Page 30 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
There was something final in the way she said it. Cold. Calculated.
Catherine met his eyes squarely, then Lily’s, her smile sharpening. “I’d be careful where you dig. Sometimes you unearth things that don’t want to stay buried.”
Then, without waiting for a reply, Catherine shut the door in their faces.
Griff stood still for a beat before he glanced at Lily. “Despite what she just said,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure that woman could kill.”
Lily exhaled. Nodded. “And I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t even chip a nail doing it.”
Yeah, Catherine had just zoomed to the top of their suspect list.
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Chapter Seven
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Lily stood in front of the wall-mounted electronic board, arms folded as images and data shifted across the screen. The system synced with the laptop on the desk behind her, where Griff sat entering case notes and uploading scanned reports.
Each time he added a file, it appeared on the display. Photos, names, dates, a tangle of connections growing more complicated by the hour.
The cold case office was one of the most modern rooms in the station, updated with state-of-the-art tech courtesy of Strike Force. The desk was clean-lined and functional, and the room itself had the kind of quiet that encouraged focus. It was tucked away near Hallie’s office, mostly unused except for the county’s cold case deputy, who only worked a couple of days a month.
Now it was theirs. At least for this.
Griff leaned forward, typing quickly. On the screen, a digital map of Outlaw Ridge bloomed to life, red markers showing key locations—Hannah’s last known sighting, the creek where her body was found, Bobby Ray’s house, Everett’s businesses, and now the Langston Holdings parking lot.
It was almost noon, but neither of them had touched the sandwiches Griff had ordered in. The brown paper bags sat on a side table, forgotten.
Lily tapped the screen, enlarging the image of Hannah and Everett locked in that intimate moment. “Whatever secrets this town’s been keeping,” she said quietly, “they’re starting to rot through the surface.”
Lily tapped the tablet beside the laptop and added two new entries to the schedule grid on the digital board. Catherine Langston: 9:00 AM. Everett Langston: 10:30 AM. Both interviews marked in red, bolded against the pale background of open time slots.
She stared at them for a long moment, her frown deepening. “Tomorrow,” she muttered.
Griff didn’t look up from the laptop. “Lawyer’s schedule?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Or so he says.”
The Langstons’ attorney had returned her call within the hour, his tone perfectly polished and just evasive enough to make Lily want to slam the phone down. He’d insisted the delay was necessary to accommodate his clients’ “very demanding and previously arranged business obligations.” But it didn’t feel like scheduling.
It felt like stalling.
She tapped the screen again and pulled up the digital case timeline. Tomorrow felt too far away. Too much could happen between now and then, but too muchhadalready happened. A house fire, a shooting, threats. Someone was getting desperate.
And desperate people made mistakes.
Lily stepped back from the board and crossed her arms, eyes narrowing on the Langstons’ names like they might give something away if she stared hard enough.
“They’re buying time,” she said. “The question is, for what?”
Griff shifted in his chair, eyes still on the laptop. “Both Catherine and Everett could be behind the threats,” he said.“They’ve got a motive to shut this investigation down. But I don’t see Everett tossing those photos all over his own parking lot.”
Lily snorted softly. “Neither do I. Too messy. Too public.”
She glanced back at the image of the photo. Everett and Hannah in a moment that was impossible to explain away. She could almost hear Everett’s voice again, all bluster and denial. No, that hadn’t been his play. Not even close.
“But Catherine?” she added. “Maybe. It’s calculated. It’s a power move. Like she’s reminding him what she’s willing to do to keep control.”
