Chapter 7
I met Lila at the park.
She was sitting on a bench by the water, wrapped in a big coat, even though it wasn’t that cold.
She looked small.
Scared.
Nothing like the girl who’d slapped me and called me a bitch a few days earlier.
I sat down beside her.
We didn’t speak for a minute.
Then she started crying.
“I’m so sorry, Emily,” she sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry. I believed her. I really believed her. She told me you were the one stealing. That you were cheating. That you were going to take Daniel away from us. I was stupid. I was so stupid.”
I let her cry.
I didn’t say I forgave her.
Not yet.
“What do you know, Lila?” I said finally.
She wiped her eyes.
She pulled the flip phone out of her pocket—the one I’d found in her purse.
She held it out to me.
“Everything is on here,” she said. “Texts. Calls. Everything. She made me help her. At first, it was small things. Lie to Daniel about where she was. Cover for her when she was at the casino. Then it got worse. She made me sneak into your room and get your pill bottles so she could swap them. She made me tell Daniel lies about you. About how you’d badmouth him behind his back. About how you didn’t really want kids.”
She took a shaky breath.
“The money from the estate? The $80k? It went to pay my gambling debts. I got in deep at the casino. $80k deep. They were going to break my legs, Emily. They were going to kill me. Mom said she’d take care of it. I didn’t know she was stealing from Dad’s estate. I didn’t know she was taking from Daniel’s company too. I thought she had savings. I thought she was helping me. But she wasn’t. She was using me. Every time I tried to tell Daniel the truth, she’d threaten me. Say she’d tell the casino where I lived. Say she’d tell Daniel I was the one who stole the money. That I’d go to jail. I was trapped.”
I stared at her.
The fertility meds.
The lies.
The stolen money.
It had all been to cover up Lila’s gambling.
And Margaret’s own addiction.
“What about Dad?” I said softly.
Lila flinched.
Her face went white.
“What about him?” she said.
“Did she kill him, Lila?” I said.
Lila burst into harder sobs.
She put her head in her hands.
“I was 17,” she whispered. “I heard them fighting that night. The night before he died. Dad was yelling. Said he knew about the casino. About the money. Said he was leaving her. Said he was going to send me to rehab. That we’d all be better off without her. Then it got quiet. The next morning, Mom came into my room. She was crying. Said Dad had a heart attack in his sleep. I never thought… I never thought she’d… but she had that pill bottle. The one for her anxiety. She was always taking them. And the coroner said there was that drug in his system. I’ve spent four years telling myself it was a coincidence. That she’d never do that. But I know, Emily. Deep down, I know.”
She grabbed my arm.
“We have to tell Daniel,” she said. “All of it. The gambling. The money. The meds. Dad. He has to know. Before she does something worse. She’s desperate now. She knows you’re getting close. She told me last night if anyone found out, she’d make sure we all went down with her. She’s crazy, Emily. She’s actually crazy.”
I called Jake.
He met us at the park ten minutes later.
We went through the flip phone together.
Texts between Margaret and her bookkeeper about falsifying company records.
Texts between Margaret and the casino about paying off Lila’s debts.
Texts between Margaret and a guy she’d paid to swap my meds at the pharmacy.
And one text, sent the night before Richard died, to a number we didn’t recognize.
It said: Problem solved. He won’t be a problem anymore. The money will be ours.
Jake looked up at me.
His face was serious.
“This is enough for the police,” he said. “All of it. Embezzlement. Fraud. Tampering with prescription drugs. And this text? Combined with the life insurance, the casino debt, the drugs in his system? That’s enough to open a murder investigation.”
“Let’s go to Daniel,” I said. “Now. He has to hear this from us. Before she gets to him again.”
We drove to Daniel’s office.
It was late, but his car was still in the parking lot.
We walked in.
The receptionist was gone.
Daniel was in his office, the door half open.
We could hear voices inside.
Margaret.
She was there.
“… and Lila has a gambling problem,” she was saying. “A terrible one. She owes hundreds of thousands. Emily found out. She’s been blackmailing her. Making Lila help her forge those bank papers. Making Lila lie about me. That’s why Lila came to you the other day, Daniel. Emily was threatening her. She’s been using my own daughter against me. You have to believe me, baby. Before she destroys all of us.”
Lila’s hand flew to her mouth.
She looked at me, terrified.
Margaret was doing it again.
Spinning a new lie.
Turning Lila into the villain before Lila could even tell the truth.
Daniel stepped out of his office before we could go in.
He saw us.
His face was hard.
“Get out,” he said to Lila.
“Daniel, wait,” Lila said, crying. “It’s not true. None of what she said is true. I have proof. I have texts—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Daniel said.
He stepped forward.
“Mom told me everything. The gambling. The debts. I can’t believe you, Lila. I can’t believe you’d let Emily manipulate you like this. You need help. Real help. And until you get it, I don’t want to see you. Don’t call me. Don’t come to my house. Just go.”
Lila collapsed onto the floor, sobbing.
Margaret stepped out of the office behind Daniel.
She looked at me over his shoulder.
And she smiled.
May you like
A small, cold, triumphant smile.
She’d won again.
