The Two Lila Bennetts

by Fenton, Liz

  There’s no text in the body of the email. Just in the subject line.

  Back in town and want to see you. I’ll be in touch.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TUESDAY

  CAPTURED

  “I’m surprised they’re looking for you,” Q says after a few minutes of silence between us.

  “I’m not,” I say defiantly. “And they’re going to find me.” I look up at him, searching for a sign that I can reason with him, but the mask covering his expressions makes it impossible. Which gives me an idea. “If you let me go now, I’ll never be able to identify you. I haven’t seen your face. You still have a chance.”

  “You’re trying to scare me?” Q asks, his voice dancing.

  “No, I’m being realistic. If they’re holding a press conference less than twenty-four hours after I went missing, that means they have solid suspicions already.”

  Q squats, his large thighs bulging against his black track pants. “Or maybe it’s because you have a quasifamous husband, and they don’t give two shits about you. You know as well as I do that no one at that precinct gives a shit about finding you after all the killers you’ve set free.”

  “They’re professionals—they won’t hold what I do against me,” I assert. But deep down, I know he’s right. And I also realize that even though Ethan hasn’t written a book since his runaway bestseller, he’s a big enough name to garner this kind of attention. All it would have taken is someone in the chief of police’s office pointing this out or—I’m suddenly struck with a thought. My mom. That’s something I could see her doing. Calling in and reminding them that my husband has Oprah’s phone number. (Which is true; he really does.)

  It’s true that the LAPD detectives hold a fair amount of resentment when it comes to me, making my job more difficult whenever possible. Detective Sully is the only one at the precinct who still seems to tolerate me, and that’s because we both started our careers at the same time. I met him in the cafeteria at police headquarters, grabbing a coffee before I attempted to track down the cop I needed to interview. Sully was recently out of the academy, and I asked him where I could find the officer I needed to speak with. And I’m not sure why, in fact I’ve never asked him, but he suggested I sit down because he wanted to give me some information on this cop. Turns out he was not a very nice guy, and Sully wanted to warn me. He was worried I was so green he’d eat me alive.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “Nothing,” I say and wipe it from my face.

  “Anyway it doesn’t matter. Because they can have all the press conferences they want. They aren’t going to find you. I can guarantee they don’t have a single lead,” Q says, tipping his chin upward.

  “How do you know they didn’t follow you here?” I ask.

  Q laughs. “Don’t you think they’d have broken the door down by now? Considering you’re a big-time author’s wife,” he jabs.

  “How did you know you’d get me that night? What if I hadn’t gone to the restaurant with Sam?”

  “I was pretty damn sure you’d go somewhere other than home.” Q smirks. “But if you hadn’t, if you’d actually shown some loyalty to your fucking husband, I planned to nab you at your mom’s, where you have dinner on the last Tuesday of every month.”

  “How do you know that?” I ask, my pulse quickening. The visual of Q following me, watching me as I naively lived my life, gives me chills. How long was he tracking me? Is anyone else in my life in danger?

  “Are you really asking me that question? I know everything about you, Lila Bennett.” He scowls before heaving me up and half dragging me down the bleak hallway to the bathroom.

  I break down at the truth in his words as I give up on squatting and sit in vain on the toilet seat, my body so dehydrated that there is only a small trickle. I struggle for breath as I cry, trying to push out all of my pain before Q bangs on the door and tells me to hurry the fuck up. But to my surprise, there is only silence as I fall to the filthy ground and sob a full five minutes until I’m exhausted. Defeated. It’s then that I hear two soft knocks on the door before it’s shoved open.

  “Get up,” Q says harshly. “I’m tired of hearing you cry. It’s fucking annoying.” I hesitate, and he grabs me around the waist and pulls me up like a rag doll, his breath hot on my ear. “I thought you were a fighter. Is this it? You giving up?” he asks pointedly. “Because that’s boring.”

  I say nothing. Does he want me to fight so he has the justification to hurt me in response? I still haven’t seen his face, have no idea if he has a weak chin or a large forehead. I don’t know if the lines around his eyes crinkle when he laughs or if his eyebrows fold when he is thinking. All I know of him are his green eyes, flecked with gold, that stare back at me now with . . . curiosity? Hate? It is impossible to know.

  Q leaves without any promises of when he’ll return. I despise the fact that part of me hopes he’ll come back soon. It’s like choosing between two evils—the torture of Q’s head games or the masochism of my own mind.

  With him gone, I tuck my head into my shoulder and let my eyes close, feeling my mind drift off before my body eventually follows, collapsing into the exhaustion. I lie there, somewhere between the sharp edges of complete unconsciousness and acute awareness, and dream.

  Franklin is there. He doesn’t say anything, rather he watches me as I walk down what seems to be a never-ending corridor. I search frantically for the door, any escape from his prying eyes. But there is none.

  I shake myself awake with a start and instinctively look up at the camera I noticed earlier. “Franklin?” I squeak, my throat dry. “Are you there?”

  The blinking light stares back at me, revealing nothing.

  Franklin had been sending me letters and following me for quite a while before I noticed him in court, which I think annoyed him. Maybe it was because he was so unassuming, light-brown hair cut short and small brown eyes, his nondescript face blending into the rest of the world. Or maybe I was so self-involved I didn’t notice. He wasn’t the first weirdo to send me a creepy email or letter. Either way, it wasn’t until he slipped past security and into my office late one night that he really grabbed my attention, made me realize he could be more than harmless.

  It was a Tuesday evening, and I’d sent Chase home. Not because I was such a caring boss but because I wanted him gone when Sam stopped by later. Things were new between us, and we’d been texting about meeting up all day, my breathing growing shallow as he outlined the things he was planning on doing to me and the places in the office we were going to do them. I was trying to concentrate on the brief I was working on, but my mind would drift every few seconds to how his lips would feel on mine, the way my stomach would flutter slightly when he walked in, the anticipation of what was about to happen almost better than the actual act. I’d grown addicted to that—the prospect of what was to come. It was as if nothing else mattered—this brief, the trial that was starting the next morning. Ethan. Carrie. They all fell away somewhere between Sam’s texts and his arrival.

  When the shadow first appeared in my doorway, I’d smiled, thinking Sam had gotten away a bit earlier than he thought. “Hey,” I started to say, but the words got stuck in my throat as I realized the man in my office wasn’t Sam. He was thin and pale and holding a bouquet of red roses.

  “Can I help you find someone?” I asked, glancing at my phone, which sat out of reach on the edge of my desk. Something about him seemed off. It may have been the intense way his dark eyes were boring into mine or the empty smile he wore on his face. I slowly moved my hand toward the phone. Just in case.

  “These,” he said, taking a step forward. My hand inched closer to the phone. “They are for you, Lila.”

  “I’m sorry, do we know each other?” I said as I tried to place his face. Former client? He looked too old to have been a classmate. Too young to be one of Ethan’s friends.

  He looked hurt at my question. “I’ve been sending you letters. Haven’t you read them?”
His voice rose slightly at this part.

  Oh, okay. This must be Franklin. He’d been sending me handwritten letters for three months. Nothing too threatening. More like a very serious crush. I’d handed them over to the firm’s security department, and they’d said to keep an eye out but that he was probably harmless. Sam and I had joked that I’d finally made it, because I had my very own stalker.

  But there in my office it felt a little less harmless. My hand grasped the phone, and I began to slowly pull it off so I could dial the building security. I calculated. They were located several floors down and would take precious minutes to get here. Was I better off calling Sam, who was down the hall? But it was possible he wouldn’t pick up. And I was worried I was only going to get one chance. The good news was that Franklin was a slight man, and if he didn’t have a weapon, I was pretty sure I could take him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said with a forced smile. “I did get those. Franklin, right?”

  His face registered relief, and he relaxed slightly. “Yes.”

  “Can you do me a favor?” I asked, pointing to a corner of my office. Away from me. “Can you set those beautiful flowers over there? That way I can see them as I work.”

  “Sure,” he said and turned away from me as he set them down carefully. I quickly dialed security and gave them the code we’d been instructed to in an emergency. “Code red,” I whispered and set the phone down quietly.

  Poor Franklin. He’d been still hard at work fluffing those flowers when two large men barged in moments later and tackled him. I’d calculated wrong—they’d made it to my office in less than one minute. I guessed they patrolled each floor after hours. I hated myself for wondering in that moment if they’d ever heard me and Sam behind our closed doors.

  Franklin screamed, “I love you, Lila!” as they’d dragged him away in handcuffs, Sam walking up as they exited my office.

  He looked from Franklin to me. “What’d I miss?” he said, calm and collected, a small smile playing on his lips. The sight of him made my shaking hands steady.

  “Nothing much,” I’d said, nodding him in and then shutting and locking the door behind me, deciding I’d worry about Franklin and a restraining order in the morning.

  Now, alone in my cell, the camera watching to make sure I pay my penance, I wonder once more if Franklin is on the other side. Is he watching from his bedroom, getting off as Q defeats me? As he breaks my spirit? I become obsessed with the thought, that night in my office running through my head. The way he must have felt. What does he need to hear? That I love him too? That we can run off together? That I promise I’ll never leave?

  No, I think. He wants more than that.

  “Franklin,” I call out. “Franklin, if you’re listening, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I shout over and over until my voice fades away.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WEDNESDAY

  FREE

  “Oh my God—look at you. Are you okay?” Chase bum-rushes me when I walk into the office, pulling my tote off my shoulder, guiding me to my chair. “Sit, sit.”

  I texted him a short version of what happened last night when I got home. He wanted to talk, but I begged off, simply too exhausted. Especially because I’d already talked to Carrie, who wanted me to walk her through every detail of the story. Part of me has been trying to convince myself that I imagined the car that was following me out of the parking garage last night, that the attack on me was random. That Stephanie isn’t pissed at me over what happened. That Ethan’s book isn’t about me. That my entire life hasn’t come to a fork in the road, asking me to deal with my choices. But that’s how it feels—like all my wrongs are coming back to haunt me. I think of Janelle’s email last night. The timing of it after so long.

  You should have run when you had the chance.

  I hear my attacker’s words again. His voice. It felt personal.

  A shock jolts up my arm, and I rub it. I’m suddenly hit with a feeling like I’ve said that same thing before. But when?

  Chase pulls a bottle of Fiji from the fridge, screws off the lid, and hands it to me. I take a generous sip. “You are so not okay. Did you get a good look at the guy? Anything seem familiar?”

  “No. It was too dark. But he was strong and wearing track pants and Adidas shoes. I got really, really lucky.”

  “You sure did. It sounds like he’s stuck in some kind of 1990s fashion time warp,” he adds. “Nobody needs that.” He laughs, and I smile wanly. “Sorry. Bad joke. But that’s a serious bruise on your arm . . . and the one by your eye. You should have stayed home.”

  “No,” I say flatly. “I needed to come in. We have the Greenwood meeting—”

  “Screw that devil Muppet!” He puts his hands on his slim hips, and I laugh.

  “I wish I could tell him off, but I can’t.”

  “He’s such a jerk.”

  “I know, but he’s one of the firm’s top clients. Customer’s always right, blah, blah.”

  “It’s the part of the job I do not like.” Chase rolls his eyes.

  “That’s the only one, huh?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Will you trust me on this one, okay? There are no other options.”

  Chase walks over and closes the door. “When are you going to start trusting me?”

  “What?” I ask reflexively, but I know exactly what he means. At least I think I do.

  “I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on.”

  “What do you mean?” I try to sound convincing, but my voice is too high when I say it.

  Chase simply gives me a look.

  “Fine, what do you know?” I say, thinking of something Sam told me once when he was explaining how he approaches meetings with opposing counsel—never show your cards first. I shake the thought away. I don’t want to be thinking of him right now.

  “I know about Sam.”

  I guess the not-thinking-about-Sam option is out.

  I nod, silently telling him to continue.

  He lowers his voice. “I know about you two. The affair.”

  “Okay,” I say, surprised by how the pressure in my chest lessens the moment I hear him say it.

  “And I’m figuring that you’ve ended things, and now he’s retaliating.”

  “The lesson here is don’t ever have an affair with your superior. Although I’d be much nicer if you dumped me,” I deadpan.

  Chase doesn’t respond to my joke, his eyes narrowing. “You could totally sue. This is classic sexual harassment.”

  “I’m not interested in suing. I’d like the whole thing to go away. Because Ethan cannot find out. Carrie cannot find out.”

  Chase gives me a sad smile.

  “I know. I’m a whore,” I say, surprised by how quickly my eyes fill with tears. How I have to inhale sharply to stop myself from crying.

  “You’re not a whore, Lila. A little slutty maybe.” He winks at me. “But not a whore.” He reaches in and gives me a hug, and I squeeze him back, hard, not wanting to let go.

  “Thank you for not judging me,” I say in a small voice.

  “We all make mistakes, right?”

  I pull back from his embrace. “How did you know?”

  “Girl, how could I not know? You’d have to be blind.”

  “Oh God, really?” I shoot up in my chair. “Is it like the worst-kept secret around here? Does everyone—”

  “No, no,” he cuts me off. “But as your assistant, it was super obvious. You had patterns. I started to pick up on them. You’d say you were one place, but I realized you were at another. You’d slip and say something that didn’t add up. That type of thing.”

  If Chase picked up on my lies, my patterns, as he calls them, then how could Ethan not? Which could mean that Ethan does know. Hence his sudden interest in getting an office space, his burst of an idea for his novel about a wife having an affair. Panic rises from my gut, but I force it back down.

  Deep breaths. Ethan doesn’t know. It’s all a coinci
dence. You can still fix this.

  “Do you want to talk?”

  It feels freeing to tell him everything. He nods occasionally and smiles as I share an anecdote about once almost getting caught by Andrew, the night janitor. When I finish, my chest aches a little less, the burden of the lie I’ve been carrying slightly lifted.

  “What now?” he asks when I’m done.

  “I work and keep my head down and hope this all blows over.”

  “You know Sam better than anyone—do you really think that will happen?”

  I think of the way he treated me in his office yesterday. “Probably not. But you know me—it’s going to take more than that to break me.” I smile.

  “You’re the toughest bitch I know. That’s for sure.” He points at me. “And you have the bruised-up face to prove it!”

  “Damn straight.” I gently touch the tender patch of skin. “We should get to work. Sorry I left you here working last night. See what karma did to me?” I half joke.

  “As if you believe in karma anyway,” Chase says.

  I pause. I’ve never really thought too much about karma. “Do you?”

  “I probably shouldn’t, in this job. But I do. Always have.”

  “So you think there is some universal force that rights things?”

  “Maybe,” he says. “But what do I know? I also believe that JonBenet Ramsey lived and grew up to be Katy Perry.”

  I laugh. “Oh. Come on. You’re the most levelheaded millennial I know.”

  He shrugs in response.

  “So, any leads on the Greenwood case? Has Joe gotten back to us with his findings after following Greenwood’s wife?” I ask hopefully.

  “When I read through Greenwood’s file, there was an affidavit from his wife that he’d been physical with her. That she’d filed a police report. But there was no report included. I called his wife’s counsel, who said he looked into it, and no such report existed.”

  “Interesting.” It leads me to believe that Greenwood likely did something to get rid of it. Or his wife dropped the charges and didn’t realize it meant the report would be expunged. I make a mental note to call Detective Sully to look into it.