“Has this Texas woman confessed anything?” My own guilt and the fact that I have zero desire—or intention—of confessing anything make me feel like something rises up and lodges in my throat. Like shards of my own conscience. I swallow it down.
Greene shakes her head. “But she’s thinking of doing an interview with the press to generate a bunch of interest in her, hoping that if more people are aware of her out in the world, she’ll be more protected. Swamped by reporters and such.”
I cringe. Who in their right mind would want that? I think of the media spectacle it will create and how it will change her life, how people will always consider her the CA’s potential victim from here on out, how it will inevitably draw the attention of other stalkers and online bullies.
One of my first cases as a PI was with a twenty-three-year-old woman in the Flathead who’d become the target of an online bullying campaign for no other reason than her success. She’d grown up gaming and become a bit of a sensation on Twitch. Simply becoming popular among gamers made her the subject of online harassment. A handful of gamers began coordinating attacks, creating countless new accounts with fake names acrossmultiple platforms with the sole purpose of making her life miserable. They issued death threats and harassed family members. I didn’t have the means to ID and monitor those stalkers making the most violent intimidations, so I contacted the local FBI, and eventually, they shut the key accounts down.
As far as I know, no one has posted anything about me on social media. My friends have only texted or DMed me or each other since the sketch came out. Fiona mentioned on her Facebook account that she has a friend who resembles the sketch, but even she has enough sense, perhaps because of my warnings to her, to not tag me or mention my name.
Greene notes the sour expression on my face. “Going public isn’t an entirely horrible idea, Crosbie. Like I said, it’s more difficult for a stalker or a killer to strike if everywhere you go, a certain number of people can ID you.”
At the suggestion, something hot shoots through me, like the sun is suddenly burning ten times hotter directly over my head. For one tiny second, I had considered appeasing whoever is up to this crazy cat-and-mouse game of shame. It’d be fresh, gleaming meat for the press. But of course, if I confessed, there’d be consequences. Serious ones.
For me. For Railes. For Ewing, maybe, too.
But it’s not only the consequences. It’s the shame, red hot as a flame, searing me to my core. I can’t bear the thought of the public knowing me that way. Of Jess, Wallace, Fiona, Hannah, Mark, Allison, my stepdad ... everyone in the police force. Of the community and the world. The friendly guy—what’s his name, Mr. Tyson—at the bakery in Columbia Falls. Joan at the county library. Dr. Jones at the Women’s Health Clinic. Dr. Ammera at the dentist’s office, Mr. Dahlton, my favorite teacher in high school ...
And I’d have no work. How would I make a living?
But as always, I swing back to Jess. How would she take it when she wanted closure so badly and I helped rip it away from her? Would she ever forgive me?
Not just my future, but my relationship with my sister and Sam dries up like dead leaves right before my eyes. I see the debris of themsweep away in the wind in flurries. It makes me dizzy, like the walls of my kitchen are swaying around me like a ship in a storm.
I wonder briefly what the Texas woman might have to confess, but I don’t ask. I’ve been seeing enough already online to make my head spin.
But even if I wanted to confess, I have Jess to think about. We would become victims for life even if I didn’t end up being the CA’s intended target. The media would skin us alive. They would uproot and scrutinize every incident in our lives beyond my deplorable decision to protect Billy Railes.
I can’t fathom putting Jess through the viciousness of the press after everything she’s endured, especially since one of the main reasons she refused to report Mark Coleman in the first place was to avoid their savage bites. She watched me go through it with Sophie years before, when social media wasn’t half the beast it is today. And I was a nobody. Thanks to her rising career in podcasting, she’s a much more prominent figure than I’ll ever be.
“And you think that’s wise for the woman in Texas to do that?” I look to both my FBI protectors.
“Can’t deny she’ll be surrounded by reporters,” Alderson offers. “They’ll post up right outside her front door for a while—and while they’re there, it would make it more difficult for the son of a bitch to grab her. Plus, if she confesses something, he claims he’ll leave her be.”
“But you don’t even think it’s her, do you?”
They both stare at me, not answering, eyes searching.
“Because of the earrings?” I say.
“We think we need to take this very seriously with everyone and anyone who could be the target,” he says.
“But honestly. Do you think it’s wise for this woman to go to the press? For me to do the same?” I can’t fathom the thought.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time,” Greene says, “the press makes our job harder. But we don’t know. She could be safer with the spotlight on her. For you, though, we have a different idea.” She pauses, letting that sink in. “And it involves some information we want to share with you. So please, can we have that seat now?”
Chapter 22
Vivian
Vivian came home from class to a sour smell in her apartment. She leaned over the sink to take a whiff of the garbage disposal and checked the trash bin. She couldn’t identify the culprit, so she did the easy thing and tied up the bag and took it out to the dumpster behind her complex.
The sky was an enchanted blue, but Vivian didn’t feel magical. She felt numb. In fact, she’d just been in a second-year psych class at her community college in Kalispell—five hundred miles from her hometown of Snohomish, from her mom and dad—and had learned a new phrase:absence of affect. It’s what therapists call someone who is devoid of emotion or even understanding, usually in response to trauma.
It had been almost a year, but she still felt the urge to text Ryan right there and explain the phrase to him. Ryan liked it when she shared new tidbits. It had become a habit of hers in the early months when she’d gone away to northwest Montana to live, ski, and attend the community college.
Ryan was always the brains in the family. He was three years younger. He asked questions about things on her mind, even silly stuff. He never teased her about them, even the stupidest stray thoughts.
One time when she was in middle school and he was still in elementary, she asked him why a glass of ice water doesn’t overflow when the cubes melt. He’d smiled kindly and explained how iceexpands and is made up of mostly air, so it doesn’t change the volume. It simply displaces water.
