A narrow road with tunnel vision.
One she as a reporter had traveled down as well.
She settled herself across from him and scarfed down a few bites of her food. “You always manage to make the best open-flame eggs.”
He laughed. “You can keep stroking my ego all day long; I won’t complain.”
“You might when we’re done with this interview.” She pointed to the recorder. “Ready?”
“Go for it.”
She hit the record button and announced the date and what the interview was for all professional-like.
Meanwhile, all he could think about was all the different ways he wanted to have sex with her again. It was a really nice distraction from what he was about to dive into.
“It’s been a little over a year since the last time the Trinket Killer has struck. Looking back on the time you were the lead detective, or even the few cases you started off with as a beat cop early on, what do you wish you had done differently?”
“That’s a loaded question.” He waved his fork in the air. “I’m older, wiser, and have more information. Also, it’s really hard to pinpoint a few things because it’s like a game of dominos. Change one thing, and you change the entire trajectory, and then there could have been an entirely different set of problems. But if I had to pick something, it would have been the arrest.”
“But we know now that Adam wasn’t the Trinket Killer, so why would you want to do that differently?”
“For one, I fucked up, and that potentially caused your sister her life. Something that still gives me nightmares and I’m not sure I’ll quite be able to forgive myself for it.”
She reached across the table, but he jerked his hand away. This was a professional interview, and right now, he couldn’t deal with feeling the tenderness lift from her skin to his, seeping into his heart, soothing his aching soul.
“But also, I can’t help but wonder if I hadn’t jumped the gun, and the chaos that ensued because of it, if we wouldn’t have realized that Armstrong had been tampering with evidence and planting it at crime scenes.” He lifted his coffee and stared at the grinds floating at the top. He set the mug down, deciding the caffeine wasn’t worth it. “And that’s the other thing. I didn’t see things that were right in front of my face that now seem so obvious, but when I go over all the evidence now, I still can’t figure it out, and it’s infuriating.”
“I know the feeling,” she said. “I recently sat down with the FBI profiler who originally created both the victimology report and the unsub description. He still believes both are spot on. What are your thoughts?”
“I’m not a profiler, which is why we called in the FBI. They are experts in that kind of thing. That said, I do trust my instincts, and there were always a few things that didn’t sit right with me and more so today.”
“Do you care to share some of those theories?”
“Actually, I don’t. At least not on the record. I did, however, share my thoughts with the cold crimes detectives handling the case.”
She reached out and stopped the recording. “Okay. Off the record. This is where you were talking to me last night about the bookends and both Renee and Stephanie knowing the killer and it being a woman not a man?”
He nodded. “I didn’t mention this last night, but I think the victimology is linked to Renee and Stephanie. I just don’t know how since they didn’t know each other and have no real commonalities.”
“Except Renee did have an affair and my sister had a secret girlfriend.”
He let out a long breath. “Yeah. That could be the key right there.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But that still doesn’t explain why the Trinket Killer stopped killing.”
She tapped the recorder. “Do you ever feel like he’s watching you, waiting for the right moment to come out of murder retirement and kill again?”
“Every night before I close my eyes. And even more so now.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you’re here. I know that sounds crazy, but the second you walked back into my life, I half expected the killings to start again.”
She nodded. “Let’s talk about what happened after it was proven that Adam wasn’t the Trinket Killer. How did your life change?”
He laughed, though it wasn’t a haha funny laugh. “I almost lost my job, for one. My fiancée dumped me. I realized I wasn’t as good of a homicide detective as I thought I was. Basically, for about a month, my life spiraled out of control. Then my buddy Levi Crawford helped me pick up the pieces, and I landed this gig as chief of police in Langley.”
“That’s a big change,” she said. “Are you satisfied and fulfilled in your new position?”
“I am,” he said. “Maybe more so than when I was a detective. But to be totally transparent, I do spend time following up on what few leads come my way when it comes to the Trinket Killer. I feel like I owe it to all the victims, their families, and especially to my ex-fiancée.”
She tilted her head and arched a brow. “Why?”
“You should know why.”
“But I don’t.”
Now it was time to make it personal. He took her hand and kissed her palm. “The night I proposed. The night Stephanie died. I promised to love and protect you. I told you I’d always have your back. I
