Pretty Little Wife(31)
He was also the one to benefit financially from Aaron’s death, though Jared seemed to have enough money without needing to stockpile more from his brother. Still, it was a possible motive she couldn’t ignore.
She smiled at Jared across the table as Pete sat down. “Thanks for coming in.”
Jared cradled the coffee cup in his hands. “Have you found anything?”
“Honestly, it’s as if Aaron walked out of his house and disappeared.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not his style?” Pete asked.
“Not remotely.” Jared’s attention flipped back to Ginny. “Do the security videos show when he left the house? Can you see if he was okay?”
“We’ll check those.” They’d run into a bit of a roadblock when the closest neighbor admitted that he’d turned off his alarm weeks ago due to a malfunction and hadn’t used it again. Lila and Aaron had done the same.
There were transcripts of calls between both couples and the alarm company. A technician visited both houses. Nothing turned up, which made the malfunction convenient and suspicious.
Jared stared into his black coffee. “This is unbelievable.”
After only a few minutes, Jared had shown more emotion than Lila had in all of their meetings. Lila was exactly the topic Ginny wanted to discuss. “Let me ask you a few questions. I need to start with an obvious one we ask everyone. Where were you between four and seven in the morning on the day Aaron went missing?”
“Four?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t about to go into a detailed explanation of the video intel they’d found. Not yet.
“At a conference in Rochester. It was about discount pricing for companies who improve properties.” He took a sip of coffee. “In other words, mortgage strategies for property flippers. I left two days before Aaron went missing and was there until about ten in the morning on that day. I came home as soon as Brent called me.”
“I’ll need the hotel information and any names of people who can confirm you were there.” Ginny waited until Jared nodded to continue. “Did Lila get in touch with you that morning as well as Brent?”
“She didn’t do this.”
That was quick and adamant. His voice still rang off the walls when Ginny started poking around in his response. “What exactly?”
“Anything to my brother.” Jared sat back, taking the cup with him. Holding it in a tight grip that suggested he needed it to keep from fidgeting or flailing. “Look, I know she’s different, but so is he. They’ve both had these horrible things happen to them. They’re . . . I don’t know, careful.”
“Broken?”
“Not really. They both function fine.” He took a long sip. “She had a successful legal career. Now she sets her own schedule and sells houses without trouble. I’ve been told people like her no-bullshit style as an agent.”
Pete nodded. “I can see that.”
“My brother has exactly the job he’s always wanted. He loves kids. Always talked about being a coach.” Jared smiled as he played with the handle on the mug. “I thought he’d go on and teach at the college level, but that wasn’t his thing. He wanted to mentor kids through the teen years. The tough years.”
“Why did they move to New York from North Carolina?” That question stuck out in Ginny’s mind as an area to pursue. Pete had made some calls, but no one offered much.
Jared shrugged. “Aaron wanted to coach but couldn’t there. He and the guy in charge of the athletic programs argued about it, so when a position came open here, near where we grew up and where I live, Aaron grabbed it.”
Sounded reasonable. Ginny still wanted another opinion before she’d drop it, but for now that explanation worked. “You and your brother are close.”
“We are. Some kids who are close together in age fight. Some are close. We’re lucky to be the latter.”
He had a smooth style. Didn’t offer too much or too little. Smiled when it was appropriate to smile. Ginny tried to read deeper and hit a roadblock. But the way he described his brother and Lila made them sound pretty normal. He seemed to be alone in thinking that. Brent suggested, at least recently, they tolerated each other more than they loved each other.
“Are you . . . What was the word you used to describe your brother and his wife? Different?”
“Yes, and careful. I haven’t dated a woman for more than a month my entire life, so yeah, I’d say I have some issues. It’s hard not to.” His fingers tightened on the mug. The clench lasted for a second, then he relaxed again. Not fully relaxed, but his shoulders slumped and he blew out a long breath. “I should probably explain a bit about our upbringing.”
She had the basics. The kind of stuff that’s included in an official file, which she knew from experience was never the full story. By the time he’d finished talking about his mother’s death and the accident that took his father, Ginny hadn’t learned one new piece of information. “Lila told me the same thing.”
It was almost like listening to a tape. Mom shot by accident by hunters. Dad killed in an unsolved hit-and-run. A nearly word-for-word description that mirrored Lila’s telling of the same events.
Where Jared was warm and smiling when talking about Aaron and Lila, his voice remained flat when walking through his parents’ deaths. Could be some sort of post-trauma issue. Since those deaths were long ago handled by other law enforcements officials, she didn’t bother digging too deep. They needed to stay focused on Aaron, the possible third catastrophe for this family.