Page 41 of Griffin
I was lost in thought and glued to the article on my phone when the sound of the washing machine door slamming startled me.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Tate grumbled as he stomped around the house. His thunderous footsteps pounded down the hallway toward the bedroom. I quickly picked up my book, sat back on the bed and opened it to a page.
The door flew open. He looked like the fucking devil himself standing in the doorway with nostrils flared and eyes dark with rage. "You put everything in the wash?" he asked.
"Uh, yes, you asked me to wash your dirty clothes," I said calmly even though my insides were churning like bread dough in a mixer.
"All of it went in?" he asked. There was the slightest glimmer of suspicion in his eyes.
Did he know?
"Yes, I dumped it all in. Was there something I should have pulled out? I checked pockets, and they were empty." That was a lie, but I had to put on a good show.
"Whatever," he griped and walked away.
I stared at the empty doorway, the place where he'd just stood, and tried to catch my breath as I came to a shocking conclusion. I picked up my phone. Suddenly, it felt necessary for me to at least let someone in the outside world know what I'd discovered. It seemed that if you killed one person, it wouldn't be as hard to kill another. Or maybe I was wrong about the first part. Maybe it hadn't been hard for Tate at all. He'd left abruptly for this job. That rarely happened. He occasionally switched dates on his schedule because of weather or the receiving company needing a different delivery date, but this job came up out of the blue. And he rarely left on a Saturday. Had he decided to find the newly single Roxi and make a play? Had she turned him down flatly? That would be enough to send him into a rage. This was all so frightening to think about.
I sent Griffin a photo of the bandana with a text. It wasn't something that you sent via text, but I didn't dare make a phone call with a madman in the house.
"I found this in Tate's duffel bag. He's never worn a yellow bandana." I left it at that. I didn't want to sound crazy or paranoid. The whole idea still sounded so insane. But if something did happen to me, then Griffin would have some evidence on his phone. In the meantime, I needed to do some digging and find out just what my monster of a husband had been up to on his last job.
TWENTY-SEVEN
GRIFFIN
Crusoe and Cormac had talked me into putting on a wetsuit and wading out into the icy Pacific for some surfing. A storm at sea had brought in nice waves, and it had been a while since I sat on my board, so I finally said yes. When my two cousins teamed up, they could be annoyingly persistent. Aside from that, I was missing Shay and had nothing to do. Sitting around all day thinking about her would have been worse. Now that the asshole was back home, I couldn't stop worrying about her safety, which made for a stressful surf session. I was out on the water, and my phone was back on the beach.
"This one's yours, Fin," Crusoe said as a swell rolled toward us. "Unless you came out here to just sit and look pretty in your rubber suit," he added.
I lowered myself down and started paddling. The swell rolled under me, and I pushed to my feet. The exhilaration of riding a good wave cleared my head for a second, but as I neared the shore, I made the decision to take the wave all the way in and check my phone.
I hopped off, snatched up the board and headed to our pile of stuff on the beach. A drizzly fog had kept even the heartiest beachcombers off the sand, and we had the whole place to ourselves.
I glanced back toward the water. Cormac was straddling his board. He had his arms stretched out in a "what the fuck?" gesture. Crusoe was riding a wave and somersaulted into the water before he got closer to shore. His board popped up, and his dark head followed. He let out a whistle that scared off two gulls floating nearby.
"You done already, old man?" he yelled. "We're just getting started!"
I waved him off and stuck my board in the sand. I walked over to my jeans and took out my phone. There was a text from Shay. My finger was wet. I dried it off briskly and swiped open the text. She'd sent a picture. I stared at it, unsure what I was looking at. It was a yellow bandana, according to her text. I read her words several times and then it hit me like a ton of falling fucking bricks. I sat down in the sand and scrolled through the news to see if there had been any updates on the Roxi Carhill murder. Her ex-boyfriend had a solid alibi, so it wasn't him.
"Can I call you?" I texted back.
A few minutes and a thousand racing heartbeats later she rang. "I'm fine. Sorry my text was so cryptic. I can't talk right now, but I'll get back to you. I promise." She was talking quietly, and I could hear a washer running in the background.
"I'll be waiting, but I can tell you, I'm ready to head over there right fucking now and take you out of that house."
"Shay!" Tate bellowed from somewhere in the house.
"Gotta go," she said briskly and ended the call.
I walked down to the water's edge. The cousins were straddling their boards and waiting for the next decent set. "I'm leaving. Cru, get a ride home from Mac. I've got to go see Officer Adams."
They both looked at each other and then Crusoe yelled back. "Did you say you're going to see Pugsley?" Pugsley was the unfortunate childhood nickname we'd saddled the local police officer with.
"Yeah, see you later." I peeled out of the wetsuit. The outside air was cold. I quickly pulled on my jeans and shirt and gathered up my board.
I got lucky and found Officer Adams at the station behind a desk. Trayton wasn't exactly a hub of criminal activity, especially with the summer season long behind us. He was surprised to see me walk in.
"Fin, hey, long time no see." He got up from the desk and met me at the counter. A sad looking fern in a gray pot was the only decorative thing in the place. "What's up?"
