“Enough!” Her voice booms so loudly I’m sure it’s probably woken Sam. “Enough about Sophie. That was years ago.” Her stare pierces me with daggers.
“Okay, okay, sure, yes, it was.” But the comment stings, burrows deep inside me. I have spent years roiling in guilt in the wake of her rape, of her suicide. Is it fate that I would create something even bigger in my life to feel shame about? Or have I been trying to make it right through Jess?
It’s the first time it’s hitting me ... the question suddenly neon bright, pulsing around my head like a strobe: How much of my actions, all my attention to Jess, especially since we’ve been adults, has been shaped by my guilt over Sophie?
“Jesus, Crosbie.” Jess continues. “Would you listen to yourself? Who do you think you are? God? You don’t have that much power over people. You have no idea what Leon was thinking.” She sits back down, her shoulders hunched. “Can you please leave?”
“Jess,” I say. “Please, can we—”
“No. I’m tired,” she says, her voice firm. Drenched in dissatisfaction. In disgust.
The house is quiet, hushed, like it’s waiting with me. Waiting for more. My pulse ticks out a beat in my neck like my whole body is a giant clock.
But nothing more comes.
The shift from her anger to pure disappointment—the anticlimax of it all—makes me feel even smaller and more horrible, but I know it’s exactly what I deserve.
Chapter 43
On my way home, I wallow in the pain like some sorrowful creature in the night. The lights of houses and storefronts seem to float in space, unmoored. My head and chest hurt from all the nerves and anxiety that have been flooding through me on and off the past few days and culminating so fiercely in my heart and head while I sat still on Jess’s couch and took in her repulsed face.
But behind the exhaustion and raw pain, another question forms. Having taken a practice run with Jess, can I let the whole world know?
The thought of it still rocks my being to the core. Nausea gathers in my gut like it’s throwing a rally when I think of not just Jess knowing, but the entire world. The revulsion in Jess’s face will be duplicated a millionfold—in the endless expressions of people everywhere I go—in the way everyone views me for the rest of my life if I come clean for the CA. Not to mention that I might go to jail.
And yet, and yet ... I can’t deny that small release of pressure I felt coming clean to her.
And if telling her is a starting point, and I feel a modicum of relief, then maybe, just maybe, giving the Confession Artist what they want would not just ensure the safety of everyone I love, but save my life, too.
And maybe, just maybe, make me feel an ounce better in the process.
My driving slows as if my body is getting mucked up and sluggish with the thoughts of confessing. I consciously pick up my speed when I see my phone light up. It’s Tim Mooney calling me back.
I pull over into a Town Pump parking lot. With a scratchy voice, he says he got my messages and tells me that he’s been following me closely on the news. He expresses his condolences and relays how frightening it is to be targeted like that.
“Are you certain you were the target?”
“I can’t say for sure,” he says. “I don’t know, but I confessed and I’m alive. And no one else turned up murdered. I have a wife and kids. After it became national news, I figured I better not fuck it up.”
“So, you put it out there that you felt like a glorified drug peddler and you were sorry for that?”
“Yes.” He clears his throat, but his voice still sounds scratchy. “But there are other things. I’m sure you know. You go through everything in your head. I mean, I’m not a perfect guy by any means. We all make mistakes, right?”
“Definitely.”Yes, yes, yes.It echoes through me but also makes me sick that I’m identifying with this person who I’ve clearly also judged and condemned for doing something scummy and unadmirable enough to become the CA’s target before me. His confession, I recall, was all about consciously and deliberately peddling a fentanyl inhalant to doctors and getting them to prescribe it en masse while slowly upping the dose to get people hooked, all the details I read in his confession after Alderson and Greene filled me in on him and I figured out who he was by searching the Carssen drug representatives on LinkedIn.
“And we have no idea who we piss off in the process. I mean, as a sales rep, I was just trying to do right by my family. But for what it’s worth and in a weird way, I feel like I’ve become a better person these days. I’m not saying the wacko is good or anything like that.”
I think of the moniker: theConfession Artist.So, okay, it sticks in my craw to say so, but it appears one person’s life might have been a little enhanced due to this person’s idea of “artistry.” The sliver of relief I experienced from telling Jess barrels full circle back to me.
“I understand. But what made you think that it was that one thing and not something else?”
I almost don’t want to know the answer. The only reason I’m asking, I tell myself, is that it might provide a clue or some connection to the killer. But also niggling at the back of my mind is the other thought—one I’m barely able to consider because it feels like I’m putting my hand on a hot burner when I do.
I want to know how much he shared because it also helps me figure out just how muchIshould if—and it’s still a bigif—I decide to confess.
IfI do, I face a felony conviction. Most likely jail time. And if I don’t, I could be murdered. I could die. My breathing goes shallow just thinking it. My head aches and pounds right along with my heart.
Luckily, he launches into describing his former sales practices, so he doesn’t hear my rapid breathing. He describes throwing the parties, encouraging doctors to prescribe to more than just cancer patients so that they’d broaden their base of users. “I’m not proud of any of it,” he says. “Like I said, I sort of fell into the company ethos at the time. But”—he sighs—“I’m well aware that patients got hurt.”
