Lord knows one developed in me.
But no. No way. Jess would never be involved in these murders. There has to be an explanation. “Then why do you have so much personal information—information that you haven’t bothered to share with me or Alderson and Greene—on a boy whose coach was the target of a serial killer who is now stalking me?”
She sighs loudly. “Okay, look, I met his sister, Vivian, at FVCC in the late winter,” she says. “I gave a presentation on DNA analysis to one of her biology classes. After the class, she came up to me to tell me she was a fan of my podcast. We got to chatting, and she started telling me about what happened to her brother.”
“And so?” I fold my arms across my chest.
“Initially,” Jess says, “Vivian didn’t tell anyone about what happened to Ryan because he’d asked her not to, but eventually she shared it with her family, thinking they might hold the school accountable. But the parents decided not to do anything because they didn’t want to create a scandal and to tarnish Ryan’s name even more when they were already in deep grief over his suicide. Months later, Vivian decided she no longer wanted to keep it a secret, that she wanted to expose it all. She wondered if I’d do a show or a series on hazing that’s not really hazing, but physical abuse and sexual assault. She wanted to shed light on it all, even though she knows her parents don’t want to drag Ryan’s name through the mud.”
I knew there had to be an explanation. And it makes sense, but still, it’s all too crazily coincidental and too close for comfort.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I’d look into it. And I did. Those were my notes.”
“Why haven’t you told me about this connection to the case? Why haven’t you told anyone about it?”
Her face is pained, like she might cry, but she quickly shuts it off. She lifts her chin and stands taller. “I’m sorry. I don’t have time for this right now. I need to get Sam.”
“Jess,” I say as calmly as I can muster. “My life is at stake here. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Vivian is fragile,” she says. “She’s a kid who’s lost her brother and she feels responsible. I didn’t want to sic the cops on her. I don’t think she could handle it. I called her to ask her if she was okay with me telling law enforcement and she said she’d think about it.”
I stare at Jess in disbelief. In some ways, she’s echoing the very thing I thought about her—that she couldn’t handle Alderson and Greene breathing down her neck. And yet, still, it’s unconscionable that she’d keep this from me. “But what if she’s the one? The one you and I are hunting down?”
“That’s exactly it.” She says this with venom. “She’s not. There’s no frickin’ way she has anything to do with these crazy killings. It’s coincidental and there’s no way I’m unleashing the cops on her without her permission. You don’t understand, Crosbie.”
“Don’t understand what?”
“You don’t get it, being on the other side of things. Being in law enforcement.”
“And that’s supposed to mean I can’t understand someone’s pain? That I’m a bully?”
“Forget it. Look, she promised me she’d let me know by the end of today. And I don’t want you to tell them, either, until I hear back from her, okay?”
“I’m not promising that.”
She stares at me with loathing, her chest heaving. “I have to go.” She rushes past me to her car, hops in, and backs out without glancing my way.
I’m reeling. The seething in Jess’s eyes rocks me to my core. I stay on the curb, my feet frozen in place as I watch her drive off.Isit just anger? Or is it hatred, too? Does my own sisterhateme? And why now? Does it boil down to the stress of this crazy situation?
Ever since Mark Coleman, it’s like something has crawled in and rotted in the crawlspace under a floor Jess and I share. I decide she’s not talking about my job. I decide my own guilt is making me so crazy I can’t even read her clearly anymore. What she probably wants to say is that I can’t understand because it wasn’t me who was raped, that I can’t possibly get it. She has a point that I can’t fully comprehend, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy.
Who does she think I am?
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe she’s simply picking up on what I’ve been doing with myself all these months ... Soaking up and mimicking my own self-hatred, not so unlike Sam when he gets whiny and needy, sodden with his mother’s anxiety.
But it makes me wonder what my own sister actually thinks of me. All this time, I’ve been trying to protect her. Help her. Be a sort of big-sister shield for some of the worst, unexpected moments the world throws down. And Lord knows we’ve had a boatload of those, from Dad’s illness and passing to Mom’s sudden crash, to Coleman. But maybe she resents me. Maybe she hates me for it.
I put the bucket back in Jess’s garage and my mind turns to her office. I wasn’t snooping before, but now that’s exactly what I plan to do. Part of me is terrified I’ll find something on Vonda Loman, too, but the other part of me believes Randal Askens is a coincidence. All sorts of correlations crop up when you live in smaller communities. There’s a saying I’ve heard applied to both Montana and Wyoming, that each state is a small town with very long streets.
I’m relieved when I don’t find any notes on Loman. I’m also calmed when I go through a bin full of her latest artwork—most colorful watercolors. The sketches in the bin are all of fishing boats or canoes out on still lake water, red and orange kayaks stacked by docks, peoplefly-fishing on rocky riverbanks with sunsets blazing over the distant hills or through background trees. There’s not one single sketch or portrait.
I walk out of her office reassured but confused. And deeply bothered. It especially stings, given how I’m always putting her first, that Jess didn’t think my life being at stake outweighed her need to protect Vivian.
Chapter 39
I rush home, rattling Deputy Zane with my speed until he realizes it’s me, to grab a pair of lock cutters and my firewood axe. Within minutes, I’m back at the sketchy storage business south of Kalispell. I want to get there before Lasserio finishes his Wednesday afternoon poker. I’m hoping he didn’t return this morning to retrieve the backpack.
