Jess sits on the couch, her eyes still stretched wide by fear and nerves. I see she’s chewed her cuticles and her usually neat nails are bitten to the quicks.Runs in the family ...
Seeing her like this, wrenched into the same bristling bundle of fear and pain I saw her in the night she relived the rape when she finally toldme about what Coleman did to her, lifts a surge of bile up my throat. I swallow it back and say, “I’m going to get you some water.”
In the kitchen, it’s all I can do not to kick the bottom of the fridge. I can’t afford to act out like a child, but what am I supposed to do with this rage—and my conscience—ballooning inside me? My eyes burn with it, but I need to keep my shit together, for Jess’s sake, for Sam’s sake.
How could this nightmare now involve them? I squeeze my fists so tightly that even my short, clipped nails leave half-moon imprints in my palms. I take a deep breath and grab a glass, run the tap, and wait for it to get ice cold. Jess hates tepid water. I can hear Mom’s orders to this day, to not forget to put ice in Jess’s water glass.
Standing with my index finger under the stream, I face myself down:Whatisyour plan, Crosbie?
Maybe Jess is right. Maybe this is pure self-deception, acting like I know what I’m doing.
There’s a ping from my phone. My security app is picking up movement. I pull up the screen and see Greene on my front lawn. It’s Alderson I choose to call, but Alderson walks into the camera’s view and holds out his phone to Greene.
“Alderson’s talking with one of our techs right now,” Greene says. “We’re at your place to examine your car.”
“I see that. Smile for the camera.”
She turns and glares up at the one set above my front porch. “Where are you?”
When I tell her about Jess’s windshield, she says, “Stay there. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right over.”
Jess is scrolling on her phone screen when I go back into the living room.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
“Too late,” she says flatly. “Here.” She shoves her phone at me.
I take it with a sigh. The speed of news is staggering. There’s a video of me and my car racing by that pack of reporters and Deputy Zane going viral on TikTok.Oh, good:It shows the graffiti ofIt’s Youscrawled on my car.
I shake my head and hand her phone back. “Whatever,” I say. “Trust me on this one, Jess. Turn off your notifications or you’ll drive yourself crazy.”
Her skin has taken on an unnatural pallor. She takes a sip of water. Her hand quakes.
When she places the water back on the coffee table, I say, “Do you know if your neighbors have any security systems or cameras?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Anyone usually home now?”
“I’m not sure, but I think Mr. Johnston goes to work a little later in the day.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a manager at one of the restaurants in Whitefish.”
“Which house?”
“Two houses to the left on the other side of the street.”
“I’m going over. Do you have a hat I can borrow?”
Jess digs in the front hall closet, finds a baseball cap promoting a local ice cream shop. I grab it from her and open the front door and run smack into Wallace.
“Oh,” I say, confused to see him at my sister’s house. The small flame of worry I’ve been feeling since seeing him with my gun in his hands erupts into a larger fire.
“And hello to you, too,” he says, extending his arms to give me one of his overbearing hugs.
I take a step back and stare at him with an obvious question written across my face:What are you doing here?
