Page 84 of Keeping Secrets

“So you have to go in. You already told them that you would.”

“It could buy us some time, though. I could just reschedule.”

“Maybe.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “More time would be good.”

“Do you think I’m a suspect?” he asked miserably.

“Well, let’s see.” Her voice snapped back into an exasperated sort of anger. She turned toward them, gesturing with the large kitchen knife that she held in one hand. “You moved to town just after Adam did, and then he turned up dead. Add in the fact that he doped, used, and dropped your little sister, and yeah, Nick, I think you’re a suspect.” She cursed under her breath and tossed the knife into the sink. “I can’t believe you two.”

“It’s all just circumstantial.” Nick was trying to sound more sure than he felt; Travis could tell. “They don’t have any evidence. They’re grasping at straws.”

“You don’t know that,” Keely said. “How long were you following him? What if people saw you? Did you park outside his house? How many times?”

“Not right outside his house,” Nick hedged.

She cursed again and wrenched her fridge open so violently that the jars inside shivered and clattered together. Nick and Travis were quiet as she pulled out a lump of dough and started hitting it with a rolling pin.

“I don’t think that’s how you use those,” Nick joked weakly.

“Ha ha.” Keely shot him a sour look.

“What about everything that you recorded in the days leading up to what happened?” Travis asked.

“What about it?” Nick said.

“Is it enough to lead them toward someone else?”

“Mostly it’s just enough to show that I was stalking Adam during the weeks leading up to his death, which isn’t a great look for me.”

Keely made a strangled sound, like a hysterical laugh muffled and cut short. She was staring down at the pie crust that she was rolling out. She hadn’t so much as glanced at Travis since he had walked into her kitchen.

“Pretty sure just putting that mic in Adam’s car was illegal,” Nick said miserably.

“Could they have found the mic?” Keely cut in, her voice panicked.

“Travis removed it the night it all went down,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Otherwise we probably would’ve gotten taken in for this a long time ago.”

“What if we shared the recordings with Rachel?” Travis wondered out loud. “Maybe she could ID someone.”

“I still need to listen to them,” said Keely.

“Didn’t they already question Rachel?” Nick said. Travis forced his attention back to the subject at hand. “She would have identified the guys who were there if she knew who they were.”

“Maybe she didn’t know the big guys who were there that night,” said Travis, “but she might recognize the voices of the people he saw more often, the guys who arranged that meeting. Something to lead the detective in the right direction.”

“Maybe.” Nick didn’t sound hopeful. And he was right not to be; they were grasping at straws. The more he tried to think of a way out of this, the more hopeless Travis felt.

He typed out a message to Rachel, asking if she could meet again, but even as he did so, it felt futile.

“I might still have some numbers on my phone,” Keely admitted. “People who knew Adam.”

Nick looked horrified. “You’re not telling me that you saved the numbers of your dealers.”

She shot him a venomous look. “Acquaintances. Friends of friends.” She looked down and admitted with a grumble, “People who could put me in touch with dealers.”

“Keely!”

“Don’t you dare judge me!” She pointed at him with the rolling pin. “I was out of this mess! I never wanted anything more to do with Adam, with any of them!”

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