I make up my mind: I’m going to confess, and I’m going to do it thoroughly whether I’m the target of the real CA or someone like Ridgeway copping in on his game. Damn the consequences. It’s time I pay the price.
At first, the thoughts just feel like words running in my head, like something I won’t actually do. Of course I know, and feel, how awful what I did was. But sometimes I can detach, can be outside myself looking in. Like one part of me—the side that did such an awful thing—is on one side of a window, and the other, larger part who saw myself above such terrible acts—observes that awful part of me through a thick pane of glass. It’s the only way to cope.
I feel that now, like I’m watching myself—blurry and unreal—through a window. Observing myself in the waiting area trying to decide how to proceed.
But I tell myself there’s only one me, and that me needs to make myself do the right thing, make the words—I’m going to confess—real. If not for myself, then for everyone around me.
“You need to bring Lasserio in for questioning,” I stress to Alderson and Greene in whispers. “You need to focus on Ridgeway more.” I tell them I showed Paxton the video Ray sent me, and he confirmed it was his sister’s pack. I don’t share with them it’s in my trunk at this very moment.
Alderson takes notes. Greene looks at me, wondering what else I’m holding back. “What would they want from your house?” she asks.
“I’m not sure,” I lie.
“Okay,” she says. “We’ll get Lasserio in for questioning. You know, a safe house—”
I stop her with a firm head shake. Not a chance.
“Go home and get some sleep, then. You look exhausted.”
“Little tough to sleep these days.”
“We’ll have someone else posted at your drive, and we’ll make sure to have some eyes on the other road, Dillon Road, behind your place where the shooter probably came in from.”
I think of how Jeremy hoofed it across that field and feel angry they didn’t already post someone there, too. Maybe if they had, Zane wouldn’t be in the ICU.
But I know it’s easier to be mad at them than to face my own looming guilt list. I force myself to face it and think of the pack in my trunk. Alderson and Greene turn to go.
I stand alone in the center of the hall, watching them walk away. Alderson broad and tall. Greene shorter and lithe. Their steps echo on the bare floor like the fibs pulsing in my mind. These fibs. All these little fibs. And the huge ones, too.
I hear Zane’s lung wheezing in my ear.
I need to stop. They’re almost to the elevator at the end of the corridor. Two frickin’ federal agents trying to help me. And what do I do? I lie to them, even with Zane fighting for his life. Even after I’ve decided I’ll confess. Even when I’m going to have to face major consequences. So what if I add a stolen backpack to the list. How does it make an ounce of sense to keep that one back when I’m going to fess up to the big stuff?
“Wait,” I say.
They don’t hear me and keep walking.
“Wait,” I say louder.
They both turn.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I have the pack from the video I sent you. Once I get it to a friend of mine at the crime lab, I’ll have it confirmed that Clarissa’s prints are all over it. Plus, there’s a water bottle in it if we need her DNA.”
“How do you have the pack?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Jesus, Crosbie. You broke into Lasserio’s shed?”
“I knew the chances of you getting a warrant were slim, and even if you got one, he would have taken it by now. I’m guessing he was searching for it at my place and that’s how Deputy Zane got shot.”
Greene and Alderson share their unspoken partner glance.
“And in the pack,” I say, “are dark drafting pencils and a sketchbook with the Ridgeway Ranch watermark on it.”
