Page 22 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)

Eighteen

Zane Lachlan stepped into Hollis’s arms. Sobs shook his entire body.

He was the shorter of the two so his forehead rested naturally against Hollis’s shoulder.

Great, gulping cries spilled from deep in his chest, filling the air.

Josie had heard the sound of this kind of raw grief countless times in her line of work—had experienced it personally—yet it never failed to pierce her professional armor.

That kind of deep, visceral pain hit true every time, like an arrow finding its mark in an instant.

Hollis gripped the back of Zane’s neck, kneading the skin. “I’m sorry, kid,” he murmured. “Real sorry.”

Josie and Gretchen stood, moving toward them, trying not to knock over the stack of industrial-sized toilet paper rolls near the door. “We’ll give you a few minutes,” Josie murmured.

Hollis nodded at them and moved Zane aside so they could pass.

In the lobby, Ellyn was speaking into her headset again, this time giving a spiel about how the company handled hazardous chemicals.

Josie and Gretchen stood near the mouth of the hallway, out of the secretary’s earshot but close enough to eavesdrop on the two men.

“Hollis is pretty close with the kids,” Gretchen said.

“He stepped right up,” Josie agreed.

“Both of Tobias’s sons are part of the company.

Jackson was already working for them when his dad disappeared.

Zane’s running the show in Brighton Springs now.

Did he step in because of his friendship with Tobias or because it would be easier to implement his expansion plans with Tobias’s sons on board? Easy to control them?”

“He says he was never interested in having children,” Josie said. “But he was obviously interested in at least two of Tobias’s girlfriends—both of whom already had children.”

“True.”

Had Hollis grown jealous of Tobias? Always getting the girl while he stood on the sidelines, being asked to intercede in his friend’s relationship by the woman he’d been admiring for years?

He certainly knew a lot of personal details about Cora’s life.

More than Josie would expect from the friend of her fiancé.

Even if he’d regularly eaten at the diner where she worked, would Cora have divulged so much to him in that setting?

According to Hollis, they hadn’t been friends at that point.

He’d been a patron and she’d been a waitress.

Hollis was trying too hard to get ahead of the investigation.

He offered too much honesty, too many explanations before they’d even had a chance to ask their questions.

Most people in his position who had spent seven years under police scrutiny and now faced the prospect of that scrutiny becoming more intense would be somewhat apprehensive, guilty or not.

They’d be tight-lipped, evasive, perhaps even retain a lawyer in anticipation of being investigated as a murder suspect.

If he wasn’t behind Tobias and Cora’s deaths, he was certainly hiding something.

“Step-siblings—well, almost—living in the same house,” Gretchen said.

“Both parents go missing. Who’s stepping in to take care of them?

Keep the household going? Pay the mortgage, utilities, car insurance?

Make sure they’re eating and going to school?

Sure, they were sixteen and seventeen, but they were still kids. ”

Josie had had the same thought. In the online articles she’d combed through so far, there hadn’t been any mention of grandparents or aunts and uncles.

Jackson’s mother, Rachel Wright, was out of the picture.

Zane’s mother, Gabrielle Lachlan, had died.

Riley’s father clearly wasn’t fit to care for her.

Dalton Stevens may not have been interested in regaining custody of his daughter after Cora disappeared.

From what they’d learned about him thus far, Josie would bet a week’s pay that Riley was nothing more to him than an effective way to manipulate and control his ex-wife.

With Cora out of the picture, he had no use for her.

“Jackson was twenty-three,” Josie said. “He’d taken over Tobias’s position in the company. It was probably him. Though I’m sure he was unprepared to become a guardian, co-owner of a company, and head of a household all at once, in the blink of an eye.”

The sound of another soft sob came from the hallway.

Gretchen nodded. “Lucky for him, his dad’s best friend could swoop in and keep things running smoothly.”

Hollis and Zane emerged from the conference room, walking slowly toward the lobby. Wiping at his eyes, Zane said something Josie couldn’t make out.

“Yeah, sure,” Hollis replied. “You can stay with me. Long as you want. You talk to Riley and Jackson yet?”

“Riley,” Zane said in a pointed tone.

A sigh. “You know you’re gonna have to talk to him to plan the funeral.”

“Whatever.”

“Son, don’t you dare put Riley in the middle of this again.”

Josie and Gretchen exchanged puzzled looks. What did Hollis mean by “this”? There was obviously some long-standing issue between the brothers and yet, Jackson had acted like they were on good terms, passing their dad’s old, cherished recliner back and forth every Christmas.

“She was always in the damn middle,” Zane muttered.

They stopped walking. Hollis’s voice was low and angry. “You shut your mouth. That girl didn’t do a thing but lose her mother. Just like you and Jackson lost your father. You boys work your shit out or don’t but leave her out of it. She’s already fragile. This is liable to break her.”

Hollis wasn’t wrong. Josie knew a person hanging onto their sanity by a thread when she saw one and Riley was certainly that. She’d probably been standing on the emotional precipice for the past seven years.

Once they reached the lobby, Hollis gave Josie and Gretchen a strained smile. Zane studied them with curious, bloodshot eyes. Slapping a hand on the back of Zane’s neck, Hollis said, “These are the detectives here to talk about your dad and Cora. Their, um, murders.”

Zane winced.

Josie and Gretchen introduced themselves and presented their credentials. Zane spent several seconds studying each one of their IDs before looking up at Josie with an expression that was childlike in its hopefulness. “Do you have any suspects?”

“Not yet.”

“Me,” said Hollis.

Zane’s head snapped toward him. “What?”

“We don’t currently have any suspects,” Gretchen said calmly, sensing, as Josie did, that Zane’s grief was as raw as Riley’s had been earlier.

His eyes were glossy with unshed tears. His lower lip quivered, giving away his vulnerability.

Jackson had been better at containing his pain, but he had had years of experience as the older brother, the cool head, the caretaker.

Clearly, he continued to be that for his wife.

“We’re in the very early stages of the investigation,” Josie added. “We’re gathering information.”

“What information?”

Hollis squeezed Zane’s neck. “All the same shit we told Fanning in the beginning.”

“No,” Zane cried, gaze flickering frantically back and forth between Josie and Gretchen. “There has to be more. Fanning never figured out what happened to them. You have the car now, right? That means more evidence. It has to mean more evidence.”

“Kid,” Hollis whispered as Zane’s voice grew higher-pitched.

“You have to have something. You just have to.” He was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “I can’t—we can’t do this. Ending one nightmare just to start another. It’s too much. You have something to go on now, right? If you’re just repeating what Fanning did, you’ll never find out who killed them.”

“Hey,” Hollis said. “Calm down. Maybe with a new set of eyes on the case—two sets—things will be different this time.”

Josie hoped Hollis was right. Neither she nor Gretchen tried to convince Zane of that, however.

Ultimately, their actions would speak louder than their words.

Instead of starting with the same types of questions they’d asked Riley and Jackson, Josie said, “After your dad and Cora disappeared, did you and Riley continue to live in their house?”

Zane sniffled. “Um, yeah, it was our home, and we thought they’d come back. Maybe it was stupid, but we were kids. Plus, where else would we go?”

“I offered to take them in after about six months,” said Hollis.

“Into your tiny-ass house?” Zane joked weakly. “I don’t think so. Jackson got rid of his apartment and moved back home to look after us until I turned eighteen. Then he moved here to help with the expansion.”

Gretchen said, “You and Riley kept living there alone?”

“Yeah.” Zane jammed a hand into his pants pocket and came up with a tissue. “It was weird and freaky but technically, I was an adult so it was legal.”

“Riley was a minor,” Josie pointed out. “Did any of her relatives or her father try to get her to move in with them?”

“The only person Riley had left was her piece-of-shit dad.” Zane paused to blow his nose.

“Since we didn’t know if Cora was coming home or not, and she wasn’t dead, he would have had to petition the court to get custody of her and he wasn’t interested in spending a bunch of money and showing up at hearings, so he didn’t bother. ”

As Josie suspected, Dalton had only ever been interested in Cora.

Poor Riley had grown up with a father who not only abused her mother but didn’t care about her at all.

A sudden flash of Dex’s face burst across Josie’s mind.

How he had smiled with such pride when he told her that he had a daughter.

Wren had been nine when her mom died and they first met.

He could have reacted with horror—a perpetual bachelor having a nine-year-old dumped on him—but instead, Dex was happier than Josie had ever seen him.

Dalton Stevens had had the opportunity to be a father all of Riley’s life, and he’d pissed it away.

“Then Riley came to Denton for college,” Gretchen said, pulling Josie from her thoughts. “Do you still live in your father’s house?”

“Yeah. Couldn’t sell it ’cause he was still technically alive.”

“I helped them out whenever they needed,” said Hollis.

“Was Cora’s name on the house?” asked Josie.

Zane looked momentarily confused but Hollis knew what she was getting at. “No. Cora didn’t have any assets beyond what was in her bank account, which wasn’t much. But there was never any talk of making Riley leave. That’s not what Cora or Tobias would have wanted.”

“No way was I letting her go to her dad’s,” Zane said. “None of us wanted that.”

No wonder Cora had wanted to keep working.

If her assets hadn’t amounted to much, it was likely she hadn’t owned her own house before meeting Tobias.

Not surprising given that she was a single mother waiting tables to make ends meet.

It was doubtful that Dalton Stevens had ever paid child support.

Cora probably hadn’t had the funds to take him to court.

Cora and Riley had been absorbed into Tobias’s household.

Without keeping her job, Cora would be left with nothing should the relationship end.

Even if they’d been married, she would only have been entitled to assets accrued during the marriage.

She’d been smart to insist on maintaining some independence.

As it was, now that the couple were dead, Riley would only be entitled to whatever was left in Cora’s bank account, if anything.

Zane and Jackson would split everything Tobias had left behind—the house, bank accounts, vehicles, and all personal property.

They already split interest in the business.

“Did you help her out with college tuition?” Gretchen asked Hollis.

He chuckled. “Hell, no. She wouldn’t let me. Wouldn’t let anyone. She put herself through college with scholarships and loans.”

“Cora’s old boss from the diner started a GoFundMe for us,” Zane said. “Ri could have used that money for school, but she hired a private investigator instead to look for Dad and Cora.”

Josie wasn’t surprised. Many families did the same when their loved ones’ murders or disappearances became cold cases. “What was the PI’s name?”

Hollis and Zane looked at one another, brows furrowed. Then Zane said, “I don’t remember. You have to ask Riley. Doesn’t matter though. He didn’t find anything.”

“Did Cora bring any furniture with her when she moved in with your dad?” Gretchen asked.

Zane looked surprised by the change in the direction of questioning. “Um, I’m not sure. Maybe? I was fifteen. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“What happened to her personal effects?” Josie said. “Did Riley take them with her when she moved?”

“Yeah. When she married Jackson. Once they got their own place.”

“Do you recall if Cora owned anything that required a skeleton key to open it?” Josie pressed.

Both men were silent. The moment stretched on, becoming awkward. Finally, Hollis said, “What are you talking about?”

“Are you familiar with skeleton keys?” Gretchen asked as though he hadn’t spoken.

“Yeah,” Hollis and Zane answered in unison.

“Did Cora own anything that required one?” Josie repeated.

“I don’t—I don’t know.” Zane’s voice dripped with exhaustion, but he took a moment to think about it, eyes narrowed in concentration. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t remember. I can ask Riley next time I talk to her.”

“How about anyone else in the household?” Gretchen followed up.

Zane took another pause to consider the question. “Um, no, I don’t think so.”

Hollis threw his hands up, palms out. “I don’t have anything that needs a skeleton key if that’s where you’re headed with this.”

“I know this has been a long day.” Josie addressed Zane. “We’re very sorry for your loss. I appreciate your taking the time to speak with us. We can talk again another time. Just one last question. Do you know of anyone who would have wanted your dad and Cora dead?”

Zane used the tissue to dab at a rogue tear sliding down his cheek. “Other than Riley’s dad? No.”