Turning every ugly thing into something uglier.
“She did this,” Eleanor said softly.
Deck’s expression tightened.
“She helped do it.”
“She started that channel.”
“A tiny one back then. Hardly anybody watched it at first.”
“But then it spread.”
“Aye.”
Eleanor sat back down slowly.
“She kept after me.”
Deck nodded.
“After the trial. After Charlie left. After you left your father’s firm. Every time it started to die down, she fed it again. Another video. Another article. Another reminder of the terrible defense attorney who let a monster walk.”
Eleanor looked back at the old screenshots.
She remembered trying not to read them.
Remembered Charlie telling her to stop looking.
Remembered her father closing the office door and saying, very gently, that maybe it would be easier if she stepped away for a while.
Not because he wanted her gone.
Because she loved him too much to let them destroy him, too.
“She ruined everything,” Eleanor whispered.
Deck was quiet for a moment.
“No,” he said finally. “The man who killed that woman ruined everything. Lila just needed somebody she could reach.”
“She chose me.”
“Aye.”
The word settled hard between them.
Eleanor looked down at the picture again.
“I could understand her hating him,” she said. “I could understand grief. Anger. Wanting someone to blame.”
Deck said nothing.
“But she took all of it and pointed it at me. And she has spent years turning every missing woman, every dead girl, every terrible thing into the same story.”
“She doesn’t want truth,” Deck said quietly. “She wants a villain. And once she picked you, she never let go.”
Every smile Lila had given her in the hallway suddenly looked different. Not professional rivalry. Not smugness. The look of someone enjoying the cut.
