Page 27 of The Woman Left Behind

“Though, you know, they were together,” she said softly, stirring her coffee. “If it’s them, that means they died together, and were buried together, and have been resting together ever since. And they’d want it like that.”

She lifted her cup, took a sip, put it down, and finally gave him her direct gaze, and it absolutely gutted him to see the depths of sorrow dug deep there.

“It doesn’t help a lot, but it helps a little,” she concluded.

“That’s good,” he murmured, sipping his own coffee.

“Also, if it’s them, knowing why they didn’t get in touch. Just…”—she shrugged—“knowing. You hear people talk about closure. You watch those true crime shows and the victims’ families and friends talking about getting answers, and how that helps. And now I can say I guess it does. I mean, we don’t know yet, not for sure. But I just…I just…”—she cleared her throat—“I just can’t help but think it’ll feel better because I know where they are and I’ll get them back. Not like I want, but they’ll be back with me.”

“That makes complete sense,” Harry said. “And if it’s them, we’ll get them back as soon as we can.”

Her lip quivered, as did her nostrils, but she sucked in a breath and got a lock on it.

Harry decided to move them out of this.

“Did you take off work today?”

Her head twitched like that was a surprise question, then she said, “No. I kinda make my own hours.”

“What do you do?”

“I’ve got a property management company.” Her lips tipped up just a tad. “That makes it sound fancy. It’s not fancy. I don’t have an office or anything. But I look after fourteen properties of people who have weekend or holiday places in and around MP. I rake the pine needles, make sure the appliances and furnace and water heater are running, the roof isn’t leaking, rodents aren’t getting in. I close them down for the winter, but head out regularly and have a look around to make sure all is good. And when they come, I go in and tidy them, turn on the furnace, stock them with groceries.” She gave him a slightly bigger smile. “I don’t do windows or toilets or hedge clippers. If they want a full clean, I work with my friend Kay’s cleaning business, and Jenna’s husband does landscaping, so if there’s anything like that, I contract out to Trey. But I will run a vacuum or dust and wipe down counters.”

She took another sip of coffee and Harry was pleased as hell she warmed to her theme and kept talking.

“I got a hankering to blow out the back wall of my house and give myself a proper master bedroom with walk-in closet and another bathroom, and on the other side a TV room or maybe a big mud room, so I took on some Vrbo and Airbnb properties.”

She made a face and kept right on going.

“Found out real fast people treat other’s possessions with a disrespect I wasn’t expecting. And the owners of those are cheap as all heck. Kay also wouldn’t take the cleaning jobs for what they wanted to pay, especially for the mess people left behind. Since most of them ran through every cleaning service in the county, Kay eventually got some of the business at her rates, not what they think her rates should be. But I was always getting calls at all hours about people being loud or doing stupid stuff, and neighbors getting mad, and renters breaking stuff that had to be fixed. It was a hassle, so I let those properties go.”

Harry knew all about Vrbo and Airbnb renters, and she was not wrong. There were some real assholes who rented those properties, behaving like they rented a house on the moon that no one else would ever use, not something someone owned and gave a shit about with neighbors who had to put up with their crap.

“Did you get your master bedroom before you did?” Harry asked.

Lillian shook her head. “No. And just to say, I didn’t manage to get my degree, but I did take a course in editing and proofreading. The property management thing wasn’t exactly cutting it, so I had to find something that bridged the gap. I had some clients, independent authors. After I lost the vacation rentals, I picked up a few more writers. I’ll be saving maybe another year, then I’ll have enough to get that project done.”

Like her parents, she saved, then when she had the cash, she’d take the plunge.

It was a smart way to live.

And learning all this gave Harry some reasons why he might not have noticed her, because part of her work was scattered across the county, and all of it was very solitary.

Seeing as it appeared they ran the course of that conversational line, he changed it.

“I went to see Rita Zowkower yesterday.”

Her eyes got wide. “Really?”

“Is that a problem?” he asked.

Her gaze went vague while she thought about that.

“I haven’t spoken directly to Rita in, God…I don’t know how many years.” Her attention refocused on him. “She blocked me on her phone ages ago.”

“We’re actively looking for Willie, Lillian, so I’m gonna ask again if that family has given you trouble.”

“Rita runs those boys like a general,” she told him something he knew. “But I’m no threat to her, and she doesn’t have time for people who, in her estimation, don’t matter. The minute I kicked Willie out, I ceased to matter. That said, I didn’t matter much when Willie was with me, either.”

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