My hands were chilled despite the fact I had them shoved between my knees. I’d been escorted through the back entrance of the police station, down a narrow hall, and then deposited in this room with a small bottle of water.
The door opened, causing me to jump. My chin jerked up. Both agents came in. They weren’t alone. I relaxed when I saw Detective Tyron Conrad’s familiar face.
“Hey,” he said, taking the seat beside me. “Sorry about this. I didn’t know the agents were coming to get you.” His jaw hardened. “If I did, I would’ve been there to advise them that bringing you down here wasn’t necessary.”
“It was completely necessary,” Myers retorted.
Tyron huffed a laugh out as he leaned back in the chair, planting an ankle on his knee. “Landis is not going to like this.”
My eyes widened.
Myers stiffened. “This has nothing to do with Agent Landis.” Skin crinkled around his eyes as he sat at the table. “Miss Keeton, we’re going to be very blunt about what happened.”
“I don’t expect anything less,” I replied, taking a deep breath. “Why am I being spoken to about . . . about Angela?”
Tyron opened his mouth, but Myers answered. “You received a severed finger in the mail on Saturday. We’re pretty confident that finger belonged to Miss Reidy.”
Acid churned in my stomach. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Tyron placed his hand on my arm. “Angela’s body was found this morning. The ring finger on her left hand was missing.”
Pressure clamped down on my chest, squeezing tight like a vise. When I spoke, it sounded like I did so inside a tunnel. “Where . . . where was her body found?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Myers stated.
My gaze shot to him.
“Her body was found by the old water tower off Route 11,” Rodriquez spoke up, voice gentler.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, inhaling roughly.
Rodriquez rested an arm on the table. “She was found in the same location the victims of the Groom were discovered and in the same location—”
“The woman from Frederick was found there.” I pressed my palm against my forehead. Bitter panic mixed with sorrow, increasing the pressure in my throat and chest. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you do,” Myers retorted.
Tyron dropped his foot to the floor with a heavy thud and leaned forward. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean, Myers?”
Lowering my hand, I looked at the agent. He was sitting back, arms crossed over a puffed-up chest. “What I’m saying is that Miss Keeton seems like a bright woman. She can put two and two together. We’ve got a copycat on our hands . . . or we got someone trying to make it look that way.”
Anger spiked, pushing down the horror. “Yes, I can put two and two together, but that sure doesn’t tell me why you insisted on bringing me to the police station to tell me this.”
“Because if it is a copycat, then you may be able to add some insight into our investigation,” Rodriquez explained, his gaze steady. “You were the only victim of the Groom to survive—”
“I know that.” My hands were trembling so I shoved them back between my knees. “I know that I’m the only one.” The room felt like it had shrunk. I glanced at the door, wanting out of here so badly. I looked at Tyron. “What happened to Angela?”
Voice low, he said, “Current evidence suggests she was strangled.”
“Oh God,” I whispered, closing my eyes and immediately regretting it. I saw Angela but with horrible marks around her throat. The kinds of bruises that snuffed the life out of someone. “Was she . . . do you know if she was held captive?”
“There was evidence suggesting she was held,” he explained, and I knew what he was referencing without him even elaborating. If she’d been restrained the way the Groom had held his victims, there’d be ligature marks on her ankles. Her wrists.
“Was she . . . was she sexually assaulted?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Tyron responded.
The contents of my stomach shifted as I placed my elbow on the table and rested my forehead in my palm. “Does her . . . boyfriend know?”
“He and her family have been notified,” Tyron told me.
The burn in my eyes increased. What they must be experiencing right now was beyond imagination.
“We have some questions we need to ask you,” Myers spoke, and this time, the edge of impatience was gone from his voice. “Do you think you can help us?”
What I wanted to do was to get out of this room, go home, and have space, silence, and time to process what I was told. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be that person anymore. It wasn’t just cowardly. It was also selfish, because if I could somehow help Angela in death, I would, so I nodded.
“Good,” Rodriquez murmured, and I heard the rustling of paper. “We’re aware that there have been other instances outside of what happened on Saturday involving you since you returned. Can you please go over, in detail, what they were?”
Even though I’d already been down this road more than once, I told them everything I remembered, taking breaks to sip my water. It wasn’t until I was finished telling them about discovering Angela’s missing house key did I remember what I’d suspected from earlier.
“I think I might’ve figured out who took Angela’s key. I could be wrong—”
“Let us be the ones to determine that,” Myers said.
I glanced at the men. “I think it might’ve been Coach Currie. It’s why I called you earlier,” I said to Tyron. “The emblem that I’d told Derek—I mean, Officer Bradshaw about? I think it was the bulldog—the high school mascot. I know thousands of people could have that baseball cap and shirt, but . . . I heard he was being questioned this morning, and that was what triggered the fact the emblem on the hat seemed vaguely familiar.”
Tyron arched a brow, but didn’t, thankfully, ask how I knew Currie had been questioned. “Do you have any type of relationship with Coach Donnie Currie?”
“No. I mean, he was coaching at the school when I went there, but that’s the extent of how I know him.”
“But he was around during the time of the Groom,” Rodriquez stated. “You haven’t seen him since you returned, other than when you believe you ran into him at the inn?”
“I haven’t seen him. At all. I’ve only gone out once really, and that was to a restaurant down the street with my friends.”
“Which restaurant was that?” Rodriquez asked.
“The steakhouse a few blocks down,” I explained, giving them the name. “That was a week ago.”
Myers shifted in his seat. “Anyone else who you’ve talked with? Tyron here has told us you’re seeing Cole Landis.”
I nodded once more. “Yes. We . . . um, we dated before I left, and we just reconnected.”
“You didn’t stay in contact during the years you were gone?”
Looking at Myers, I shook my head. “No. I only stayed in contact with my mother and my friend Miranda.”
“But you two are together so . . . quickly?”