preferred. In some ways they were so much alike, she and Lila.
And yet, Julie knew next to nothing about the other woman’s circumstances, other than that she’d been the managing director of The Lemonade Stand since day one.
Word was that she’d applied for the job while the resort-like shelter was under construction. She’d undergone a normal interview process and had been hired.
From what Julie had been told, in all the years Lila had been at the shelter she’d never had a personal visitor. Not a family member or friend. And even in town, she wasn’t known well.
That was where Julie and Lila differed. Everyone in Santa Raquel knew who Julie Fairbanks was. Many of those people she’d once considered friends. There was still a handful.
A carefully selected, heart-vetted, very small handful.
“How are you doing?” Lila asked, giving Julie a rare, full-on smile as she took one of the two wingback chairs on either side of the claw-foot table in her small but elegantly decorated parlor.
“Good.” Julie nodded as she sat in the other chair, suddenly feeling as if she was onstage under bright lights. As if she could be seen but couldn’t see what was out there. “Busy,” she added. And then, perhaps to ward off whatever was coming, she continued. “The annual celebrity gala for the Sunshine Children’s League is coming up and, of course, I’m fully involved with that...” Her seat on the league’s board had won her the opportunity to chair the gala. “And Minoran Child Development is getting ready to open up a thrift shop. The red tape is endless, although Colin’s being a sweetheart and helping out tremendously.” Lila was well acquainted with Julie’s older brother, who not only ran the family’s prestigious law firm in town but had recently become a major donor to The Lemonade Stand.
“I hear that Chantel is pregnant.”
“Three months!” Julie grinned. Her sister-in-law, who now shared the family mansion with Julie and Colin, had come into their lives as an undercover cop pretending to be a member of their privileged society, and had become her best friend. “I can’t wait to have a little one in the house!” These days, that new baby was the first thing she thought of when she woke up in the morning.
She was just the aunt. She’d maintain her proper place. But still, she couldn’t wait. “I’m going to watch the baby when Chantel goes back to work. At least for the first couple of years.” If Julie had her way, she’d be the child’s nanny until he or she went to school, but it was ultimately up to Chantel and Colin, and they all had time to figure that one out.
Lila’s smile looked somehow...worried, suggesting that she saw some kind of sadness in Julie’s situation. In her gray skirt and blouse, with her hair in its usual bun, Lila didn’t resemble Julie’s idea of a psychic, but she felt sure the older woman had otherworldly talents of perception.
Lila’s next words confirmed Julie’s personal opinion. “I’m concerned about you,” she said.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
The woman watched her, as though waiting for Julie to confess to something. “Why?”
“There’s a wine tasting at your home this evening.”
She nodded again. She’d helped arrange the event that was raising money for the Santa Raquel Library fund—a cause that had become dear to her and Colin and Chantel, since the library’s fund-raising efforts had been instrumental in creating the bond the three of them shared. Chantel, while posing as a writer from a privileged family in New York, had been dating Colin as part of her cover. She’d agreed to write a script for the library’s grand opening party in the renovated mansion that had been willed to the city as a library site. The evening’s event had been a mystery caper, and Chantel had written herself right into the hands of a privileged, wealthy, respected man she’d discovered was a serial rapist—Julie’s rapist. She’d risked her own life in order to give Julie’s life back to her.
“The wine event is there. You’re here.” Lila stated the obvious, so Julie just shrugged.
“You’re cohosting an event, and you aren’t there.”
Feeling those bright lights again, Julie sipped her tea. Stared at the polish on her toes, the black leather straps of her flip-flops across her pale feet. And then she looked straight at Lila. “I am capable of being there,” she said with complete assurance. “Knowing that, I’ve given myself the option of choosing not to be.”
“Why make that choice?”
So maybe she’d recognized from the moment Lila had appeared exactly why she’d wanted to see her. The summons. The tea. Julie would’ve liked to stand up and leave. To defend her right not to be subjected to inquiry. But she didn’t really feel defensive. Or upset with Lila.
“You know I’m uncomfortable around that crowd.”
True enough, though no one on the night’s guest list knew that. The rapist’s father was one of the state’s most prominent bankers—so the details, including names, had been kept out of the news. Smyth Jr. had accepted a plea agreement. And money really did carry a lot of power. But Lila knew—Julie and Colin had become associated with the Stand through the ordeal. As did others closely associated with Smyth’s ten years’ worth of victims.
“I also know you’ve made a point, with Chantel’s and Colin’s support, of rejoining your social group. I heard that you used to love dressing up for parties, too.”
“And I can now attend these things without panic attacks,” she told Lila. “It’s like I said. I know I can, so I no longer have to.”
“We’re talking about a function in your own home, Julie. Yet here you are.”
She didn’t like how Lila’s statement made her feel. As though she, Julie, wasn’t quite done with moving on. As though she was still broken.
The truth was, she’d never be done with it. Not really. There was no way to erase what had happened, and no way not to be affected by it.
But she was able to live more normally now.
For some reason, she needed Lila—a highly respected professional working with female victims—to see that.
“I wanted Chantel and Colin to be able to welcome guests into their home as a couple. More specifically, I wanted Chantel to feel like the hostess, the woman of the house. Since she came into our lives on a lie, she still sometimes feels like an imposter, like she’s not really one of us, especially when there’s a gathering that includes people who don’t know the details. It can be hard for her. As if making the transition from street cop to detective wasn’t difficult enough, she’s living in a society that’s completely unfamiliar to her. If I was there, people would naturally turn to me as the hostess and...”
It was the reason she’d given her brother and his wife for skipping out on the high-dollar evening they’d been planning for several months. They hadn’t been happy with her proposed absence, hadn’t thought it necessary, but they’d accepted her choice. Because her reasoning was valid.
“But why are you here?” Lila asked.
Julie frowned. It wasn’t unusual for her to be at The Lemonade Stand. In a volunteer capacity with the children, but also hanging out with the women. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s Friday night. You’re twenty-eight years old. Independently wealthy and lovely. You could be doing any number of things for fun and relaxation. Okay, so you wanted to be away from your home for the night. You could’ve booked yourself into a resort spa. Gone to the theater. You could have been on a date.”
Julie didn’t respond to Lila. She couldn’t.
Inside her, everything was tense. Poised for escape.
“We need you here, Julie. You know that. And we all want you here. You bring a nurturing and understanding and compassion that’s