Page 56 of The Couple's Secret
Her stomach roiled just thinking about how to have that conversation. Would being a guardian always be like this? Second-guessing every word, every action, every thought? Spending hours, sometimes days, planning what to say so she didn’t screw things up with Wren? Spiraling? Thinking about thinking about things instead of just acting? Josie had always been so assured in most areas of her life although to be fair, the majority of her life revolved around work. But being competent at her job relied heavily on her ability to read people correctly, to know what to say to them in any given situation. She’d interrogated serial killers with more finesse than she was capable of when it came to speaking with Wren about pretty simple stuff.
Noah’s knuckles grazed her cheek. He had closed the distance between them without her even noticing. “You’re overthinking this. Sleep on it. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
She clasped her hand over his wrist. “We need to talk about the other thing.”
He went rigid, eyes darkening. “Not now, Josie. I have to go.”
This time, he didn’t hesitate at the door, striding into the hallway.
“Fine,” Josie called after him, making her tone breezy in case Wren overheard. “We’ll discuss it later.”
Thirty
“You got questions just for me?” Hollis called as he lumbered around the side of a huge dumpster behind the Denton office of At Your Disposal. It had been two days since the funerals. The press was camped out front. There weren’t nearly as many reporters and camera crews as there had been at the cemetery and at the Lachlan house in Brighton Springs, but they were accumulating quickly. Multiplying by the hour, it seemed. In the time it took Josie and Gretchen to cross the parking lot, at least three dozen shouted questions had been lobbed at them. Each one went ignored. Ellyn had let them inside and then directed them out back where Hollis was rummaging through a pile of debris, tossing pieces of demolished drywall and wood panels into the dumpster.
“We have more questions,” Gretchen said.
The screech of a trash compactor blared from the old service building near the back of the lot. Three dump trucks waited nearby to deposit their contents. A strange odor hung in the air. Josie detected faint notes of spoiled food, chemicals, urine, and mildew. Across from them, two At Your Disposal employees unloaded furniture and electronics from a truck, sorting them into different areas. They kept throwing curious glances over at Josie and Gretchen.
Josie smoothed her polo shirt over her stomach. Her new work shirts had finally arrived. “We spoke to Dalton Stevens before we left Brighton Springs.”
Hollis took off his thick work gloves and plucked a rag from the back pocket of his cargo shorts, using it to wipe sweat from his brow. “I can’t wait to hear this. Lay it on me. What did he accuse me of doing? Besides murder.”
Gretchen held his gaze steadily. “He said you were having an affair with Cora before she and Tobias were killed.”
His eyes widened in surprise. Clearly, he hadn’t expected that. As the weight of the accusation sank in, a scowl crossed his face. “Of course he did. He’ll say anything to mess with people’s lives and to upset Riley now that Cora’s really gone.”
“So you weren’t having an affair with Cora?” Josie asked.
Hollis shook his head. “Of course not. Nothing like that ever happened between us.”
“Did you ever frequent the Majesty Motel?”
“Is that what Dalton told you?” Hollis laughed. “That I was meeting Cora at that dump? Never happened.”
He hadn’t actually answered the question but for now, Josie let it go. She wondered if Dalton had been counting on them not being able to verify any of the information he gave them. It was his word against Hollis’s since Cora wasn’t here to speak for herself.
“He said that he saw you and Cora speaking behind the diner where she worked on multiple occasions,” Gretchen said. “Did she need multiple occasions to get you to intervene in her marriage and convince Tobias that she should keep working?”
“We were friends,” he insisted.
“Friends who needed to meet behind her place of employment rather than at one of your homes or inside the diner?” Josie said.
Hollis stuffed the rag back into his pocket. “She didn’t want to air her dirty laundry where people could hear it. Everyone already knew her personal business with Dalton. She hated that.”
For a city, even a small one, everyone in Brighton Springs really did seem to know everyone else’s business. It made Josie wonder how seven years had passed without a break in the case.
Somebody always knew something.
“In that case, the privacy of one of your homes would have been appropriate.”
“Oh sure.” He tried jamming his hands back into the work gloves. His fingers trembled. Was his sugar getting low or was this something else? “The privacy of one of our homes. Where Tobias or one of the kids could easily have overheard, or at my place—that wouldn’t have made Tobias suspicious at all.”
“Suspicious of what?” Josie said.
He gave up on the gloves, tossing them angrily at his feet. “You know what I mean! It would have looked weird if she came to my place.”
The employees across the lot froze, watching the exchange. If Hollis noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it.
