Chapter 54
I spend hours giving my statement at the county building. They use the same room where Alderson showed me photos of Aaron Lasserio, Ridgeway’s lackey.
Sam has been checked. Jess has taken him home.
Alderson informs me Jess was torn about leaving but he told her that he’d make sure I got a ride over to her place when I was finished.
He also tells me that they’ve lined Sam up for some more sessions with the trauma specialist who spoke with him at the station when we arrived.
Alderson has also contacted Vivian Petronis, the sister of the boy, Ryan, who died by suicide after being hazed by the football team, and Lauren Littlejohns, a mother from Arlee whose daughter overdosed on drugs prescribed by a doctor working with Tim Mooney.
They’re working on locating Gus Bauers. They believe he’s the father of the girl, Somer, whom Allison mentioned to me.
Allison didn’t give a surname, but they’ve searched on all of Vonda Loman’s counseling files during the investigation and easily pinpointed a student named Somer Bauers who visited Vonda Loman for therapy.
Somer died in a coma at a hospital. Two unidentified guys dropped her off and split, even though she was unresponsive.
Her father, Gus, also went to the rehab facility in Arlee around the same time as Allison and Ryan Petronis’s mother, Cindy.
So what they’re gathering is that Allison met Ryan’s mother, Cindy Petronis, at the rehab facility in Arlee. She met Somer’s dad, Gus Bauers, and Nalia’s mom, Lauren Littlejohns, at a grief group down the road from the rehab place in Arlee.
Alderson offers to drive me home, but when we get to the waiting area, Jeremy is there. Seeing him stand and approach us lifts something heavy off my chest. I smile. He gives me one of his lopsided grins. I’m surprised at how much I need these little offerings.
“Need a ride?” he asks.
“Sure. How did you . . . ?”
“When I couldn’t get a hold of you, I went straight to your house.
A reporter there said you’d already left early in the morning.
I remembered you saying you needed to talk to Jess in person, so I went to her house, and when I got there, I ran into a wall of cops.
When they brought you here, I followed.”
Alderson gives Jeremy a sidelong glance and turns to me. “You sure? I don’t mind taking you home.”
“No,” I say. “I’m good.”
I give Alderson a hug, thank him, and tell him not to leave town without saying goodbye. As Jeremy and I turn to walk to his car, Wallace walks up.
I feel yet more strings in my heart ping. A compassion I’d forgotten I’d had for Wallace all along, an empathy that got lost in all this mess. Here he is, showing up for me as always.
“Crosbie.” He throws his arms around me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“I saw on the news they’ve caught the person. They haven’t released a name yet, though. Who is it?”
I glance at Jeremy. “Can you give us a sec?”
Jeremy waits outside while Wallace and I stand in the corner of the reception room. “Wallace,” I say, “the article. You’ve read it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know it recaps everything that happened with Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a heads-up this morning. I meant to after I spoke to Jess, but all this hap—”
“It’s okay.” He grabs both of my hands. “I’m glad you got it all out there. It’s a good piece. Surprising, but sincere.”
The fact that he isn’t judging me makes me want to weep.
He tells me he’s glad I’m safe and offers me a ride.
“I already have one.” I point outside, to Jeremy.
“Oh,” he says, trying to smile, but there’s sadness there. But for a change, there’s nothing pissy about it.
“You’ve been a good friend, Wallace. I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you this week, and when—”
“When what?”
“When we got together and then I just ended it like someone in high school.”
“I never held that against you.”
“And that you were interrogated by the agents to boot.”
“It’s fine.” He waves it away. “If they didn’t interview me, I’d have thought they weren’t doing their jobs. You know how much I care about you, right?”
I smile.
“But,” he says. “You need more space than I’ve been giving you.”
I nod.
“I get it. I think I’ve been hanging on a little too tightly because, in a way, you’re all I have left of Sophie.”
“I know the feeling.” I catch the magnetic blue of his eyes. And for the first time in a long time, I recapture a glimpse of the calming sense of the friendship I had with Wallace before we began dating.
Already, however, that Crosbie feels foreign to me, a stranger you might spot across a crowded room.
That Crosbie saw tranquility in Wallace and took it for dull and routine when we started dating, not strength and golden self-awareness.
That Crosbie, in short, was searching for someone to push her, to test her.
Not someone who was going to accept her for who she was.
Because that Crosbie needed to hate herself for who she’d become.