“I don’t— I never followed her.”
Josie gave a long-suffering sigh. “Mr. Holt, I can understand the impulse to lie because stalking a woman is not only uncool, it’s also a crime, but it’s in your best interest to be honest with us.”
“I didn’t,” he insisted. “I didn’t follow her around. I’m not a stalker.”
“What we’ve seen so far from the GPS location history on your phone and car tells a different story,” Josie told him.
In truth, they hadn’t yet gotten anything from either of those yet. Gretchen and Hummel were working feverishly at that moment to download that information, but Griffin didn’t need to know that.
His jaw went slack. A momentary look of sheer terror blanketed his face before he snapped his mouth shut. He fiddled with one of his cufflinks. “You’re, uh, mistaken. Whatever information you’ve gathered is incorrect. I wasn’t stalking Maxine.”
His voice was firm with conviction, but Josie didn’t miss the way his fingers trembled.
“When is the last time you saw her?” Noah asked.
“I—um, it was whenever, whatever day it was that she said she couldn’t…I think it was March. You should really?—”
“The last time you saw her was in March of this year?” Josie said. “You didn’t see her on Sunday at the Balloons and Tunes Festival?”
“What? No!”
“You didn’t follow her to the festival and then to her tent in the glamping area in the middle of the night?”
His face went ashen. “No. Absolutely not. I did not do that.”
“You didn’t bring her flowers? Slip into the tent where she and Haven were sleeping?”
“No,” he choked. When he noticed Josie glance pointedly at his trembling hands, he snatched them from the table, dropping them onto his lap and out of sight. “No. I didn’t, I didn’t. You should…If you want to talk to someone about what happened to them you should speak with her husband, Charles.”
“We’ve already spoken with him,” Josie said.
“Then you know how he is.” Griffin’s shoulders rounded again, like he was curling in on himself. He was so changeable. Josie couldn’t imagine that he was like this all the time. It wasn’t sustainable. These rapid shifts in his demeanor had to be fromnerves, which meant that she was correct—he had something to be nervous about.
“Charles Barnes is godawful,” Griffin added. “Just a horrible human being. If you want to know who could have done this to Maxi and Haven, start with him.”
Josie asked, “Mr. Holt, where were you between tenp.m. Saturday and foura.m. on Sunday?”
“When Maxi and Haven were killed? I was at home.”
“Alone?” asked Josie.
He laughed but it sounded hollow. “I’m afraid so, yes.”
“Have you lived alone since you moved here?” Josie asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. That wasn’t the plan but Maxine went and ruined our plans, so yes, I was alone. I’ve been alone.”
“What plans were those?” asked Noah, sounding more like an interested friend than an investigator trying to nail Griffin Holt for murder and kidnapping.
Evidently, it worked because Griffin straightened his spine a bit. His lips pulled back into a pained smile. “Maxi was going to leave her husband, bring her daughter, and move in with me. I had purchased a very big, very lovely home in one of Denton’s nicest areas. I knew she would love it. She would have been happy there. Haven, too. We were going to decorate it together and make it a home. Our home.”
“You bought her a house?” asked Noah.
“Yes,” Griffin said. “I wanted to show her just how committed I was to us, how much I loved her.”
“It must have come as quite a shock when she dumped you then,” said Josie. “What happened?”
His features pinched, as though he was tasting something sour. “What happened? Honestly? At first, I wasn’t sure. She said all of these ridiculous things about why we couldn’t be together. I didn’t believe her, but I thinkshebelieved what she was saying. I suppose what happened was the same thing thatalways happens when a relationship begins with infidelity. Maxi wasn’t ready to jump from her marriage into another serious relationship. She wanted time to figure out who she was on her own.”
