Page 31 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
Griff nodded, pulled up a file on his laptop, then turned the screen so she could see. “This is from the deep background I ran. All of Everett’s businesses? Funded by Catherine. Her trust, mostly. She’s bailed him out a few times over the last fifteen years. Had to dip into the fund more than once to cover bad deals.”
Lily remembered Catherine’s words in her office earlier.Everett is an investment.Cold. Strategic.
“Maybe she’s finally ready to cut that investment loose,” Lily said. “But why now? Why not after Hannah’s murder? That would’ve been the perfect time.”
Griff didn’t look away from the screen. “Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe Everett has something on her. Maybeshe’sthe one who killed Hannah, and he’s been holding it over her head ever since.”
The possibility sank in, slow and heavy.
Itfit. The emotionless calm, the wealth, the power, the careful control. Catherine had the means and the motive. And if Everett knew she was the killer, that would explain the leash she’d kept on him all these years.
But it wasn’t the only theory.
Lily turned back toward the board, her gaze landing on Margo’s name.
“It fits,” she said. “But so does Margo. If she had a thing for Bobby Ray and he didn’t return it, if he wanted Hannah instead…”
“That could be motive,” Griff said. “Especially if Margo thought Hannah was in the way.”
Lily stared at the photos, her mind turning it all over. Two women. Both cold. Both controlled. Both tied to Hannah in very different ways.
But had one of them taken a photo of a dead girl and left it on Lily’s car?
Or had someone else done that?
Lily’s eyes drifted from the red-marked interview slots back to the board, landing on the photo of Rhett Hale.
Grizzled, smirking in that way that made her want to roll her eyes even in a still image. But now he was also the victim of a shooting. Or at leastclaimedto be.
“You hear anything from patrol or the lab about the shot?” she asked.
Griff shifted back to his laptop, fingers moving across the keys. A few seconds passed before he gave a clipped shake of his head.
“No. No visual confirmation. No witnesses. A few people reported hearing something, but they all chalked it up to a backfire.”
Lily gave a small nod. “That’s what I thought it was too.”
She couldn’t blame them. A single loud crack in the middle of town wasn’t uncommon. A blown muffler. A truck with bad timing. A firework left over from Christmas. It wouldn’t have raised alarms.
“Let’s say someone did shoot him,” she said, turning toward Griff. “Where would they have been?”
He tapped the touchscreen. The map of Outlaw Ridge expanded, and a highlighted section glowed on the screen. A small building across from the station.
“Ice cream shop,” he said. “Closed for the season. There’s a staircase in the back that leads up to the roof. No cameras. No line of sight from the main street. No one would’ve been back there at that time.”
Lily narrowed her eyes at the screen, trying to picture it. Someone crouched behind the parapet, lining up the shot. Cold air. Steady hands. Then a quick escape down the stairs and gone before anyone noticed.
She swallowed and tried to imagine each of their suspects up there—Margo, Catherine, Everett—with a rifle or handgun aimed at Rhett.
Catherine? No. She didn’t seem the type to pull a trigger herself. Not when she could hire someone to do it cleanly, quietly.
But Margo?
Lily hesitated.
Maybe.
She’d been shaken during their meeting, but underneath that tension was something bitter. Something unhinged.
