Till Death(71)

My back stiffened. “What?”

“I don’t know any more details,” she said. “But obviously Detective Hottie must suspect something.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, turning toward the door leading to the back room.

“I have to go, but I’ll call you later.”

Hanging up, I placed my cell on the kitchen island. Tyron was questioning Coach Currie over Angela? That was . . . absolutely unexpected, but there was something about that piece of news that nagged at me.

I walked around the kitchen island and slowly opened the door. Cold air swirled around my legs. What was the man who practically plowed me over wearing?

Opening the door to the staff staircase, I peered inside the dimly lit landing. Wasn’t he wearing a baseball cap with some kind of emblem and a white shirt with the same kind of emblem? And I’d thought that emblem had been vaguely familiar.

My pulse pounded as I stared down into the shadowy cellar door. It was locked, and Cole had put a deadbolt on it, something we probably should’ve done a long time ago.

I shivered.

Coaches wear baseball caps. So did a lot of other people, like more than half the male and female population. It was a long stretch, but Tyron was questioning him.

Biting down on my lip, I closed the door and turned around. I needed to see Coach Currie. It had been forever since I’d seen him and when I pictured him, I did so through sixteen-year-old eyes that weren’t very reliable, but maybe seeing him would jog a memory loose.

Short of camping out at the high school to catch a glimpse of him, I wasn’t sure what to do. I hurried back into the kitchen. Mom was there, scratching out a grocery list at the kitchen island.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

I nodded absently as I sat at the table and took my laptop out of hibernation. Hitting up Google, I typed in the name of the high school and the city. The county website for the school was the first option. I clicked on it.

“The workers are out in the cemetery.” Mom nibbled on the cap of her pen. “They’re trying to get the entryway to the tunnel sealed up before it starts snowing again.”

“When is it calling for more snow?” I scanned the menu bar, finding the athletics tab. I clicked on it.

“Late tonight.” She frowned at her list. “Going to the grocery store with Daphne in a couple of hours. If you need anything, add it to the list.”

“’Kay,” I murmured, scanning the list of departments. What did Currie coach? Football.

I clicked on football and was rewarded with a series of images of the varsity, JV, and freshman teams. Clicking on the one that showed the coaches standing behind the team as they posed on the bleachers, I expanded the photo but was unable to recognize their faces. Or anything.

But they were wearing black baseball caps like the man in the stairwell.

Since Currie taught gym, I went back to the teachers tab and searched him down. Excitement rose when I saw his name, clicking on it, hoping it brought up a picture.

Nothing.

There was absolutely nothing under his name.

“Oh, come on,” I muttered.

Mom drifted closer. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said, and then glanced up at her. “Actually, Miranda called and said the detective at the school today was questioning one of their coaches. The rumor is that it was about Angela.”

“Really?” She sat across from me.

“And I was thinking about the guy that was in here. He was wearing a baseball cap. I got online to see if I could look up a recent picture of the coach.” Leaning back, I crossed my arms. “But there’s nothing under his name and the football pictures aren’t much of a help.”

Mom’s brows puckered. “Wait a minute. You said there was an emblem on the baseball cap and the shirt, right?” When I nodded, she said, “Was it a bulldog? I believe their logo or whatever you want to call it for their mascot is gray.”

Stomach dropping, my gaze snapped back to the computer screen, and there it was, right at the top, on the right side. Jesus, if it was a snake it would’ve bitten me right in the boob.

“And I think the coaches wear white-and-black shirts with the same emblem,” she continued.

Holy crap, she was right. Now that I was looking at the head of the bulldog, I got why I originally thought it was familiar. Everything had happened so fast and it hadn’t been well lit in the stairwell, but now that I saw the mascot, I knew—I knew—that was what I’d seen.

And Coach Currie was homegrown. There was a good chance he would’ve known about the tunnel. A hell of a good chance. What if he had been the person who came in here and took her key?

But he couldn’t have anything to do with the vandalism or the . . . the finger. My life had absolutely nothing to do with his. So maybe these two things, whatever happened with Angela and what was happening with me, were completely unrelated. That had to be good news, I thought. Not sure that I believed that, but it felt that way to me.

“Mom,” I said, looking up at her. “You’re a genius.”

“I like to think that.” A faint smile appeared. “What did you find out over there?”

I drew in a deep breath. “I think the guy who was in the stairwell might’ve been Coach Currie.”



Unsure if I should take my suspicions to Detective Conrad, I called Cole, figuring he’d be able to tell me if I was wasting the detective’s time or not, but his cell didn’t even ring. Went straight to voicemail.