Page 34 of The Couple's Secret
The sound of another soft sob came from the hallway.
Gretchen nodded. “Lucky for him, his dad’s best friend could swoop in and keep things running smoothly.”
Hollis and Zane emerged from the conference room, walking slowly toward the lobby. Wiping at his eyes, Zane said something Josie couldn’t make out.
“Yeah, sure,” Hollis replied. “You can stay with me. Long as you want. You talk to Riley and Jackson yet?”
“Riley,” Zane said in a pointed tone.
A sigh. “You know you’re gonna have to talk to him to plan the funeral.”
“Whatever.”
“Son, don’t you dare put Riley in the middle of this again.”
Josie and Gretchen exchanged puzzled looks. What did Hollis mean by “this”? There was obviously some long-standing issue between the brothers and yet, Jackson had acted like they were on good terms, passing their dad’s old, cherished recliner back and forth every Christmas.
“She was always in the damn middle,” Zane muttered.
They stopped walking. Hollis’s voice was low and angry. “You shut your mouth. That girl didn’t do a thing but lose her mother. Just like you and Jackson lost your father. You boys work your shit out or don’t but leave her out of it. She’s already fragile. This is liable to break her.”
Hollis wasn’t wrong. Josie knew a person hanging onto their sanity by a thread when she saw one and Riley was certainly that. She’d probably been standing on the emotional precipice for the past seven years.
Once they reached the lobby, Hollis gave Josie and Gretchen a strained smile. Zane studied them with curious, bloodshot eyes. Slapping a hand on the back of Zane’s neck, Hollis said, “These are the detectives here to talk about your dad and Cora. Their, um, murders.”
Zane winced.
Josie and Gretchen introduced themselves and presented their credentials. Zane spent several seconds studying each one of their IDs before looking up at Josie with an expression that was childlike in its hopefulness. “Do you have any suspects?”
“Not yet.”
“Me,” said Hollis.
Zane’s head snapped toward him. “What?”
“We don’t currently have any suspects,” Gretchen said calmly, sensing, as Josie did, that Zane’s grief was as raw as Riley’s had been earlier. His eyes were glossy with unshed tears. His lower lip quivered, giving away his vulnerability. Jackson had been better at containing his pain, but he had had years of experience as the older brother, the cool head, the caretaker. Clearly, he continued to be that for his wife.
“We’re in the very early stages of the investigation,” Josie added. “We’re gathering information.”
“What information?”
Hollis squeezed Zane’s neck. “All the same shit we told Fanning in the beginning.”
“No,” Zane cried, gaze flickering frantically back and forth between Josie and Gretchen. “There has to be more. Fanning never figured out what happened to them. You have the car now, right? That means more evidence. It has to mean more evidence.”
“Kid,” Hollis whispered as Zane’s voice grew higher-pitched.
“You have to have something. You just have to.” He was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “I can’t—we can’t do this. Ending one nightmare just to start another. It’s too much. You have something to go on now, right? If you’re just repeating what Fanning did, you’ll never find out who killed them.”
“Hey,” Hollis said. “Calm down. Maybe with a new set of eyes on the case—two sets—things will be different this time.”
Josie hoped Hollis was right. Neither she nor Gretchen tried to convince Zane of that, however. Ultimately, their actions would speak louder than their words. Instead of starting with the same types of questions they’d asked Riley and Jackson, Josie said, “After your dad and Cora disappeared, did you and Riley continue to live in their house?”
Zane sniffled. “Um, yeah, it was our home, and we thought they’d come back. Maybe it was stupid, but we were kids. Plus, where else would we go?”
“I offered to take them in after about six months,” said Hollis.
“Into your tiny-ass house?” Zane joked weakly. “I don’t think so. Jackson got rid of his apartment and moved back home to look after us until I turned eighteen. Then he moved here to help with the expansion.”
