Pretty Little Wife(96)

“I heard about the injuries.” Broken rib. Dislocated shoulder. Shock. It had all been in the medical report. “You okay?”

“It’s one last gift from the Payne brothers.” Lila stepped back and gestured for Ginny to go first. “Come in.”

The house was so quiet. No podcast or music blaring. Boxes piled everywhere. Garbage bags filled and closed, waiting to go outside or be donated. Ginny wasn’t sure of the contents, so she could only guess.

She waited until Lila stepped into the kitchen to talk again. “Are you worried about being able to sell the house after everything that’s happened? It has quite a history.”

Lila put a used coffee cup in the sink, likely the neighbor’s. She got a clean one out of the cabinet. “I was concerned at first, but apparently there is a thriving market for people who have an unhealthy interest in serial killers.”

“That can’t be true.”

She refilled her mug. “We listed three days ago and Christina has received two offers so far, one from out of town.”

“Damn.”

“My life story is very lucrative, usually for other people.” She held the pot up. “Coffee?”

Ginny nodded then held on to the mug to make pouring easier. “Meaning?”

“You didn’t hear?” She set the pot down and turned to face Ginny again. “Ryan already got a new book deal.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I’ve been using ‘bastard,’ but your words work, too.” Lila cradled her mug. “A true-crime, forensic I was part of this case personal insights thing. Got a crap ton of money for it.”

Bastard. “Unbelievable.”

“Is it?”

“Maybe not.” He’d seemed nice enough and said the right things. Liked to talk and clearly viewed himself as the most important person in the room . . . yeah, Ginny didn’t get what Lila had seen in him. “I guess you’re not together.”

“No.” Lila leaned back against the refrigerator. “He avoided criminal charges thanks to Jared’s admission about planting the phone and ended up with exactly what he wanted—a front seat to a real crime.”

The industry that had grown up around death had never sat right with Ginny. “That’s bloodless.”

“He insisted it was business and we could continue to sleep together.”

Ginny saluted Lila with her mug. “Nice of him.”

“My taste in men sucks.”

“It really does.” Ginny sat on one of the bar stools. Being there, talking like this, it would be easy to forget they operated on opposite sides of this case. Anyone walking in might see them as two friends gossiping. But that wasn’t why she’d shown up today. She needed Lila to know. “You did okay in the end.”

Lila stared at her over the top of her mug. “How do you figure that?”

“The trust fund.”

“Aaron’s trust went to Jared.”

Ginny thought she saw a small smile come and go on Lila’s mouth. Whatever game they’d been playing clearly was not done. Ginny threw down her last card. “Jared was Aaron’s beneficiary, but no one mentioned that you were always listed as Jared’s only beneficiary. Not Aaron. You.”

“So it appears.”

“Since Aaron died first, his trust went to Jared. As Jared’s beneficiary, you get his estate plus whatever will go to him from Aaron.”

“Yes.” Lila set her mug down on the counter.

“Between the houses and Jared’s other accounts and the trust, we’re talking about ten million dollars.” Pete had wanted to run into Charles’s office and show him after she’d told him the number, walked him through the assets.

Ginny knew better. This fact, even though it provided some pretty juicy motive, wouldn’t matter. The search for more remains continued. Everyone—maybe even her—was fine with letting the case end this way. Pretty, with a bow but no real answers about who’d killed Aaron and why.

“It’s closer to eleven million.”

Ginny felt the emotions in the room shift. An odd sensation wound around them. Not really tension. More like a mutual understanding. “That’s a nice payday.”

Lila winced. “I worked hard for it.”

She sure as hell had and somehow had still come out as the hero. “Convenient how it all worked out in the end. The money, I mean. Not the killings.”

Lila shook her head. “Again, the Payne brothers were anything but convenient.”

“True.”

“What’s your theory?” Lila smiled, and for the first time since they’d met it looked genuine. Warm. “You want to tell me, so say it.”

Almost, but not yet. “Why not turn the brothers in as soon as you found out about them?”

“Maybe I did.” She shrugged. “You don’t know.”

“Let’s pretend you didn’t. Let’s pretend you found out about Aaron and waited.”

“Is your theory that I knew about who both brothers really were and what they were doing but withheld the information from the police so that I could plot their murders, one after the other, in order to maximize the benefit I’d receive?”

The way the scenario rolled off her tongue. She didn’t stammer or laugh. She spelled it out as if it were true . . . and Ginny was pretty sure it was. “It’s a good theory.”