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Ginny kept her attention on Lila. “Which would be?”
“That I was angry he was sleeping around and killed him.” Lila had to force the words out. Sleeping around sounded voluntary. The phrase absolved Aaron from blame, and she hated doing that.
Pete’s eyebrow lifted. “You weren’t?”
Ginny’s elbows slid across the table as she leaned in. “Pete’s right. These accusations hit close. They must stir up certain memories. Make you furious for being put in this position. Again.”
“Hey.” Tobias tapped the tip of his pen against the table. “Let’s keep the focus on Aaron.”
Ginny held Lila’s gaze with an unblinking stare. “But Lila’s father had a similar problem controlling himself around young girls. This is a pattern with the men in her life.”
Faces blurred in her mind. An endless line of weak men. Some sick and some pathetic, and all whining about how they weren’t responsible for their putrid actions. “You don’t need to sugarcoat it. My father stalked and killed a child. What Aaron did... he...”
“Your father raped and murdered your best friend,” Ginny shot back.
She’d answered these questions decades ago, and here she was again.
You had to know how he felt about Amelia. The way he looked at her. What exactly did he ask you to do to get her to come to your house that day?
Tobias tapped the pen harder. “We’re off topic.”
Ginny’s hand inched across the table. “Some people thought you were in on it back then. I’ve read the notes in the case file. There’s a theory that you helped lure Amelia for your dad. A sort of father-daughter kidnapping team.”
New images swam in front of Lila. Her father rubbing Amelia’s back. His insistence on taking them to the pond to swim. The way he watched for hours from the front seat of his car.
I need to know you can handle yourself in the water. I might even jump in and join you.
Pain wound deep in her gut. Disappointment. Surprise. Sitting in her kitchen back then, trying to work through exactly what the adults were asking when they talked about “inappropriate touching.”
Her father barely paid attention to her, but Amelia was special. Lila recognized it, too. Sunny and sweet. She wore a big smile and her blond hair in that perfect ponytail.
“You have a child.” Lila cleared her throat, hoping to even out her voice. When Ginny frowned, Lila rushed to get to the point. “It’s not a secret. There was a spotlight on you in the paper when you got promoted to this job.”
“You’re investigating me?”
She refused to be knocked off her path. A deep, achingpart of her needed Ginny to understand. To hear her and get what it was like to be so alone that the cold inside never warmed. To walk around always one word away from bursting into a fine powder and getting carried off with the wind. “What would you do for your son?”
Ginny shrugged. “Anything, but I don’t see—”
“Right.” Just what Lila expected. “No hesitation.”
Pete shrugged. “What does that prove?”
This was between her and Ginny, so she ignored the male voice. “Your son knows that security. He knows his parents love him, because I’m assuming your husband would give the same answer.”
“We’re definitely off topic now,” Tobias mumbled.
Ginny lifted a hand as if to tell the men to shut up. Her gaze never left Lila’s face. “Make your point.”
“Your son understands how you would advocate for him. That you love him and support him. He’s learning it by living it. You’ve shown him every day of his life, and he carries that security, whether he truly appreciates it yet or not. It’s so deeply rooted that he’ll have it forever. You will be there for him.” Lila gulped in air, forced her body to breathe around the pain stabbing inside. “You know what I learned from my parents?”
Ginny’s expression telegraphed that she was listening—totally engaged—but gave nothing away about what was happening inside her. “Tell me.”
“Unconditional love is bullshit. A trap that lures you in, makes you comfortable, then snaps, breaking you in half. Likehope, it blinds and destroys. Leaves you limping and unprepared for what’s coming right for you.” She had never known a moment where it played out differently. “People think my father is a hideous monster, but he’s really a narcissist, incapable of love. Evil, possibly, but too self-involved for anyone to be able to honestly assess him.”
“And your mother?” Ginny’s voice sounded softer now, more coaxing.
“She showed how much she loved me when she threw herself off a building instead of sticking around and fighting for me.” Lila fought to swallow back the anxiety welling up inside her. “She picked death over me.”
