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“Like she was some sort of prize.” Brent stopped and gulped in a big breath. “He never said,look what I snagged,but youcould feel the pride. He liked that people saw them a certain way. She’s beautiful, apparently really smart, but aloof. It gives her this almost larger-than-life feel.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
He gave her full-on eye contact. “It all stopped.”
Ginny slipped her pen out of her pocket. She wasn’t sure what to write, so she waited. “What did?”
“Them. They stopped working.”
“That’s a big statement.” The kind that could matter and provide motive. “When?”
“More than a month ago.” He rubbed his palm with the thumb of his other hand. “Something happened.”
“What?”
Brent shrugged. “Who knows? They’re super private.”
Not helpful. She tried again, crossing one leg over the other, aiming for calm. She hoped that would ease some of the tension he sent jumping around the room. “What makes you think there was a problem?”
“Again, I just want to be clear. He didn’t say there was. He actually insisted everything was okay, but it wasn’t.”
One more time.“How do you know that?”
“He stopped mentioning her.” He cut her off before she could ask for clarification. “I know that sounds ridiculous.”
“Confusing, yes.”
“Being married to her matters to him. It’s part of his persona. He has this mysterious, glamorous wife who rarely comes to anything school-related, but he’d drop references about her. Something she said or somewhere they went. It waskind of a teacher’s lounge joke that no one would believe she existed except we had met her or seen her around town.”
“Okay, but—”
“He didn’t tell bad stories about Lila. Ever. If they fought, you’d never really know, because he never mentioned a negative thing.”
“Brent.” She held up her hand to get him to stop talking at record speed. “I don’t think I’m getting your point.”
“Starting a few weeks ago, he acted as if she no longer existed. Not a word about her or anything that’s happening away from work since then.” Brent stopped moving. “And now he’s missing.”
“Do you think Lila did something to Aaron?” That sounded to her more like Aaron had done something to Lila, but that wouldn’t explain the missing husband.
Brent frowned. “I think something happened that changed everything between them. Figure out what it was and you’ll find Aaron.”
Chapter Fourteen
GINNY AND PETE WALKED INTO LILA’S REAL ESTATE OFFICE INdowntown Ithaca the next morning. She didn’t own the place or run it, but she worked out of the brokerage firm. Had a desk there, which was empty.
They’d tried her house first and no one answered, so they’d come here as the logical second choice. Finding her empty desk took two seconds. The lack of personal photos and a nameplate gave it away.
Ginny waited until the woman at the big desk in the office in the back got off the phone. The badge didn’t impress the woman into cutting short the conversation about some lake property with a strange smell in the back bedroom. Neither did Pete’s dramatic sighing.
When the woman finally hung up, Ginny shot her ayou can’t out-attitude meglare. “Are you ready now or do you need to get coffee or make lunch plans first?”
The woman took her time meeting Ginny’s gaze. “Don’t tempt me.”
Pete sighed one last time before nodding in the directionof Lila’s unoccupied desk chair just outside of the glassed-off office they all stood in. “She’s not here?”
“Lila?” The woman shrugged. “Should she be?”
“Tell me your name.” Because Ginny was done with this bullshit.
