Catch up on the previous chapters here
Nell texted Kent to let him know she was just going home after work, but she kept an eye on the clock so that, by the time he got there, too, she had the book—marked with more sticky notes—and the legal pad set aside. “How was your day?” she asked before he could pick the topic of their conversation.
Kent blinked but shrugged as he neatly lined his shoes up against the wall and unbuttoned more of his shirt. “About average. Brandon had me going through the stacks to find all the books people push back and hide, so …”
So that wasn’t his favorite thing to do, mostly because the books themselves gave away local prejudice, which was still rampant in Midwest small towns.
“Oh, and some absolutely tiny child who really didn’t look like they should be big enough to walk asked me if I’m a hell’s angel. Pronounced properly and everything.” He sat down on the couch and unbuttoned his sleeves so he could roll them up, showing more of his tattoos.
Nell nodded at them. “Do bikers routinely have one arm of Marvel and one of DC?”
“I think bikers can have whatever they damn well please, but I told him no, I’m just a friendly library person.”
“Friendly, huh?” she teased.
That made him grin. “It’s usually only the grownups who think I’m going to pull out a tire iron and start smashing kneecaps.”
“Why does everybody always go for kneecaps?”
Kent shrugged as he slouched comfortably back. “As your friendly library person, I can tell you that there are multiple reasons. It’s less likely to end up as murder, it’s incredibly painful, and then whoever you hit is not going to be chasing after you.”
“You’ve had somebody ask you that while you’re on duty?”
He shook his head. “As a friendly library person, I’m simply very well-read.”
“Does anybody ever worry about how frequently you emphasize the ‘friendly’?”
Kent’s grin turned a bit wolfish. “Not yet. How was your day? Which, I note, you’re trying to avoid talking about, because your friendly library person is also astute, but I love you, so we can’t just ignore it forever.”
Sighing, Nell tucked herself up against him. “Art and I talked a bit today. Nothing specific, but … he shared a bit about his childhood, and he just …” She closed her eyes and took a big shuddery breath. “He sees me, sees parts of me, the way Cal’s supposed to see these secret parts of Rosie that everyone else overlooks, but … it’s not the same, at all, and I just … I know Art. I see him back. So …”
“How can O’Connell get so much right when he gets so much wrong?” Kent finished, asking the question for both of them rather than asking if it was the question on her mind. She even felt him nod, his beard catching in her hair. “Yeah, it’s, uh … creepier than I thought it would be. Also I think that’s how we tip Adam over, if he’s actually on the fence.”
She shook her head. “How are you going to prove any of that? And it’s like the murders—sure, it’s suspicious he picked those five, but I can’t be the only person in the world who does all those things. They’re probably, like … God, whatever you call it when medical conditions happen at the same time …”
“Comorbid?”
“Sure. Sounds creepy enough.”
Kent was quiet for a long time, just resting his head against hers. “Maybe,” he finally said, “but we’ve got both, don’t we? The murders and all that stuff about Rosie. They just need to find the guy, and sweat him because they’re finally on to him …”
“Hey, friendly library person?”
“Yeah?”
Nell sat up enough to look at him. “How often does that work? Some serial killer waiting years before taunting the police, without actually confessing anything, and then oh, gee, sorry, officer, let me tell you everything?”
Kent took a slow breath that lasted long enough she wasn’t sure he was going to answer, then started ticking off on his fingers: “They brought Dahmer in for basically kidnapping, and he confessed a bunch of murder. They caught Bundy with burglary tools and he told them he was wanted for multiple murder.”
She shook her head. “They caught Berkowitz because of a parking ticket, but he didn’t confess. He made up his whole Son of Sam story. And they caught Rader because of the floppy disk, but that was directly connected to him. Gacy? Apparently he confessed to his lawyers one night and said he wanted to come clean, but he never did, officially.”
“Yeah, but—”
“That was all evidence,” she persisted. “They found bodies buried in his freaking crawl space and they still had all kinds of issues. There’s no evidence for any of these. That’s why they arrested Margaret’s boyfriend and grilled all of Kelsey and Ashley and Heidi’s exes, because there wasn’t anything connecting them, except for the K thing, and then it was all of us connecting him, and …” Nell tossed a hand at the book. “That is not something made by someone who doesn’t have a plan. The amount of time he put into that, and all the rejections he must’ve received … he’s got his agenda, and he’s not going to break down just because someone puts it together. In fact,” she pushed on before Kent could open his mouth, “if an agent does come talk to him, he’s probably going to feel smugger than ever because yes, the Fairy Godfather is still on their radar, and it’s bugging them enough to read the freaking New York Times bestseller list for clues.”
Kent waited this time to make sure she was done. “So they also get his agent, and his editor, and whoever else has been working on this thing, and start asking them questions. His wife, girlfriend, whomever … his mother … and hey, if one of them runs to the papers to complain about it, then oops, it’s public knowledge and all those advance readers start combing through their copies to prove or disprove it, and the case gets brought up again, and whoever O’Connell is, he’s too much in the spotlight to just show up in Colchester without anyone noticing.”
She opened her mouth to snap at him for looking at a half-full glass through rose-colored spectacles, but it just hung there a moment before she closed it slowly. Knowing who O’Connell was and what he looked like now instead of when he started the readings would certainly be a net gain. Worded that way, his agent might even lean into it, if they agreed with whomever actually said the old gem about saying what you want about him, as long as his name was spelled right. Arguments over whether #FindRosie was romantic or sadistic would generate even more buzz. It would pull in a wider audience—true crime buffs who would’ve ignored a romantic literary piece, true crime podcasters … God, thought about that way, it was still more marketing genius. “It’s going to get him on even more talk shows.”
“It’s going to get him even more uncomfortable questions on those talk shows,” Kent countered. “Even if he keeps saying no comment, that’ll just increase interest in the case. Depending on how he responds to it, the publisher might even dump him.”
Nell wrinkled her nose at that. The final copies were probably already printed and in some warehouse somewhere, just waiting for the shipping date. Even if O’Connell went on trial … he couldn’t make money off of anything related to his crimes, but surely his agent would still want a cut, and the publisher could do something magnanimous by donating the money somewhere.
Unless their legal department decided it was more likely they’d be found complicit in … something.
Kent put a hand on her leg, large and comforting, and gave it a squeeze. “I have my answer,” he said quietly, “so we can change the subject.”
“Don’t think of a polar bear,” she grumbled.
“Okay, so … a distraction.”
Nell tried to smile. “I’m not really in the mood for your usual distractions.”
“Valid, valid. I am, however, a man of many talents.”
She raised an eyebrow, not necessarily because she disagreed with that statement but because she wasn’t sure what, exactly, was coming next.
“For example,” he continued, getting up and going to his bag, “I thought ahead and checked this out of the library for you.” Kent pulled out a Nintendo Switch—well, a Switch Lite, so patrons couldn’t lose one of the controllers—and a game cartridge.
“Which one is that?” The packaging and barcode basically made all games look the same, which was also supposed to prevent people from stealing them and ending up with something they didn’t actually want. Honestly Nell was surprised the library was still renting out consoles and games, but she held out her hands as Kent came back.
“I figured you wouldn’t want anything with too much concentration,” he explained when she opened it to reveal Minecraft. “Plus I had to pick from whatever was still left after the most recent middle school rush.”
And Minecraft didn’t come equipped with an emotionally devastating storyline, so that was another bonus. “Thanks.”
Kent kissed her temple and left her there to play while he went to the kitchen to start sorting out dinner.
from Since You Went Away by C. J. O’Connell (Penguin, 2024)
It’s the last day of winter quarter and exactly one month since Kayleigh died, which makes today a double-whammy. K students only take three classes per quarter, but that’s because everything’s crammed into such a short amount of time, and their exams are always stressful. Plus that means it’s spring break, and Rosie’s going back to Nana’s for the week, and I can’t blame her.
When she’s here, everybody flocks to her and treats her like the mom friend, except she’s more of the therapist friend. They can’t deal with Kayleigh, and they’re making their inappropriate reactions Rosie’s problem. They come to her and cry about it, but these others only knew her in college. Rosie and Kayleigh go way back, which puts her closer to the epicenter, but they’re unloading on her anyway. They show up, and stay late, and avoid talking about the homework they supposedly came for, so they stay even later, eating whatever Rosie’s got on hand and drinking her coffee and tea without paying for it and crying on her shoulder without paying for that, either.
They had extra counselors available on campus in the beginning, but I guess they don’t have them anymore. Not that any of these children—because they are children by the way they’re handling this—used any of them. They didn’t think they needed to, maybe because they were in shock or they just don’t understand how emotions work, and now that they need them, they’re too used to mobbing Rosie instead, because she looks strong.
She won’t break down in front of Hailey. When she wants to cry, she goes into her room and turns on the fan or the white noise machine and puts a pillow over her head, because she doesn’t want to make her emotions anyone else’s problem. So she’s handling hers, and everyone else’s, but nobody’s helping her handle any of that.
I’m not saying I’m glad Rosie finally cried on my shoulder—cried herself to sleep, as a matter of fact, and it’s a good thing we were in her bedroom at the time so I could leave her there for the night, and leave a note for when she woke up—but at least she shared that with someone. And at least she got to the end of her rope with me, and not someone who would’ve made her bottle it all back up and keep it to herself so they could get on with their own emotional squall.
When Rosie finally let it go, it was a full-on thunderstorm. Once she got started, she wasn’t able to stop. The tears came, and she sobbed them into my shirt, unable to talk and unwilling to lift her head as though it made her any less beautiful.
I had to debate long and hard about leaving, but I’d never spent the night before, and it wasn’t like she’d asked me to. I didn’t want to be there in the morning when she woke up, eyes swollen from the tears, and see that she was shocked or angry or humiliated to find me still there. So I left, and left her a note, and texted her the next morning to ask how she was doing, and things have been okay.
Well. They’ve been the same. But that’s hardly the time to unburden your soul to someone, isn’t it? Especially when she’s already so burdened by other people.
At least now we can get this whole quarter behind us, and she can get a breather and a reset, and we can move forward.
Chapter Nine- coming January 9
Rebecca Frost 