“Spit it out, Griff,” Josie said. “Every minute I’m in here with you is time I could be spending finding Dani and Cassidy.”
“Just listen. Listen. Please.” He took a deep breath, lowering his hands. The salesman took over. “You’re right, okay? I did track Maxine down and discovered she was at the festival with Haven. I followed them but only for a bit. There wasn’t a good time to approach her, so I had to regroup. I went home and gathered some of the flowers. The Crimson Brides were her favorite.”
“Just like Dani,” Noah said.
For a moment Griffin looked sheepish. Then he said, “What matters is that I knew Maxine loved them, so I went back to her tent early the next morning hoping to talk some sense into her.”
“Because stalking her for months didn’t work?” Josie asked. “Putting her so on edge that everyone who knew her thought she was on drugs didn’t make her see sense?”
Deep lines creased his forehead. “What? I didn’t— What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” said Josie.
He shook his head. “No, no. She broke things off. I left it at that. I was devastated, that’s true. You think I stalked her?”
“I know you did,” Josie said.
“No! I told you I didn’t. She ended things. She needed her space. I gave it to her. When I went to the festival to try to win her back, I hadn’t seen her in months. I’m not a stalker!”
Noah’s quiet voice cut through the tension in the air. “After Dani Turner broke things off and moved here to reconcile with her husband, you followed her. Got your territory at work changed. Bought a house. You only moved on from Dani because you met Maxine.”
“Fine, fine,” Griffin said. “You’re right. I did follow Dani here. I knew her marriage was never going to work out and if I justbided my time, I could get her back. Then yes, I met Maxine and she was different, but I never stalked either of them.”
Josie’s hands twitched to reach across the table and do something insane like start snapping his fingers, one by one, until he finally told them what they needed to know. She should have been grateful that with each exchange, he admitted to a little more, but this crawling pace was excruciating.
“That’s enough,” Josie said, slamming a palm onto the table.
Griffin jumped.
“Let’s just get to the most pressing part of all this,” Josie went on. “After you killed Maxine and Haven, you kidnapped Dani and Cassidy.”
“I didn’t kill them!” Griffin insisted. “I didn’t! They were dead when I got there.”
I didn’t do it. The credo of murderers everywhere.
“If they were already dead when you got there,” Noah asked, “why didn’t you call 911?”
“I panicked!” he said, voice going up an octave. “No one would believe me. I’d already gone inside the tent. Who would believe that I hadn’t killed them? It wouldn’t take much to discover my prior relationship with Maxine. I knew I’d be under scrutiny just like I am right now. I freaked out. I know I screwed up, but I didn’t kill them.”
“You left flowers on their chests,” Noah said. “That doesn’t seem like the behavior of someone in a panic.”
Griffin’s face crumpled. A sob shook his body. This time, when his eyes glistened with moisture, he let his tears stream down his cheeks. “I knew I would not get a chance to say goodbye to them properly, so yes, I took a moment with them. Left the flowers there for them. I know how it looks but I wasn’t in my right mind.”
Josie said, “Sure, okay. Let’s go with that then for a minute. Let’s say you didn’t kill Maxine and Haven but you still kidnapped Dani and Cassidy. So where are they?”
“I don’t know!”
“When you realized that things with them weren’t going to work out any better than they had with Maxine and Haven, you decided to get rid of them. You couldn’t keep them in your basement forever. Tell me, Griff. Do you have them stashed somewhere else hoping that Dani will come around, or did you kill them and hide their bodies?”
“What?” He used his sleeve to scrub the tears from his face. “No, I would never do that. I didn’t do that. I would never kill anyone. Not Maxine and Haven and not Dani and Cassidy. How many times do I have to say it? When I left this morning, they were fine.”
“Well, they didn’t escape.” Noah’s voice stayed quiet, with just a hint of skepticism. “You expect us to believe that while you were at work, someone broke into your home and took them?”
Griffin sniffled. “You think that’s what happened?”
It was very difficult not to roll her eyes, but Josie managed. “What I think happened is that you did something with them before you left for work this morning, and since you didn’t think anyone would be inside your house, you decided to clean up the mess later.”
Dropping his head into his hands, Griffin sobbed again. “You’re not listening to me.”
