Pretty Little Wife(57)
She lost sensation in her fingers. Papers passed by her in a blur.
Tobias glanced at her. “He has information in here on Aaron and your life now.”
“It looks like he was following you, talking to people about you, when you weren’t around.”
The steady drum of Ginny’s voice echoed in Lila’s head. The words bounced off her, refusing to process. “I can read.”
Ginny reached over, paging through the pile and pulling one sheet out. “There’s even a diagnosis in there for you, though that might not be the right word since he isn’t that sort of doctor.”
“Let’s not—”
Lila pulled the page closer, cutting off Tobias’s argument. The note jumped out at her. PTSD. Anxiety disorder. Possible attachment disorder and dissociative state.
The meetings. The meals. The laughter. Time with him let her step outside her life and experience a taste of normality. A peek into how others lived.
Memories tumbled through her. The park. His office. That hotel in Syracuse. None of it was real. He’d used her. Lied to her. One more man who’d disappointed her.
A scream rumbled up inside her. It pushed against her chest and battered her throat. Every muscle ached and strained to keep it in.
“You were work to him, Lila,” Ginny said.
Yeah, she got it. He viewed her as a case study. As a way to make money and prove whatever point he intended to make in a new book. It was all about tenure. His work. His research. Money or fame.
The message blared in Lila’s head: he viewed her as some sort of crime statistic.
She’d never played the role of girlfriend and never wanted a boyfriend. They didn’t share a great love. She didn’t even know what that meant, but they’d been clear their relationship operated on a different level. But she expected respect. She believed in comfort, in bed and out. Wanting and desire, listening and caring on a fundamental level of at least human decency.
It had all been a lie.
She talked over and around the unexpected body blow, refusing to let Ginny see any reaction. “And? I’m assuming you have some grand point in showing this to me.”
“If he was watching you so closely with the idea of writing about you, making money off your life, I wonder what else he knows.”
A headache thumped through Lila. She tried to find the right answer through the thoughts and worries swimming around in her brain. “I don’t know where Aaron is.”
Ginny smiled for the first time that afternoon. “But maybe Ryan does.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THE SCREAMING IN LILA’S HEAD WOULDN’T STOP. SHE COULD hear Ginny’s taunting voice and see the panic in Tobias’s face when she told him about Ryan’s research. After the meeting, Tobias gave her a long lecture about talking to Ginny alone then stayed at the sheriff’s office, trying to get some information about what else they’d pulled out of Ryan’s house.
She wanted to march over and burn Ryan’s office down. She called and used their emergency signal, but he didn’t call back. Not that she could stay rational and focused if he did pick up.
Seeing the old newspaper clippings about her father and Amelia in that damn folder had set her off. He even had a copy of her name change paperwork, which was supposed to be sealed. He’d likely sweet-talked some clerk into giving it to him. She’d told him about how she could no longer be connected to her old name and old life but never suspected he would go hunting.
She’d told him so much. About the way her moods swung from furious to hollow after the policewoman told her about her mom. About the sucking pain that doubled her over when she realized that her mother would rather be dead than be her mom.
She thought they were sharing and she could trust him. They connected for sex, but she could talk to him. He listened. He didn’t understand surviving dysfunction the way Aaron did because he hadn’t lived through it, but Ryan didn’t judge. He asked open-ended questions and let her talk.
Now she knew why.
The longer she stood in the middle of her family room, the louder the voices in her head became. A riot of shouting and banging. The worst parts of her life ran in fast-forward through her mind. Her father’s voice. Aaron’s sick laugh on the video. The way Ryan reassured her as he smiled at her across the coffee shop table.
Men using her. Lying to her. Screwing her. Desperate to break her.
Shutting her eyes and covering her ears didn’t stop the fever pitch. The room spun, and rage crashed over her. It slithered up her body and danced in her throat. Darkened every inch of her until that scream trapped inside her clawed and fought to get out.
Unable to choke the fury back for one more second, she reached for the vase on the end of the mantel. Grabbed it with both hands and smashed it as hard as she could against the stone of the fireplace. Let out a pain-soaked yowl.
Her screeching echoed through the quiet house.
The satisfying crack rang in her ears.
Blue glass shattered, sending shards over the hardwood floor and bouncing under the couch and into the fireplace. Pieces pricked at her legs, and she felt a slashing low on her cheek.
She blinked, trying to focus. Forced her breath to slow and her body to keep from crumpling on a heap on the floor. When she did, she saw the fallout from the shower of glass. Pieces stuck everywhere. Some crunching under her feet.