Page 34 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)

Thirty

“You got questions just for me?” Hollis called as he lumbered around the side of a huge dumpster behind the Denton office of At Your Disposal.

It had been two days since the funerals.

The press was camped out front. There weren’t nearly as many reporters and camera crews as there had been at the cemetery and at the Lachlan house in Brighton Springs, but they were accumulating quickly.

Multiplying by the hour, it seemed. In the time it took Josie and Gretchen to cross the parking lot, at least three dozen shouted questions had been lobbed at them.

Each one went ignored. Ellyn had let them inside and then directed them out back where Hollis was rummaging through a pile of debris, tossing pieces of demolished drywall and wood panels into the dumpster.

“We have more questions,” Gretchen said.

The screech of a trash compactor blared from the old service building near the back of the lot.

Three dump trucks waited nearby to deposit their contents.

A strange odor hung in the air. Josie detected faint notes of spoiled food, chemicals, urine, and mildew.

Across from them, two At Your Disposal employees unloaded furniture and electronics from a truck, sorting them into different areas.

They kept throwing curious glances over at Josie and Gretchen.

Josie smoothed her polo shirt over her stomach. Her new work shirts had finally arrived. “We spoke to Dalton Stevens before we left Brighton Springs.”

Hollis took off his thick work gloves and plucked a rag from the back pocket of his cargo shorts, using it to wipe sweat from his brow. “I can’t wait to hear this. Lay it on me. What did he accuse me of doing? Besides murder.”

Gretchen held his gaze steadily. “He said you were having an affair with Cora before she and Tobias were killed.”

His eyes widened in surprise. Clearly, he hadn’t expected that. As the weight of the accusation sank in, a scowl crossed his face. “Of course he did. He’ll say anything to mess with people’s lives and to upset Riley now that Cora’s really gone.”

“So you weren’t having an affair with Cora?” Josie asked.

Hollis shook his head. “Of course not. Nothing like that ever happened between us.”

“Did you ever frequent the Majesty Motel?”

“Is that what Dalton told you?” Hollis laughed. “That I was meeting Cora at that dump? Never happened.”

He hadn’t actually answered the question but for now, Josie let it go. She wondered if Dalton had been counting on them not being able to verify any of the information he gave them. It was his word against Hollis’s since Cora wasn’t here to speak for herself.

“He said that he saw you and Cora speaking behind the diner where she worked on multiple occasions,” Gretchen said. “Did she need multiple occasions to get you to intervene in her marriage and convince Tobias that she should keep working?”

“We were friends,” he insisted.

“Friends who needed to meet behind her place of employment rather than at one of your homes or inside the diner?” Josie said.

Hollis stuffed the rag back into his pocket. “She didn’t want to air her dirty laundry where people could hear it. Everyone already knew her personal business with Dalton. She hated that.”

For a city, even a small one, everyone in Brighton Springs really did seem to know everyone else’s business. It made Josie wonder how seven years had passed without a break in the case.

Somebody always knew something.

“In that case, the privacy of one of your homes would have been appropriate.”

“Oh sure.” He tried jamming his hands back into the work gloves.

His fingers trembled. Was his sugar getting low or was this something else?

“The privacy of one of our homes. Where Tobias or one of the kids could easily have overheard, or at my place—that wouldn’t have made Tobias suspicious at all. ”

“Suspicious of what?” Josie said.

He gave up on the gloves, tossing them angrily at his feet. “You know what I mean! It would have looked weird if she came to my place.”

The employees across the lot froze, watching the exchange. If Hollis noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“Dalton said he saw you and Cora behind the diner three times,” said Gretchen. “Were they all related to her staying employed after the wedding?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

“According to Dalton, one of those times was a week before Cora and Tobias disappeared. That’s not what you told us or Fanning,” Josie pointed out.

“I don’t remember every little thing from seven years ago, for Pete’s sake. Cora and I talked sometimes. So what?”

“Hollis,” Josie said, “this isn’t a missing persons case anymore. It’s a double homicide. If you really cared about Tobias and Cora the way you claim, you’ll share whatever it is that you’re not telling us.”

He glanced around. The workers watching them scrambled back to sorting, averting their eyes.

They were likely too far away to overhear the conversation, but Hollis lowered his voice anyway.

“It’s not—we weren’t having an affair, okay?

That’s true. Have I ever been to the Majesty?

Sure, but not with Cora. I promise you that. ”

“Who were you with?” asked Gretchen.

He wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. “Aww jeez, you’re really gonna make me do this, aren’t you?”

Gretchen lowered her reading glasses onto her face before producing her notepad from one of her back pockets.

She flipped to a blank page. Then she produced a pen from above her ear, holding its point over the paper.

“We’re really gonna make you do this, yeah.

Unless you want to come with us now to the station where you can put whatever lies you’ve got ready to tell into a formal statement.

I can tell you that however bad you think the truth will make you look, lying will make you look far worse.

Guilty as sin, in fact. You want to help yourself?

You want to help the kids? Tell the truth, Hollis. All of it. Don’t leave anything out.”

He looked at her from under bushy, scrunched brows. “I’m not guilty of anything except being a dumbass, probably, but I really don’t want to look bad to you.”

Josie could tell that Gretchen was holding back the mother of all eye-rolls.

“I’m serious,” Hollis cried. “I know this is inappropriate, but I really do like you.”

Face impassive, Gretchen tapped the pen impatiently against the pad. “The truth, Hollis.”

More employees had gathered near the sorting area. Apparently, four of them were needed to remove a gently used office chair from the back of the truck with the excruciating slowness befitting the transfer of a great work of art.

Hollis groaned. “Fine. I was seeing a married woman back then, okay? Not Cora.”

Arching a brow, Josie said, “Oh, was that in addition to the woman you were seeing in Denton?”

From under his lashes, he darted a glance at his employees before anchoring his gaze to his feet. “I’m not proud of it, okay? You’re gonna want the married lady’s name, aren’t you?”

“What do you think?” Gretchen said.

He started pacing in front of them but mumbled her name and address. Gretchen jotted the information down so they could verify it later.

“Tell us about Cora,” Josie told him.

Again, he searched around them, galvanizing the now six employees unloading a desk from the truck to move more quickly—and keep their eyes averted.

“I—I really don’t want the kids to know, okay?

There’s no reason for them to know. I never told Fanning—or anyone else—because it’s not relevant.

It’s got nothing to do with what happened to them. Promise me you won’t tell the kids.”

“We won’t tell them unless it becomes necessary to the investigation,” Josie said.

Exhaling a frustrated sigh, he stopped pacing. “Cora was planning to leave Tobias. She wanted out. Completely.”