There were moments, in those dark hours, when she retreated into self-pity, mourning the events that befell her that long-ago night, the attack that would happen within a couple hours of that photo being snapped. There were other moments when she could not hold back the guilt she felt for letting Gavin walk free for so long. If Lila had remembered what had happened to her, Eleanora, Virginia, and Chloe would be alive, and Sadie—the only other survivor—would never have suffered at the hands of a monster.

Joe would have told her that none of that had been her fault. He would have kissed the top of her head as he explained that she had done everything right. She almost called him but stopped herself. He would race home and lift this burden from her shoulders, but this time that wasn’t what Lila wanted. She loved him to hell and back, but she knew she needed to stand against this wind on her own.

She had managed only a thin dappling of sleep before her alarm clock woke her.

The first item on her agenda—assuming Dovey didn’t fire her first—would be a discussion with Andi, another cause for her sleepless night. Lila had become a witness in Minnesota versus Gavin Spencer. It didn’t matter that she had no recollection of Gavin raping her; Lila had uncovered evidence that she had been Gavin’s first victim. She could no longer be involved in prosecuting his case.

But how could she walk away? She had been the one to devise the plan to send him to prison for what he’d done to Chloe, Virginia, and Eleanora. It killed her to do it, but those were the rules.

And what was worse, those rules might get Andi kicked off the case as well. Lila’s conflict of interest might spread like an infection to the person best suited to take Gavin’s case to trial. What if Gavin walked free because Lila found the thread that connected them?

When she arrived at Andi’s office, Lila was surprised to see Niki Vang and Matty Lopez sitting across the desk from Andi. They looked over their shoulders at her, their expressions hollow. Andi’s eyes were red and heavy, her hands folded in front of her as if in prayer. Lila had never seen her so shaken.

Lila stopped in the open doorway. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

It was Niki who spoke. “Sadie Vauk is dead.”

Chapter 54

Chapter 54