Page 5 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
“I saw it,” Mickey said. “Still. Teenagers do dumb stuff. Could’ve found that photo online and—”
“No.” Lily’s voice sharpened, just enough to cut him off. “That photo wasn’t in any public file. That angle wasn’t from the scene log. Whoever took it was there. This wasn’t a prank.”
Jacob kept his eyes on the screen, his jaw tight.
Griff clicked through the feed until he found the right window of time. The camera facing the front lot was grainy, but the footage showed a figure moving low and fast between vehicles.
“Pause it,” Lily said.
He froze the frame. The person was wearing a hoodie, face turned away, posture tight.
Mickey leaned in. “Still could be a kid.”
Griff said nothing. He wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, not without evidence. But this wasn’t mischief. The timing. The message. The photo. It was targeted. Someone didn’t want Lily looking into Bobby Ray Moore.
And now they were willing to threaten her to make sure she stopped.
Lily stepped away to her desk without a word, phone in hand. Griff watched her for half a second, noting the set of her jaw, the way she took a breath before making the call. Still in control, but he didn’t miss the undercurrent of tension in her movements.
He turned back to the monitor, scrubbing through the footage again. The figure was fast, crouched low, hood up. Not a single frame gave a clean look at the face.
Still, there were details.
He paused the video and took a screenshot, then opened the station’s internal system and started uploading the clip. A few quick keystrokes later, the footage was on its way to the lab team.
The new lab was small but sharp. When Griff’s Strike Force boss, Owen Striker, took over rebuilding Outlaw Ridge PD, he didn’t just throw in bodies. Owen had brought the right people, the right tools. That included a supply cabinet filled with the latest gear, including ops vests and jackets that were fully equipped to handle just about any police emergency or situation. Even the software was better than what Griff had seen in most big-city departments.
He wasn’t expecting a miracle, but the techs might be able to pull enough from the footage to give them something to work with. Height. Gait. Build. Clothing brand, maybe.
Every detail helped.
Griff stared at the frozen image again. The figure moved like they knew what they were doing. Quick and precise, in and out. The message left behind wasn’t rage-fueled. It was deliberate.
He didn’t need a clear face to know what that meant.
Whoever had done this had watched Lily. Chosen the moment. Known exactly where to hit. This wasn’t just about scaring her. It was a warning.
And Griff had learned the hard way—warnings like that usually came before something worse.
Griff kept his eyes on the frozen image, letting it burn into his mind while Lily spoke quietly at her desk, filling Sheriff Hallie McQueen in on what had happened. Her voice was low and even, but every now and then, he caught the edge in it. She was holding herself steady. For now.
He turned to face Mickey and Jacob.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s set the kid theory aside. I’m not asking who could have done it—I want to know who’d be willing to go this far. Who had enough of a connection to the victim to take a photo of her dying?”
Neither deputy answered right away.
Griff stepped in closer, arms crossed. “The photo wasn’t from the official scene. Whoever took it was there. That’s not a guess. That’s someone who was close, someone involved.”
Jacob shifted, eyes flicking back to the monitor. “Everett Langston,” he said finally. “There were rumors. About him and Hannah. That it wasn’t just a crush, that it was a full-on thing. And if that’s true…”
Mickey shook his head, cutting him off. “Come on. Everett? You really see him creeping around in the dark with a knife and a note? Guy’s rich, owns half the businesses in town, wears tailored boots and keeps his hands cleaner than his damn Cadillac.”
Griff didn’t blink. “You don’t need to get your hands dirty to arrange something like this.”
Mickey opened his mouth, then hesitated.
“What about Catherine?” Griff added. “His wife.”
