“How will you know when that happens?”
They don’t answer because there is no answer.
“It may never pass if they’re set on getting me, or I don’t give them the confession they want. So it doesn’t make any sense. I’m not going tohidesomewhere. I have work.”
I think of Paxton Rhoads, Clarissa’s brother. And my new lucky number—the latest workers’ comp claim I need to keep checking, which involves observing Aaron Lasserio, Ridgeway’s old ranch hand who’s moved to the Flathead. I need to watch him putz around his house and follow him around on his daily routine. Even if I discover nothing more from Lasserio about Clarissa’s case, at least when I deliver that report, I’ll get paid just enough to make my mortgage and utility payments this month and the next. I can’t duck out and do nothing. “The FBI covering my mortgage while I hide out?”
Greene purses her lips like a librarian irritated with loud talkers. A white streak of sunbeam shines in from the kitchen window, lighting up her freckles and exposing wrinkles around her mouth and the pale, tissue-thin hoods of her eyes.
The thought of the killer in the area, stalking me, turns my blood cold, makes my limbs go heavy and numb, but leave my home? Sit back and trust them? I can’t stand the thought of twiddling my thumbs in a safe house. And my finances can’t take the hit, either.
“No,” I say. “Deputy Zane out there, and whichever deputy replaces him when he gets off. That’s all I need.”
“With all due respect to Deputy Zane and the others,” says Greene, “a local deputy might be nothing more than a speed bump for the perpetrator. And when did you last have some training in the field?”
It stings, but she has a point. I don’t answer. A raven caws jarringly from outside, as if to protest or even mock me. I don’t tell them that it’s been a couple of years.
“We’ll have more of a chance of catching this guy if I’m out and about,” I say.
“We’d prefer not to chance that,” Alderson says.
But they give up. There’s no point. They can see it in my face.
“All right,” says Greene. “Let’s look at this list.”
I’ve included everyone I could think of who might be pissed at me for the work I’ve done in law enforcement both with the KPD and on my own. People who became particularly enraged when I arrested them for DUIs or for public disturbances like fighting in the streets. I’ve included the names of several husbands and boyfriends whose houses I was called to on domestic violence calls where the woman went ahead and pressed charges or, at the very least, applied for a restraining order. One guy named Tanner Florenza followed me one evening after work from the station to the Super One grocery store and threatened me out in the parking lot after he received notification of the order. He screamed at me that I’d ruined his life.
I left off Mark Coleman because that would involve revealing what happened to Jess. And Railes. And me.
And I already filled them in on Ridgeway, even though the last thing I need is the FBI snooping around right now, making it harder to get decent information from such hermetically sealed communities.
But I can’t deny the staticky voice of fear in the back of my head whispering,What the hell are you doing? If this is really you, you only have a few days left.
They study my list and listen to my synopses and ask all their questions and take notes on each person.
Greene asks it so casually, out of the blue: “Why did you quit the local force, and what happened with your roommate, Sophie Scott, when you were in college? Sophie was your boyfriend’s sister?”
After all this time, it still stings to hear Sophie’s name uttered in the past tense. And Wallace’s in the same sentence.
“Former boyfriend,” I correct them, but it doesn’t feel good to say it.
“Yeah, well, it seems there was a bit of press about it back then, and obviously, we’re looking for anything that this killer might glom on to.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard about the harassment I underwent in the department?”
“We have.”
“Well, I quit the force because I was tired of the boys’ code, sick of the role I was jammed into, some messed-up combination of victim and pariah.” I don’t want to go into how intense the backlash was.
I don’t need to sound whiny before two federal agents about how taking a stand for what you think is right can end up making you even more of a victim. “As far as my roommate in college goes,” I say, “you’re right—there’s more than enough online.”
“But we’d like to hear it from you, if you don’t mind,” Greene says.
A flash of Sophie and me ducking behind a thick, gnarled log floods my senses: the astringent smell of damp pine, the delicate feel of papery lichen. The cold, wet mud soaking through my jeans.
Alderson and Greene eye me curiously. “You okay?” Alderson says.
When I don’t respond, he adds, “We want to figure out if the killings might have something to do with revenge for abuse of power differentials, some type of harassment or sexual assault. Randal Askens in Snohomish was a coach, and Vonda Loman worked in education, as a counselor. Each was someone with power over kids, someone with influence.”
