Chapter 16 #2
“I’ll walk you out.” I stood from the bed on heavy legs and went with Griffin to the hallway.
“Don’t stay too long.” He touched the freckles on my nose.
“I won’t. I’m going to head home and shower and take a power nap.”
“Then you’re going to work before coming back here.”
I cocked my head. “Am I really that predictable?”
“Yes.” He bent to kiss my forehead. “Call me later.”
“I will.” I waited as he walked down the hallway, disappearing through the same door where Frank had bolted earlier. When it closed behind him, I gave myself a moment to feel worn down.
Three heartbeats. Four. Then the sound of footsteps forced me to turn around.
“Hey, Frank.” I didn’t force cheer into my voice because well .
. . he’d irritated me. I was grateful that he’d found Pops on the couch.
That when Pops had told him he was having chest pains, he hadn’t delayed or waited to see if they’d pass.
He’d simply loaded my grandfather into his car and driven him to the hospital.
But did he have to cause drama? Today?
He read the irritation on my face—I was too tired to do a decent job disguising it. “Griffin told you I asked for another doctor besides Talia, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. Why? We met with her and she seems quite capable.”
“She’s not a real doctor.”
“She’s a resident.”
“Which is basically an intern. Don’t you want him to have the best?”
“Of course I do.” But I was also trusting the hospital to know how to appropriately handle staffing. It was the same respect I appreciated with my own position.
“Then don’t let the Edens fool you. I don’t know what you’ve got going on with Griffin.” Frank spat his name. “Just . . . be careful. Stay on guard.”
I blinked. “On guard. Against what?”
Frank glanced over his shoulder, making sure we were alone. Then he inched closer and lowered his voice. “Griffin’s worked his way through plenty of women in this town. And outside.”
I frowned. This was not something I needed to think about today. Or ever. But before I could tell Frank that was my problem, not his, he kept talking.
“Briggs beat his wife. That’s why she left him.”
The wheels of my mind screeched to a stop. “What?”
“She was Rain’s best friend. It took her a long time to confess that he was abusive. She came over one night crying. Told Rain everything. The next day, she was gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
“I don’t know, Winnie. She left. It was a long time ago, but that’s why I’m telling you to be careful. Maybe she left him and needed to sever all connections to Quincy. But Rain was devastated. She lost her best friend. And there was nothing she could do to Briggs.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Anything else?”
“Other than the fact that he’s losing his damn mind and no one seems to care that he drives around town with rifles in his truck window? No.”
So Griffin and his family weren’t the only ones who’d noticed Briggs’s dementia. I kept my mouth shut because it wasn’t my business.
Frank put his hand on my shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m all right. Tired.”
“How about you head on home? I’ll stick with Covie for a while.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. But maybe charge your phone so I can actually get ahold of you if something happens.”
I nodded. As of last night, I vowed to never let that phone go dead again.
The two of us walked into Pops’s room, and after a long hug goodbye, I left him with Frank and headed for the parking lot.
Except the moment I slid behind the wheel, my brain decided to go into hyperdrive. There’d be no napping, not after what Frank had just told me.
Was Frank just out to create drama today?
Or had Briggs abused his wife? Griff had been so forthcoming about Briggs’s dementia.
Why wouldn’t he mention anything about Briggs’s ex-wife?
Unless maybe Griff didn’t know. Depending on when Briggs had been married, that might have been when Griffin was a little kid.
But Briggs was the only person who lived anywhere near Indigo Ridge. His mental health was deteriorating, and if he had a history of violence, well . . . that changed everything.
I pulled out of the parking lot and drove to the station. Word around Quincy had traveled fast and I was inundated with questions about Pops when I walked through the door. Janice was practically in a panic.
After assuring everyone that he was fine, I retreated to my office, where I closed the door and logged on to my computer.
Pulling a background check on Briggs Eden felt like a betrayal. My skin crawled as it loaded and I squirmed in my seat. But the moment the report appeared on my screen, I began sifting through the information.
Birthdate. Addresses. Phone numbers. Known relations. And then the criminal record.
It was empty. No domestic abuse. No speeding tickets. Not even a parking ticket in the past ten years.
I closed the screen and stared, unfocused, at my desk. “Huh.”
Maybe Frank had it wrong.
I picked up a pen for no reason other than to tap it. The steady click, like the sound of my fifth-grade piano teacher’s metronome, grounded my thoughts. It let me block out the noise and just . . . think.
If there had only been a minor scuffle, no actual abuse, then it was unlikely the police would have been notified to arrest him. Or maybe if Briggs’s wife had only told Rain. Maybe she’d kept it secret, fearing for her safety.
I grabbed my phone from my purse and pulled up Griffin’s name, my finger hovering over the screen. But I set it aside.
This was his family. His life.
If he didn’t know about Briggs, this was not how I wanted him to find out. Not from Frank’s gossiping. If he did know, then there was a reason he hadn’t told me about it.
Tonight. We could talk about it tonight.
After I made a visit.
Guilt plagued me as I drove out of town. A knot formed in my belly the closer and closer I got toward the ranch. By the time I turned onto the gravel road that led to Briggs’s cabin, I was sweating, even with the air conditioner blasting.
Griffin had known for a while now that I’d planned on talking to his uncle. I’d told him as much the day he’d brought me Lily Green’s boots. So why did I feel like I was breaking his trust? He couldn’t come along. This was an official visit.
This was me doing my job.
I swallowed my doubts as I parked beside Briggs’s truck. The spot where the fire had been on Sunday was now a circle of black grass. In its center remained a pile of gray ash. The charred limbs had been hauled away. Even days later, I swore I could smell the scent of burning pine.
I walked to the cabin, stepping beneath the overhang.
Before I could knock, it flew open and Briggs Eden’s broad frame crowded the threshold.
Would Griffin look like him in thirty years?
They had the same nose. The same shape to their lips.
But Briggs had a rough edge, maybe from living alone for so many years.
“Hi.” I held out a hand. “I’m Winslow Covington. We met the other day. I came up here with Griffin.”
Briggs’s gaze dropped to my outstretched hand, then back to my face. “Who?”
“Winslow Covington. I’m Quincy’s new chief of police.”
There wasn’t a flicker of recognition.
“I was up here the day of the fire.”
“Oh, uh . . . sorry.” He shook his head, then fit his large hand over mine. “I just woke up from a nap and I’m a bit fuzzy. You know how that goes.”
“Sure.”
“Come on in.” He stepped back to wave me inside. “Winslow, was it?”
“That’s right.”
“Can I get you some water?”
“That would be lovely. Thanks.”
He moved to the kitchen and pulled two unmatched glasses from a cabinet.
The cabin smelled of bacon grease and fried eggs. My stomach squeezed—I hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday.
A cast-iron skillet sat on the range. There was a mason jar on the kitchen counter filled with picked wildflowers. The main room was one wide-open space with the kitchen and a dining table to one side. Opposite was a living room with two couches and a TV angled on a stand in the corner.
The coffee table had two books stacked neatly on the surface. The DVDs below the television were arranged in a perfect line. There was a bookshelf against the wall, but unlike the rest of the house, its shelves were chaos.
That bookshelf looked like it belonged in my home or office, not this tidy cabin. There was a bundle of rolled newspapers. Scattered paperbacks. A hammer that looked new. A jigsaw puzzle. A jar of pens.
The clutter was senseless. Where other people had a junk drawer, Briggs had junk shelves. There was a pile of unopened bills. A pocketknife that had seen better days. And a purse.
Why would he have a purse? And why did it look so familiar? I took a step closer, inspecting the smooth, camel leather with exposed chocolate stitching at the seams.
“This is beautiful.” I lifted it from the shelf, turning to hold it up to Briggs. “Your wife or girlfriend has exquisite taste.”
“I’m not married.” He chuckled, bringing me over a glass of water. “Not anymore. My wife left me ages ago. We, uh . . . we had some problems. Turns out, being a bachelor suited me just fine.”
I smiled and sipped my water. It wasn’t like I could ask him if he’d beat her and that was the reason they’d had problems. Today’s visit wasn’t to confirm or deny Frank’s gossip. Briggs appeared lucid. Today was to feel him out. And maybe find out why he had this purse.
“Did you make this, then? Are you a leather craftsman?”
“Lord, no. I’m too impatient to master a craft. I was built for manual labor.” His face changed as he chuckled. The rough edges softened. The crinkles at his eyes deepened. “I found that on a hike around Indigo Ridge. Thought it was too nice to leave on the trail.”
There wasn’t a smidge of dirt on the bag. Either he’d cleaned it after finding it.
Or . . .
I didn’t want to think of the alternative. I didn’t want to think that this purse hadn’t been found, but kept as a souvenir.
“Would you mind if I looked at the lining and the inside?” I asked.
“Go for it.” A phone chime came from the back of the cabin. “Let me go get that.”
“Of course.” I waited for him to leave, then took a quick video of the purse with my phone, swiveling it around to get a shot at all angles.
The purple silk lining was as clean and flawless as the exterior, and it smelled like new leather. The front flap was monogramed with an H.
The inside was empty except for a wallet, tucked at the bottom. A square, seafoam green wallet with a gold zipper. A wallet as feminine as this cabin was masculine.
I plucked it from the purse. The zipper was open. Inside was a folded twenty-dollar bill and a driver’s license.
Lily Green’s driver’s license.