Pretty Little Wife(12)
He leaned over the kitchen island and kissed her on the cheek. “What the hell are you listening to?”
“I was trying to keep my mind busy.” Which wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t easy to have a nice lunch when her dead husband might not be dead.
“Uh-huh.”
“You know, background noise.” When he continued to stare at her, she tried again. “It’s that true crime podcast that’s been all over the news.”
Jared’s expression went blank. “What?”
“The one started by the Syracuse University graduate student as part of a class project.” When Jared didn’t move, Lila tried again. “Her name is Nia. She’s on once or twice a week and sometimes does interim videos with updates of the cases she and her followers are reviewing. She’s been interviewed on the news.”
Still not one bit of recognition on her brother-in-law’s face, so she tried again. “She’s very determined, which is great because from what I can tell she has a big following of armchair detectives who are experts at using the internet. She’s using those minions to keep pressure on law enforcement, the media, and this task force about Karen Blue’s case.”
Jared shook his head. “You lost me at ‘podcast.’”
Really? The guy needed to step out of his office now and then. “Karen Blue? Straight brown hair. Athletic. Really pretty.”
“Do I know her?”
“Forget it.” Lila eased the seat around and jumped off the stool. “Coffee?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. Jared always said yes to cof fee. If she offered water, he said yes. A cookie, he took it. He was the most agreeable person she’d ever met.
“Brent called.” He took the seat she’d just vacated and reached for the mug when she offered it. “Have you heard anything? What are the police saying about Aaron?”
The slight tremor in his voice had her glancing up. Where lately Aaron’s mood bounced around, Jared’s hummed along nice and even. He was the older Payne brother by fourteen months. Slightly shorter at six foot with a young-looking face. Perfect nose and soft blue eyes. Women in town whispered about him being the objectively more attractive brother, but not as good of a catch as Aaron. Aaron was husband material. The one they praised for grocery shopping and running errands . . . or so the town gossip went.
Little did they know.
Lila viewed Jared as stable and with a seemingly bottomless well of kindness. He’d welcomed her into the family and the community, using his contacts to help launch her real estate career.
Jared’s work ethic was the problem. It ran at 100 percent all the time. He spent so many hours in the office that no woman could compete. He’d dated a few in more than a casual way during the almost four years Lila had lived there and watched the ritual unravel. None lasted for long. They’d meet, have couples’ dinners, and then Tara would be traded in for Dawn and then Linda. Jared’s bedroom door tended to be a revolving one.
One girlfriend also shared that he liked sex pretty wild. Lila went out of her way not to think about Jared and his bedroom preferences.
She wrapped her fingers around her mug and let the warmth of the liquid seep through the ceramic and into her hands. “I expect Ginny any minute.”
He frowned. “Who’s Ginny?”
“The investigator.”
“There’s already one assigned to look for Aaron?” Jared dumped a second packet of fake sugar into his coffee. “Shit, this is happening too fast. Where the fuck is he? It’s not like him to disappear.”
“Not at all.” Aaron left a note when he went outside. It was one of the little things she’d found endearing at the beginning of their marriage. Since she’d found the videos, everything he did filled her with rage.
“So . . .” Jared winced. “Did you guys fight?”
She started to reach her hand across the counter in comfort then stopped. A foot separated their fingertips, and she didn’t want to bridge that yawning abyss. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because after two days of him sleeping in my guest room weeks ago I sent him back here to work it out with you.” He lifted the mug to his mouth but didn’t take a sip. “Did you two settle whatever that was?”
Six weeks. It had been just over six weeks since they’d gone from a tenuous peace to a showdown.
An unexpected coolness washed through her. “He didn’t come back to your house again, did he?”
Jared started to talk then stopped. It was a full minute before he tried again. “Aaron refused to give me any details. I got the sense he wasn’t over it.”
Her fault. Jared didn’t use the words, but she heard them as if he’d screamed right into her ear.
She stood up and went over to the long table stretching across the back of the sofa and separating the kitchen from the living area. She grabbed her laptop then returned to the bar. Took the open seat next to Jared. “I was going to look at our bank accounts and his credit cards to see if that would give us a hint where he went.”
“Hey.” Jared put his hand on top of the computer to keep her from lifting the lid. “You can’t think he walked out on you. He would never do that.”
Her gaze shifted from his long fingers to that sleek black watch that cost more than most people paid for six months of mortgage. Jared’s one nod to the mix of money he’d inherited, earned, and stockpiled.