Page 59 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
Lily didn’t respond right away. She watched the way Margo’s eyes flicked to the photo, then back to the table. The way her hands twisted together. There was pain there, and something else. Something murkier. Like even now, Margo wasn’t sure what had been real.
Lily couldn’t help but wonder if Bobby Ray truly had been with Margo? Had there been a relationship? Or had it just been sex? Something fleeting and secret that Margo had clung to while Bobby Ray’s attention drifted elsewhere?
Lily kept her voice gentle but firm. “If you and Bobby Ray were together… why keep it a secret?”
Margo’s eyes lifted to hers then, dark and tired. “Because no one would’ve believed it. Because I was the smart sister. Thenothing special, plain one. Hannah was the one everyone looked at. I didn’t want the gossip. And Bobby Ray didn’t want the drama.”
Lily made a small note, but her mind was racing now through timelines, through motives, through everything Margo hadn’t yet said. Because secrets like that didn’t stay buried forever.
And this one had already started to rise.
Griff’s voice cut through the thick silence. “Did Hannah know about the pregnancy?”
Margo stiffened. Her fingers tightened even more, and for a moment, Lily wasn’t sure she’d answer. But then Margo gave a slow nod, her gaze dropping to the photo of her son.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I told both my sister and Bobby Ray the day before Hannah was killed.” Her voice changed, flattened, but the heat in her eyes surged. “Hannah laughed. Said I should’ve been more careful. Like it was a joke.”
The bitterness in her tone wasn’t masked. It scraped at the words, exposing something sharper beneath.
Griff didn’t press her on that. Not yet. Instead, he followed the thread. “How did Bobby Ray take the news?”
Margo hesitated again, and Lily could almost see the memories clawing their way up. “He was shocked,” she said finally. “Really quiet. But not angry. He just said… he needed some time to think about it.”
She glanced at Lily, then at Griff. “Hewasn’ta bad guy. He didn’t yell or accuse me of anything. He just—” Her voice cracked. “He just left. Said he’d talk to me the next day.”
Lily jotted the note down but felt the tightening in her chest. Because that next day? Hannah was dead. And Bobby Ray’s life had been ruined.
Setting down her pen, Lily studied Margo for a moment, watching the way her jaw clenched and unclenched, the way hergaze kept drifting back to the photo of Caleb. It was as if the boy’s face—so clearly Bobby Ray’s—had cracked something open in her. But not all the way.
Not yet.
So Lily nudged it further. “What if Bobby Ray took the fall on purpose?” Lily asked quietly.
Margo’s eyes snapped to hers.
Lily kept going, her voice even. “What if he thought going to prison was better than the alternative? What if he believed that by staying quiet, you’d be free to raise the baby, keep your life intact?”
Margo’s breath caught, just barely.
“But then,” Lily added, her voice softening, “he got sick. He knew he was dying. And maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want his son to grow up thinking his father was a murderer.”
She let that hang there, heavy and personal. “Maybe that’s why he sent the letter to me,” Lily added.
Margo didn’t respond right away. Her mouth opened, then closed, and Lily could see the war on her face. Grief, confusion, a deep crack of sorrow that might never fully close. But even in the silence, Lily saw it. A glimmer of something that looked a lot like truth.
Griff leaned forward, his voice quiet but deliberate as he picked up where Lily left off. “For that theory to work,” he said, “Bobby Ray must’ve believed thatyoukilled your sister.”
Margo’s head snapped toward him, eyes wide. “No,” she whispered.
But Griff didn’t stop. His tone stayed calm, steady as if he was guiding her through the wreckage of something that had been buried for too long.
“If he thought the mother of his child had committed murder,” Griff continued, “he might’ve decided the only way toprotect both of you was to take the fall. Maybe he even asked to be framed. Is that how it played out, Margo?”
David Kellerman pushed up from his chair, hand out like a stop sign. “Deputy, that’swildlyspeculative and inappropriate.”
But Margo wasn’t listening. Her breath hitched. Then again. Faster. Her chest started to rise and fall in short, shallow gasps, and her hands flew to her face.
“No—no, no, I didn’t—Ididn’t!” she cried, her voice cracking as she shook her head, over and over.
