the start, Reed had figured Lilah Castle for secrets. He made a living out of sizing up individuals with quick, precise impressions and using those impressions to figure out their true motives. He’d honed the skill young and he was good at it.
Damn good at it.
But over the past few days, he’d increasingly suspected the secrets Lilah carried held pain and abuse. The visceral shock that painted her pale face in deep, grooved lines only confirmed his instincts.
What he hadn’t counted on was the raw, pulsing fury that gripped him at the confirmation.
Shifting from his position on a plush, purple velvet chair, he took Lilah’s free side and pressed a hand to her back. “Breathe. Slowly in and out.”
He caught Cassidy’s gaze over the top of Lilah’s pink-and-blond hair, a world of acknowledgment in that one look before the same rough voice that greeted him in the kitchen barked back at him, “I’m fine.”
“Of course you are. So humor me by sitting still and taking a few deep breaths.”
The tense set of her shoulders never waned, but she did take the breaths as he’d asked. “Good. Nice and slow.”
She might have grudgingly taken the breaths, but there was no way he could miss her white-knuckled grip on Cassidy’s fingers.
But it was when her friend shifted her free hand to brush several strands of hair behind Lilah’s ear that Reed truly understood the bond between the two women. “I think it’s time we gave Detective Graystone a bit of background.”
“Like he can’t look it up if he wanted to.”
Cassidy ignored the continued gruff responses. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it might come better from you.”
He saw Lilah war with the truth of that statement as something strange worked itself into his chest. He wanted her to open up to him. Even more than that, he wanted her to believe she could trust him.
And as someone who’d spent his adult life around victims of violence, he knew trust was the very last thing Lilah Castle would ever give him.
With that fresh in his thoughts, he gave her space, returning to the gaudy chair. He kept his gaze level, focused on hers. “Cassidy’s right. I can look it up. But I’d rather hear it from you.”
The convivial baker who kept things light and breezy with a smart mouth and airy confections was nowhere in evidence as Lilah seemed to sink into herself. Even the pink streak in her hair seemed duller somehow. As if the color were a mood ring to its owner.
Ignoring the inane observation, Reed kept his focus on Lilah.
“I was married to Steven for almost two years. We met when I went to work in one of his restaurants.”
Reed nodded, encouraging her to continue. He knew the name DeWinter, but until she said restaurants, he hadn’t made the connection with the popular local restaurateur who had risen to near-stratospheric heights in the past few years.
“He was temperamental and moody and an amazing creator. His star was on the rise then and I was hooked. All that temperamental moodiness focused on me. Directed toward me. It was amazing and passionate and fiery and I fell for all of it.”
Reed would confirm the timing later, but based on what he knew of the women’s ages, he assumed Lilah was no more than twenty-two or twenty-three when the relationship took place. And while he knew no one was immune to a heady dose of passion, it was especially alluring at that age.
“There’s nothing wrong with caring for someone.”
“No.” She shook her head, her eyes dark with memories and pain. “But there is something wrong when you make excuses for the bastard every time that passionate moodiness turns dark and twisted.”
“Lilah—” Cassidy reached for her friend as if to pull her close, but Lilah was already up and off the couch.
“It’s a story as old as time and I fell for it. Bright-eyed innocent in love with an older man.”
Before either of them could stop her, Lilah was already down the back hall toward the kitchen, hollering over her shoulder, “The rest is in a nice fat juicy file at the Dallas PD. I suggest you look it up.”
Reed watched her go before he turned to Cassidy. “I’m sorry to have to dig underneath all this. I know it’s a sensitive subject.”
The slim redhead hesitated and Reed gave her the space. He knew her reluctance for what it was—loyalty to a friend—and he only admired her more for it.
“Sensitive. And incredibly raw, despite the passage of time.”
“I take it you haven’t shared your connection theory with her before.”
“No.” Cassidy shook her head. “I didn’t even put it together until Tucker and I were talking last night. And if you weren’t here, I’d likely have waited to bring it up until Violet was back and we could tell Lilah together.”
“What connection do you think there is?”
She cocked her head, interest sparking in her gaze. “You’re a Dallas native, aren’t you?”
“A dubious honor, but yes.”
“Then you know, for all its size, Dallas is a small town. Social circles overlap other social circles and all that.”
Not if you hopped circles.
Reed thought about his own childhood. The friends and life of his youth had absolutely nothing to do with the social circle cultivated for him after his mother remarried.
Brushing off the stubborn old memories, he forced his attention onto the present. “From Lilah’s comments it sounds like she met DeWinter after she went to work. I’m not making the connection with your broader social life.”
“Steven knew my late brother-in-law, Charlie.”
Seeing as how the man was still lying in the morgue, an image of Charlie McCallum rose easily in his mind. “By all accounts, DeWinter was a rising star and your brother-in-law wasn’t. What was the connection?”
Cassidy’s smile was gentle, but her voice remained flat. “It’s amazing how often wastrel behavior is excused on youth. It was only after Charlie married Leah and he maintained his inability to keep a job that we began to figure it out.”
“I still don’t follow the connection to Lilah and DeWinter.”
Cassidy shrugged. “It’s just one of those odd social-circle connections. Leah had already met Charlie and they were dating. Lilah was just out of school, working for DeWinter and crazy in love. I hadn’t met Robert yet but had heard his name mentioned a few times. And then one Friday afternoon on a rare day off for all of us, we made the connection over margaritas in Uptown.”
Reed ignored the irrational spurt of irritation at the idea of Lilah crazy in love and focused on Cassidy instead. “DeWinter and Charlie were friends?”
“Very distant cousins, actually. They had been distant as kids and then started hanging out together as they got older.”
Reed sat back, the plush velvet of his chair sucking him in just like the damn twists and turns of this case.
Who were these women?
And how was he ever going to get to the bottom of what was happening to them if the sands kept shifting?
* * *
Lilah had no interest in her fondant leaves, and after ruining half a tray with her distracted thoughts, she finally wrapped what was left and vowed to work on them later.
Lazy.
Incompetent.
Unwilling to give the work your all.
She shoved the tray into