“You keep extras with the rest of the keys in the back room?” he asked.
When I nodded, he patted the table and told me he would be back down. Tyron made good on his words when he walked back through the dining room with another officer and the forensic investigator who’d been here before.
Then I was alone, and I didn’t know for how long. All I could think about was the fact that someone had been in here again without our knowledge, but this time they weren’t just snatching a key. They were carrying a body upstairs.
Could it be Currie?
He’d been here yesterday morning. Maybe he grabbed a key and made a copy at some point. God knows how many times he’d used that entrance before I’d run into him. He could’ve taken her upstairs, found an empty room and left her body there, jacking up the heat before leaving—leaving and coming to me.
If it wasn’t him, then was it the mayor? Killing someone and leaving their body here was enough to make me want to leave, but again, his involvement made no sense.
Footsteps snagged my attention, and I lifted my head.
Cole appeared in the doorway, his jaw a hard line and eyes icy. He said nothing as he stormed forward, brushing Myers aside. I hadn’t even realized the agent had entered the room. How long had he been there?
I honestly didn’t care about him at the moment.
I rose and went to Cole, meeting him halfway. His arms came around me, his fingers digging deep in my hair.
Pressing my face against his chest, I felt the burn in my throat and behind my eyes, but the tears didn’t come. No matter how tight Cole held me or how hard I squeezed him back.
But I wasn’t numb.
I was scared.
“I want you to pack a couple of days’ worth of clothes.” Cole was standing in the center of the kitchen. Twenty minutes ago, the FBI agents had filed out. “Same with your mom. She can stay in my guest room. Tomorrow, when the cleanup company is scheduled to come over, I’ll meet them here.”
I nodded slowly, this time not arguing. I didn’t want to stay here. Even with the . . . the body gone, this place, as terrible as it was to admit, was tainted for me. I knew, or at least I hoped, it would fade one day. It had to, but right now, I needed the distance.
So did Mom.
“She’s not going to be happy with it,” I said, placing the salad Mom had been making in the trash. “But I agree. We both need to get out of here.”
“It’ll do you both some good.” He leaned against the island while I grabbed the cutting board and took it to the sink. “But it’s more than that, Sasha.”
My stomach tightened as I added the board to the bowls and turned on the water. “I know.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to scare you.”
Swallowing, I looked over my shoulder. “I’m already scared. You can’t scare me anymore.”
The skin around his lips tensed. “Sasha—”
“I know.” I turned back to the sink and picked up the sponge. “I know what is happening,” I said, scrubbing at the bowls. “I know that Angela and the woman from Frederick suffered horrible deaths. I know that the woman—that Liz—died in a horrific way. It doesn’t matter if it’s a copycat or if it’s someone who was working with the Groom ten years ago. They all died in horrible ways.”
“Stop,” he said quietly.
Turning the bowl over and running it under clean water, I kept going. “And I know that whoever is doing this is going to come for me. I know.” My throat dried. “Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he’s just doing this because—”
“Sasha.”
“Because I got away.” My voice cracked as I picked up another bowl. “Maybe this is punishment. Maybe—”
“Stop,” he said, closer. “Stop and look at me.”
“I need to clean these dishes,” I told him, clearing my throat. “I don’t want to come back to a bunch of dirty dishes. And I don’t want Mom—”
“Babe . . .”
Inhaling slowly, I squinted at the bowl. Was that a seed stuck? I started scrubbing again. “I’m almost done and then I will go pack—”
Cole reached around and turned off the water. Then he took the sponge from my hand and tossed it into the sink. “These bowls can’t get any cleaner.”
I stared at the bowls. He was right. They were pretty clean. My hands fell to the rim of the sink.
He turned me in his arms. Two fingers curled around my chin, and he lifted my gaze to his. “This isn’t punishment.”
A knot was at the base of my throat. “It’s not?”
“No.”
“Can you really think that?” My voice was hoarse. “Let’s be real with each other, because I need to be real with myself. This started when I decided to come home, or maybe someone was doing this all along, but they’ve changed their pattern. They are making it known now. They’re making sure I know they are here. Why else would this be happening now? It has to do with me and the only reason I can think of—”
Glass shattered from the dining room, and I spun around. Cole beat me to the door first, shoving it open, and I was right behind him. An anguished cry tore free as I saw my mom on the dining room floor.
Cole was immediately at her side, whipping his phone out of his pocket.
“Mom,” I cried out, dropping to my knees beside her. My heart pounded sickeningly fast as I reached out and felt her skin. It was cool and clammy. “Mom!”
Her face was incredibly pale, a sickly shade, and there was no response. Nothing. There was nothing.
Chapter 27
Twisting my hands together, I squeezed my eyes shut until I saw tiny sparks of light.
A heart attack.
Oh God, she had been having a heart attack and she was in surgery for what felt like forever, but had only been an hour or so.
Cole’s hand slid down my back. He’d been doing that on and off this whole time, and it was the only thing keeping me from having a legit mental breakdown in the middle of the hospital.
I couldn’t lose my mom.
If I did, I wouldn’t—
The doctor stepped out of the doors and called my name. “Miss Keeton?”
I rose, heart thumping in my chest. Cole was right beside me. “Yes?”
He smiled as he approached me. “Your mom is awake and in her room. She is recovering fine.”
“Oh thank God.” My knees felt weak as I clutched Cole’s arm. “Oh my God, I want to hug and kiss you.”
The doctor glanced at Cole. “That’s not necessary,” he replied wryly. “We were able to stop the heart attack with an angioplasty.” He continued to explain the procedure, mentioning words like balloon and stent. Finally, he got to what I wanted to hear. “You can go up and see her now, but I would suggest to make the visit brief. She needs a lot of rest, but the good news is that she should be released in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
I mumbled my thanks about a dozen more times before Cole got the room number and carted me off, up to the room.