Page 86 of The Couple's Secret
Nothing.
“Olsen had a soft spot for you, didn’t he?” Gretchen said, picking up Josie’s thread. “You went to him when you turned eighteen and asked him to find your mom. He lied to you and said he couldn’t find her. Because Tobias asked him to. He must have felt pretty guilty about that, especially after Cora brought him Rachel’s purse. Maybe guilty enough to come clean with you and tell you the truth about what he found when he actually did search for her.”
“What?” Zane said. “What is this about a purse? Cora talked to Olsen? Jacks, what the hell is going on?”
“It’s a little strange,” Gretchen said. “You being twenty-three and going to a retirement party with a bunch of guys your dad’s age and older.”
“You know,” Josie said, “Brighton Springs PD has a long history of police corruption. It’s interesting that on the night your dad and Cora disappeared—were killed—you were at a party with a bunch of their officers. Even if they weren’t dirty, you’d only need one of them to give you an alibi.”
“Jacks,” Zane whispered. “What did you do?”
Shaking his head, Jackson reached around the vending machine, pulling it toward him as he tilted the dolly.
“Bruce Olsen was highly decorated,” Josie continued. “Revered. Everyone had been drinking at that party. They might not have remembered seeing you past nine in the evening but if Olsen told them you were there until the early hours of the morning, they wouldn’t question him.”
“Holy shit, Jacks,” Zane said. “Did you do this? Did you kill Dad and Cora? Were you after Riley even then? Did you ever give a shit about me?”
The machine teetered on the edge of the dolly, its weight pulling it back toward the truck bed. With a grunt, Jackson pushed it forward a couple of halting steps.
“Fanning checked your phone,” Gretchen said, “as well as the GPS in your car but it never occurred to him to check Olsen’s. Why would it?”
Zane’s face crumpled. “Cora, man? How could you? Holy shit. It’s— This is so bad. So… disgusting. You married Riley after killing her mom? Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? You’re so much worse than Dad!”
This earned Zane a glare from his brother. “You shut your mouth,” Jackson growled.
“Oh God,” Zane said, new horror washing over his face. “She knew, didn’t she? Riley found out. You lied to me about the morning she died, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about, Zane?” Josie asked.
“I thought I heard them arguing that morning. It woke me up. I was hungover and it was none of my business anyway, so I went back to sleep. When he knocked on my door to ask if I knew where she was, I asked him what they were arguing about, and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about. Said I must have been dreaming. That was bullshit, wasn’t it, Jacks? It was you. You knew how to kill her with insulin ’cause you saw Dad do it to my mom. You saw it, didn’t you? That day in the yard. You told me to wait for you, to hit some more balls, and you went back to the house.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jackson said menacingly, pushing the dolly closer to the tailgate.
“Maybe you didn’t see Dad inject her, but you saw the pens and needles in the trash, just like I did. It’s true, isn’t it? You knew what they were—knew how Hol was constantly telling us not to touch them, not to mess with them because an accidental dose could put us in the hospital and kill us. Even I remember that. He drilled it into our heads. Then when you started realizing he killed your mom, you remembered those pens, the needles, and the arguing?—”
“Stop talking right fucking now,” Jackson said.
“Nothing else makes sense,” Zane insisted. “Hol wouldn’t kill Riley. How did she find out? After all these years, how did she finally figure it out?”
Gretchen said, “Jackson, this stuff can wait. Let’s go back to the stationhouse. Zane, too. These are things that are probably best discussed in private.”
How had Riley figured it out?
Josie’s brain worked to review everything she knew about the morning Riley died through the lens of Zane’s revelation. Riley had gone home that morning to get medication for their cat. Hollis had seen her when she returned but she’d looked pale and shaky. Sick. He’d assumed it was because she was hungover—and she very well may have been—but what if she’d found something while she was at home that had made her that way? Something that turned her world on its head. Something that made her believe that her husband had had something to do with her mother and Tobias’s murders.
But what?
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Jackson said. “You’re all making shit up. It’s like the most morbid kind of storytime. You’ve got some pretty wild imaginations. Zane, help me with this damn thing, would you?”
Josie thought of the punctures on Riley’s palm. Four of them spaced perfectly apart to form a tiny square. She’d been squeezing something so hard in her hand that it broke the skin. Something small, its face square, but those four parts of it sharp enough to pierce the soft pad of her hand.
“We’d still like you to come down to the stationhouse so you can formally respond to these questions,” Gretchen said.
What small item could Riley have found in the home she shared with Jackson that would give her the idea that he’d had something to do with the murders?
One of the only things that hadn’t been in the sedan when they processed it.
Josie might not have thought of it except for the fact that Shannon kept sending her and Noah photos of anniversary bands that would match Josie’s ring, despite them standing firm that they weren’t buying one.
