“Wallace,” I say as calmly as I can muster. I need to get him out of here. “I get you’re trying to help. But I’m exhausted. I need a shower and some sleep. Also, I think it’s best for you to stay away from me for a bit, you know, for your safety.”
“I’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
My anger—and worry—keeps rising.
“I need some space.” I bark it out. “You know, to focus so I can figure this thing out and to be there for Jess, too. It’s not like this has been easy for her, either. As if she hasn’t had enough going on and to have her sister thrown into this mess.”
He gives me a cold, hard stare. His lips whisper something I can’t make out. For a moment, I think he’s said,Fuck you, Crosbie.
“What did you say?” I ask.
He glares at me for a moment. “I said,fine, Crosbie.”
He wheels away with one hand over his shoulder in agitated farewell and storms out the front door.
I let my body fall back against the counter. I suddenly feel heavy, shattered.
Wallace is a good person,I tell myself.
He’s Sophie’s brother. He’s a decent man.
Who amI—the guilty one, the bad one—to get mad at him for asking me what terrible things I’ve done? For asking me for the truth? It’s my pattern. Remorse. Then rage. Then guilt crashing right back in because I don’t like who I am in these moments. Or maybe in any moment at all.
And behind it all, Alderson’s words still ring in my ears:Trust no one.
I lock the house. I check every window. I check the security cameras. Once, twice, three times.
In the bathroom, I turn the water on scalding hot and let it run until the room is thick with steam. I lather up and let the water prick and sting my skin. I will what happened at the dump site to wash down the drain with the suds and try not to feel like Crosbie Mitchell, woman in crosshairs. Failed ex-cop. Bruised from the guilt of not protecting her college roommate. Betrayer of Leon’s trust in the system. The very cause of his suicide. And someone who caved hard when it came time to fall in line with Code Blue because secretly, I was fine with my sister’s attacker being eliminated from the world.
I make myself stand under the water without flinching. I let it sear my skin, desperate that it might burn away all that I hate about myself. When the tears finally come, they’re not just for Sophie and Jess, they’re for Leon.
With cheeks flushed and my skin red and enflamed from the hot water, I throw on a T-shirt and some pj bottoms, pull my hair into a tight bun, and go into my office. I’m exhausted and wired, but fatigue won’t win this battle.
I get to work catching my killer.
First, I pull up the video I took at the storage facility of Lasserio exiting with the backpack and doing a one-eighty. The pack is difficult to see in the distant footage, and when I enlarge it, it’s grainy. I send the video to Clarissa’s brother, Paxton, asking him if he recognizes the pack. It’s late, so I don’t expect an answer right away.
I switch gears and find pictures of the previous Confession Artist victims and tape them to my office wall. I find as many family members and friends of the victims as possible from their Facebook and Instagram interactions and write all their names down. I print out all the articles I can locate related to Randal Askens’s high school and Vonda Loman’s community college, as well as everything I can find related to Askens and Loman on a personal level. There’s not much of the latter beyond some address listingsand divorce announcements on both. That’s something, I guess. Besides working in education, divorce is another thing they have in common.
I study my prior list titled “Commonalities” and write downOccupation: Field of EducationandDivorces.West Coastas residency. I cross-reference their lists of family members and friends to see if there’s any crossover.
No such luck.
I start another spreadsheet with the four of us.
Yes,us.I write my own name out in full at the top of one column, pretending I’m a dispassionate investigator, not someone desperately working to manage their own fate.
It’s a queasy feeling, lumping myself in with the victims or would-be victims.
UnderLoman, I writeCounselor, college students.
UnderAskens—Coach, high schoolers.
UnderUnnamed survivor—Pharma sales rep.
UnderCrosbie Mitchell—Ex–police officer, PI.
I study the articles, looking to highlight the ones that contain something at least a little scandalous.
