Pretty Little Wife(94)

So many questions crashed into her brain, and her vision blurred. “Why are you here?”

“Ginny told me to follow you.”

She thought a car had been following her, but then she’d looked back and it wasn’t there. “You took your time getting here.”

He shook his head. “I lost you near the end of the drive.”

None of that mattered now. She knew who and why. Everything she’d ever thought about Jared had been wrong. The bracelets. The charms he’d used as some sort of official body count of his depravity. He was more than damaged. He was evil.

She forced her mind to focus even as her stomach spun and twisted. “Tell Ginny I wasn’t too late this time.”

Then she gave in to the pain pulling and tugging at her and the cabin went dark.





Chapter Sixty


THE NEXT MORNING, CHARLES CALLED GINNY AND PETE INTO his office. Made a show of it, too. Yelled their names across the main room and slammed the door, trapping them inside.

He’d been on the phone since she’d arrived at work. Rubbing his hand through his hair, which was never a good sign.

He disconnected the call and fell into the chair. He eyed up both of them before turning to her. “I told you to stand down. That was an order.”

Only he would think that catching a serial killer and a teacher who’d abused kids in the same week was a feat that demanded an explanation. He fought for his job and his reputation. Just once she wished he’d fight for the people on the ground. The people who worked so hard to make him look good to the voters.

She inhaled, waging an internal fight. She kept her voice calm and tried to be reasonable. “You said the FBI was taking over. That meant—”

“You heard what I said. You were to stop working on the case.” He leaned back in this chair. “Instead, you sent Pete out on surveillance.”

She would make the same call today and next week and next year. “It’s good I did.”

Pete nodded in an uncharacteristic show of support. He wasn’t exactly one to buck authority. “She’s right. Something could have happened to Lila.”

“We might never have known that Jared was the killer,” she added.

Pete nodded again. “Exactly.”

Silence sucked all of the oxygen out of the room. There was nothing comfortable about this quiet. It itched and burned.

“There’s one major flaw in your joint and obviously practiced argument.” He pointed at Pete but looked at Ginny. “He didn’t stop Jared. He didn’t kill him or save Lila. He got there after Jared was dead. She saved herself.”

All true, but Ginny thought he was trying very hard to miss the point.

“I found her over Jared’s body.” Pete stood at attention, but he wasn’t marching to orders this time. “It was obvious from the scene he was looking for Lila to be his next victim.”

Charles shrugged. “So?”

“So?” She was surprised her head didn’t explode.

Charles glared at Pete. “What happened to your belief that Lila killed her husband? That Ginny was too close to this case to properly assess it?”

Pete’s eyes widened. “I didn’t—”

“It’s exactly what you said. You came running to me, refusing to make a formal complaint but trying to cover your own ass, just in case.”

The weasel. Both of them. Scurrying around, whispering behind her back. But still.

She forced her anger down, like she always did. “None of that changes what happened in the cabin.”

“Or that Ginny’s instincts about this case not being over were right,” Pete said.

Not that she forgave him based on that small show of support. She didn’t. Disloyalty, picking Charles’s whims over her instincts, would take a minute for her to process. Not now, but back at home. She’d talk to Roland, and then maybe—maybe—she’d remember how green Pete was and let it go.

“What did happen in that cabin? Do we know?” Charles leaned forward with his hands folded together. This was his serious, I’m in charge position. He used it whenever he wanted to yell. “It seems to me, once again, that we’re taking Lila Ridgefield’s word on everything. We have to because she’d been leading us around the whole case.”

But he wasn’t wrong about that. Getting there just after the altercation, not knowing what they’d said and fought about, picked at Ginny. “What are you suggesting?”

Charles focused on her. Frowned and sighed and gave her the full I’m pissed show. “I’m saying with or without Pete in that cabin, this case would have ended the same way. With more questions than answers. With two dead men and a woman the public views as a vigilante hero. She is untouchable.”

Pete shrugged. “I can live with that.”

“Oh, really?” Charles’s voice grew even louder. “See, I gave an order. I had an understanding with the State police and FBI, and you two violated it.”

And there it was. The real reason for all of this, for launching into the screed in front of the full office. “This lecture is because we made you look bad in front of your important friends?” she asked.

“I’m in charge, not you. Do you understand me?” He didn’t give her time to answer. “Well?”