Page 29 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
She folded her arms and looked at the photos again. “And what was the point of this?” she asked aloud, but her tone made it clear she already had her answer. “To embarrass my husband? To annoy me?”
“No,” Lily cut in. Her voice was sharp and sure. “Maybe it was to tell the cops that Everett lied when he was questioned about Hannah.”
Everett exploded.
“That’s bullshit—” he started, voice rising like a match dropped in dry grass, but Catherine turned sharply and fixed him with a glare.
It was enough.
He shut up mid-rant, fists clenched at his sides, breathing hard.
Catherine turned back to Lily, calm once again, her gaze steady. “Will Everett need to be brought in for a formal interview?”
“Yes,” Lily said. No hesitation.
Catherine nodded once and opened a drawer in her desk. She pulled out a business card and held it out between two fingers. “Our lawyer. You can contact him to schedule a time.”
Griff stood and took the card. “We’ll need to interview you as well.”
Catherine blinked. The first real crack in her composure. “Me?” she asked, as if the idea had never occurred to her.
Griff kept his tone professional, but firm. “Your statement wasn’t taken during the original investigation. We’ll need to change that.”
A flash of anger flared in Catherine’s eyes, sharp and quick, but she smothered it almost instantly, slipping back behind that polished, unreadable mask.
“You want to ask me if I knew Everett was having sex with Hannah,” she said, flat and direct. “And the answer is: I suspected it.”
No emotion. No outrage. No jealousy. Just a cold admission delivered like a fact in a quarterly report.
But there was outrage on Everett’s part. “I didn’t fuck her,” he practically shouted, and he likely would have kept on ranting, but Catherine silenced him with another of those icy looks.
Griff watched the woman closely. The lack of emotion didn’t put him at ease. If anything, it raised new questions. Questions about the heat that might’ve existed under all that ice. If Catherine had known—and hadcared—was she capable of murder?
Of revenge?
As if reading the thought off his face, Catherine turned to him, her mouth curling in something that could’ve been amusement—or warning.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t kill the stupid girl.” She leaned back against her desk, crossing one leg over the other. “If I murdered all of Everett’s dalliances, Deputy Abrams, I’d have left a string of bodies behind me.”
Before they had a chance to reply, Catherine checked the time on the sleek watch around her wrist, then gave a smallnod, all business again. “I have someone arriving soon for an appointment,” she said, already straightening a stack of papers on her desk. “My lawyer will be in touch once you’ve proposed a time for the interview.”
She stood and motioned politely, pointedly, toward the door.
Griff rose, tucking the evidence bag securely into the inside pocket of his coat. Lily stood a beat later, silent, her expression unreadable. They didn’t thank Catherine for her time. The tension in the room didn’t allow for niceties.
Catherine walked out with them, but Everett didn’t follow. Griff glanced back at him. Everett still stood near the window in her office, arms crossed tight, shoulders rigid. The man who normally owned every room he stepped into suddenly looked small. Pinned down by things he couldn’t control.
Good.
Catherine led them to the front door and opened it for them. “Deputy. Deputy,” she said, with the smoothness of someone who’d hosted politicians and donors, not law enforcement.
Griff stepped outside, the wind hitting him like a slap, cold and biting again. But his blood was hot now, his instincts loud. Whatever Catherine Langston was hiding, it wasn’t just her husband’s affair.
He paused just outside the door, turned slightly back to Catherine. Her expression was poised, serene, but the steel was still in her eyes.
“You stayed with your husband,” Griff said, watching her reaction. “Even after the affairs.”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Everett is an investment, Deputy Abrams.” She adjusted the lapel of her coat. “And I never throw away a good investment.”
