Page 25 of Pretty Little Wife

“Not yet, but he works at a school as a teacher and coach. Kids know him. Parents know him. There will be talk. There’s no way to keep a lid on it and...” Pete exhaled. “Should we? The louder this gets, the more likely we’ll find something.”

That theory backfired in the biggest case of her career so far. The one that didn’t resolve clean with a jury finding, despite the battle she waged and all it cost her. “I find that the more people involved, the more likely we’ll all trip over one another. So we need to get moving before the good citizensof this county descend with their theories. But you mentioned news. I’m still waiting to hear it.”

Pete looked down at his file but didn’t hand it over. “I think I know what your first line of questions to Lila will be about.”

Yeah, he looked far too pleased with himself. “You have something big in that file and you didn’t lead with it? I’ve been in here for twenty minutes. What’s wrong with you?”

He put up a hand. “I was drawing it out for maximum dramatic impact.”

She felt her eyes bulge. “What is it?”

“I found one very big piece of the puzzle.” His smile fell a bit. “Even though I’m not sure what it means.”

Her patience expired. “Tell me before I fire you.”

“Fine. Ruin the moment.” He leaned forward and dropped the file in front of Ginny. “Lila Ridgefield is a hard woman to track.”

“Meaning?” Ginny grabbed the cover and flipped it open.

Before she could read more than a few sentences, Pete started the explanation. “She appeared out of nowhere thirteen years ago at age twenty-one.”

Ginny glanced up. “And before then?”

“Before then, Lila Ridgefield didn’t exist.”

Chapter Twelve

A MIX OF EXHAUSTION AND SUFFOCATING WARINESS WOUNDaround Lila as she sat at her kitchen island the next morning. She’d turned the coffeemaker temperature to scalding. Anything to revive her. To force her brain to restart and work through the very real problem in front of her.

A curl of steam rose from her coffee mug. She watched it twirl then vanish. In her sleep-deprived state, the puff of heat hypnotized her. Seemed much more interesting than it probably was.

She hadn’t managed an hour of sleep. Common sense told her to stay in all night when she really wanted to leave this house. Get out. She settled for a few stolen minutes on the phone. Those weren’t enough to settle her restless brain.

For the hundredth time, the possibility of Aaron being very much alive skittered through her mind.

Impossible. Had to be. She had killed him. She’d checked. Waited until his breathing stopped before dumping him in his SUV. A guy couldn’t just come back from that.

Still, she half expected him to walk through the door in astorm of outrage, dragging chaos behind him. Blaming. Calling the police. Kicking her out. But then, that would be risky, because she had something on him. Something that could destroy everything he’d carefully built, lie by disgusting lie.

She set the mug down and mentally ran through the last few days. Backtracked and relived every moment. She needed answers, and she couldn’t exactly ask someone... or could she? There had to be a stray piece of paper, a note—something that told her where he was and how he’d escaped.

She slid off the bar stool and walked around the kitchen. Paced without any discernible pattern. Walked from the kitchen, down the hall. Stopped at the doorway to Aaron’s office. She knew from previous missions to uncover answers that he didn’t keep anything of value in here.

The empty safe mocked her. The blank calendar with page after page of blocks devoid of any notes. She had no idea why he’d bought it if he didn’t intend to fill it with a record of his activities. Just one more way for him to be secretive as he pretended to be like everyone else.

Now she knew better.

She gave the room one last look before backing into the hallway. She had the door halfway closed and was thinking about where else to look when the shadow cleared in her head. There, in one of the panes of the double French doors to the outside patio, she saw the reflection of a square... or what looked like one.

“What the hell?” She whispered the question to the empty room.

Forgetting the exhaustion and the threat closing in around her, she stepped across the oriental carpet he’d insisted on buying from the antiques shop on their way back from a long weekend in Vermont.

The crisscross panes rose from the inside of the glass. The straight edges of the flier or whatever it was were slipped into a space on the outside. It hadn’t been there yesterday, but it was now. That meant someone had walked through her backyard. The idea of anyone getting that close to her sphere of privacy sent her stomach plummeting.

She unlocked the door and opened it. What looked like an unlined index card, folded in half, lay tucked into the edge of the door. The wind whipped it around, but it held.

The thick paper felt heavy under her fingers as she slipped it out of its hiding place. A typed message in block letters.

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