I put them behind my head again. Allison is good with a gun. I’m not about to tempt her. A head shot would be easy for her. And here I stand with shaking knees right before her.
“The others.” Her voice hisses, filled with wrath. “I haven’t cared about seeing their faces, but yours, yours I want to see. I thought you had courage.”
It’s so spot-on my breath catches. This woman is going to shoot me. “I’ve already confessed,” I blurt out.
“Don’t outrightlie, Crosbie,again.”
“I did. There’s an article that’s going to drop in a few hours. I didn’t want to just throw it out on social media. I wanted to be more respectful, thorough, like Tim Mooney. I wanted it to be complete—for you, for Jess, because I thought that’s what you, the Confession Artist, wanted. Something complete.”
I take a gulp of cold air but my lungs will barely let it in. Shame, fear, and even exhaustion crowd my chest. And deep, deep sorrow for this entire fucked-up mission Allison has embarked on—all of it born the day Railes shot Coleman and I didn’t back Leon. I have no idea yet how Allison is connected to all the other victims, but I do understand that I could cry for a year straight, day and night, week after week, month after month, and it wouldn’t be enough.
“It’s my full apology to you,” I say. “To Leon. The public was correct in naming you. You’re the Confession Artist. It works.”
I figure a little flattery might go over well.
“What you’ve accomplished is powerful,” I say. “The people close to the victims can begin to heal.”
Allison doesn’t buy it. Or hasn’t heard a word.
“Allison.” I shake my head. “I feel so guilty for how I handled things with Railes, but you, sketching people? Really? Standing here now in the woods beside my sister’s house, andSam? Bringinghiminto this?”
Sam—my nephew. The irony isn’t lost on me. I dip my head to the barrel. “Think of how this will affect Jess.”
“I can’t think about that,” she says.
“But killing people?”
“Railes did it. And you helped him get away with it. Why should you care what other scumbags I’ve also taken care of?”
“I wish with every fiber of my being that I told the investigator Coleman didn’t have a knife, especially after I found out what happened to Leon. I had no idea he’d take ...”
Again, I can’t say it out loud. The weight of what I did is too much for me to bear. A part of me feels this is what I deserve. That Allison,standing here with her bleach-blond hair luminescent in the dawn, is an angel sent to make me pay. There’s almost something I crave in it, like drinking bitter lemon water. I feel as though I’m outside of myself, something bigger than me pushing my body right toward it all.
I wonder if this is what Randal Askens and Vonda Loman felt, too.
The woods press in around me. The trees, the air, the dirt under my feet, the sky above, the mountains rearing up rock solid in the distance—none of it cares about me. About Allison. About her state of mind. About my cowardice. The universe doesn’t care whether we live or die. Whether I live or die.
So why do I?
Jess. Sam.It all swings back to them, the only family I have. They’re my anchor.
I can’t just lie down out here for her and let her kill me.
A new surge of adrenaline jolts through me. I don’t want to die like Randal and Vonda. I want to fight for my life. I want to dart off through the woods. But she’s a good shot, and she knows I’m wearing Kevlar from my interaction with Sam earlier. I force myself to stay still, my heart a mallet against my chest.
“Even Jess got me a card months later when she heard about my loss,” she says.
At the mention of my sister’s name, acid coats the back of my throat.
I had no idea Jess even knew that Allison lost the nephew she was raising. I was so preoccupied with what I had done, with Jess and the rape, with looking out for Sam. And later, no one, including Jess, ever mentioned that Allison lost Leon.
But yes, when I think back to it—to that nightmarish whirlwind of a week—I was mired in my own dishonesty and shame, my own shock at what went down with Railes. It barely registered that Allison was away the week Railes shot Coleman, but I vaguely remember she was on vacation, because I had wanted to talk to her—the one person who might provide some comfort even if I would never have come clean to her—but she wasn’t there.
I was so preoccupied, I didn’t bother to reach out to her when she returned because I had quit while she was away. From then on, I put my head down, kept to myself, let week after week, month after month, slip by without contacting any friends at all. I didn’t reach out to her until much later.
But Jess ...? The information I found on Jess’s desk about Ryan Petronis and his sister, Vivian ...?
And there’s all the time Allison has spent with Jess for the past four to five months. Had Allison planned this since then? Just used Jess to get closer to both of us?
