Chapter Eight
Keller
Keller rested his head against the wall and tried to close his eyes for the hundredth time. But he couldn’t get comfortable in the straight-backed folding chair he was sitting on, no matter how tired he was—and he was exhausted. Between his late-night run to make sure Molly got home safely and all the endless nights he had spent recently lying awake thinking of her, he was drained. He needed to get some real, solid sleep. He needed to let his body relax. He was antsy and on edge.
From his spot outside the conference room, as he waited for his turn to be questioned by the Feds, he could hear every word being said between Agent Grimes and Baze. It was all pretty boring, standard stuff. The agent didn’t seem all that interested in interrogating Baze about the shifter allegations. It sounded like Agent Grimes thought Henderson was an idiot. Keller perked up in his chair when he heard Baze rise and head toward the door.
Agent Grimes was laughing. “No wonder you love your job here. You are coaching a top-ranked team and this campus is downright beautiful. And the wildlife here… Last night I saw a wolf trotting down the street in the middle of campus.”
Keller held his breath, his eyes going wide. Please let that be the end of it.
Baze answered, “Really? A wolf? You don’t say.”
Nope. No such luck.
“Yes, a magnificent, tan-colored wolf. Big. Way bigger than I expected a wolf to actually be. You see them on the Discovery Channel, but I never thought they would be that large in real life.”
Keller closed his eyes. Shit. He had been running with Baze for years now; he would know instantly it was Keller.
“Yeah, where did you say you saw that wolf?” Baze asked.
“Toward the entrance to campus, heading over in the direction of that row of houses. I think it was a female. It was large, but slender. Pretty.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve seen that wolf before. Giant bitch.” Keller rolled his eyes as Baze continued. “There is a strip of woods behind the faculty houses, lots of small animals in there, easy prey. You know rabbits, chipmunks—”
“Chipmunks? Really? Well, I guess maybe that’s where Henderson got the insane idea that there were shifters at St. Leasing, huh? I mean if you see wolves walking through campus at night and add in a wild imagination… At least he claimed they were wolf shifters and not chipmunk shifters right?” Grimes laughed at his own lame joke and Keller heard the doorknob turn. “Well, coach, thank you for your time, we shouldn’t need anything else from you. Good luck at Friday’s game.”
“Thank you, Agent Grimes.” Baze exited and turned immediately to his left, face to face with Keller. “Oh, look who we have here—Coach Byrne. Waiting for your turn in the interrogation room?”
“Uh, yeah, I got the email that we were supposed to meet with the agents today and I thought I’d go ahead and get mine out of the way.” Keller rubbed the back of his neck, not making eye contact with Baze. He knew the anger and accusation he’d see there.
“I didn’t figure you’d be up so early, what with the late night you had.” Baze glared at him. “When you get finished here, don’t forget to come by Dom’s office. We have to discuss those pesky sophomores. They just can’t seem to get the new hand signals down.” He said all this through clenched teeth but added a laugh at the end, probably so Grimes wouldn’t catch on to his frustration.
Keller nodded slowly, knowing he was in trouble. “Yeah, man, I’ll be there as soon as I’m done here.” He stepped past Baze and collapsed into a softer version of the chair he had just vacated.
He looked up when Agent Grimes cleared his throat, shutting the door in the process. “Agent Brooks should be here any minute and we can begin. So sorry that we have to pull you away from work for this. It’s really just a formality. I don’t want to be asking you these ridiculous questions any more than you want to be here answering them.”
“It’s all right, sir, I don’t mind.” Keller pulled his phone out and sent Molly a quick good morning text. He was becoming as lame as Dom.
Keller: Good morning, darlin’.
Molly: Morning. How’s your day? They were out of muffins at the coffee house this morning? That your fault?
He chuckled. He’d skipped yoga again, this time because he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands to himself. Now he was regretting it. He missed her; like physically felt as if something was missing from his body.
Keller: Wasn’t me. I did eat six Eggo waffles though.
Molly: We need to work on your diet.
Agent Brooks breezed through the door, looking smug. Keller put his phone back in his pocket, more than ready to get this over with.
“Ah, good morning, Coach Byrne. What a coincidence—I just had the most relaxing hour with your girlfriend. She is amazing.” Brooks placed a steaming cup of coffee down on the table and sat behind it. The coffee cup had the same logo as the place in town. Had they eaten breakfast together?
Keller bit his tongue so hard his mouth filled with the taste of copper. He took a deep, unsteady breath. Everything inside of him wanted to reach across the table and tear out the bastard’s throat. Logically, Keller knew the comment had been made to get a rise out of him. And it had worked. Instantly, horrible disgusting images of Brooks and Keller’s mate filled his mind. It took every ounce of strength he had to push them aside.
“Yeah, she is amazing, isn’t she? I used to go to sunrise yoga a few days a week, but now, mostly she gives me private lessons.” Keller gave a wicked smile. It was a lie, but a lie he was hoping would be his truth one day soon.
Brooks nodded and smiled back tightly. “I’m sure she does.”
Agent Grimes cleared his throat again and opened up a cream-colored file. “Coach Byrne, were you close with Mr. Henderson in his time here at St. Leasing?”
Keller leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands on the table in front of him. “No, I wasn’t. He spent most of his time in his office in the admin building and I work on the other side of campus in the athletic building. Our paths rarely crossed.”
“What about when he was interviewing all your players? Did you spend any time with him then?” Brooks rested back in his chair, suddenly looking the part of an FBI agent.
“Not really. I heard the kids griping about having to be questioned and complaining about how long he was keeping them. But I didn’t read too much into it. I just figured he was doing his job.”
Brooks cocked his head to the side. “Were you at all surprised when he disappeared?”
The question threw him off a bit. “Disappeared? No, I figured he left St. Leasing for another job. No one was really concerned. We’ve had teachers up and leave before. Was he like kidnapped from the campus?” Keller knew he was supposed to act like he knew very little. Dom’s detective friend had shared classified information as a favor and Keller didn’t want to be the one to get him in trouble.
“We don’t really know, to be honest with you. But with the way he turned up murdered and all, we’re thinking it might be a possibility.” Grimes closed the file and leaned back, mirroring his partner.
“Coach Byrne, you mentioned that Henderson’s office was in the admin building. But Ms. Cooper, the replacement guidance counselor, has her office in the athletic building. Why is that?” Brooks narrowed his eyes in question.
Keller shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Dean McCormick that. I don’t know why that decision was made, as it wasn’t mine to make.”
Grimes nodded, slowly. “Henderson alleged that the baseball players here at St. Leasing were way too advanced and talented to be normal student athletes. Do you find that to be a correct statement?”
Keller let out a little chuckle. “Well, we do have quite a talented group of boys here. But they work hard. Most of them have been working hard at this sport since they were old enough to hold a ball. The majority of these kids come from wealthy families, and that means pitching coaches, private batting practice, and the best gyms money can buy. Our team is good, but we lose every now and then. We aren’t all that extraordinary.”
Brooks zeroed in on Keller. “Henderson claimed that the team was violent and quick to anger. Do you feel that is the case?”
“What? Absolutely not.” Keller scoffed for added emphasis. “These kids are full of hormones and testosterone like every other teenage boy in the world. I will say they were all irritated with Henderson and his, let’s call them, interrogations. He would keep them for hours at a time and ask extremely personal questions. I have no doubt that the guys were less than pleasant to him, and I don’t really blame them.”
Brooks pursed his lips, knocking his knuckle on the heavy oak table. “Henderson was obligated to question the team, was he not?”
Keller nodded tightly, more than ready to get out of this room and away from the man who kept hitting on his girlfriend. “He was.”
“Why?” The question was fired back quickly.
“The baseball team at St. Leasing has to be cleared to play each year. And that was what Henderson was supposed to be doing. Making sure the kids were cleared to play ball, not dragging their whole life story out of them.” Why was Brooks asking him these questions? Grimes had merely mentioned this stuff to Baze and moved on. Baze hadn’t been grilled like this. There was something different to this interrogation.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Keller furrowed his brow.
Brooks sounded agitated when he answered. “Why does the team need to be cleared to play?”
Fuck. “I’m sure you know the answer to that.”
“We do. There was a St. Leasing baseball team a few years back that got into some trouble. Rage issues, was it?” Brooks leaned toward Keller.
Double fuck. “Something like that, but it was long before my time. And we haven’t had any issues since then. Coo—uh, Ms. Cooper met with the whole team and cleared them all.” Not necessarily a lie. She had technically marked that everyone could play, even though she had no intentions of ever letting Jace take the field since, at the time, she had thought he was violent and quick to anger. Thank god that had turned out not to be the case and she’d destroyed any evidence that documented her suspicions. That would have made all this so much worse.
“Speaking of Ms. Cooper, she is engaged to Coach Hardy, right?” Brooks continued hammering questions at Keller.
Triple fuck. Keller could see where this was headed from a mile away. “Yes, they recently became engaged.”
“And they’re having a baby. What is she now, three months along?” Brooks looked down at the file in front of him like he was confirming his timeline. “They have been together almost from the instant she started here at St. Leasing, it would appear.”
Keller sighed. Damn Dom couldn’t have waited ’til Coop was on the pill before he claimed her? Horny impatient bastard. “What’s your point, Brooks?”
“Maybe Coach Hardy made her clear the team? Maybe she never even interviewed them?” Brooks shrugged like his suspicions were easily made.
“Look, Coo—uh, Ms. Cooper is an amazing counselor who cares about these kids. She would only want what was best for them. If you knew her, you wouldn’t for a second think she would do something like that. Yes, she and Dom have been close from the beginning. But it had zero effect on her job. Ask the players.” Keller let out a quick chuckle. “Ask her if you have the balls. I guarantee you, she’ll shove her answer right up your ass.” He rose to his feet. “I was under the assumption that I was brought in here to discuss the ridiculous allegations that there is a group of supernatural beings living here on campus, not the integrity of my colleagues. Are we done here? I have a meeting I need to get to.”
Agent Grimes stood and offered Keller his hand. “I think we have all we need from you, Coach Byrne. Thank you so much for meeting with us.”
“No problem. Just doing my part.” Keller left the room then hurried out of the building and headed to his next interrogation. He was going to have to fill the others in on what had happened in there. Keller had not heard one tense moment between Baze and Agent Grimes. Brooks’s jealousy and obvious interest in Molly was making him look a lot further into these claims than they had anticipated.
Brooks was the asshole who could blow things up.