Chapter 43
November 18, 2014
It was past dawn when Jocelyn finally got home. The sun broke over the horizon, flooding the city with what seemed to her like an unforgiving light. Trent had given her a ride from the Roundhouse back to the Rigos’ so she could get her car. They drove in silence, both too exhausted, too shocked, and too numb to speak. He left her at her vehicle with no more than a nod and drove off. She blasted the heater. The Rigos’ home had been cordoned off with crime scene tape. A few neighbors stood outside talking, likely discussing what they thought had happened. Gawkers, Inez called them.
She had never been so grateful to be home. Camille and Olivia sat across from one another at the dining room table eating waffles slathered with whipped cream.
“Mommy!” Olivia exclaimed.
Jocelyn lifted the girl out of her chair, hugging her until she said, “Mommy, you’re squeezing me too much.”
Jocelyn kissed her and inhaled the fruity scent of her shampoo, the smell instantly easing some of her anxiety. She set Olivia back down and fingered the girl’s ponytail. “Aunt Camille did a good job,” she said. Olivia was dressed and ready for school, her hair in a neater ponytail than Jocelyn had ever been able to give her.
Olivia shook her head, swishing the ponytail back and forth. “Can Aunt Camille pick me up from school today?”
“Not today, honey,” Jocelyn said. “She’s not on the pick-up list, but you’ll see her after school, I’m sure.”
Olivia pouted. A vertical line appeared over the bridge of her nose. “Can’t we put her on the list?”
Jocelyn suppressed a sigh and smiled tightly. She had neither the time nor the energy for this conversation. Olivia had a point. It seemed so simple. Put Camille on the pick-up list. Why not? Camille had come a long way from the junkie who’d put her infant to bed in the bathroom sink of a meth lab. But Jocelyn wasn’t ready for this. She hadn’t really been prepared to see the two of them gel so perfectly. Sure, Camille had visited before and often skyped with Olivia, but this visit was different. Camille was now a year clean, and she seemed more clear-headed and focused. The milestone had made her stronger, more self-assured. She was more attentive to Olivia; she showed more interest in the girl. Jocelyn’s stomach knotted. How could she say no without confusing Olivia and hurting Camille’s feelings?
“Honey, I’m only going to be here for a couple of weeks. I think the pick-up list is for people who live here all the time,” Camille said, smiling warmly at Olivia. She reached across the table and squeezed the girl’s hand gently. “We can spend time together when you come home from school, okay?”
Olivia beamed, her annoyance with her mother forgotten. “Okay. Want to watch Disney Junior with me before I go to school?”
“Tell you what, I’ll do these dishes, and then I’ll be right in.”
Olivia bounded off into the living room where the Disney channel was already playing.
As Camille started clearing their plates, Jocelyn said, “Camille, I’m sorry. I—”
Camille stopped her, the warm and genuine smile directed toward Jocelyn this time. “There was a time when it never even would have occurred to you to try to spare my feelings. That you tried just now—that you even wanted to—means a lot to me. It’s fine. You’re her mother. You’ve done an amazing job. I don’t need to be on the pick-up list.”
“Thank you,” Jocelyn said.
Camille paused, halfway to the kitchen, and winked at Jocelyn. “And I’m not going to try to take her from you.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yeah, you did. I can see it all over you every time you watch us together.”
Jocelyn followed her sister into the kitchen as Camille started washing the breakfast dishes. “You’re different this time.”
“I’m starting my life, Joc. Really starting it. My life. I haven’t been in a position to do a damn thing about my life since I was fifteen. It’s liberating. I’m clean, I have resources. I have you and Olivia, friends in California. Real friends who understand what I’ve been through and care for me anyway. I feel . . . hope.”
Tears stung the backs of Jocelyn’s eyes. This was what their mother had fought so hard for. Year after year after year. Rehab facility after rehab facility.
“It’s not over,” Camille added. “I still struggle. All the time. But my life is different now. I’m different.”
“I’m glad,” Jocelyn said.
Camille met Jocelyn’s eyes, staring hard at her older sister with a fierce intensity. “But I know that Olivia is yours. I accept that.”
Jocelyn swallowed over the lump in her throat. “Okay.”
“I got your texts,” Camille said, changing the subject. She put the clean dishes in the drain board and dried her hands on a kitchen towel. “I’m sorry about Knox.”
Jocelyn sighed, blinking back the Knox-related tears that threatened to come atop the Camille-related tears. “Thanks.”
Camille walked over and took Jocelyn’s hands, squeezing gently. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Jocelyn said. “I don’t think I am.”
“Is there anything I can do? Take Olivia to school? I don’t have to be on a list to drop her off.”
Jocelyn shook her head. “No, thank you, but I want to do it. I want normal right now.”
“Okay,” Camille said, releasing her sister’s hands. “So what happens now? With your case, I mean?”
“Trent will run a search on the gun Francine had to see who it’s registered to, if it’s even legal, and go from there, I guess.”
“You killed that woman.”
“Yes,” Jocelyn said.
“Does it bother you?”
“No. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. She was going to kill me. She was a truly deranged person.” Jocelyn’s body quaked involuntarily. Whispering, in case Olivia came into the kitchen, she recounted most of the things Francine had told Knox.
Camille listened with rapt attention, her frown deepening with each one of Jocelyn’s words. “Wow,” she said. “It’s hard to believe someone like that could fool so many people for so long.”
“I know.”
“That’s almost scarier than a person who’d just walk up and shoot you. I think I’d take a straight up violent psycho over Francine’s brand of psycho any day.”
Jocelyn nodded. She suddenly felt very sleepy, and she knew she was going to crash soon. “I need to get Olivia to school.”
“I’m meeting with the DA today,” Camille said.
“Okay,” Jocelyn said. Even though she knew she’d never be able to stay awake, she offered, “Do you want me to go with you?”
Camille smiled. “Thank you but no. I can handle it. But I am going to need you to talk to Whitman for me and soon. Not today, but soon.”
Jocelyn nodded. “I’ll do it. I’ll call him before I crash and see if he can meet me tomorrow or the next day.”
Camille went into the dining room, where her purse sat on the table, and returned with a computer printout. She handed it to Jocelyn. “All his information is there.”
“I thought he was a Criminology professor at the University of Pennsylvania.”
Camille said, “Evidently, the child porn charges took a toll on his career.”
Jocelyn stared at the phone number for Whitman’s office at the Community College of Philadelphia. She felt a measure of satisfaction, which she tried to tamp down. From the very beginning, he was the only one of Camille’s rapists who had ever shown any signs of remorse. He hadn’t participated, he had been the lookout, but that had always struck Jocelyn as equally horrific. What kind of person watched something like that and did nothing to stop it? Immediately afterward, it was Whitman who ratted the other boys out to Bruce Rush. It was Whitman who had finally acknowledged the crime and apologized for his part in it when he came face to face with Jocelyn the year before. It was Whitman who had helped her crack the Schoolteacher case. As contemptible as he was as a human being, he was a brilliant criminologist. As disgusting and despicable as what he’d done to Camille was, he was now being punished for something he hadn’t done. It was undeniable that Jocelyn felt joy at the prospect of Whitman suffering after what he’d done to her sister, but she generally didn’t believe that people should be crucified for things they hadn’t done.