Page 95 of Murder on Charity Lane

“I’m not upset about Mrs. B,” Lily-Ann said.

“No?”

She looked up at him. “No.”

“She’s missing.”

“She’s fine. I’m just … agitated.”

“Why?”

She didn’t want to tell him, because despite years of therapy she didn’t entirely embrace the theory that talking about your problems helped with them. It was like thinking that talking about dinner sated your appetite. Plus, she wasn’t comfortable needing that sort of back-and-forth. Though, what else had she paid all those therapists for? And say what you will about Lily-Ann Novak, she tried.

“What exactly do we know about Frank DeYoung’s death? The cause, if we trust the police. The time and location. Two eyewitnesses claim CJ pushed him, but eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.”

“Okay,” he said.

“What I’m trying to say is proof is difficult. Proof is specific and fragile. However, suspicion lingers. Consequences linger. And the opposite of innocence isn’t always guilt.”

“I don’t understand.”

She took a breath. Yeah, she needed to try a little harder than that. “I’m talking about the last time, about—”

To her relief, her phone buzzed again. She happily fell silent and checked the screen. Hamilton was notifying the group chat that there hadn’t been any emergency medical admittances that day. So Mrs. B wasn’t lying injured in a hospital bed. Everyone else on the group chat expressed relief, but Lily-Ann wasn’t surprised. She suspected she knew exactly where Mrs. B had gone, and why. And if she was correct, she expected that she’d return shortly.

“Lil,” Anthony said, crouching in front of her, his heavily muscled forearms resting on her knees.

“You’re all floury,” she said, watching the dust swirl from his apron. “I’ll need to vacuum.”

“I know,” he said.

She put her palm on his arms, to feel his strength. “Waverly called.”

“Your sister-in-law.”

“Ex-sister-in-law.”

“Again?”

“Twice this morning.”

“Did she say anything new?” he asked.

Lily-Ann frowned at the picture frame. “No, it was the same as always: Piotr is in prison because of me. Their family is broken because of me. Which is not entirely unfair.”

“He tried to kill you,” Anthony said.

“I know.”

“He got off easy.”

“I know.”

He eyed her flatly and waited for her to continue.

“Waverly and her mother believe Piotr tried to kill his controlling, estranged ice queen of a wife. That they believe. But they also believe he’s incapable of killing anyone else, and that I’m fully capable of framing him.”

“He got off easy,” Anthony repeated, in his rumbling voice.