Chapter 8 - The Evidence RoomHis name was Officer Brian Cole.
It also changed the town.
For days, local reporters parked outside Franklin Ridge High School while parents demanded answers.
Why had a private company been allowed so much access to student research?
Why had Principal Margaret Danner’s husband received district contracts?
Why had prescription medication disappeared?
Why had a teenager nearly died?
And why had another teenager been arrested before anyone seriously investigated how six illegal pills appeared inside her backpack?
Sadie’s suspension was lifted.
She still refused to return.
Not yet.
Leah remained in the hospital, improving slowly.
Marcus remained missing.
Principal Danner denied helping her husband.
Then investigators discovered she had deleted seventeen emails two hours after Leah collapsed.
Sadie wanted to believe the case was finally moving in the right direction.
Until Officer Keller disappeared.
He was supposed to visit the Monroe house Friday afternoon.
He never arrived.
At first, Megan assumed he had been called to another case.
Then Sadie sent him a message.
No response.
At 8:00 p.m., Mr. Whitaker called.
“Have you heard from Keller?”
“No.”
There was silence.
“Why?”
“He was supposed to meet me at five.”
Sadie stood.
“For what?”
“He said he found something about the names in Marcus’s old notebook.”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t tell me over the phone.”
Megan heard enough to take the phone.
“Daniel, call the department.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“They said he’s off duty.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does when his car is still in the station parking lot.”
Sadie felt cold.
Megan immediately called the police.
An hour later, Lieutenant Sarah Mendoza arrived.
She was Keller’s supervisor.
“Officer Keller’s phone is off,” she said.
Sadie watched her carefully.
“Is that normal?”
“No.”
“Do you think Marcus took him?”
“We don’t know.”
Mr. Whitaker arrived carrying copies of the notebook.
Mendoza spread them across the dining table.
One name had been circled by Keller earlier.
Thomas Keller.
Sadie looked at the lieutenant.
“Same last name.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Mendoza remained silent.
Sadie’s stomach tightened.
“Who?”
Finally she answered.
“Raymond Keller’s father.”
Everyone froze.
“He was a police officer,” Mendoza explained. “Retired twelve years ago.”
Sadie pointed at the notebook.
“Why would he be connected to Marcus?”
“We don’t know.”
Whitaker looked pale.
“I remember Thomas.”
“You knew him?”
“He responded when Marcus was questioned about the pharmacy burglary in 1998.”
Mendoza’s expression hardened.
“Are you saying Thomas Keller investigated that case?”
“Yes.”
“And Marcus was never charged.”
“Yes.”
Megan crossed her arms.
“So Officer Keller found out his own father might have covered something up.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Sadie remembered Marcus’s statement during the fire.
You really think this ends with me?
“What if Marcus wasn’t threatening us?”
Mendoza looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“What if he was warning us?”
Whitaker frowned.
“Marcus doesn’t warn people.”
“Maybe he wasn’t protecting us. Maybe he was saying other people were involved.”
Mendoza’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“Where?”
She grabbed her coat.
“They found Keller.”
Sadie’s heart stopped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Officer Keller was found inside an abandoned maintenance building near the county reservoir.
He had been struck in the head and tied to a chair.
His phone and badge were missing.
But he was alive.
At the hospital, Keller refused pain medication until he had spoken with Mendoza.
Sadie and Megan waited outside his room.
Eventually Keller asked to see Sadie.
He had twelve stitches above his eyebrow.
“You look terrible,” Sadie said.
He laughed once.
“Thank you.”
“What happened?”
Keller looked toward his supervisor.
“I went to talk to my father.”
Sadie sat.
“And?”
“He admitted knowing Marcus.”
Mendoza closed the door.
Keller continued.
“In 1998, Marcus Danner was caught breaking into a pharmacy with two other teenagers.”
“Why wasn’t he charged?”
“My father was paid.”
Sadie stared.
“He took a bribe?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why his name was in the notebook.”
Keller nodded.
“My father says Marcus’s stepfather paid him to make evidence disappear.”
Whitaker looked sick.
“My stepfather.”
Keller nodded.
“But that wasn’t all.”
“What else?”
“My father stayed connected to Marcus.”
“For thirty years?”
“Off and on.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
Sadie’s stomach twisted.
“Did your father attack you?”
Keller looked away.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I left his house around 6:00. Someone hit my car from behind on Route 17. When I stopped, two men pulled me out.”
“Marcus?”
“I didn’t see him.”
“Did they say anything?”
“Yes.”
Keller’s eyes locked onto Sadie.
“They wanted the flash drive.”
“Leah’s?”
“Yes.”
“But police have it.”
“They thought I had the original.”
Evan had given police copies.
The original remained hidden.
Only a few people knew that.
Sadie suddenly understood.
“Someone inside the investigation told them.”
Mendoza stiffened.
Keller nodded.
“There’s a leak.”
“Inside the police department?”
“Possibly.”
Megan stepped forward.
“Then my daughter isn’t safe.”
“No,” Keller said quietly.
“She isn’t.”
Sadie’s phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
Everyone looked at the screen.
A message appeared.
YOUR MOTHER LEAVES FOR WORK AT 6:10 A.M.
Megan stopped breathing.
A second message arrived.
YOU WALK THE DOG AT 6:25.
Then a photograph.
Sadie standing outside her own house that morning.
Taken from across the street.
Keller immediately stood despite the nurse protesting.
“Lock this building down.”
Mendoza reached for her radio.
Sadie stared at the photograph.
In the reflection of a parked car, she could see the person holding the camera.
Only part of his face.
But it was enough.
Sadie zoomed in.
She had seen him before.
Not at school.
Not with Marcus.
At the police station.
May you like
The morning after Leah collapsed.
He was the officer who had carried Sadie’s backpack into evidence.
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