“Secrets,” she repeats with more force, “are rarely better kept locked away. Knowledge and truth are powerful tools to begin the healing process.” Her deathly pale face gains some color in the overhead lighting, as if each word fuels her, one at a time, like gasoline. “When someone discovers who killed one of their family members—a child, a sibling, a parent—much ofthe guessing game about the monster in the dark dissipates. And that alone is an incredible relief to loved ones who have suffered deep loss.”
Now that the sunglasses have come off, I realize how tense I am. My neck and shoulder muscles are rock-hard. I’ve considered myself her protector for so long, even though I’ve proved to be a failure.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Jess explains how she’s assisted the police in finding a serial rapist from the 1990s in Salem, Oregon, a case that had gone cold but was revisited after genetic research helped find the Golden State Killer.
My phone nags. I resist pulling it out and studying the picture, afraid I might look uninterested in Jess’s speech and throw off the delicate balance she’s found, but I keep picturing the woman in line doing a double take of me and the others whispering and lifting their chins to me.
The concern in Wallace’s voice also niggles. Wallace is not a worrywart. He’s calm and poised. A performing pianist and a teacher of the instrument. A composer, too, involved in too many musical endeavors for me to list. His suggestion to visit authorities seems like overkill and makes my breath catch, but maybe he’s just being thorough. Careful.
More careful than I ever was. That’s his nature. A perfectionist.
And he’s loyal. He doesn’t fail people, like I did with him. Like I did with Sophie. Like I did with Jess. Like I did with ... No. Not now. I can’t let myself think of him.
I train my eyes on my sister.
I insisted that Jess report the assault after she told me about it, several weeks after it occurred. But she refused. It didn’t matter how much I hounded her about doing it for her own sanity or how much I reminded her that pursuing a legal avenue might prevent him from doing the same to someone else.
She said that she would not destroy what she’s built up by turning the press loose to pursue her during the investigation and eventual trial. She refused to be trapped forever in the public’s mind as a victim, tobe told that she’d been careless, that she’d drunk too much, that she’d been stupid for not keeping a close eye on her drinks in that bar. Or that she’s a liar, an exaggerator, or an opportunist. She knew exactly how it would go.
She insisted that if she reported, her life would come under constant scrutiny, especially among the crime junkies who made up her core audience. She’d become a huge story, since she worked in the cold case and podcasting industry, and since her podcast was focusing more and more on victim advocacy. She’d be accused of all sorts of things: that she made it all up for more press, that she’d do anything to be in the limelight and increase her numbers.Any press is good press,she swore they’d say.
“Think of Sophie,” she said.
Sophie. Hearing her name always feels like an angry bruise is being jabbed.
Sophie.As if I’ve ever stopped thinking about my college roommate.
Jess cited studies on how some crisis centers have ceased recommending to all assault victims that they go to the police, demonstrating that for some, engaging with the criminal justice system only further traumatized them—severely, and for life.
I couldn’t say she was wrong about any of it. I’d been through it all before.
But I truly believed she should get it on the record, even though I knew firsthand that police department bias was strong. Unavoidable, even.
Still, many improvements have been made, and I told her so. And trying to push that progress along was the main reason—the big shining marker in my life—I went into law enforcement, even though it all ended up going terribly wrong.
“Jess,” I had implored. “Things are different than they were ten years ago, when this happened to Sophie. Law enforcement is trained to take it seriously, to treat all victims fairly.” I said this to her knowing that when I was on the force, even something like harassment wasn’t handled all that well.
But this was rape. It was different. The department has an entire dedicated program and physical space in the hospital, theSaneSuite, staffed by a sexual assault examiner to provide care for victims and conduct interviews.
Still, incredibly, my bighearted little sister also didn’t want to ruin Mark Coleman’s life.He needs help, not prison,she said. She was determined to talk to him when she felt ready. To tell him that if he agreed to seek counseling, she would not go to the police.
And now he’s gone, and she’s backsliding.
That part scares the crap out of me. I’ve seen it before, when Sophie became unreachable. And once again, I feel responsible, just as I did back then.
Chapter 8
After Jess finishes her speech, I leave her with a throng of fans and some other conference colleagues, figuring she needs the moment with her admirers, without me.
Thrilled that the presentation went well for her, I find a cluster of comfy chairs to settle into in the corner of an atrium bar on the second level of the convention center–slash–mega hotel.
I take out my phone. More texts from Fiona to call her. And two other college buddies in addition to John—Maggie and Hannah—who, like John, don’t even live in my town, asking if the sketch could be me.
My pulse thrums.Shit, do that many people think I look like this person, or is it spreading like wildfire among my circle because one of them—most likely Fiona—put the word out? Fiona was the biggest social media queen out of all of us in college. Maggie, John, Hannah, and I hardly ever posted in comparison. Whenever we had a great group photo and someone would suggest posting it, John or Hannah would say, “Fiona will do it.”
Fiona came from my hometown of Kalispell and went to my high school, and later to the same university. She was the one who loved the most to feed the slush pile of gossip back in high school and college. She was one of those friends you were never sure you completely trusted but kept in your life anyway because she was still fun and exciting and always up for doing something even if everyone else was bailing on you.
