36. Ridley

36

RIDLEY

I felt the undersheriff’s gaze sweep over me as we stood in observation. It wasn’t judgmental exactly; it was more curious, assessing. Sophie Ryan had met me in reception with a blank mask I knew she had to have learned from Colt.

When he had told me Ryan would meet me, I hadn’t expected a woman. And certainly not one only a year or two older than me. She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a bun at the base of her neck. I understood the play. She was trying to be one of the guys as much as possible, so nothing that would accentuate her femaleness.

But there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about those gorgeous green eyes. Or her beauty in general. But I also knew that if she was Colt’s second-in-command, she had to be a damned good officer too.

That was why I let her look now. Didn’t try to hide my fixation on the one-way mirror in front of me as I waited for Colt to bring Kerr in. There were a few officers behind us, their voices melding together in a low din. But I didn’t join in.

I wasn’t new to law enforcement stations. I knew the deal. The more silent I was, the more I’d learn. So I stayed still and listened.

Two of the guys were arguing about the coach. One saying he always knew the dude was a creep. The other eyeing me and saying it was ridiculous that they were bringing a guy in just because he wasn’t wearing a coat.

“This goes much further, and Colt is going to have to step down.”

The words were low, but the fact that they’d been said at all had me turning to the woman next to me.

Ryan met my gaze with more of that assessing stare, and I knew she’d gotten what she’d wanted: a true reaction out of me. “You care about him,” she surmised.

It wasn’t a question, but I still shifted under the weight of it. “He deserves to help find who’s responsible. It’ll help him finally heal.”

Ryan was quiet for a long moment, mulling that over. “Is that why you do what you do? To help yourself heal?”

Annoyance flickered through me before I could fight it back. I wasn’t thrilled that Colt had been spreading my business around, but I understood the need for it at the same time.

Ryan shook her head, reading that annoyance. “Colt didn’t say a word. I looked into you on my own. And Trey might’ve pointed me in the right direction, didn’t want me getting the wrong idea about you.”

My jaw went the slightest bit slack.

She chuckled. “Come on. You’ve got my sheriff jumping through hoops, my town in a tizzy, and then you up and almost get yourself killed. I was curious.”

I hated the way my sheriff ground at me. The way it had me wondering if there’d ever been anything more than professionalism between her and Colt. Jealousy , I realized. It wasn’t an emotion I was all that familiar with.

I’d felt it occasionally growing up. How could I not when my sister was the star of everything she took on while I flitted from one thing to the next, never landing long enough to take hold? But never in a relationship. Not that I'd had any since Jared and I ended things that fiery night.

He’d tried to be there for me afterward. To mend the fissure between us. But I was too numb to even realize he was there.

After that there’d only been the occasional partner. A friend who’d become more for a time. A couple one-nighters. But mostly I was on my own. No chance for jealousy to rear its ugly head like it was doing now.

“So,” Ryan prodded. “Is that why?”

I turned back to the woman next to me and decided to let her see. To give her the truth. “I won’t know peace until my sister does, but at least I can help others find it in the meantime.”

“Should’ve been a cop,” Ryan muttered.

That had my interest piquing—Ryan had a story. I just wondered what it was.

Before I could ask a single question, the door to interrogation opened, and two men stepped inside. Colt’s back was to the mirror, but I could see the lines of strain along his shoulders and up his neck. The way the muscles had so tightly corded, it looked like they could snap and fray with just a tap of a finger.

“Are we rolling?” Ryan snapped.

“Yeah, boss,” one of the guys behind me said quickly.

“Good. Then shut the hell up.”

Another of them snickered, but it quickly cut off with the sound of an elbow to the gut.

I ignored it all, my gaze locked on the image in front of me, trying to see Coach Kerr through fresh eyes—the gray in his dark hair and deeper lines around his eyes and mouth. I’d pinned them as smile lines, evidence of someone who made the action frequently. But just because someone smiled, that didn’t mean they couldn’t also be a monster.

His hazel gaze jumped around the room before landing on the mirror. He looked somewhere between Ryan and me. It was unsettling, having him stare at nothing but still so close to me. But I tried to look into those hazel eyes, tried to see if they were capable of ending so many lives, of causing untold pain.

Colt gestured to the chair on the opposite side of the table. “Have a seat. I need to ask you a few questions. Could always have a lawyer here with you. Do you need a lawyer, Bryan?”

The use of the coach’s first name was a conscious choice. A way to make things seem normal, an everyday encounter, not an interrogation.

Kerr swallowed hard. “No…I don’t need a lawyer. You know that, Colt.”

Colt leaned back in his chair, letting silence sweep through the room. That quiet was like a boa constrictor, gliding along the floor, curling around Kerr, and then strangling him.

He swallowed again; this time the action was more pronounced. “What’s this about?”

Colt was quiet for a moment longer before speaking. “Walk me through May twenty-third ten years ago.”

Kerr’s eyes shifted to the side and then back to Colt. “I’ve done it a million times. You have my interviews on video. All of them.”

“Walk me through it again .”

“All right. All right. I, um, we had practice like normal. Emerson stayed after like she always did. She had a spare set of keys to the equipment room, so I left her with the ball machine. She was practicing when I left.”

Colt didn’t move, and I knew he had to be pinning the coach to the spot with those storm eyes. “Was anyone else still there when you left?” Colt asked.

Kerr wiped his palms on his khakis. “No. No one else was there. I had to clean up the rest of the equipment before I left.”

“But there’s not all that much equipment, is there? Not when everyone has their own rackets and Emerson was still using the ball machine.”

The coach shifted in his seat. “I watched her practice for a little while, gave her some pointers, and then left.”

“Interesting. I don’t remember you sharing that when you were questioned before.”

“I—I probably forgot. It was a high-stress time.”

“Yeah,” Colt spat. “It must’ve been real high stress for you. Nothing like what it was for my sister who’d been fucking kidnapped, hit over the head, and thrown in the back of a truck.”

“I didn’t mean?—”

“Of course you didn’t. Now where did you go when you left the park?”

Kerr’s breaths came faster now. “I drove around for a little bit. I was trying to brainstorm some new drills and training tactics. I always drive around to think.”

Colt made a soft scoffing noise. It wasn’t even a word, but it was like a physical blow to Kerr.

“God, he’s good,” Ryan muttered softly.

It was true. Colt was slowly but surely backing the coach into a corner.

“Then I went to the gas station because I was running low.”

And now he had Kerr right where he wanted him. Like a spider weaving the perfect web.

Colt leaned back in his chair. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was taking the coach in, using silence as a weapon. Kerr twisted in his seat, the metal squeaking with the action.

“You know, Bryan, it’s interesting. Sometimes you look at something so many times that you stop truly seeing it. Has that ever happened to you?”

Kerr opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

Colt made a low humming noise. “Take the video of you at the gas station. I always fixated on the time. On seeing your face. Checking and rechecking that it was really you.”

The coach began to tremble, his hands shaking so strongly he tucked them beneath the table.

Colt kept right on spinning his web, the strands weaving tighter, building the perfect trap. “I was so fixated on those tiny details that I missed the big picture. It took someone else looking at it all for me to truly see.”

Kerr’s throat worked as he struggled to swallow.

“Bryan, do you know what the temperature was on May twenty-third, ten years ago?” Colt asked. His tone sounded like he was truly curious.

Kerr’s brow furrowed. His nerves didn’t lessen any, but there was genuine confusion in the mix now too. Careless little fly, not seeing where he was headed. “No…I?—”

“It was thirty-six degrees,” Colt said, cutting him off.

“Okay…”

Colt’s head turned slightly, just enough so that I could see the tiny slip of a smile that broke through. “I’ve lived in Shady Cove my whole life. Gotten pretty used to those cold snaps.” Any hint of a grin vanished in a flash. “But I still don’t stand around outside waiting for my tank to fill when it’s thirty-six degrees out. Especially when I’m wearing a fucking polo shirt and shorts. And I sure as hell would at least get the fleece out of my back seat.”

Kerr froze. No part of him moved other than the tiny flutter in his chest. The beat of those trapped wings against his ribs.

Colt leaned forward, forearms resting on the aged metal table with peeling corners. “So it would make a hell of a lot more sense if that video was actually from the night before. An evening when the temperature was sixty-two degrees at eight o’clock. That’s practically balmy, don’t you think, Bry?”

It was the Bry that did it to me. I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. God, Colt was good. I’d trapped an interviewee in a lie or two before. I’d even broken someone on record. But watching Colt work was a thing of beauty.

His voice dropped to what was almost a stage whisper. “So tell me. If I show that picture to everyone on the tennis team, what will they say? Was that the outfit you wore the night Emerson was abducted? Or were you wearing something else altogether?”

There were a few whispered damn s behind me, but to my left, Ryan didn’t make a sound. She was too riveted by the scene in front of us.

Sweat broke out across Kerr’s brow as his trembling intensified. For a moment I thought he might fall right out of the chair. And then he broke.

Big racking sobs. The kind that looked like waves overtaking the body. So brutal it almost seemed like they could break the man’s bones.

“I-I—I didn’t—it wasn’t me. I swear!” Kerr cried.

“You weren’t at the gas station the night Emerson was taken, were you?” Colt pressed.

The coach shook his head. “N-no. I wasn’t. I-I paid Lucian to lie. To switch the date on the tapes. Because he knew I didn’t do it. That I would never—couldn’t hurt Em?—”

“Don’t say her name,” Colt growled.

Kerr’s mouth snapped closed.

“Where were you that night?”

The sheer demand in Colt’s voice had me wrapping my arms around myself, squeezing hard as I waited. I stared at the man as a million questions flew through my head, but there was only one that stayed.

Was this the man who killed my sister?

As I stared at him, all I saw was weakness. The fear quaking through him. I couldn’t imagine someone like this doing the terrible things I’d linked together. But wasn’t that monster weak too? It was the ultimate weakness to dominate those less powerful than you. To sneak and drug and wound, to do so much worse. So maybe this was the exact face of the monster who’d been masked for so long.

“I was having an affair.” The words tumbled out of Kerr’s mouth so quickly it took a second for me to understand them.

Colt straightened, head turning just enough so that I could see the flutter of muscle along his jaw. “Bullshit. You would’ve said. No one would take a murder charge over their wife finding out they were fucking around.”

Kerr’s hands tightened in his lap, knuckles bleaching white as the blood drained from his face. “It was with a student.”

The room around me went deathly silent. No one even breathed. One beat. Then two. Three.

“Who?” Colt growled low.

“Tara Gibson,” Kerr whispered. “She was seventeen. It was legal in most states, but?—”

“Not in California, you sack of shit,” Colt snarled. “You knew your ass would be fired, and you’d be blacklisted from any future teaching or coaching jobs. Not to mention your ass would’ve ended up in jail, and they don’t take too kindly to men like you there.”

The coach’s head lifted. “You won’t tell, right? Promise me you won’t tell. My wife?—”

Colt scoffed. “You’re disgusting. She was your student, your athlete. Not only were you twenty-five years her senior, but you were in a position of power over her. Your wife is the least of your worries.”

“Colt—”

He shoved back his chair and stood. “Stay there.”

“Where are you going?” Kerr’s eyes were wild now as his gaze jumped around the room.

“To verify your fucked-up story,” Colt snapped, stalking out of the room.

I was already moving for the door, Ryan on my heels. I felt Colt before I saw him, the furious energy charging through the hallway.

The moment our eyes locked, I felt his pain. Those dark orbs were now swirling pools of black, nothing but agony in their depths.

I could feel Ryan at my back, the other officers spilling into the hall behind us. But all I could see was Colt. His pain and fury. Emotions I knew all too well.

I was moving before I could think, getting right up into his space before I could stop myself. I wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him it would be okay. But I wasn’t sure if that was true.

Colt’s head dipped, those pools of shadow searching, desperate for something to hold on to.

So I gave it to him.

Being a rule breaker wasn’t anything new for me. So I ignored that we were in Colt’s place of work. That his subordinates were behind me.

I slid my fingers through his, linking us together. I squeezed with everything I had. Because I wanted to tell him one thing. The only thing I’d never truly had but wanted so damn badly.

That he wasn’t alone.