Chapter 3
Six Days
The thunderheads scale the peaks, billowing and rising above them like great white fuming beasts. Now they’ve spread over the valley, their undersides turning shades of deep gray and purple.
From my kitchen window, I watch the tree branches whip this way and that like they’re possessed dancers. Lightning flashes. Thunder explodes.
Within seconds, Jess calls. She’s frantic because the power has been knocked out on the east side, where she and Sam live.
I’ve been dreading this day for two weeks, since I returned from Choteau. I’ve already spoken to her several times this morning and planned on going over to check on her and Sam later this evening anyway. But now I rush over earlier, braving the storm.
It’s walloping the rest of the valley with a good dose of howling wind, rain, and hail as I race south, past window, flooring, and furniture businesses servicing the construction boon in the valley.
The wind splatters pea-size hail and quarter-size raindrops against my windshield.
My wipers beat feverishly against the stabbing drops to swipe it all away, watery streaks smearing across the glass and silvery pearls clustering below the blades.
I turn the radio up, way up, to drown out the vicious onslaught.
“A new sketch from the killer, now known as the Confession Artist, has come out after six and a half weeks of no new sketches,” announces the male newscaster with a honey-smooth voice against the roaring ferocity.
“. . . same demand, to confess in six days or die. The search for the person behind the killings continues to intensify . . .”
A new sketch? Awful. And somewhere in the mess of this ugly thing that’s captured the nation’s interest, the killer has earned a moniker. The Confession Artist?
As if there’s some Leonardo da Vinci act of genius going on. I roll my eyes.
The newscaster is now interviewing someone who says, “Everyone has been anticipating—practically demanding—a murder since the third sketch came out, like some high-octane reality TV episode. Only it’s not TV.
It’s real life. But when no one turned up dead after the six days with the third, we all wondered if maybe it had all stopped. But now we have a fourth.”
I turn the radio off. I don’t need news or hype right now.
Not this day—the one-year anniversary of that dreadful night.
Other than the Ridgeway case and the fact that Graham Insurance did come through and I’ve spent the past week and a half surveilling Lasserio, there’s only one other thing on my mind.
Jess.
Always Jess. And Sam. It’s not that she’s not a capable woman and mother. She is. Very. She’s even benefited greatly from the true crime craze because of her work in genetic research at Rotical.
For several years now, she’s hosted a popular podcast called The Search, which covers the recent rise of genetic genealogy and outlines many of the cold cases solved by it when relatives of the killer or rapist have added their genetic information to genealogy databases now mined by law enforcement.
She’s not only discovered her life’s passion but turned her skills into a gold mine.
There was even talk at one point of transforming her podcast into a TV show on one of the streaming platforms, a true crime investigative series that would delineate how she’s helped detectives solve cold cases—cases shelved because no matches were found in the criminal databases set up at the time.
It used to be that DNA could solve a case only if it matched the genetic profile of someone in a criminal database or an existing suspect on record.
Now a skilled genetic genealogist like Jess can often take an unknown DNA profile that has no hits in traditional searches and connect a name to it.
But that was well over a year ago, before Jess went to the Silvertip, before she hooked up with Coleman. Now she hasn’t recorded a new show in months.
But there is a bright spot. She’s due to give a talk at a conference in Dallas, CrimeCon, tomorrow.
She agreed to the speaking engagement just one month after the rape, when she was starting some baby steps to get back on track—agreeing to see a counselor, trying to get her routine back, doing more fun things with Sam again.
Before, that is, I screwed things up for her and she got even more depressed, refused to make an appointment with a counselor, quit smiling and laughing.
When we’d take Sam to the park to play, she’d sit there and watch us like a zombie, like she was only going through the motions.
She’s become jumpy, and she’s not sleeping well, either, and when she does, it’s at odd hours of the day that are not great for Sam.
All these months, I’ve been holding my breath that the conference is the one thing she won’t cancel, and so far, so good. It’s one small step in her getting her life a little more back on track.
She has Patrick, Sam’s dad, lined up to take Sam while she’s away even though Patrick’s usually about as dependable as calling a cat to you when you need it.
He disappoints Sam a lot. Says he’s going to show up but cancels on him at the last minute.
When he does show, he’s usually forty-five minutes late.
It breaks my heart watching Sam wait by the window.
But sometimes Patrick comes through when he hasn’t seen his boy in a while, and so far, he’s still planning on grabbing him later this evening. I already called him earlier and warned him not to be late.
But now, the storm. Normally, Jess wouldn’t be bothered by her electricity going out, but these days, she’s overwhelmed with the smallest of things. The power going out is like the universe reminding her that things go all wrong in the blink of an eye.
My tires fight deep puddles collecting on the uneven surfaces of the highway. Please, please don’t let it affect flights out in the morning. I think of Sam and hope he isn’t picking up on his mother’s unraveling.
When I pull up to her house, it’s six. To my relief, the rain has stopped, and a perky blue reclaims the sky above our valley like some grand master has flipped a switch.
Bruised clouds cluster above the mountains to the east. This far north in Montana, even in late August, the sun doesn’t go down until around eight thirty, so even with the power out, Jess and Sam won’t be in the dark.
I enter straight into the main room to find Sam playing on the floor, where he’s resurrected his bin of colorful plastic dinosaur figurines from his younger years.
He’s making soft growling and gnashing sounds.
Relief washes over me that he’s not running over to me stressed out and anxious like he sometimes gets when he’s soaking up my sister’s moods.
I take my raincoat off and hang it on the coatrack.
He’s so deep in concentration, he doesn’t even look up when I say, “Hey, kiddo.”
I walk over and give him a kiss on the head, his silky blond hair tickling my chin. He barely notices me. Hating to break his focus, I slide quietly into the kitchen.
Jess has taken out several pans, but she’s not cooking. She’s pacing. The pans sit untouched on the counter beside a bundle of broccoli, fresh garlic, a package of rice, and chicken still wrapped in its package.
“Hey,” I say.
“What am I supposed to do with this raw chicken with no electricity?”
Her voice is too high, like she’s on the brink of crying.
I hit the light switch to double-check that the electricity is still out, then grab the package of chicken off the counter. “It’s fine,” I say.
“It’s not fine. Sam needs to eat.”
“We’ll get him something else, but I’m sure the power will be on in no time. I’m going to put this back in the fridge. It’ll stay cold for a while if we keep it shut.”
She shakes her head, a frantic twitch, like she doesn’t believe anything will ever work right again. I think of how that one night has created a deep chasm between her and everyone else. The pit in my stomach grows. I hate seeing her this way.
“Why don’t you go hang with Sam and I’ll figure out something for dinner that doesn’t need the stove.” I put the package in the fridge.
“But I want to cook for him,” she says. “He had pizza last night. We’re supposed to have something healthy tonight. We’re supposed to have chicken, rice, and—”
Right as she’s about to add broccoli, the hum of the fridge begins and the light on the stove pops back on.
“Excellent,” I say. I’m also about to say, See, things will be okay, but I don’t want to set her off by sounding patronizing. I step up to the counter to start cooking.
“No,” she protests. “I’ve got it.” She puts the pan on the stove and grabs the olive oil. “Just go hang with Sam.”
Her blond hair is pulled loosely into a messy ponytail.
Dark smudges lie under her eyes, and the flesh of her cheeks is hollowed out, her cheekbones chiseled sharp.
For months now, I’ve been able to feel her thrumming with her own agony—a deep, tormented vibration that permeates the whole house.
And usually, I’m overcome with a strong urge to whisk Sam away, to bring him home with me just to get him away from it all for the night, but then I wonder if my own cantankerousness would be an improvement in setting the mood for a child.
“What?” she says. “Crosbie, it’s fine. Just go hang with Sam.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she says. “I want to cook.”
“But don’t you need to pack?”
“I’m not sure I’m even going.”
And here it is. What I’ve been expecting for months now. But I let the comment slide. It’s the stress of the moment. She’s not serious. She wouldn’t cancel this last minute.
“Cros,” she says. “Just please check on Sam.”
When I go back into the living room, he’s still deep in his imaginary world. I slide over to the couch.
Finally, Sam looks up at me, smiles, and comes barreling onto the couch next to me, a stegosaurus in one hand, a bigger T. rex in the other.
“Hey, bud.” I give him a big squeeze. “I see you’ve got your old dinos out.”
“Yep.” He folds his knees before him, then returns to his play, gnashing the T. rex and the stegosaurus together like chips of flint.
I sit and watch. Wishing I could escape into an imaginary world like that, flee from the tornado of guilt constantly snatching away my most peaceful moments like they’re unsecured mobile homes. Or to simply wake up each day and not feel a cloak of shame pressing down on me.
I fidget. I have a bad nervous habit of using my forefinger to pick at the skin around the thumb on the same hand.
I’m doing that now. To stop myself, I grab a clothing catalog off the coffee table and mindlessly page through it.
I pause on one of the models, who’s wearing an earth-toned poncho over some effortlessly worn jeans, to admire her look.
She has a natural air, her face free of worry.
Sam stops his playing and points his stegosaurus at her. “Aunt Crosbie.” Except he says Cwasbie since he’s still having a little trouble with his r’s. “You?”
“Me?” I tilt my head and study her. Like me, she’s got dark hair, hazel eyes, and she seems tall, but does she really look like me? I hadn’t thought so. I was admiring her whole vibe, just like I was admiring Sam’s play. “No, honey. It’s not. You think she looks like me?”
He nods enthusiastically before hopping down, returning to his other dinos on the floor. He resumes smashing them together, roaring and snarling louder now, like violence—and I might add, dino porn—is the most natural thing on earth.
In this moment, I have no idea this tiny interaction is an omen of sorts. That it’s preparing me for a terrifying absurdity about to come down the pike, and that realistically, I’m not a great judge of who resembles me and who doesn’t.