Page 20 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
He nodded once. “Your mother passed recently?”
“Three months ago,” Margo replied. “I hadn’t… I hadn’t had a chance to get back to Outlaw Ridge. Too much going on in Austin. Work. Life.”
“So you’re not planning on moving back,” Griff said, though it wasn’t really a question.
Margo let out a bitter laugh. “God, no. This place is packed with bad memories. I couldn’t wait to get out, and nothing’s changed. The sooner I get away, the better. I can change my phone number and stop the calls. I don’t want people’s sympathies. I don’t want to rehash what happened to my sister.”
She glanced at Lily again, eyes sharp but softer now. Like maybe she wanted to say something else. Perhaps ask her to stop digging into this. Beg her, maybe. Or confess something she didn’t have the stomach to put into words.
But whatever was on her mind, the woman swallowed it.
Without another word, without even a goodbye, Margo turned and walked out of the station, the door clicking shut behind her.
Griff stayed quiet for a moment, then turned back to Lily. “She’s hiding something,” he said.
And from the look in Lily’s eyes, she thought so too.
Griff sat back down, dragging his chair in close again as the door eased shut behind Margo. The last trace of her perfume still lingered in the air. Something sharp and expensive, like her.
He turned toward Lily, his voice low. “How soon did Margo leave after Hannah’s murder?”
Lily didn’t answer right away. She stared at the door for a moment longer, then slowly turned back to the file in front of her.
“Soon,” she said. “Within a week or two, I think.”
She flipped a page in the case file, then frowned and shook her head.
“No… actually, it was right after Bobby Ray was charged. Not before.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as she worked it through. “She stuck around while the cops were questioning people. I remember hearing she was commuting to San Antonio for college classes at the time, but after Bobby Ray was arrested, she left. Just packed up and went.”
“Left her mother to grieve their daughter,” Griff said, watching her closely.
Lily nodded. “I don’t remember her coming back. Not once. Not for the trial. Not after the conviction. Not for the funeral, as far as I know.”
Griff leaned back slightly in his chair, hands folded.
“She didn’t want to be here,” he concluded.
“No,” Lily agreed. “She wanted to disappear.”
The sharp crack split the air like a whip. One second of silence followed, tight, breathless, and then every deputy in the bullpen was on their feet.
Griff’s hand was already on his weapon. He saw Lily go for hers, too. Hayes and Jesse moved to flank the doors, and Jemma edged toward the side hallway, her hand at her radio.
“Could’ve been a car backfiring,” Lily muttered, eyes locked on the front entrance.
But a moment later, movement blurred across the frosted glass. A figure sprinting toward the station. Griff stepped forward, weapon raised just as the door flew open and the man stumbled in, wild-eyed and gasping.
Blood streaked down the man’s right arm, soaking through the sleeve of a worn canvas jacket as he stumbled through the front doors of the station. His face was pale, twisted in pain, and his eyes scanned the room like he wasn’t sure he’d made it to the right place.
Griff had his weapon halfway raised, until recognition hit.
Rhett Hale.
Older than his file photo, rougher too. His gray-flecked beard was longer, but the eyes were the same. Sharp. Exhausted. Pissed off.
Griff had seen his face in the background check Hallie had pulled. A dozen commendations buried under a reputation for being difficult, stubborn, too blunt for his own good. The kind of cop who got things done until he rubbed enough people the wrong way to be nudged quietly into early retirement.
Lily’s voice cut through the shock. “Rhett?”
