Page 120 of In the Shadows
"Why wasn't he angrier?"
"Because he's not protecting himself. He's protecting someone above him." Ronan kept his eyes on the building across the street. "There's someone who stays clean because men like Warren take the fall." Lila was quiet for a moment. "So Warren's protecting someone."
"Or he made a deal that keeps that name out of the record entirely. Either way —" He turned to look at her. "He's not the end of this."
"I know. I just thought—" She stopped. "I don't know what I thought. That it would matter to him, maybe. That losing everything would make him feel something."
"Some people don't work that way."
"No." She opened the car door. "They don't."
She got in. Buckled her seatbelt. Ronan started the car.
They drove in silence through Tampa, onto the highway, through the flat Florida landscape that had become so familiar over the past months. Lila watched the mile markers pass. Fifty miles to home. Forty. Thirty.
Somewhere around Wildwood, she reached over and took Ronan's hand.
He glanced at her but didn't say anything. Just adjusted his grip on the wheel and let her hold on.
Twenty miles. Ten.
They turned onto Lake Road as the sun was getting low, the light going gold through the trees. The cottage appeared through the branches—porch light on, windows dark, the live oak spreading its arms over the yard.
Ronan pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.
Neither of them moved.
"I'm going to be okay," Lila said. "Eventually."
"You will.”
"I just need some time."
"We have time."
She let go of his hand and opened the door. The air was cool, smelling of salt and pine. The porch steps creaked under her feet, the same familiar sound they'd made every day since she'd moved in.
She unlocked the door and walked inside.
Ronan closed the door behind them.
The cottage was exactly the way they’d left it that morning—coffee mugs in the sink, his laptop open on the kitchen table, the quilt she’d thrown over the back of the couch because she’d been cold watching the news last night. Eight hours ago, she’d stood in this kitchen and put on the gray dress and told herself she was ready.
She wasn’t ready for this part. The after. The quiet room with its familiar objects and the verdict still ringing in her ears like a bell she couldn’t stop hearing.
Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
Five counts. Five words that were supposed to make everything right.
She set her bag on the counter. Opened the refrigerator. Closed it. Opened a cabinet. Closed it. Her hands needed something to do, and her brain hadn’t caught up yet, hadn’t sent new instructions to replace the ones that had been running for five years: find the evidence, build the case, get justice.
The case was over. Justice had been delivered. And she was standing in her kitchen, opening and closing cabinets like a woman who’d forgotten what kitchens were for.
“Lila.”
Ronan’s voice came from behind her. Close. She hadn’t heard him move.
She opened the cabinet above the stove. The one with the glasses. She reached for one, and her hand wouldn’t close around it. Her fingers were shaking too badly. The glass sat on the shelf, untouched, and she stared at her own hand as if it belonged to someone else.
