Chapter 6
Five Days
I’m in need of caffeine and Jess informs me that she needs alone time to get her bearings before her talk, so I seize the opportunity.
Now it’s late afternoon and she’s due to speak in fifteen minutes. She’s nervous and frazzled, but I reassure her she’ll be fine, that she’s done this dozens of times before.
After swearing that I’ll return by the time she goes onstage, I leave the ballroom and walk through the broad conference halls toward the main lobby.
It hums with the participants’ energy, united in the questionable faith that tragedy and violence can be tamed with observation and exposure, like a great cat in a zoo.
It’s my first time at one of these conventions. And probably my last since Jess is the only reason I’ve come.
The fact is, even though I became obsessed with crime in college and studied criminology before eventually becoming a police officer, I’m feeling a little silly to be among the hundreds—hell, thousands—of women and a few men milling through this convention center, ravenous to learn anything and everything about investigations, bloody scenes, and psychopaths.
The hunger for true crime books and podcasts and movies and TV series has fueled a booming industry.
It’s mind-blowing. Everyone now feels like a trained expert in the field, no matter if conjecture and supposition rule the day.
Behind every murder, people assume there’s something secret and mysterious, something stemming from grand plots and plans, when it’s usually shitty, unremarkable people allowing themselves to give in to their rages and their perversions.
Their rages . . .
Not now, I tell myself. I’m here to support Jess. Focus on the conference. On the here and now.
The conference goers, and people in general . . . they want to zero in on the shark attacks or lightning strikes of crime—the ones least likely to occur: the violent serial killers, like this Confession Artist business.
Why? Who knows?
Maybe to help us feel like we’re in control?
So when we study it up close and view the details as if under a microscope, we feel like we’re simply looking at the legs of a centipede instead of the rape and strangulation of a young, unsuspecting woman.
Or child. As if knowing all the particulars about the crimes in the news will keep it clinical, the observation alone like a headlamp leading us through the tangled woods.
But Jess does study crime like it’s under a microscope, and not an ounce of that practice seemed to help when she became a victim herself.
Maybe I need this, though. Maybe it’s allowing me to escape a bit since quitting the force.
I pick up my pace, beelining it through the large busy halls. As I slide into line behind a tall man in the coffee shop, I notice a slight shift of energy out in the lobby. I look around for anything unusual.
I catch a glance at a wall of narrow mirrors lined up next to one another across the room.
Our bodies are doubled—even tripled—in the reflections.
The mirrors make all of us appear thinner and stretched long like rubber, like we’re in a fun house.
Dim, sparkly lights cast an unsettling pale, sickly glow over us.
I turn away, grabbing my phone out of my satchel. Another text from Fiona.
OMG. Why won’t you call me? What do you think of the sketch?
Ha ha. Not me, I text back. In Dallas with Jess. Call you tomorrow?
But Fiona’s second attempt to get my attention sets my nerves tingling all over again. I adjust my carrier bag on my shoulder and see more notifications. Another text, this one from a college friend I haven’t seen in several years. John.
Girl, you aware of the latest sketch that’s out there?
I swipe it away, tell myself I’ll respond to him later.
Instagram informs me who’s recently posted new stories. Twitter, or X, tells me I have a new follower, bringing my total to a whopping thirty-two, which is perfectly fine. I’m not on it to become an influencer. I only joined to follow Jess.
A birdlike woman with a hooked nose to match jumps in line behind me with a friend.
In front of the tall guy before me, a young man with dark hair stares at me an instant too long.
In front of him is a group of three women. They’re looking at their phones, pushing satchels higher onto their shoulders, nudging each other. After one murmurs something to another, she points her chin to me.
My phone buzzes, thankfully giving me something to occupy myself with.
Wallace again.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Are you at home?”
“No, I’m with Jess. At that conference I mentioned.”
“You’re traveling right now?”
“Yeah, is that a problem?”
“No. I mean, maybe. Don’t you think you should do something?”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know. Report the fact that you look like the woman in the sketch to law enforcement?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You know why,” he says. “The earrings.”
I inhale the heady smell of espresso. I don’t want to think about any of this.
Wallace says something else, but I don’t hear him.
The chatter in the hotel is ratcheting up as conference goers transition between talks and panels.
Someone’s nervous laughter fills my ears while the line behind me gets bigger, everyone needing their late-afternoon caffeine fix.
The crowding bodies in the mirrors grow more ludicrous.
I shouldn’t have picked up. In fact, I should have set better boundaries with Wallace.
To remain friends after the breakup, I never set firm parameters.
Sometimes I kick myself for even getting involved with him in the first place.
But we both know it’s a complicated ball of string tied to Sophie, tied to both of our needs to hang on, still, even after eleven years.
I scoot a few feet forward and catch words floating by.
“I just don’t under . . . Yeah, another woman.” A gray-haired woman speaks to the guy she’s with. “Male. Female. Male. Female. A pattern,” she announces like a seasoned anthropologist.
“It’s loud here,” I say to Wallace. “What did you say?”
“I said I’ve called Kerry.”
“Kerry?”
“Kerry. The earrings?”
The bird woman behind me clears her throat loudly.
“Oh, sorry.” I scoot closer to the register. The cashier is waiting for my order. “Hang on, Wall,” I say.
The tall man has moved to the side with half a dozen others, and now he’s staring at me, too, along with several others as they wait for their grande lattes and macchiatos and London Fogs. Something uneasy shifts inside me.
“Grande Americano with room,” I say.
I feel better to finally place my order. Performing a task as ordinary as this calms my nerves. I am just a regular person doing a commonplace thing at a huge conference surrounded by lots of people. Just because people are noticing that I resemble the sketch doesn’t mean anything.
The barista taking my order barely registers me because, well, why would she?
I’m simply an anonymous human in a crowd.
Nobody knows me in Dallas or, really, anywhere.
Just like I told Jess last night. I’m not in the public eye like her.
I live in a small town, for God’s sake, not in Seattle, not in LA, no high-profile city some crazy killer would even think of targeting.
Sure, I worked as a cop for four years, but that was all in Montana, too.
I’ve made some enemies and have a skeleton—more than one—in my closet, but nothing of a scale that would warrant my becoming this whack job’s target.
So what if a few of these people are noticing that I resemble the stupid sketch?
I slide my credit card into the chip reader. “Wall, sorry. You still there?”
“Yes. Look, shouldn’t you tell someone about this? Maybe go into the closest station? Tell them about the earrings?”
“Oh my gawd.” Someone’s voice with a Southern accent behind me in line rises above a Harry Styles song pumping out over the huge convention center, the rhythm fusing with the drone of human babble and the hiss of milk steamers.
Over my shoulder, I spot one of the women in the group of three who were looking at me, a blond woman.
She’s placing a hand over her heart like her compassion needs to be pushed back where it belongs.
“Holy cow,” she says. “She does.” But when she sees me look at her, she turns away.
Then adds, “I’m so glad I don’t look anything like that. ”
Her friends’ heads bob up and down in agreement.
My cheeks heat up. I feel exposed, like I’m in a middle school cafeteria being singled out. Only, it’s a million times worse, because even though these strangers have no clue about me or the awful things I’ve done, I do. All too well.
And the idea of confessing? I shudder.
My sins are not obvious. True, the big one, involving Coleman, could land me in jail, but that one is never coming out.
I put my card back in my wallet and step away from the line to wait with the others, trying to hold my shoulders tall even though I’d prefer to melt into the floor. I put the phone back to my ear. “So what were you saying about Kerry?”
“He hasn’t called me back yet. Look, are you taking this seriously enough?” He sounds anxious.
“Wallace,” I say. “Everything’s fine.” The barista sets my Americano on the counter and calls out my name. I tell Wallace I have to go. Jess is almost up.
I shove my phone into my bag, add some cream to my coffee, and as I turn to make my way to the ballroom, I notice the birdlike woman who was behind me glance at me, do a double take, and nudge her friend. Her friend’s eyes open wide and she nods twice, slowly, like she’s transfixed.
The iceberg in my gut rocks.
I want to stop, grin at them both, and maybe give a little wave, allowing the ludicrousness of the moment to be just that.
No, that’s not me. It’s just a random sketch from some nutjob.
This impulse to roll my eyes and laugh it off feels exactly like the sensation I had while sweeping the glass last night—as if I should fight for these last normal instants.
But I don’t smile, I don’t wave. With a pressure building in my chest, I hurry away to go watch my sister get back in the game.