Chapter 43 #2
“Oh my God, Zane.” I kneel down. A patch of blood blooms outward from under his palm, and every time he inhales, a small sucking sound emanates from under his hand. I start to call for help.
“Already did that,” he says, his breath raspy and irregular. And sure enough, before I say anything back, I hear the sirens.
He keeps his hand over the entrance wound, but I know from my training that I need to get pressure on the exit wound if there is one, and most likely there is.
I peek at his back to find a larger spot blooming with much more blood.
I don’t want to set my gun down with the CA stalking me, but I need both hands, so I put my gun in its holster and press my one hand tightly over the hole, feeling the wet blood under my fingertips and how hard he’s struggling to breathe.
I place my other hand over his to provide a counterpressure and to help keep the pressure strongly on the wound, which, from the sucking sound, must involve one of his lungs.
“Saw a light. In your field,” he tells me. “Drove up to—” He squeezes his eyes shut and winces and breaks into a coughing fit.
“Shhh,” I tell him. “Don’t talk right now. They’ll be here any second.” My mind races. I try to keep my face calm for Zane, but my eyes dart from him to the woods to the house and back to him.
You’re out there, somewhere? Aren’t you? You’re out there watching.
“Saw a guy snooping around your garage,” he tells me anyway. “Had a face mask on. I called out. Fired at me.” He spits blood that runs down the side of his chin.
“Shhh,” I say. “Stay still.” I squeeze harder from both sides. “They’ll be here any second.”
“Shot back but he ran. In there.” He lifts his chin to point to the woods beside the house. He scrunches his face up from the pain, clenching his eyes shut again. I look to the woods again, try to stare into the trees like dark-hooded ghosts are weaving in and out among them.
“Andy.” I use his first name, trying to get him to really tune in. “Don’t talk. Don’t move.”
His eyes droop at half-mast. He looks like a child, and my world spins.
How could this be happening? Fear for him on top of the dread the CA is out there somewhere rushes up inside me.
My heart might explode. I cannot bear it if this young man dies or is incapacitated.
I do not want to see him, practically a kid, still fresh off the Hutterite farm, pay for my mistakes.
My lies. I can barely swallow. I feel useless and responsible.
More than that, I feel menacing, that I’m the culprit of too many awful things. I want to ask him, this innocent, critically injured young, young man, Zane, Zane, can you do bad, bad things and still be an okay person?
Of course I can’t. I don’t. I wait with him, pleading with the universe that he’ll be okay while I scan the forest like a stressed animal for any sign of someone, wondering if the killer is out there watching, observing, or if this is Ridgeway’s doing and his goons are long gone.
I follow the ambulance to the hospital and stay in the reception area until I finally get some news from Alderson, who’s been filled in by a nurse.
Deputy Zane, he tells me, is in intensive care with a collapsed lung.
The surgeon has inserted a chest tube. He is fortunate the bullet missed major blood vessels.
I slump into a chair in the waiting room, relieved that he’s stable but thinking of my impetuousness. I think of how I took that backpack from Ridgeway’s shed. Was that why someone was snooping around my garage? Is this all because of Ridgeway?
Either way, all my decisions cause pain.
I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.
I want to keep Jess and Sam safe.
I want to catch whoever killed Clarissa.
I want whoever shot Zane to pay.
And even if I’m simply some copycat’s victim, I want to help catch the real CA even after I’m in the clear.
I make up my mind: I’m going to confess, and I’m going to do it thoroughly whether I’m the target of the real CA or someone like Ridgeway copping in on his game. Damn the consequences. It’s time I pay the price.
At first, the thoughts just feel like words running in my head, like something I won’t actually do.
Of course I know, and feel, how awful what I did was.
But sometimes I can detach, can be outside myself looking in.
Like one part of me—the side that did such an awful thing—is on one side of a window, and the other, larger part who saw myself above such terrible acts—observes that awful part of me through a thick pane of glass. It’s the only way to cope.
I feel that now, like I’m watching myself—blurry and unreal—through a window. Observing myself in the waiting area trying to decide how to proceed.
But I tell myself there’s only one me, and that me needs to make myself do the right thing, make the words—I’m going to confess—real. If not for myself, then for everyone around me.
“You need to bring Lasserio in for questioning,” I stress to Alderson and Greene in whispers. “You need to focus on Ridgeway more.” I tell them I showed Paxton the video Ray sent me, and he confirmed it was his sister’s pack. I don’t share with them it’s in my trunk at this very moment.
Alderson takes notes. Greene looks at me, wondering what else I’m holding back. “What would they want from your house?” she asks.
“I’m not sure,” I lie.
“Okay,” she says. “We’ll get Lasserio in for questioning. You know, a safe house—”
I stop her with a firm head shake. Not a chance.
“Go home and get some sleep, then. You look exhausted.”
“Little tough to sleep these days.”
“We’ll have someone else posted at your drive, and we’ll make sure to have some eyes on the other road, Dillon Road, behind your place where the shooter probably came in from.”
I think of how Jeremy hoofed it across that field and feel angry they didn’t already post someone there, too. Maybe if they had, Zane wouldn’t be in the ICU.
But I know it’s easier to be mad at them than to face my own looming guilt list. I force myself to face it and think of the pack in my trunk. Alderson and Greene turn to go.
I stand alone in the center of the hall, watching them walk away. Alderson broad and tall. Greene shorter and lithe. Their steps echo on the bare floor like the fibs pulsing in my mind. These fibs. All these little fibs. And the huge ones, too.
I hear Zane’s lung wheezing in my ear.
I need to stop. They’re almost to the elevator at the end of the corridor.
Two frickin’ federal agents trying to help me.
And what do I do? I lie to them, even with Zane fighting for his life.
Even after I’ve decided I’ll confess. Even when I’m going to have to face major consequences.
So what if I add a stolen backpack to the list. How does it make an ounce of sense to keep that one back when I’m going to fess up to the big stuff?
“Wait,” I say.
They don’t hear me and keep walking.
“Wait,” I say louder.
They both turn.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I have the pack from the video I sent you. Once I get it to a friend of mine at the crime lab, I’ll have it confirmed that Clarissa’s prints are all over it. Plus, there’s a water bottle in it if we need her DNA.”
“How do you have the pack?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Jesus, Crosbie. You broke into Lasserio’s shed?”
“I knew the chances of you getting a warrant were slim, and even if you got one, he would have taken it by now. I’m guessing he was searching for it at my place and that’s how Deputy Zane got shot.”
Greene and Alderson share their unspoken partner glance.
“And in the pack,” I say, “are dark drafting pencils and a sketchbook with the Ridgeway Ranch watermark on it.”
“What does that mean?” Alderson asks.
“Not sure. Paxton isn’t sure whether Clarissa drew or not, but he said she might have sketched flowers on her job, but it’s weird that the leather has the Ridgeway Ranch watermark on it.”
“Where is it now?”
I gesture outside. “In my trunk.”