Page 44 of Indigo Ridge (The Edens 1)
“Then don’t stand so goddamn close to the edge,” he bellowed, dragging a hand through that thick hair. “Fuck. We don’t need you having an accident.”
“This should be blocked off,” I barked, pressing a hand to my thrashing heart.
“That’s what I’m doing here.” He jerked his thumb toward the trail. “I came up here to build a fence along the path and spotted your rig. Followed you up here just in time to see you leaning over the edge.”
I frowned up at his scowl. “I was just looking.”
“Look from back here.” He grabbed my arm again, hauling me back against him. “I can’t find your body down there too.”
The plea in his blue gaze, the fear in his expression, chased away any anger, and my shoulders slumped. “Okay. Sorry.”
He blew out a long breath, shaking away his frustration. “It’s all right. Why are you looking?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I know you think it was suicide. I don’t even know what to think myself, I just . . . something feels off. And I need to figure out what. For Lily. For her mother. Sometimes when I can’t make sense of something, I start at the end and work my way backward to the beginning.”
So I’d stand here until I could retrace her steps.
Which was what I did. I stood there, staring out to the nothing beyond the trail.
Griffin stood beside me, unspeaking. Unmoving. He simply stood at my side while I thought.
She’d come up here, terrified. Desperate. Likely alone.
I took one step closer to the edge.
Griffin grabbed my hand, holding it tight.
I let him be my tether as I glanced over the cliff, putting myself in Lily’s place.
She’d had a good job. She’d had loving parents. She’d had friends in Quincy. Something had pushed her over this edge.
“A broken heart?”
“What?” Griffin asked, pulling me away from the edge once more.
“Nothing,” I muttered. The autopsy was confidential, and Griffin hadn’t earned the details. “I’d like to know what Lily was doing up to the time of her death. If she’d been hanging out with friends. A boyfriend. Where would someone her age hang out on a Sunday night?”
“Willie’s,” he answered.
“Would you have noticed her if she’d come in?”
“You and I were the only people there.”
“Anywhere else?”
He rubbed that strong jaw. “The bars downtown. The younger crowd usually hangs there in the summers with the tourists. And you’re in luck.”
“Am I? Why?”
He took my arm, tugging me yet another step away from the cliff. “I was just thinking about heading downtown myself.”
“Oh, were you?” I raised my eyebrows. “I thought you were going to put up a fence on this trail.”
“Change of plan.”
Chapter Eight
Griffin
