Page 33 of The Couple's Secret
“Yeah,” Josie and Gretchen said in unison.
The abusive husband who got off on terrorizing his wife, controlling her with violence. If she managed to get away—if she lived—it became his sole mission to continue making her life hell. He made sure that she spent the rest of her days looking over her shoulder, waiting for the proverbial axe to fall, wondering what would be next. He made sure that she never had a peaceful night of rest again, sleeping with a bat or a gun or a knife next to her bed, starting at every unusual noise. His constant harassment ensured that she wouldn’t be able to form new friendships or relationships. No one wanted to deal with their new friend or girlfriend’s crazy ex-husband. No one wanted to get caught in the crossfire. He isolated her just as sure as he had while they were married. Only now he used psychological guerilla warfare instead of broken bones. For as long as he was alive, she would spend every moment wondering if this was the day he finally came after her for good.
Men like Dalton Stevens were dangerous. Their need for control usually outweighed their own self-preservation. They were ticking time bombs and often, they didn’t care if they took themselves out in the process of destroying their ex-wives.
But men like Dalton Stevens could also be impulsive. They were more likely to kill in a fit of rage than with some well-thought-out and carefully executed plan. The demise of Tobias and Cora smacked of meticulous planning. That didn’t mean Dalton Stevens wasn’t behind it but Hollis seemed a much more likely suspect. He was clearly smart, even-tempered, and strategic and he had both resources and motivation. Not to mention that he was strangely calm and glib after just having learned that his close friends had been murdered.
“Hollis.” Gretchen twirled her pen in her hand. “Do you own any firearms?”
He went still. For the first time, his easy bravado slipped, and he looked older than his age and scared. “Doesn’t everyone around here?”
“What kind?”
“A Sig Sauer .45 and a Glock 17.”
“How long have you owned them?” Gretchen jotted down more notes.
“I don’t know. Ten years? What are you getting at? You think I shot them, right? The kids told me they were shot. Here we go again. What do you want? You got some fancy test you want to do on my guns? Some forensic shit? Go for it.”
“We’ll let you know,” Gretchen said coolly.
He had no idea that they hadn’t found any bullets inside the car. Without the projectile, there wasn’t any forensic testing that could be done. They didn’t even know what type of rounds had killed Tobias and Cora. Neither Josie nor Gretchen was going to tell him that.
Before they could continue questioning him, the sound of shouting drew their attention. Hollis hefted himself out of his chair, maneuvering around a floor polisher. He was almost at the door when it flew open. Standing on the threshold was a younger, fitter version of Tobias Lachlan. Unlike his father, he had a full head of thick, sandy hair. His hands were fisted at his sides and his chest heaved. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Ellyn ran up behind him, peeking around his solid frame. “Sorry, Hol. He’s a little worked up.”
“It’s fine,” Hollis said softly. Then he beckoned the man toward him. “Come here, kid.”
Eighteen
Zane Lachlan stepped into Hollis’s arms. Sobs shook his entire body. He was the shorter of the two so his forehead rested naturally against Hollis’s shoulder. Great, gulping cries spilled from deep in his chest, filling the air. Josie had heard the sound of this kind of raw grief countless times in her line of work—had experienced it personally—yet it never failed to pierce her professional armor. That kind of deep, visceral pain hit true every time, like an arrow finding its mark in an instant.
Hollis gripped the back of Zane’s neck, kneading the skin. “I’m sorry, kid,” he murmured. “Real sorry.”
Josie and Gretchen stood, moving toward them, trying not to knock over the stack of industrial-sized toilet paper rolls near the door. “We’ll give you a few minutes,” Josie murmured.
Hollis nodded at them and moved Zane aside so they could pass. In the lobby, Ellyn was speaking into her headset again, this time giving a spiel about how the company handled hazardous chemicals. Josie and Gretchen stood near the mouth of the hallway, out of the secretary’s earshot but close enough to eavesdrop on the two men.
“Hollis is pretty close with the kids,” Gretchen said.
“He stepped right up,” Josie agreed.
“Both of Tobias’s sons are part of the company. Jackson was already working for them when his dad disappeared. Zane’s running the show in Brighton Springs now. Did he step in because of his friendship with Tobias or because it would be easier to implement his expansion plans with Tobias’s sons on board? Easy to control them?”
“He says he was never interested in having children,” Josie said. “But he was obviously interested in at least two of Tobias’s girlfriends—both of whom already had children.”
“True.”
Had Hollis grown jealous of Tobias? Always getting the girl while he stood on the sidelines, being asked to intercede in his friend’s relationship by the woman he’d been admiring for years? He certainly knew a lot of personal details about Cora’s life. More than Josie would expect from the friend of her fiancé. Even if he’d regularly eaten at the diner where she worked, would Cora have divulged so much to him in that setting? According to Hollis, they hadn’t been friends at that point. He’d been a patron and she’d been a waitress.
Hollis was trying too hard to get ahead of the investigation. He offered too much honesty, too many explanations before they’d even had a chance to ask their questions. Most people in his position who had spent seven years under police scrutiny and now faced the prospect of that scrutiny becoming more intense would be somewhat apprehensive, guilty or not. They’d be tight-lipped, evasive, perhaps even retain a lawyer in anticipation of being investigated as a murder suspect. If he wasn’t behind Tobias and Cora’s deaths, he was certainly hiding something.
“Step-siblings—well, almost—living in the same house,” Gretchen said. “Both parents go missing. Who’s stepping in to take care of them? Keep the household going? Pay the mortgage, utilities, car insurance? Make sure they’re eating and going to school? Sure, they were sixteen and seventeen, but they were still kids.”
Josie had had the same thought. In the online articles she’d combed through so far, there hadn’t been any mention of grandparents or aunts and uncles. Jackson’s mother, Rachel Wright, was out of the picture. Zane’s mother, Gabrielle Lachlan, had died. Riley’s father clearly wasn’t fit to care for her. Dalton Stevens may not have been interested in regaining custody of his daughter after Cora disappeared. From what they’d learned about him thus far, Josie would bet a week’s pay that Riley was nothing more to him than an effective way to manipulate and control his ex-wife. With Cora out of the picture, he had no use for her.
“Jackson was twenty-three,” Josie said. “He’d taken over Tobias’s position in the company. It was probably him. Though I’m sure he was unprepared to become a guardian, co-owner of a company, and head of a household all at once, in the blink of an eye.”
