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Ryan’s arm dropped to the bench. Without moving, the chasm between them expanded. “You’re unbelievable.”
Did he really not get it? This was not the time to talk about seeing each other more or bigger feelings. “I’m trying to save both of us.”
He stood up. “Try harder.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
BEING IGNORED PISSED GINNY OFF. SHE’D TRIED CALLING LILA,but she didn’t answer. With a squad waiting around the block and the forensic team ready to go, she stood on Lila’s front porch and verbally wrangled with her attorney and friend. Probably her only friend.
“Where is she?” Ginny asked in a tone that suggested this was not the time to play.
Tobias closed the door behind him and stepped out into the cold, wearing black pants and a sweater but no shoes. “She had errands.”
Ginny nodded in the direction of the driveway. “Her car is here.”
“She has mine.”
This guy had an answer for everything. He was smooth, but Lila hid her constant assessing better than this guy did.
“So she made sure to take the car that’s not being followed by my office. That suggests she has something to hide.” Ginny made a mental note to pull more records.
“Or that she needed a minute of peace.”
“You’re in a rental. We’ll track the GPS on it.” They’d find out where she went. Check cameras in the area. See if she had the suspected check-in with her supposed not-boyfriend.
Tobias crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back against the front door. “It sounds like you’re convinced Lila has done something wrong.”
“She’s not exactly an open book.”
“She’s not that hard to figure out either.”
From what Ginny could tell, no one in town agreed. Literally, no one. They all described Lila as pretty but pointed out how she didn’t seem to support Aaron’s career. That was her big sin in many people’s eyes. “You’re alone in that assessment.”
“When we were in practice together and would have a case involving a felony, like drugs or murder or whatever, Lila would give this speech. She’d talk to clients and their families and sometimes their friends about how she didn’t have any ethical responsibility to tell law enforcement where to go find evidence, but if someone moved the evidence and gave it to her so that the police couldn’t find it, then there was a problem.”
“Sounds like a criminal defense attorney way of rationalizing the law.” And she didn’t mean that as a compliment. “I’d argue she’d have a moral responsibility to do the right thing in either case, but okay.”
“One day a man comes in with a gun. He’s not our client. He’s our client’s brother, and he’s heard the speech, but thepolice were closing in and he couldn’t hide the weapon his brother used to kill his wife for fear of being exposed.”
“He sounds lovely.”
Tobias flashed a smile. “You don’t always get to pick who you defend.”
She didn’t think that was true in a private firm, but she let it go. “So, he brought it in to you... and?”
“Lila left the room and called the police.” His arms fell to his sides, and he smiled. “Cost us our case. The client and his brother had to plead. They tried to sue us, but Lila had followed the rules.”
He acted like he’d shared some big morality lesson with her. “I’m not clear on the point of this story.”
“A lot of other attorneys would have reminded the person about their earlier speech and made a big deal of going to the bathroom or taking a call, giving the person the chance to fix their mess.”
Lawyers.“I don’t know how you do what you do.”
“Criminal defense is more interesting than probate work. Trust me.” He waved a hand as if to dismiss the moment of amusement in his voice. “But my point is that you’re dealing with the same Lila. She follows the rules. She does not flinch.”
That last part they agreed on... so far. But Ginny believed everyone had a flinching point. “Is that really the moral of your story?”
“You think it says something else about her?”
