Page 56 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)

Fifty-Two

That he didn’t look surprised in the slightest told her that her crazy theory—the one the Chief didn’t entirely buy—was correct.

She allowed herself a quick glance at the camera, wondering if Gretchen and the Chief could sense her mental fist pump.

Finally, they were unraveling the most baffling mystery of this case.

“It was Cora’s idea,” Jackson said.

Josie wasn’t sure she believed him but blaming Cora would allow him to confess while foisting as much responsibility as he wished onto a dead woman.

“Did she find Rachel’s purse herself or did you know about it already?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know about it.

Dad was already acting kind of scary. In that uneasy brooding way, I mean.

Other than the day he killed Gabby, I never saw him raise a hand to anyone.

I’m not sure if it was her experience with Dalton or what but Cora had this sixth sense about Dad.

Once the whirlwind romance wore off and she was living in his house, basically financially dependent on him, she started to get creeped out.

Noticed the way he was always trying to manipulate her.

Isolate her from the friends she had before him.

I guess a lot of it was stuff Dalton did, too, early on in their marriage. ”

“How did this come up between you?” Josie inched her chair closer.

Another tear trailed down his cheek. He kept his head bent, avoiding eye contact.

“Everyone was always coming and going from Dad’s house.

I would go for dinner or pick Zane up to do something together.

There were the days Dalton came for her and Dad and Hollis weren’t close enough to get rid of him.

There were times I stopped over and she was the only one home.

After a while I noticed something was off about her.

She was jumpy, skittish. A couple of times I caught her crying alone. ”

Just as Hollis had found her in the diner bathroom. Just as Dalton had found her in the parking lot of the Majesty Motel. Cora’s slow unraveling was a consistent detail in the narrative of the Lachlan/Stevens tragedy.

“Did she talk to you about why she was acting that way?”

He rubbed at the dark spots on his jeans where his tears fell.

“Not at first, no. I mean, I was her stepson, basically. Talk about awkward. It really nagged at me though. I knew it wasn’t because of Dalton and all his bullshit.

She’d dealt with him for years. Even when he was at his worst, she handled him well.

Cora was strong but I just…I couldn’t leave it alone. ”

“Because you already knew what your dad was capable of.”

Jackson swallowed hard. “Yeah. One day I just asked her what was going on and she blew me off. It took a long time to get her to talk to me. I had to promise not to breathe a word to Dad. Even after that, she didn’t want to tell me what had her so rattled.

Then, little by little, it came out. She’d started finding weird stuff in the house. ”

“Like the purse?”

“No, not then. More like weird messages. There was one carved into the bottom of a dresser drawer, underneath a liner. It said, ‘Leave while you still can.’”

Josie wondered where that dresser was at the moment and whether Fanning and his team had missed the message or just hadn’t thought to peel up the liners. It didn’t matter now. “Did you have any ideas who might have left that message?”

“It was Gabby’s dresser, so probably her. Like I told you, she wanted to leave Dad too. Looking back, I wonder if she was skeptical of the story about my mom just leaving. I think Gabby was definitely afraid of him before the day it happened.”

Josie felt a sense of profound sorrow mixed with deep frustration.

She had no doubt that Jackson was right.

Gabrielle Lachlan’s instincts had been screaming that she was in danger, just as Cora’s had, but in many instances, society drilled into women that those instincts couldn’t be trusted, that they were overreacting.

Making something out of nothing. Especially when everything was fine on the surface.

Tobias wasn’t violent. He hadn’t hit either of them.

From everything Josie had learned about him through Fanning’s files and various interviews, he hadn’t even been the type to lose control and trash the house, punch walls, or throw things.

At his best, he was devoted, caring, and attentive.

At his worst, he was manipulative and moody.

Objectively, there was no reason to feel threatened by him. By all accounts, he wasn’t a threat.

Until he was.

“Did Cora begin to suspect that he’d killed Rachel and Gabby on her own or did you share your suspicions?” Josie asked.

“I told her. She believed me,” he said. “I’m not sure what made her look under the floorboards. Maybe the message in the dresser? That key was in there, too. I didn’t realize why he had it hidden in there at first.”

“But you had already put it together that he very likely killed your mother.”

Jackson nodded. “I did a reverse image search and saw that it went to a Pooley phonograph cabinet and then I knew why he kept it.”

Just as Noah had theorized, it was a trophy. Just like Rachel’s purse. It didn’t appear that he’d kept one from Gabrielle, unless you counted the creepy dresser. Had Tobias known about the words carved inside the drawer? The very thought made her queasy.

“Cora showed you the purse,” Josie said, wanting to move things along.

His tears had stopped but his voice was raspy. “Right. Yeah. At first, I was just going to help her leave but then she found that stuff. I told her to take it to Bruce. On her own. I didn’t know if he’d be straight with me. She thought he could help get Dad arrested but it wasn’t enough.”

“So you went to plan B,” Josie said. “Kill Tobias. Everyone would be safe. He’d pay for his sins and he’d never be able to hurt another woman again. The relationship would be over and you’d be free to pursue Riley, eventually. Tell me, how were you two going to explain Tobias’s disappearance?”

Still, he wouldn’t make eye contact. “Um, we decided we would forge a letter from him.”

“Like your dad did when he killed your mom.”

It was poetic, really. A final and fitting fuck you to the man who had gotten away with murder for over twenty years.

That, however, would likely have gotten them caught.

They wouldn’t have needed to involve the police if it appeared that Tobias had left on his own.

If they somehow came under scrutiny, perhaps Jackson could have convinced Bruce Olsen to cover for them.

But Josie couldn’t see Zane or Hollis backing off and accepting that story.

Eventually, the house of cards Jackson and Cora had built would have come crashing down.

It was ironic that Cora’s death had made the crime nearly unsolvable.

Josie said, “But then everything went wrong.”

Another tear slid down his face. “Yeah,” he said huskily. “Everything went wrong.”

“Tell me.”

She waited, not moving or breathing, to see if he’d take the reins and spill everything. To confirm that all of her instincts had been correct.

“The plan was to kill him and then roll him—inside his car—into the river. Cora said it had to be really far away. Hol was going to Denton all the time so a couple of times I went with him and had a look around. Found a good spot.”

“But you’d need a second car,” Josie said.

“Yeah. We talked about planting one there but then the invite to Karl’s party came and it just seemed like the best opportunity we were going to have. I knew that Bruce would cover for me, especially after Cora brought him my mom’s purse. I knew he’d feel guilty enough to look the other way.”

He had. Bruce had told her that he had no direct knowledge of the murders.

There was never any discussion between him and Jackson about it.

He admitted to knowing on some level that Jackson had been involved but taking care to never examine that thought too closely.

Of course, Josie had no proof that Bruce hadn’t played a much larger part in the whole thing, but she believed him.

He hadn’t even suspected that Cora was involved.

“Was Cora going to dinner with Tobias part of your plan?” asked Josie.

“No, actually. I always intended to use Karl’s party as my alibi but we just figured we’d get Dad alone somehow on the night of. Then he wanted to take her out to dinner and we thought it was perfect.”

Josie had known from the start that there was no way the murders were carried out by one person.

Once she realized it was Jackson and not Hollis or Dalton or someone else, she thought Olsen was his partner.

It made so much sense. Not only did Olsen have a soft spot for Jackson but he’d been given proof in the form of Rachel’s purse that Tobias was not what he seemed.

It hadn’t occurred to Josie that Cora was the accomplice.

Not until she read the infamous last text about Captain Whiskers.

In all the news reports and interviews, the message was described simply as Cora asking Jackson to let the cat into the house.

When Josie pulled up the records from Fanning’s case file, it was quite a different thing.

Hey, do you think you could let Captain Whiskers inside? If she doesn’t come in right away, she’ll be wound up in high gear, ready to give me hell when I get home.

“You and Cora agreed that she would send you a text when they left the restaurant,” Josie said.

“So you’d know when to leave the party. But it had to be something that if read by anyone else, would seem insignificant.

Normal. Asking you to let Captain Whiskers inside wasn’t abnormal—not if you played it off as her sending the message to the wrong brother. ”

“Yeah,” Jackson agreed. “She was insane about that kind of stuff. I guess from being with Dalton all those years and having to be so careful so he didn’t beat her.”

“‘If she doesn’t come in right away’ meant come right away, didn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah. Well, it was supposed to mean they were in the car. Once they started driving, there was a limited timeframe to get him before he went home.”

“‘Wound up in high gear. Gear. Like Geerling Road, just spelled differently. Had you scouted that location out beforehand?”

“I had, yeah. Cora’s job was just to get him to take that way home instead of the other way.”

“‘Ready to give me hell’ was her way of saying she was ready to kill Tobias?”

“Yeah. I got to the clearing first and stood out in the road. He stopped right away when he saw me. I told him I broke down. He never even questioned it. Pulled right into the clearing. Then I pulled the gun on him, we tied him up, threw him into the trunk of his car and drove to Denton. Cora took his car and I took Bruce’s. ”

“Where did you get the gun?”

“It was my dad’s,” Jackson explained. “He never used it. Cora snuck it out and then once everything was over, I put it back in the safe after Riley and Zane called me to come to the house. They never even noticed.”

The entire thing was diabolical. “Once you got to Denton, things didn’t go so well, did they?”

More tears fell. “I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t look him in the eye and kill him.”

“He came after you.”

“It wasn’t even this big epic struggle. He was still tied up, hands and feet, standing and trying to keep his own balance. I was pointing the gun at him. Cora was off to the side. He just kind of plowed into me hard enough for the gun to swing toward her and it just…it went off.”

Josie waited as he cried quietly into his hands.

“She was dead. Bled out in my arms. After that, it wasn’t hard at all to look into his eyes when I killed him.

I sat there, in the dark, crying for a long time.

Holding Cora. I couldn’t take her back or call the police ’cause then they’d know what we did so I went with the original plan to push the car into the river, just with her in it as well. ”

“You took her necklace and engagement ring before you got her back into the car, didn’t you?” asked Josie.

Tears gave way to violent sobs. Chest heaving, his words came out like a jagged wail. The sound of it sent an eerie prickle of disquiet, like pins and needles, over her skin. In the back of her mind, a dark curtain lifted, and the final piece of the puzzle slotted into place.

Jackson rocked in his chair, his movements fast and jerky.

“I just…”

Sob.

Cora hadn’t even trusted Bruce Olsen not to run to Tobias and rat her out and Olsen wasn’t a family member. She’d saved up money that could have been used to leave Tobias just to ensure that her secret would be safe.

“I needed…”

Wail.

Even if Jackson shared his suspicions, would someone as cautious as Cora really trust him not to go against his father? At age twelve, he’d witnessed Tobias murder Gabrielle and never said a word, not even as an adult. Not even to his many law enforcement friends.

“I needed…” Jackson keened, “something from her.”

Would someone as careful as Cora trust Tobias’s own son, who’d had ample opportunity to turn him in, to help her murder Tobias and keep it a secret?

Sob.

“I missed her. I missed her so bad. I needed…”

What had Zane told Josie about Jackson’s romantic history? Yes, he was a serial womanizer but among the women he had listed, a pattern had emerged. Jackson frequently dated older women.

“Dad bought her that jewelry.” More keening. His breathing was labored, face deep red. “But it was hers. It was hers.”

Cora wouldn’t have trusted Jackson. After everything she’d been through, trusting men was tantamount to a death sentence.

Unless.

Josie reached across and touched Jackson’s shoulder, whispering for him to calm down, to breathe. Several minutes later, he quieted. Tears still streamed down his face, but his breathing was steadier.

She handed him a clump of tissues. “Jackson,” she said, “how long were you and Cora lovers?”