trees and wilderness.

  “It’s creepy as hell.” Pete shook his head. “Like a setting out of a horror movie. Without evidence, all we can guess is he used it for hunting.”

  “I don’t think so.” In her gut, she knew this location was a much bigger piece of the puzzle than that. “Who owns the property?”

  “We’re checking. Apparently, the records are a bit tangled. There’s a corporation that leads to another one. It will take some time to trace the paperwork and tax records.”

  In other words, a place someone wanted to keep as a secret.

  The local police chief joined them, along with some of his people. All men. Ginny didn’t have time for a jurisdictional discussion or a debate about who was in charge. She plunged right in.

  She nodded in the direction of the double doors, with their chipping paint, and the shiny chain keeping them shut. “What’s in the barn?”

  The chief shrugged. “We were waiting for you to go in.”

  “Open it up.”

  An officer appeared with a bolt cutter. He and Pete worked on the lock—one that looked much newer than the rest of the place. T
hey had it off and bagged up for prints a second later. The doors creaked as they pulled them open. Then everyone froze.

  Officers looked at one another. One took photos.

  Ginny broke the silence. “Aaron’s SUV.”

  “The license matches,” Pete said.

  Ginny could hear the police chief talking about forensics and cordoning off the area. She listened while she walked around the car, using her flashlight to cut through the darkness of the interior of the barn and look in the SUV’s windows.

  “See if we can get any tracks coming in or out,” she said to the chief in an effort to reestablish jurisdictional boundaries. “Set a perimeter, then I need to know what’s in every direction. Gather video from any business anywhere around here. We need to see cars coming in and around, going back as far as we can get it.” She glanced at Pete. “Open the back of the SUV.”

  “Maybe there’s another cabin nearby,” Pete said.

  Owen shook his head as he opened the back of the SUV. “Doubt it.”

  The smell hit her. The unmistakable scent of decomposing flesh. She didn’t need to look inside to know what they’d found. “We have a body.”

  The blanket covered the person’s face. Pete used the long end of his small flashlight to peel back the corner of the material. She spied a hand and a thin gold wedding band.

  She needed to wait for the official identification, but she knew. Aaron. It had to be. The body was strangely in good condition.

  Sadness hit her first. The loss of life. The utter waste. Then she thought about the girls and the breach of trust, and a range of different sensations slammed into her. Anger. Disappointment. Relief that he was gone.

  “Ma’am? Sir?” An unfamiliar voice called out to her from the cabin’s front porch and the police chief walked toward the house in response.

  Ginny lost track of everyone then. Her thoughts scattered. She couldn’t take death in stride. It demanded at least a second of quiet contemplation, and the crowd made that tough. “Not now.”