Pretty Little Wife(17)
“Are you done?”
“You told me I need to learn to assess people. What I got from her was pretty but really chilly.”
“Possibly.” If Aaron didn’t walk in the door soon, she’d need more time with Lila. Stockpile more questions. Engage in extended observation and try to gather insight from those who knew her. Right now the picture was blurry and confusing. Ginny sensed Lila made it look that way on purpose.
“She could be a hell of an actress,” Pete said.
That’s exactly what she was and why Ginny found her so intriguing and so damn dangerous. “She’s a former trial lawyer and a current real estate agent. She can play the game when she needs to. Don’t be fooled.”
Pete leaned against the side of her car and folded his arms across his stomach. “But what game is she playing? Certainly not grieving wife. She’s not weepy or worried.”
Pete earned his spot on the investigative team. He’d done some great work on a series of thefts that ended in a murder. He’d spied the bit of video footage that tied it all together. The move fast-tracked his career. Jumped him ahead of others, which didn’t exactly make him the office favorite.
She tolerated him. His know-it-all attitude grated, but she wanted to believe he meant well. He wanted to succeed, and she could understand that.
She took him on because her boss ordered her to. She’d gotten on the sheriff’s bad side, through no fault of her own, and now she stepped carefully. But she demanded respect, and lucky for Pete, he gave it to her . . . usually.
He had a pretty serious blind spot and no self-awareness about his weaknesses. He faltered when it came to some basic human interactions, as people who hadn’t experienced that much living tended to do. He saw people as one thing or another. He lacked nuance. He hadn’t seen the worst and didn’t appreciate the dense fog of gray he was about to wander into.
“She doesn’t give much away.” When Pete just stared at her after the comment, Ginny listed off a few of the things she noticed during her short meetings with Lila Ridgefield. “She’s skilled. Dodges questions. Half answers. Pivots away from difficult topics. Feeds me information I didn’t ask for.”
“Is she socially awkward or is this something else?”
“This feels practiced. Careful.” The question was whether the games came from a general survival instinct or were part of a ruse to keep them guessing about her missing husband. “Tell me about what you saw in the house.”
They got a rare glimpse inside. This early into an investigation—barely having started—they didn’t normally poke around in the potential victim’s possessions. When Lila offered, Ginny didn’t think she could say no. Now she wondered if the early look was meant to throw them off.
“I took some photos.” Pete took his cell out of his pocket and held it up.
“Any surprises?” Lila had invited them in and basically told Pete to go hunting, so Ginny doubted it.
“All of the husband’s clothes are in the extra bedroom. Looks like he’s been sleeping there.” Pete smiled. “That could mean something.”
Or nothing. “You’re so single.”
“What?” He sounded offended by the comment.
“I love my husband, but when we go on vacation we get a room with two double beds.” She loved the man and had since she saw him walking across the quad at Howard University her freshman year, but he sprawled and snored, and she craved a night or two of quiet.
Pete laughed. “How sexy.”
“A good night’s sleep can be better than sex.”
“That’s the kind of comment that will keep me single.”
Ginny swallowed her smile. “Back to Lila.”
“The house? Not too messy. Not too picked up. The bedrooms looked lived-in but sterile.”
So, just right. Nothing to raise suspicion. “I guess bloodstains would have been too much to ask for.”
Pete stepped away from the car. “You think she did it?”
“We don’t even know what ‘it’ is yet. I basically stopped to do a wellness check on the way back from another incident and now we’re off and running. We need to give Aaron time to wise up and come home.” He hadn’t been missing even twenty-four hours yet, so Pete needed to slow down a bit. “People who cared about him called in—”
“But not his wife.”
“We only have her word he left this morning. If this doesn’t get resolved, we’ll have to verify that.” The open questions would let Ginny poke around, but right now she was waiting for a little time to pass.
Aaron could have a girlfriend on the side or be sick of his life, or it could be nothing. She half expected him to walk through the door while they were there. In most cases he would. Despite what televisions suggested, these issues rarely spun up and into actual cases.
The immediate concerned calls and all that talk about how Aaron would never and he was never even late had Ginny thinking something was wrong here. The picture everyone painted showed Aaron as a guy who wouldn’t just run, but then it was amazing how often what people thought was going on was very different from what actually was.
“We now know Aaron Payne’s got millions. So, just divorce and go live on a beach with some hot thing if he’s done with his marriage,” Pete said.