Page 28 of Griffin (Stone Brothers #5)

TWENTY-SIX

SHAY

B eing with Griffin had filled me with a renewed confidence and sense of purpose.

I needed to be free of Tate. As usual, he was leaned into the open hood of his truck as I pulled up to the house.

Telling him while he was distracted with the truck and outside where all the neighbors could see and hear might be the best time to tell him.

I worked on a quick and to the point speech as I walked up the driveway.

I was ten feet from the front of the truck when a wrench came flying out.

It whirred right past me and slammed the metal railing on the porch steps.

"Fucking piece of shit," Tate growled, still under the lifted hood. He glanced back and spotted me. "Where the fuck have you been? Had to make my own breakfast. Wash my laundry, would ya? It stinks." He dove back under the hood.

This was the wrong time. He was in a rotten mood, and it was better not to ask him for a divorce while he was waving tools around.

I trudged to the house already feeling defeated and far less confident than when I pulled up.

How the hell was I going to work up enough courage to face down a man who was always angry and menacing?

I started toying with the notion of a quick letter left behind as I fled in the middle of the night.

He'd chased me down both times I tried it before, but this time I had a place to hide.

Then I snapped back to reality. I'd be dragging Griffin and even his cousins into my bag of dirty laundry.

I thought back to something I'd said to Griffin.

Maybe, just maybe, Tate would be thrilled for this to be over.

There was no love, or even like, left between us.

In fact, the hatred circled around us like a dark storm whenever we were in the same room.

Why wouldn't he be just as happy to have this end?

It had been more than a year since I tried to leave, and things had only gotten colder between us.

I knew he was screwing a lot of women while he was out on the road.

He could easily get on with his life without me.

Those notions bolstered me. I turned around and headed back outside. Tate was still leaned into the truck. I stood behind him, but a good ten feet back, and felt a small spark of panic. I closed my eyes and imagined myself wrapped in Griffin's arms. The anxiety subsided. I opened my eyes.

"I want a divorce," I blurted.

His arms stopped moving, and he was still inside the truck for a second. Then a disturbing laugh echoed through the engine compartment.

I forged ahead but was starting to feel nauseous. "We no longer love each other. We don't even like each other. We'll both be happier apart."

He finally emerged from under the hood. As he unfolded to his full, intimidating size, my heart raced. Tate stared at me, and I immediately went into survival mode, checking out my surroundings and my quickest escape route.

"Did you wash my laundry?" he asked, dryly.

"Not yet. I want a divorce."

"You're not leaving me," he said. "Now get in there and do the laundry, and there'd better be a decent lunch on the table when I get through here."

Tears pricked my eyes, and I raced into the house, feeling like a complete and utter failure.

I was going to need a better plan. Like an obedient child, I went into the laundry area.

His duffel was on the ground. I leaned back out of the odorous cloud as I opened the bag and dumped the contents on the ground.

Grease-stained jeans and shirts piled around my feet.

I stared down at the dirty clothes. Something caught my eye.

Something that didn't belong amidst the mostly dark clothes.

I leaned down and pulled on the corner. A yellow bandana pulled free of the laundry.

I held it up wondering if I was actually seeing it.

Tate never wore a bandana. The reality that was starting to take shape in my head was so jarring, so terrifying that I felt the earlier panic attack fire back up.

Tate was an awful person with a shredded soul, but was he capable of murder?

There were a few times when I feared for my life, but murder?

I held the bandana between just two fingers and took a picture of it. Tate's boots pounded up the front steps and adrenaline shot through my whole body. I glanced around nervously and stashed the bandana behind the box of detergent, then quickly shoved everything into the washer and turned it on.

"Lunch!" he shouted.

My hands trembled so badly I had to stick them in my pockets to calm them.

Everything was still racing around in my mind, and the possibility that I was living with a murderer crashed through my reasoning more than once.

It was too stunning to think about, too stunning to believe.

I needed to calm down and get out of my frenzied state to think everything through.

One thing was certain; I couldn't let on to Tate that something was up.

I wished now that I hadn't brought up the divorce yet.

I needed to go about the day without showing any emotion or fear or trepidation at all.

Tate had easily brushed aside the idea that I wanted to leave him.

I wouldn't bring it up again. I had much bigger possibilities to deal with.

I was running on a huge dose of adrenaline that was edged with fear.

At the same time, my mind tried to grapple with the idea that Tate was monstrous enough to kill someone, to extinguish a life.

There was no denying that his moods had grown grimmer and his temper shorter.

He was losing his human side more each day, and I rarely saw any glimpse of the young man I'd once fallen for.

"Sandwich?" I asked, working hard to hide the tremble in my voice.

"Do you have tuna?"

"Yes. Tuna salad all right?"

"Yeah, but put in extra mayo. You always skimp." He pulled out his phone, plunked down on a chair and began his usual scrolling. I breathed a sigh of relief, like always. That damn phone and the constant flow of distractions had probably saved me many times.

I opened the fridge and gathered all the things I needed for his sandwich.

I was thankful for the task. It helped clear away some of the earlier alarm, and I was able to get my thoughts in order.

I knew for a fact that he obsessively followed Roxi Carhill's travels.

It wasn't too surprising. She was beautiful, and like Tate, she traveled endlessly around the country.

Her body had been found near Zion. The last place she'd posted from when she broke up with Toby.

Toby had been cleared, which meant someone else, a random mad person, possibly, had killed her.

As I stirred the tuna salad, I thought about Tate's mood change the night before.

The news broke that Toby had been arrested for the murder.

Tate's foul mood, the one he'd carried inside with him, had disappeared.

Was it because he thought he'd just gotten away with murder?

He was in a bad mood again. Was that because Toby had a solid alibi?

Shit, it was too fucking insane to consider, but it was just one more thing that was nudging me toward a horrifying reality.

His latest job had taken him through Utah.

A major coincidence to be sure. But most of all, it was that damn yellow bandana, the signature piece of clothing Roxi was known for.

Her online persona was the Banana Bandana all because she wore that yellow piece of cloth around her neck.

Was it possible Tate had bought a yellow bandana solely because he was so fond of Roxi?

It seemed a plausible explanation but also pretty weird.

I finished making the sandwich and placed the plate down in front of Tate. His hand reached out and grabbed ahold of my wrist. His fingers tightened painfully. "None of this divorce bullshit. You got it?" The rage in his eyes as he looked up at me sent a cold shiver down my spine.

I nodded, and when he finally let go, I released the breath I'd been holding.

There were red marks circling my wrist. I hurried into the bedroom to gather myself and collect my thoughts.

I badly wanted to text Griffin and tell him what I'd found, but all of it seemed so outlandish.

How could the man I was married to be a killer?

I hated him with every fiber of my being, but moving him into the murderer category just sounded too wild.

I pulled out my phone. I hadn't paid attention to many details about Roxi's disappearance and death.

I scrolled through some news feed that showed photos of her abandoned van.

There were photos of her from her account where she was wearing a big, white smile and that damn yellow bandana.

I was sure she had dozens of them. Maybe that was it.

Maybe Tate had found a yellow bandana on his travels and thinking it was one that belonged to Roxi, he picked it up and put it in with his belongings.

He knew I'd be the one to dump out his duffel.

If he'd killed a woman, would he really leave behind such a key piece of evidence for his wife to find?

I was working hard to talk myself out of the possibility that Tate had killed Roxi. It was too much to bear.

I was lost in thought and glued to the article on my phone when the sound of the washing machine door slamming startled me.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Tate grumbled as he stomped around the house. His thunderous footsteps pounded down the hallway toward the bedroom. I quickly picked up my book, sat back on the bed and opened it to a page.

The door flew open. He looked like the fucking devil himself standing in the doorway with nostrils flared and eyes dark with rage. "You put everything in the wash?" he asked.

"Uh, yes, you asked me to wash your dirty clothes," I said calmly even though my insides were churning like bread dough in a mixer.

" All of it went in?" he asked. There was the slightest glimmer of suspicion in his eyes.

Did he know?

"Yes, I dumped it all in. Was there something I should have pulled out? I checked pockets, and they were empty." That was a lie, but I had to put on a good show.

"Whatever," he griped and walked away.

I stared at the empty doorway, the place where he'd just stood, and tried to catch my breath as I came to a shocking conclusion.

I picked up my phone. Suddenly, it felt necessary for me to at least let someone in the outside world know what I'd discovered.

It seemed that if you killed one person, it wouldn't be as hard to kill another.

Or maybe I was wrong about the first part.

Maybe it hadn't been hard for Tate at all.

He'd left abruptly for this job. That rarely happened.

He occasionally switched dates on his schedule because of weather or the receiving company needing a different delivery date, but this job came up out of the blue.

And he rarely left on a Saturday. Had he decided to find the newly single Roxi and make a play?

Had she turned him down flatly? That would be enough to send him into a rage.

This was all so frightening to think about.

I sent Griffin a photo of the bandana with a text. It wasn't something that you sent via text, but I didn't dare make a phone call with a madman in the house.

"I found this in Tate's duffel bag. He's never worn a yellow bandana.

" I left it at that. I didn't want to sound crazy or paranoid.

The whole idea still sounded so insane. But if something did happen to me, then Griffin would have some evidence on his phone.

In the meantime, I needed to do some digging and find out just what my monster of a husband had been up to on his last job .