“Randy knew him?”
She goes silent. Finally, she says, “Ryan was a JV player. Randy often worked with and supervised the JV team. But don’t you worry, Ellen. Your brother was nothing but a good coach and a good friend to all the boys.”
“Of course,” I say, thinking that response is oddly defensive. But that might stem from all the press that’s been hounding the school, looking for reasons for a killer to target him, as Linda at my soon-to-be ex-client’s firm was doing with me.
“Look, I should get back to work now. If you need to talk more, you can call anytime,” she says sweetly.
I stare at my phone, swiping away all the announcements that I can tell involve me. I see blips of the headlines with the wordsConfession Artist,Sketch,Victim Revealed, and, last:Crosbie Mitchell and Her Traumatic Past.
Ughh.
I focus on Ryan Petronis’s social media. Photos and comments reveal he was involved in science club, enjoyed chess, played trumpet in the band. An interesting, curious, creative kid. I can’t find anything that mentions Askens’s name in relation to Ryan, but the tingle in my spine tells me to not give up.
I addRyan Petronis’s suicideunder Askens’s column. There are few high schools in America that aren’t experiencing an alarming number of suicides, so it seems unlikely that this is the link. Nonetheless I jot downOther suicidesand add the names of two students who have taken their lives at both Askens’s high school and one at Loman’s community college.
I also list the ones from my orbit: Greer Mathews, a kid who shot himself in the basement of his parents’ home, a case I was called to while on patrol with the force. And a few years earlier, Sienna Peterson, a high school senior who crashed her car into a rock divider. I was first on the scene for that one, too. Sienna had sent a text to a friend saying she’d decided to take her life in that precise manner.
And ... Leon. The unintended, unexpected fatality stemming from Coleman’s death.
I can barely summon the courage to even think about it. It’s too devastating. Too raw. I don’t think even time will ever distance me from the crushing pain of knowing I had a hand in it.
A friend found Leon hanging from a beam in his basement apartment. Ewing handled the scene because, clearly, it would have been a conflict of interest for either Railes or me to be called in if we’d even been on duty and in the area, so I was not involved. Though of course I tormented myself then—and not a day goes by that I don’t still—with the thought that I very much was.
I write Leon’s name under my column. I find that Leon Spencer’s mom died when he was seven and he was left with his dad, a guy named Burt Spencer, who liked his booze—a detail I had already gleaned after Leon hanged himself and I tried to figure out if there was going to be a service. When I checked, the guilt crushing me so heavily that I wasn’t even sure I had it in me to attend, I was selfishly relieved to see that there was no service open to the public. That, if there was anything at all, it was private. There was nothing in the local paper about it other than the mention of a young male adult dying by suicide. But at the time, I gathered from my search that his father, Burt Spencer, had accrued two DUIs.
I don’t let myself wonder about what kind of life Leon had very often. It’s too painful. My throat constricts like it’s gathering in and molding all my mistakes into a hard, twisted ball of barbed wire.
And now, I don’t have a second longer to think on it either because my phone buzzes.
It’s Jess.
“Oh my God, Cros. You have to get over here.”
I begin to remind her that I don’t want to draw attention to her place, to her, to Sam, but I stop. Dread tightens my stomach. She sounds frantic. “What is it?” I ask. “Is the media harassing you?”
“No. But someone’s been here.”
My insides go cold. “Who’s been there?”
“Someone’s written something on my windshield.”
Chapter 34
There are already days when I’m finding it hard to live with myself, but what if something happens to Jess or Sam?
“Come on,come on,” I implore the Subaru in front of me, panic clustering up high in my chest.
My hands shake on the wheel.
The highway center strip turns from solid to dashes. I throw on the blinker, slam on the gas, and whip around three cars as a pickup barrels toward me. The driver is enormous, hairy as a Sasquatch. Not a good day for him to play chicken with me. He slams on the brakes, and I knife back into my lane, leaving his horn blaring in outrage.
When I get to Jess’s, she’s outside sitting on her front step. Even from a distance, she looks pale and stricken. She runs toward the driveway as I pull in next to her sky-blue Subaru Outback. I can see that there’s white text on her windshield.
When I step out, Jess is already there, in my arms, grabbing me. I hug her back, her body frail and rigid against mine. Whatever life the Dallas event instilled in her has all drained away. She feels like a twig that might snap if I squeeze her too hard.
I look over her shoulder to her car again and try to make out the lettering, but I still can’t see it clearly. I pull her away from me and go have a look.
Across the windshield is scrawledYour Next.
