Page 35 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)
Thirty-One
“Because she was having an affair?” asked Gretchen. “If not with you, then with someone else?”
He shook his head. “No, there was never any affair. I mean, if there was, she didn’t tell me about it. And hey, I know Fanning got all kinds of phone records from me and Cora and hell, everyone. Tobias. The kids. Diner employees?—”
“What’s your point?” Gretchen cut him off.
“If I was having an affair with Cora, there would have been evidence, don’t you think?”
That’s what Josie would have expected, though it would have been fairly easy for Cora to carry on an affair with Hollis without leaving any digital footprints since their lives had been so enmeshed.
In fact, she could have had an affair with anyone without leaving digital evidence if she and her lover only spoke in person while she was at work.
No one would have been suspicious of her being friendly with a returning customer.
Was that the reason Tobias wanted her to quit her job? Had he figured it out?
Mentally, Josie filed the theory away to be analyzed later and tried to get Hollis back on track. “She came to you and told you she wanted to leave Tobias?”
“No. She didn’t come to me. I still went to the diner a lot and one time I was there for lunch.
I was waiting for her to come out of the back so I could say goodbye to her but ten, fifteen minutes went by, and she still didn’t come back.
I went looking for her and found her in the ladies’ room, sitting on a toilet, bawling her eyes out. ”
“When was this?” asked Gretchen.
“A week before they disappeared.”
“Why did she want to leave him?” Josie said.
“She just…she wasn’t happy. It wasn’t just about him not wanting her to work. Things just weren’t good.”
“Was he violent toward her?” Gretchen asked.
“No, no. Never. Cora just…she said he was moody all the time. Nothing she said or did was right. He’d criticize her or get all distant and not speak to her for days.
She said it was like walking on eggshells.
Like when she was with Dalton except without the violence.
But with Dalton, she always knew what would trigger him.
With Tobias, she never knew what would bring on one of his moods or how long they would last or what he’d say.
She just didn’t want to live like that anymore. ”
“Was Tobias moody?” Josie said. “You knew him longer than Cora.”
“I guess so but can you blame the guy? His first fiancée ran off with some other guy and then his wife died. Yeah, he could get dark sometimes. Quiet. Irritable. No one’s perfect.”
The shrill alarm from a heavy-duty vehicle reversing somewhere near the rear of the lot interrupted them. Gretchen waited until it cut off before continuing the interview. “What was Cora planning?”
Hollis glanced at the nearby workers, who had lost interest in their exchange, moving far more quickly and efficiently.
“At that point, she was just putting away as much money as she could to rent an apartment for her and Riley. She made me swear not to tell Tobias. I promised her that I wouldn’t as long as she promised to talk things out with him before making any major decisions.
Maybe something like that could be worked out if they just communicated. ”
“Did she agree?” asked Josie.
“Yeah. She promised she’d discuss her feelings with him.”
Gretchen scrawled more notes on her pad. “Do you know if she did?”
“I don’t know. I?—”
The sound of a cell phone ringing cut him off. He fished in his pocket, frowning at the screen. “I gotta take this. All the kids are staying with me this week to avoid the press.” He gave Gretchen a pointed smile. “I’ve got a much bigger house now. Lots of land around it. Hey, Zane.”
Hollis listened intently. “Did you try calling her? Oh, well, it’s not the first time she’s forgotten her phone. What did Jacks say? Right, right. Yeah, I’ll leave now.”
“Everything okay?” Josie asked when he hung up.
“Riley went out this morning after I left and didn’t come back. She didn’t take her phone. The boys are worried. Jacks is out looking for her now. I’m gonna go and join Zane to see if we can locate her.”
“How long has she been gone?” Josie said.
“About three hours. Jackson woke up around nine this morning and she wasn’t in bed. Zane didn’t see her leave either. I saw her right before I left for work around seven. She was coming in as I was leaving.”
“Coming in?” Josie prompted.
“Yeah, she’d gone home to get Captain Whiskers’ heartworm medication and some of her little toys.
Said they left all that behind when they brought the cat to my house.
With the press crawling all over the city, I wasn’t sure how long the kids would be staying with me so I told them it was okay to bring the cat.
She must have gone back out after that.”
“Does she do this sort of thing often?” asked Gretchen. “Take off on her own without telling anyone where she’s going?”
Hollis grimaced. “No. She’s just been really upset since the funerals. Also, uh, she’s been drinking a lot more than usual. Zane thinks she might have taken a bottle of vodka from my place.”
“He thinks she’s driving drunk,” Josie clarified.
The tight expression on Hollis’s face told her everything she needed to know.
Gretchen fished her phone from her pocket. “Is there a particular place she goes when she’s upset?”
“I don’t think so. We’ll just start from my place, drive around, see if we can find her.”
Josie felt a prickle along the back of her neck. Riley Stevens had gotten under her skin in a way no one associated with a case had in a long time. “Was she wearing Cora’s sweater?”
Confusion lined Hollis’s flushed face. “What?”
“Cora’s sweater. Was she wearing it when she left the house?”
“I don’t know but probably. She hasn’t taken it off in two days. Listen, I gotta go, okay? I’m sure we’ll find her. If you’ve got more questions, just call me later.”
“Hollis.” Gretchen waved her phone at him. “We can help. We can take a report from Zane and Jackson and start using our resources to locate her. Get us the license plate number of the vehicle Riley is driving. We’ll get all available patrol units to look for it.”
“I thought there was that whole twenty-four-hour waiting period before you could report someone missing to police,” he said.
Josie shook her head. “That’s a myth. Besides, we both know that Riley is distressed right now. If you have a reasonable suspicion that she might be under the influence, it’s extremely important for her safety and the safety of others that we find her as soon as possible.”
He pulled his sleeve down where it had snagged on his glucose monitor. “Oh, wow. Great. That’s great. I don’t want anything to happen to her. I’ll call Jackson, get that tag for you. Then I’ll call Zane back and tell him to stay put until we get there. You’ll come with?”
“Of course,” said Gretchen, jotting down his address as he rattled it off.
Ten minutes later, Hollis pulled out of the parking lot, dodging the reporters surrounding his truck hoping for a quote or an interview.
Josie followed in their SUV while Gretchen called dispatch and gave them Riley’s information as well as the license plate number of the car she was driving, asking for a BOLO to be put out immediately.
After ending the call, Gretchen looked over at Josie. “You asked about the sweater.”
“You know why.”
“I do,” Gretchen replied softly. “She’s having a mental health crisis.”
“She could hurt herself or someone else,” Josie agreed. “Whether she means to or not.”
“You think she went back to Brighton Springs?”
“No. I don’t think she’d want to be that far from Jackson.”
Riley had been fragile the day that Josie and Gretchen delivered the news of her mother’s death—her mother’s murder.
The confrontation with Dalton at the funerals likely hadn’t helped, not to mention the video going viral.
She was hurting on a deep, elemental level that resonated with Josie.
Every aspect of her life—of Cora’s life—was under scrutiny now in a way it hadn’t been before, despite the interest in the disappearances over the last seven years.
The yellow sweater made her feel closer to her mother.
Riley wanted to feel connected to Cora. But all the connections were in Brighton Springs, where they’d lived together—Tobias’s house, the cemetery, the diner where Cora had worked.
There was only one place in Denton that had a connection to her mother.
“I think I know where she is,” Josie said.