Page 19

Gregory Phillips' knuckles whitened as he gripped his biceps, the stale air of the holding cell pressing against him like a physical weight. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the cramped space. He glared at the metal bars, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

Damn that FBI agent. What was her name? Morgan something. She'd convinced him he'd be safer here, locked up like some common criminal. As if these flimsy bars could stop a determined killer.

His gaze flicked to the woman across from him. Sarah Winters hadn't moved in what felt like hours, her eyes fixed on him with an unnerving intensity. The silence stretched between them, taut as a wire.

Gregory shifted on the hard bench, his back protesting. "You planning on staring at me all night?" he snapped, immediately regretting the outburst.

Sarah's expression didn't change. "Just trying to figure you out," she said, her voice low and steady.

He scoffed, looking away. "There's nothing to figure out. I'm just some schmuck who was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Twenty years ago, maybe," Sarah replied. "But now? Now you're choosing to be here."

Gregory's stomach clenched. He thought of Whitaker out there somewhere, maybe watching this very precinct. Waiting. Planning his next move.

"Better in here than out there," he muttered, more to himself than to Sarah.

She leaned forward slightly. "Is it? You really think you're safe?"

The hairs on the back of Gregory's neck stood up. He met Sarah's gaze, trying to read the emotion behind those piercing eyes. Was it a concern? Or something else?

"Safer than I'd be alone in my house," he said carefully.

Sarah's lips quirked in what might have been a smile. "You're not wrong. But Gregory, you're missing the point. It's not about where you are. It's about what you know."

Gregory's heart rate picked up. He had the sudden, irrational urge to call for the guard. To get as far away from this woman as possible.

Instead, he forced a brittle laugh. "I don't know anything. That's what I've been trying to tell everyone for twenty years."

Sarah just watched him, silent and still. Gregory found himself fidgeting under her gaze, his palms growing damp.

What did she want from him? What did she think he knew?

The precinct beyond their cell hummed with distant activity. Phones ringing, muffled voices. All of it felt a world away from this claustrophobic space where the air seemed to grow thicker by the minute.

Gregory closed his eyes, trying to calm his racing thoughts. He'd made the right choice coming here. He had to believe that. Because the alternative—that he'd walked right into a trap—was too terrifying to contemplate.

Sarah's voice cut through the silence like a knife. "Who did you see?"

Gregory's eyes snapped open, his breath catching in his throat. He knew exactly what she was asking, could feel the weight of her stare pressing down on him, pulling at something deep in his gut. A memory he'd spent twenty years trying to bury.

He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. "I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered, but the words sounded hollow even to his own ears.

Sarah leaned forward, her intensity palpable. "You saw him," she continued, her voice low and certain. "The night you found Lucas Hayes. You saw the killer."

Gregory's heart pounded in his chest. He shifted on the hard bench, his fingers digging into his arms. The cell felt smaller, the air thicker. He could almost smell the damp night air from that alley, hear the distant sirens.

"I told you," he managed, his voice rough. "I don't know what I saw."

But even as he said it, the images flashed through his mind. A shadowy figure hunched over Lucas's body. The glint of something metallic. And those eyes—cold, piercing eyes that had haunted his nightmares for years.

Gregory looked away, unable to meet Sarah's gaze. He'd spent so long convincing himself it wasn't real, that he'd been too drunk to trust his own memory. But now, with Sarah's words hanging in the air between them, the truth he'd buried for two decades threatened to claw its way to the surface.

He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to speak. Because if he admitted what he'd seen that night, everything would change. And Gregory wasn't sure he was ready for that.

Sarah's unwavering gaze bore into Gregory, her eyes never blinking. "It wasn't Whitaker," she stated, her voice cutting through the silence like a knife.

A muscle in Gregory's jaw twitched involuntarily. He remained silent, his heart hammering against his ribs. The weight of her words pressed down on him, threatening to crush the carefully constructed walls he'd built around that night.

"You know it wasn't," Sarah pressed, her voice steady and unrelenting. There was no anger in her tone, just a calm certainty that unnerved Gregory even more. "We both do."

Gregory's fingers tightened on his arms, his nails digging into his skin through his shirt. He couldn't look at her anymore. His eyes darted towards the bars of the holding cell, seeking an escape that wasn't there.

The cold metal seemed to mock him, a physical representation of the trap he found himself in. Not just this cell, but the prison of his own silence that he'd locked himself in for twenty years.

He didn't want to talk about this. Didn't want to acknowledge the truth that Sarah was edging towards. Because if he said it out loud, if he admitted what he'd seen that night, it would become real. And once it was real, he couldn't take it back.

The memories he'd fought so hard to suppress threatened to overwhelm him. The alley, the body, the figure standing over it. Not Whitaker. Someone else. Someone he knew. Someone they all knew.

Gregory swallowed hard, his throat dry. He wanted to tell Sarah to stop, to leave it alone. But the words wouldn't come. Because deep down, a part of him knew it was time. Time to face what he'd seen, what he'd been running from for so long.

But still, he remained silent, trapped between the truth and the lie he'd lived with for two decades.

Sarah leaned forward, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "It was Keller."

Gregory's breath caught in his throat, a sudden, sharp pain constricting his chest. He remained motionless, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond the cell bars, refusing to meet Sarah's penetrating gaze. The words hung in the air between them, heavy and suffocating.

Because she was right.

The realization crashed over him like a tidal wave, threatening to drown him in its terrible certainty. His mind reeled, desperately grasping for something, anything to refute it. But the truth was there, stark and undeniable.

"No," Gregory whispered, more to himself than to Sarah. His hands trembled slightly as he ran them through his gray hair, a gesture of frustration and denial. "It can't be. You don't understand."

Sarah's eyes narrowed. "What don't I understand, Gregory?"

He shook his head, memories flooding back unbidden. "My nephew," he started, his voice hoarse. "Andrew baptized him. Right there in that church." The image of the small boy, wrapped in a white cloth, being lowered into the water by Keller's steady hands, flashed before his eyes.

"We all went there," Gregory continued, his words coming faster now. "Every Sunday. Easter service..." He trailed off, lost in the recollection. "We sat in the front pew, all of us. Keller, he... he talked about redemption that day. About sacrifice."

Gregory could almost hear Keller's voice, warm and resonant, filling the church. He remembered the way the sunlight had streamed through the stained glass windows, bathing the congregation in a soft, multicolored glow. The memory felt so at odds with the cold reality of their current situation.

"The way he spoke," Gregory murmured, his eyes unfocused. "You should have heard him, Sarah. The passion in his voice. It was like... like he could see right into your soul." He swallowed hard. "After the service, everyone wanted to shake his hand. To thank him. The way they looked at him..."

Gregory's hands trembled as he ran them through his thinning hair, his fingers catching on the strands gone prematurely gray. He couldn't bring himself to meet Sarah's piercing gaze, instead focusing on a small crack in the concrete floor of their holding cell.

"He wasn't a killer," Gregory muttered, more to himself than to Sarah. "He couldn't be." The words felt hollow, even as they left his lips.

For twenty long years, he had clung to that belief like a lifeline. It was easier to think he'd been too drunk that night, that the shadows in the alley had played tricks on his eyes. That the hulking shape he'd glimpsed, hunched over Lucas Hayes' broken body, was just a figment of his alcohol-addled imagination.

"I told myself I was wasted," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "That I couldn't trust what I saw. That it wasn't real."

Sarah leaned forward, her steely eyes never leaving Gregory's face. "But you weren't drunk, were you, Gregory?"

He flinched at her words, feeling the weight of her scrutiny pressing down on him. The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

Finally, Gregory lifted his gaze to meet hers. In that moment, something inside him crumbled. The facade he'd maintained for two decades came crashing down, leaving him raw and exposed.

"No," he admitted, his voice cracking. "I wasn't."

Sarah's expression remained impassive, but her eyes glinted with a mixture of triumph and sympathy. "Tell me what really happened that night, Gregory."

He took a shuddering breath, his shoulders sagging as if a great weight had been lifted from them. "I'd only had one drink," he confessed. "Just one. I was clear-headed when I found Lucas."

Gregory's mind raced back to that fateful night, the memories he'd suppressed for so long rushing to the surface. The coppery smell of blood, the sound of retreating footsteps, the unmistakable silhouette illuminated by a nearby streetlight.

"It wasn't Whitaker," he said, the words tumbling out now. "I saw him, Sarah. Clear as day. It was Andrew Keller."

As the admission hung in the air between them, Gregory felt a strange mix of relief and dread wash over him. He had finally spoken the truth he'd buried for so long, but in doing so, he'd shattered the illusion of safety he'd built around himself.

In the oppressive silence of the holding cell, with Sarah Winters' unwavering gaze upon him, Gregory Phillips faced the reality he'd been running from for twenty years. And he wondered, with a chill running down his spine, what consequences this long-overdue confession might bring.

Gregory's brow furrowed as a new, unsettling thought crept into his mind. If Andrew Keller had been the killer all those years ago, and Keller was now dead, then who was responsible for the recent murders? The question gnawed at him, twisting his insides into knots.

He locked eyes with Sarah, and the fury etched across her face made his blood run cold. The intensity of her gaze seemed to pierce right through him, and Gregory suddenly felt acutely aware of how alone they were in the small, confined space of the holding cell.

"If it wasn't Whitaker then, and Keller's dead now," Gregory said, his voice barely above a whisper, "who the hell is doing this?"

Sarah's jaw clenched, her nostrils flaring. "You tell me, Gregory," she hissed, leaning forward. "You're the one who's been lying all these years."

Gregory's heart hammered in his chest. He pressed his back against the cold cement wall, trying to put as much distance between himself and Sarah as possible. "I-I don't know," he stammered. "I swear, I don't know anything more than what I've told you."

Sarah's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Twenty years," she spat. "Twenty years of silence while families suffered, while more people died. And now you expect me to believe you're suddenly an open book?"

Gregory's mind raced, searching for a way to defuse the situation. He could feel the anger radiating off Sarah in waves, and it terrified him. "Look," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, "I know I messed up. I should have come forward sooner. But I'm telling the truth now. I want to help."

But even as the words left his mouth, Gregory wondered if it was too little, too late. The fury in Sarah's eyes told him she wasn't interested in his belated honesty. He glanced towards the bars of the cell, wishing desperately for someone—anyone—to walk by and break the suffocating tension.

"Help?" Sarah scoffed, her voice dripping with disdain. "The time for help was twenty years ago, Gregory. Now? Now it might be time for justice."

The threat in her words was unmistakable, and Gregory felt a chill run down his spine. He'd thought he was safe here, under police protection. But locked in this cell with Sarah Winters, her eyes blazing with decades of pent-up rage, he realized he might have walked right into another kind of danger entirely.