Pretty Little Wife(48)
“Do it.”
With her free hand, she slipped her cell out of her pocket, careful not to dislodge the note tucked in there. She didn’t want to come up with a fake explanation for that. Not when Brent was in a heightened state she’d never seen before. Just as she started dialing, he let go.
“That’s right. And for the record, you do not have my permission to touch me.” She funneled her anxiety into fury and aimed it right at him. “Do you hear me?”
He blinked a few times, as if he just realized how much control he’d lost. “That was . . . not right.”
She wasn’t ready to let it go. “Ever.”
“Look, I’m worried about Aaron. Come on. He wouldn’t just disappear without a word. He’d at least tell me or Jared, probably both.”
No apology. So many men who wandered in and out of her life sucked. “None of what is happening right now makes sense, but turning on me isn’t the answer.”
“You know more than you’re saying about Aaron.” He blew out a long breath. “I can feel it.”
“What you feel is impotent.” She hurled that word at him on purpose. Aaron had shared a bit about that part of Brent’s marriage. At the time she’d told him to stop because he sounded almost gleeful about his friend’s bedroom failures, but now she used the information to her benefit. “You want to find Aaron but can’t.”
“Why weren’t you at the search?” Confusion showed on every inch of his face. “Really. It would have been so easy to do that one thing. To stop people from talking.”
Jared asked. Men on the nasty phone calls asked. Now Brent. It was as if the men in this town thought it was her job to go out and cry and wail on cue.
Never going to happen.
“Because we both know he didn’t go missing while hiking.” She knew Ginny saw the car leave the neighborhood because she’d followed up to ask why Aaron took off so early that day. It added a level of intrigue and confusion to the search. Lila wished it would point the spotlight elsewhere, but she knew it didn’t.
Brent leaned his back against the side of his car. “Your presence would have made people feel . . .”
“Better? That’s not my job.” Neither was this conversation, and her patience for it waned.
He sighed. “The kids are scared.”
The parents should be. Brent acted like he cared about their welfare, and she knew he did on one level. But if he were paying attention and less worried about being Aaron’s buddy, he might have noticed the problem. He might have been able to protect those girls from Aaron’s lies and grooming.
Unless he knew and didn’t care. The thought whizzed into her head and right back out again.
“You should get them a counselor. Let the kids talk about Aaron.” Maybe one of the girls would reveal some of what was on those sickening videos. “They need it.”
Brent took a deep inhale as his gaze wandered over the neighbors’ houses. It took a few seconds before it landed on her again. “The investigator isn’t going to let this go. You know this is just the beginning, right?”
He still viewed her as the only suspect. Probably not a surprise, but not comfortable for her either. He could work on the press and on Ginny. On Jared. “I should hope not.”
“I want to believe you didn’t do something . . .”
She looked at him, really looked. The dark circles under his eyes spoke to his exhaustion. He came off as deflated. The steam he’d built up on the way here had all but disappeared. Under it all she looked for something more. Brent had a reason to go to the school early each day. He was the principal. He had access to the grounds and the parking lot by the field. And he would have saved Aaron.
He’d been pushing her, and she wanted to shove back. “I’d think I’d earned your trust by now. The things I know about your marriage . . . I’ve never shared them. All those times when you hid out at our house, or spent the weekend with Aaron instead of with the kids, as promised.”
He stood up straight again. “Are you threatening me with something?”
“I’m trying to make a point.” One conversation kept spinning in her mind. She and Aaron agreed on how he should handle a certain uncomfortable request Brent had made, but Brent didn’t know that. “If the investigators are going to look at people with motive, they might talk to you.”
His mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You asked Aaron for a loan. He said no.”
The last of that fiery anger vanished. His skin took on a chalky white hue.
“Why do you think we fought?” It wasn’t true, but all she needed was for him to think it was. To get him twitchy and panicked. To make him mess up.
“I don’t believe you.”
She had his attention now. “Ginny will.”
Chapter Thirty-One
THE LONGEST DAY OF LILA’S LIFE GOT LONGER WHEN SHE pulled up to her house a few hours later after a drive to calm down. She saw the message. White paint splashed across the brown garage door in a scrawl.
WHERE IS HE?
MURDERER
STUPID BITCH
The words crisscrossed one another. Looked like two different sets of handwriting. Not that she was an expert on such things.