Page 55 of Keeping Secrets

She had a new life, a beautiful one.

And the last thing that she wanted to do was spend a single second talking about Adam.

But she would. She could. Maybe it would even give her some closure.

She would go into the police station, answer their questions, and walk out again. Back to her life. Back to books and baking, to Nick and Chloe and Travis. In spite of all her mistakes, she had built a solid foundation for herself here.

She could do this.

Still, her palm was sweaty as she pushed open the heavy front door of the local police station. The room beyond was small and unintimidating, a ramshackle collection of desks and computers. People sat chatting, leaned back and at ease, drinking coffee.

Her pulse slowed, just a little.

This wasn’t some TV drama with a bright light in her eyes and her wrists cuffed to a metal table. It was just a small police station. Just a few questions.

Why did she always make things harder than they needed to be?

She cleared her throat and approached the first desk, where an older woman sat typing.

“Excuse me,” she said as the woman looked up, “I’m looking for Detective Riegler.”

“You have an appointment?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You must be Keely Thompson,” said a male voice from behind her. She turned and found herself face to face with a middle-aged man. He had a reddish beard and bright blue eyes; her first thought was that when the beard turned white, he would make a perfect Santa Claus.

“That’s me.” She cleared her throat again and wiped her hand on her jeans before holding it out.

“Thanks for coming in,” Riegler said as he shook her hand. “Have a seat here, if you’d like. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or herbal tea?”

“Tea would be lovely.” Keely sank into the chair he had pulled out for her. “Thank you.”

Her legs bounced nervously as she watched the detective walk to the break room. All around her, people continued with their work without giving her any notice at all. Riegler took a mug down from a cupboard, placed a tea bag inside, and filled the mug with hot water.

Keely realized that she was staring. She looked down at her knees and traced a worn patch in the fabric, not quite a hole yet but getting there. The jeans were losing their blue.

“Here you go.” Detective Riegler set her tea down and then took a seat on the other side of the desk.

“Thank you.” She picked up the mug and let it warm her hands. Her anxiety eased another incremental bit, and she forced herself to take a slow breath. She couldn’t get a breath all the way in, all the way to the bottom of her lungs, but she was still breathing. That was something.

“Okay,” the detective said as he clicked open a pen. “Would you please tell me how long you knew Adam Walsh?”

“Less than a year.” She was holding the mug so tightly that a cup of lesser material might have cracked. “I mean, it was more than a year ago that I met him. But we were together less than a year.”

“And when was the last time that you saw Mr. Walsh?”

“About seven months ago.”

He jotted a note down on the yellow legal pad in front of him. “And can you describe your history together?”

She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “I met him at a college party. Just a little community college in the mountains. We’d already been on a couple of dates by the time I realized that he didn’t go to school there. But he was always hanging around.”

“And how did Mr. Walsh spend his time when he wasn’t at college parties?”

Another shaky breath. She looked down into her tea, watching the steam rise up from the surface of the water. “He sold drugs.”

“I see.”

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