Page 83 of Husband Missing

Josie massaged her temples with her fingers. The headache she’d managed to ignore while engrossed in Gretchen’s interview with Erica returned with a vengeance. She needed ibuprofen and more caffeine.

She needed Noah.

This wasn’t getting her closer to him, but another question spilled from her lips anyway. “When did Bonnie Romero die?”

Alec tossed another butt onto the ground. “About six months before Kiernan turned up on my doorstep with Erica.”

Josie tried to recall their conversation from earlier, behind Burgers. It felt like it had happened decades ago. “How old was Erica then?”

“Eight, almost nine.”

Faking the death of her alias and providing a death certificate to prove it was certainly not beyond Lila’s capabilities. Someone could always be blackmailed into giving her what she needed. Bonnie Romero had died so that she could move on.

Then she left me for good and I had to live with my bio-dad.

After almost nine years, Lila had abandoned Erica in a way that ensured she could not return. Had Erica stopped being useful, or was that when Lila was first diagnosed with cancer? When she’d returned to Denton to destroy Josie’s life, she’d been desperate for money so that she could afford some experimental treatment. It was her last chance, she’d said.

Then she left me for good.

“Shit,” Alec said, fiddling with his cigarette pack. “I’m out of smokes.”

Erica hadn’t said, “then she died.” Maybe “left me for good” could be interpreted that way but Josie was certain that wasn’t what Erica meant.

“How much longer do you think it will be?” Alec asked, craning his neck to look back and forth along the block, probably searching for a place to buy more cigarettes.

My wife always thought Erica was some master manipulator, but she was a kid! I mean yeah, she had a lying problem. She always did.

Erica had spent eight years trying to make Lila happy. Doing anything she could. Eight years under Lila’s influence. Her tutelage.

I don’t deserve him. His life was ruined all because of me…What I did to him?—

Erica wasn’t a master manipulator, but Lila had been. Josie had no doubt that Lila had exploited her sweet, young daughter’s desperate need for love and approval for her own selfish ends.

What I did to him.

Alec brushed a hand through his curls. “Do you think they’d let me see her? Just for a few minutes? I’m starting to worry.”

Erica grew up watching Lila plot and scheme against unsuspecting people. Watching her lie as easily as she breathed. She’d probably used her daughter in many of her ploys. That was their normal. In her most vulnerable years, Erica had depended on Lila for her very survival, had yearned for any little scrap of affection from her despite her major failings. It was a toxic carousel controlled entirely by Lila’s whims. There wasn’t a chance in hell Erica would rat out her mother, no matter how low she stooped or who she hurt. In the end, Lila would get what she wanted and Erica would be saddled with the guilt of it all. She would be left behind to witness the wreckage, the ruin of the only person who ever truly loved her.

Alec Slater. Her true dad.

At eleven years old, Erica wouldn’t have had any concept of the ramifications of Lila blackmailing him. She probably never anticipated that he would go to such lengths to protect her. No one in her life had ever cared as much as he did. No one had ever shown her what good parenting or unconditional love looked like. By the time she realized what Alec brought to her life, the damage was done.

I don’t deserve him.

Alec would forgive her. He would understand. But clearly, Erica didn’t believe that.

It was sad. Tragic, even.

“Are you listening to me?” Alec said. “Do you think I can see Erica?”

Pain jackhammered against the inside of Josie’s skull. “I don’t know if they’ll let you see her at this particular moment, but you can certainly ask for an update.”

“I guess you’re right.” He crumpled the empty cigarette pack in his fist and nodded. “Are you going to let me in on why you have this sudden interest in Erica’s mom and what it has to do with Lila Jensen?”

It wasn’t Josie’s place to share her theory that Erica had been in on the blackmail scheme. That was something he should hear from his daughter, if she chose to tell him. Unless he figured it out on his own. She did, however, share her theory about the true identity of Erica’s mother. Shock drained all the color from his face. Josie could relate.

Everything she had learned in the last hour was a shock to her already weary system.

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