But I don’t smile, I don’t wave. With a pressure building in my chest, I hurry away to go watch my sister get back in the game.
Chapter 7
The sound system pumps pop music into the ballroom. Screens flanking the stage flash crime photos: K-9 cadaver dogs sniff their way through fields, yellow police tape cordons off run-down houses, handcuffs shackle random wrists.
Vague news headlines flash in and fade out, too:Man Gunned Down in Alleyway
Teenager Accused of Stabbing Stepmother
Serial Rapist Suspect Arrested After Police Showdown
But the audience is spellbound, attention on their phones.
The latest sketch. And why not? The Confession Artist killings tick all the right sensational boxes, and Americans gobble up the theatrics. Jess was right—what better place to discuss the latest phenom than at CrimeCon?
Conference goers brought it up in the only panel we attended after we arrived this morning, the panel with the Interstate Killer victims’ family members. Jess wanted to go to it. Audience members shed tears under the cruel lights of the seminar rooms, but soon the topic switched to the Confession Artist. One posited that the new killer was after a different type of control.
I rolled my eyes at the obviousness of the statement. Well,of course.Tapping into shame, seeking confessions.Of course.When I was little, my dad told me that guilt was simply a ticket to repeat the things that you’re ashamed of. The thought now almost makes me want to throw up.
Leon strobes through my mind. It’s like this. He comes knocking when I’m least expecting it.
I try to tune the image of him out. I listen to all the whispering around me. Nobody seems to be noticing me, thank goodness. I don’t need to get caught up in my own disturbingBlack Mirrorepisode while attending Jess’s talk. I keep my attention on the crime photos and headlines making the rounds on the screens.Serial Rapist Suspect Arrested After Police Showdownflashes again as if on cue for Jess.
Because that’s the moment she strides onto the stage.
The crowd stills. I’m pleased to see she’s found her old confident gait. It matches the music. Her bobbed, sleek blond hair I helped her curl into beach waves shines.
Jess has striking, large brown eyes and a luminous smile. Her entire aura is genuine, including her friendly, not-too-silky-smooth voice, which is why so many people love her podcast. The ache for the victims she projects is always heartfelt and real.
When the music stops and the clapping dies, Jess faces the audience.
And freezes.
Her face wilts.
The audience waits.
I sit up taller, willing her to glance at me. She knows I’m in the front row, as we planned. As I have been so many other times in her life—sitting in audiences at school plays, at her volleyball games, at her band concerts, when our mom was at work and couldn’t make it, or later, in college, when Mom was too wasted to make it. I’m not sure when that sense of duty started, probably when Dad checked out of our lives. When our stepdad, Les, entered the picture. When Mom took to drinking. And Jess ... she wasn’t just younger than me, she was smaller,more sensitive, more fragile. Prone to huge mood swings as quickly and as frequently as the Montana mountain ridges catch clouds.
It may as well be me up there standing at the podium. She’s not sure if her mouth will work. Humiliation waits in the wings to upend her career even more.Come on, Jess. You’ve got to push through or we’ll both drag ourselves home feeling worse than when we came. If you fail now, so do I. If you break more, I’m implicated further. And neither of those scenarios is good for Sam.
Someone whispers, “What’s going on?”
Another image pops into my head. It’s a clip from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. My mom and Les took us. The clip was Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl. He stood with his hand touching his dark-lensed sunglasses for what felt like an eternity, until finally he whipped them off, and the crowd erupted.
But Jess is not working the crowd. Usually, she shines. Not now.
Come on, Jess.Her forehead glistens with sweat. Her chest rises and falls.
People begin to whisper. I shift in my seat and wave my hand discreetly in front of my chest, trying to catch her eye without too many others noticing.
Jess takes a breath in the microphone, a rasp of air punching abrasively through the anticipation. She glances back offstage as if she wants to flee like a startled doe.
Oh no you don’t.I shoot both hands up to get her attention. She spots me. Our eyes lock. I give one slow nod and mouth, “Talk.”
She stands a little taller and swallows. Her shoulders drop. She whispers one word into the microphone: “Secrets.”
She scans the sea of faces. The crowd exhales.
