Page 78 of The Couple's Secret
Gabrielle Lachlan’s toxicology report had come back clean. There was no mention of insulin, but autopsy toxicology didn’t routinely test for insulin. The medical examiner would have had to specifically request it. Would have needed a compelling reason to request such a test. Gabrielle had been perfectly healthy at the time of her death. Why would anyone suspect that she’d been poisoned with insulin?
Why had Cora suspected that Tobias had killed Gabrielle? Was it paranoia on her part? Or something else? She’d found Tobias’s hiding spot and, assuming the key had been there as well as the purse, his trophies. If the purse was related to Rachel’s demise, did that mean the key was related to Gabrielle’s? Had Cora figured out how?
Did it even matter?
“Your wheels are turning.”
Turner startled her. She hadn’t heard him come into the great room. She thought he’d go home once he left the CCTV room.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
He perched his large frame on the edge of her desk and smirked. “Quinn, you really don’t know this one? When a man and a woman love each other?—”
“Shut up.” She groaned. “You know what I mean.”
“I work here.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, I’m busy, so maybe you should catch up on your reports.”
Digging into the pocket of his suit jacket, he came up with a can of his favorite energy drink and snapped it open. “You’re always so concerned about my work habits. Maybe I’m concerned about yours. The bodies are piling up around here and you and Palmer don’t seem like you’re any closer to finding what you need to charge Hollis ‘The Serial Killer’ Merritt with homicide.”
Anger surged through her veins. “You think you can do a better job?”
He gulped down some of his drink and then used the back of his hand to wipe his upper lip. “Of course I can do a better job. Jeez, Quinn, it’s like you don’t know me at all.”
She didn’t know him at all. For the first time, his arrogant comment didn’t stoke her anger further. More and more she was convinced that his whole irritating, douchebag persona was just that—a persona. A show he put on. It was very effective in keeping people from wanting to know anything about him.
“Do you have kids?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Something flashed in his eyes, there and gone in an instant, and she couldn’t read it because he kept too much of himself to himself. He took a slow sip of his drink, watching her over the rim of the can.
“Do you think I have kids?”
“For God’s sake, Turner. It’s a simple question.”
“Trouble at home?” More deflecting. “With your new kid?”
“No, I—” She threw her hands in the air and let them land on her lap. Why the hell was she asking? Why did she care?
He smiled. The kind that always made her want to throat-punch him. “Quinn, are you interested in me? I mean, I know I’m irresistible, but I don’t think the LT would appreciate you flirting with me.”
“You know damn well that’s not what’s happening here. You know what?” She jammed a hand into her pocket and pulled out a dollar bill, holding it out to him. “Get off my desk, douchebag. I have work to do.”
His grin widened. Plucking the dollar from her hand, he leaned across her desk to where his abutted hers and deposited it into his jar. “Come on, Quinn. Tell me what’s got your wheels turning. What’s the LT always say? Let’s talk this out.”
Was there even any point in talking it out?
Did she have anything better to do?
“Fine,” she huffed. “I know what we need is something that we can nail Hollis with, but I keep coming back to the fact that right before Tobias and Cora were killed, Cora was convinced that Tobias was a murderer. In fact, I think Gabrielle was killed in the same way as Riley. But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
He drummed his fingers against his now empty can. “It matters. That’s a pattern and since Tobias is dead, the common denominator is Hollis. He cozied up to all of Tobias’s women. Maybe even after the first two chose Tobias over him, he made a move on them and they rejected him again. They probably planned to tell Tobias what a creep he was, so he killed them both. Then came Cora. He had her confiding in him. Crying on his shoulder. But he made the mistake twice before of giving the woman he was after a choice between him and Tobias so this time, he wanted to make sure there was no contest. Maybe he was the one who put the idea in Cora’s head that Tobias was a killer. Planted Rachel’s purse. Got Cora worked up, wanting to leave. Then, like I said, he paid a couple of guys to take care of Tobias so he could swoop in and have her to himself, except shit went sideways and they killed Cora, too.”
All of the pieces fit so perfectly, even if the larger puzzle made Hollis far more calculating and dangerous than Josie initially thought. Even if her gut was still telling her that she was missing something.
That damn skeleton key.
“We’ve still got no proof,” Josie reminded him. “Like you said, we need a confession or a witness if we want to nail him. Or some kind of leverage that will get him to confess.”
