Guilt By Degrees

44

Chase closed his laptop and pocketed the flash drive. “Bottom line? You were right. Our esteemed CEO got his start by selling nonexistent homes.”

Sabrina nodded absently but didn’t immediately reply. Chase frowned. Her increasing distraction over the past few days had begun to worry him. He saw her pull her attention back to him with effort. Yet when she spoke, it was clear she’d heard and analyzed every word he’d said.

“No one ever exposed his bullshit excuse about the construction company having stolen the money.”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

She drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. “Find out why no one sued or took their claims to the police. There’s a fix in here somewhere, and I’d bet the fixer is higher up on the food chain. I want to bag the CEO and his fixer. We’ll save the evidence on the fixer for future use.”

Chase nodded, relieved that, wherever her mind had been-and he had a feeling he knew-her priorities were still in place.

Sabrina pushed away from her desk, stood up, and stretched. She hit the button that opened the window coverings, and they parted to reveal moonlit clouds in a night sky. She shivered.

“You cold?” Chase asked.

“I’ve just been sitting too long. I’m going to get a sweater.”

Chase waited until she left the room, then quickly went to her desktop and tapped some keys. He’d meant to sneak a quick look before she came back, but what he saw was so upsetting, he forgot the time. She caught him red-handed.

“What the hell-?”

Chase gestured angrily to the monitor. “We agreed I’d handle this, Lilah!”

“Sabrina!” she hissed.

“We’re alone, Lilah! You’ve got to stop it. We can’t afford to leave a trail.”

“Back off, Chase.”

He heard the steel in her voice and knew he’d get nowhere with her tonight. He shook his head, his shoulders sagging with defeat. “I just…worry…”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” she said coldly. “Go home. Get some sleep. You’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

A thick knot in his gut told him there was trouble brewing. Big trouble. But he knew that when Lilah obsessed, there was nothing he could do to stop her. She’d do what she wanted to do. He’d just have to hope for the best. Chase slid his laptop into the case and left.

Lilah walked over to the window. She usually found the lights of the downtown skyline soothing. Not tonight. Not any night since Chase had told her they were looking for her. It felt like her brain had gone into a sort of hyperdrive, and her body vibrated constantly with a nervous jangling energy that gave her no peace. Only action gave her some momentary relief.

Like in her encounter with Lieutenant Hales. Lilah hadn’t particularly wanted to get Hales into bed. There was no reason-nothing she needed from him. She’d just wanted to reach in and touch something in Rachel’s world. Lilah’d considered the possibility that Rachel might be there with him. If she had been, Lilah had planned to fade into a corner and watch them from a distance. But she’d gotten lucky. Graden Hales was alone and seemingly miserable, which was probably why he’d shown so little interest in her. And that had irritated her. That’s likely what made her take the risky step of tipping her hand with that last line. But she’d needed to get a reaction out of him, even if she couldn’t stick around to see it.

And she knew she’d succeeded. Hales was too smart to miss the little heat-seeking missile she’d fired. At first, she’d been annoyed with herself for letting her temper make her pop off that way. But the more she thought about it, the more certain she’d been that there was no downside-in fact, there was a considerable upside. Because once the import of it all hit him, he’d tell Rachel. And then Rachel Knight would begin to have some idea of who she was dealing with. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Her Rachel Knight campaign had just begun. And it promised to be even more satisfying than the destruction of Brenda Honesdale.

Not even Chase knew about Brenda. The “best friend ever,” the girl who made her feel like she belonged when she’d come home from boarding school in her sophomore year and entered the local high school, a loner and a stranger. Lilah’d experienced for the first time what it was like to have a crowd of friends who were normal kids, and to be accepted as one of them. It was something Lilah’d never known before, and she’d believed her new friends would be hers forever-especially Brenda.

Until the night of the party. When Brenda and all her minions were revealed to be liars and traitors-and Brenda a monster. Lilah never did know what they put in her drink. She only knew that she’d woken up sick and battered, inside and out. She’d stumbled home on wooden legs, clutching her blouse together. Her mother had stared at her coldly-the unspoken accusation heavy in the air. Lilah’d declared that she was never going back to that school. And Pam-Lilah never again called her Mother-was happy to let her earn her GED with a home tutor. The sooner Lilah graduated, the sooner she’d go to college and get out of the house.

Lilah spent years planning and waiting. Waiting for Brenda to have something she cared about, something to lose. Something Lilah could take away. Eventually she got her wish. Brenda married William Sharder, a successful local politician from a wealthy family. And they had a baby. Brenda and William enjoyed a sparkling life filled with luxury, privilege, and power.

Lilah moved in slowly, and-patiently, bit by bit-she began to dismantle Brenda’s life. Rumors of Brenda’s blackout drinking and prescription-drug abuse began to circulate. No one knew how or when they started. And at first the rumors were just a vague worry-no one really believed them. But on more than one occasion Brenda was seen staggering home, with no memory of where she’d been. Then she got into an accident while driving home from a fund-raiser. The police received a tip that a person driving a car similar to hers had been weaving erratically, so they took her in for a blood test. Though she claimed she’d only had one glass of wine, the drug test showed high levels of OxyContin in her blood. She denied having taken any drugs. By that point no one believed her. On the advice of her lawyer, Brenda pled guilty to drunk driving.

And while Brenda was doing community service picking up trash on the freeway, Lilah just “happened” to run into Brenda’s husband, William, at-of all things-a prayer breakfast. They’d gone out for mimosas afterward and wound up in Lilah’s bedroom. In the warm afterglow, Lilah told him that she’d lovingly preserved the memory of their tryst on videotape. A young politician with big dreams can’t afford scandal, and Lilah kept her demand simple: give her a junior associate position in his white-shoe law firm. He’d been happy to oblige.

The rumors of Brenda’s alcohol and drug abuse were now rampant and largely believed. The following year, she was shopping in the local mall when a security guard, acting on a tip, found drugs tucked into the bedding in her toddler’s stroller. That led to a felony conviction for possession of methamphetamine. By then Brenda’s husband, who was aiming for state office, found he could no longer afford to be married to her-or leave her alone with his child. He left with the baby, taking with him everything in the world Brenda had lived for.

Lilah had been gearing up for the next round and would likely have gone on for many rounds to come, but Brenda thwarted her. She drew a bath and slit her wrists.

Lilah sat down at her computer and pulled up the screen she’d been viewing. Rachel Knight would be a much more challenging target than Brenda. Lilah began to read. It was an obituary. As she scrolled to the end of the obit, she found a photograph. Lilah stared with gritted teeth at the image of a smiling Rachel Knight, arm in arm with her adoring mother.