Page 57 of The Couple's Secret
“Dalton said he saw you and Cora behind the diner three times,” said Gretchen. “Were they all related to her staying employed after the wedding?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
“According to Dalton, one of those times was a week before Cora and Tobias disappeared. That’s not what you told us or Fanning,” Josie pointed out.
“I don’t remember every little thing from seven years ago, for Pete’s sake. Cora and I talked sometimes. So what?”
“Hollis,” Josie said, “this isn’t a missing persons case anymore. It’s a double homicide. If you really cared about Tobias and Cora the way you claim, you’ll share whatever it is that you’re not telling us.”
He glanced around. The workers watching them scrambled back to sorting, averting their eyes. They were likely too far away to overhear the conversation, but Hollis lowered his voice anyway. “It’s not—we weren’t having an affair, okay? That’s true. Have I ever been to the Majesty? Sure, but not with Cora. I promise you that.”
“Who were you with?” asked Gretchen.
He wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. “Aww jeez, you’re really gonna make me do this, aren’t you?”
Gretchen lowered her reading glasses onto her face before producing her notepad from one of her back pockets. She flipped to a blank page. Then she produced a pen from above her ear, holding its point over the paper. “We’re really gonna make you do this, yeah. Unless you want to come with us now to the station where you can put whatever lies you’ve got ready to tell into a formal statement. I can tell you that however bad you think the truth will make you look, lying will make you look far worse. Guilty as sin, in fact. You want to help yourself? You want to help the kids? Tell the truth, Hollis. All of it. Don’t leave anything out.”
He looked at her from under bushy, scrunched brows. “I’m not guilty of anything except being a dumbass, probably, but I really don’t want to look bad to you.”
Josie could tell that Gretchen was holding back the mother of all eye-rolls.
“I’m serious,” Hollis cried. “I know this is inappropriate, but I really do like you.”
Face impassive, Gretchen tapped the pen impatiently against the pad. “The truth, Hollis.”
More employees had gathered near the sorting area. Apparently, four of them were needed to remove a gently used office chair from the back of the truck with the excruciating slowness befitting the transfer of a great work of art.
Hollis groaned. “Fine. I was seeing a married woman back then, okay? Not Cora.”
Arching a brow, Josie said, “Oh, was that in addition to the woman you were seeing in Denton?”
From under his lashes, he darted a glance at his employees before anchoring his gaze to his feet. “I’m not proud of it, okay? You’re gonna want the married lady’s name, aren’t you?”
“What do you think?” Gretchen said.
He started pacing in front of them but mumbled her name and address. Gretchen jotted the information down so they could verify it later.
“Tell us about Cora,” Josie told him.
Again, he searched around them, galvanizing the now six employees unloading a desk from the truck to move more quickly—and keep their eyes averted. “I—I really don’t want the kids to know, okay? There’s no reason for them to know. I never told Fanning—or anyone else—because it’s not relevant. It’s got nothing to do with what happened to them. Promise me you won’t tell the kids.”
“We won’t tell them unless it becomes necessary to the investigation,” Josie said.
Exhaling a frustrated sigh, he stopped pacing. “Cora was planning to leave Tobias. She wanted out. Completely.”
Thirty-One
“Because she was having an affair?” asked Gretchen. “If not with you, then with someone else?”
He shook his head. “No, there was never any affair. I mean, if there was, she didn’t tell me about it. And hey, I know Fanning got all kinds of phone records from me and Cora and hell, everyone. Tobias. The kids. Diner employees?—”
“What’s your point?” Gretchen cut him off.
“If I was having an affair with Cora, there would have been evidence, don’t you think?”
That’s what Josie would have expected, though it would have been fairly easy for Cora to carry on an affair with Hollis without leaving any digital footprints since their lives had been so enmeshed. In fact, she could have had an affair with anyone without leaving digital evidence if she and her lover only spoke in person while she was at work. No one would have been suspicious of her being friendly with a returning customer.
Was that the reason Tobias wanted her to quit her job? Had he figured it out?
