Page 100 of Pretty Little Wife

“No. She was...” Ginny stopped herself. Her hesitation ticked on for a few seconds. “Tied to the bed.”

The words slammed into Lila with the force of a bat to her midsection. Every muscle stretched and shook.

“Aaron, you piece of shit.” She meant to think the words, not say them, but they came out in a low whisper.

Ginny didn’t say anything, but Lila could feel her gaze. She watched and assessed, as she’d done from the beginning.

Lila was about to turn around and go find Tobias when a detail caught her eye. She pointed to the photograph. “This chair.”

“Yes?”

A rocking chair, probably handmade. Thin spindles and large armrests. A place where someone could sit and rest their hands. “Was it in the house?”

“On the front porch.” Ginny stepped closer. “Does it look familiar?”

“Maybe.” Definitely. “It was on the porch, out in the middle of nowhere?”

Ginny nodded toward the other cabin photos. The long rocky driveway. The green lawn made of low shrubs at the bottom of the porch steps.

“The house sits in a clearing, but yes.” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”

That the matching chair was in her attic. It looked just like this one. Same age and same details. It meant something, but she didn’t know what. “It just seems weird for a serial killer to have a rocking chair.”

“Handmade. We think it’s a family heirloom.”

She knew that to be true. “What does Jared say?”

“No more than you do.”

Lila filed the photo in the back of her mind. She’d venture into the attic again and look at the chair. With the information tucked away, she flipped into defensive mode. She’d come too far to backslide now. “You can’t believe I had anything to do with the Karen or Julie—”

“No, but I think you knew more about your husband’s extracurricular activities than you admit to.”

Lila wasn’t sure what that meant, but the serious, unblinking stare told her Ginny was not done. FBI or not. “I told you I’d found the videos with the students. I handed them over to you.”

“I remember.” Ginny folded her arms across her chest. “My point is that I think you found out a lot earlier than you’re admitting and then killed him because of it.”

Very good, except for one thing.

“I didn’t stab him.” Lila could make the claim without one ounce of worry about giving herself away. She still didn’t know who had, but with the arrest and whispers about Brent, sheguessed him. He’d tried to spook her, threatened her. If he was an accomplice, she hoped he never knew another minute of peace.

“That’s not what killed Aaron.”

Lila was sure she’d missed something. “What?”

“Forensics confirmed that he was dead before being stabbed.” Ginny watched her. Her gaze dipped up and down Lila’s body, as if waiting for her to blow it.

Lila forced her body to stay still. Her expression froze, and she did a countdown in her head until she could shift even an inch. She refused to give away her surprise.

She fought to swallow over the dryness in her mouth. “Who would stab a dead man?”

“No idea.” Ginny practically glowed with satisfaction. She’d stumped Lila, and she knew it. “There were high levels of gas in his blood and liver.”

“I don’t get it.” But she did understand that part. She’d put the gas there. The setup of the car as a suicide was supposed to do the rest to explain any adverse toxicology results.

“Murder often isn’t a rational act. It can be messy. Emotional. Spur-of-the-moment or planned.”

An alarm sounded in the back of her brain. Ginny could be lying or playing with the facts. Nothing she said made sense except the reasons for killing someone, and a few of those hit too close to the truth. “I feel like I’m back in law school.”

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