All Good People Here(17)

Townsend gazed at her for an uncomfortably long moment, then, finally, he said, “Be my guest.”

Krissy took her time in the bathroom, splashing cool water on her face, but it did nothing to mitigate the way the walls seemed to be closing in around her. So on her way back, when she spotted a set of double doors to the outside, she threw a furtive glance over her shoulder, then hurried toward them.

Outside, the hot July air was a welcome break from the oppressive cold of the station and she gulped it in like she’d been drowning. She slumped against the red brick wall, but just as she did, she realized she wasn’t alone after all. A murmur of voices came from around the corner, and although they were talking quietly, Krissy would recognize Detective Townsend’s clipped voice anywhere.

“…think she’s hiding something,” he was saying, and Krissy’s chest clenched. She felt instinctively that he was talking about her. “She’s nervous, but it’s more than that. Something’s up with that family. I just can’t put my finger on what it is.”

“Seem like a nice Christian family to me,” the second voice chimed in. Detective Lacks.

Townsend let out one breath of laughter. “Exactly. But everybody’s got something. And back at the house, you should’ve heard her. Had about a hundred theories about who could’ve taken her daughter.”

“So what?”

“When people start throwing out that many theories at once,” Krissy heard Townsend say, “nine times out of ten, it’s because they don’t want us looking at something else. Like an old-fashioned pickpocket, waving a hand over here just so his target doesn’t see that he’s robbing him blind.”





SIX


    Margot, 2019


By the time Margot made it to the state police’s press conference on Natalie Clark’s disappearance, it had already begun. She tugged the door open, then slipped quietly through, joining the crowd of cameras and news teams positioned in the back of the room. At the front, behind a podium, stood Det. Rhonda Lacks, whom Margot recognized as one of the two original detectives on January’s homicide. Separating her from Margot was a sea of press sitting in the section of chairs where Margot should have been, notepads clutched in their hands. She stole a glance at her watch and muttered a curse beneath her breath. She wasn’t just late. The conference was halfway over.

She tried to create as little disturbance as possible as she sidled up between two camera guys, but her heart was still racing from sprinting through the parking lot and her whole body was prickling with heat from outside. She plucked her T-shirt with her fingers and surreptitiously blew onto her chest, but as she did, her elbow bumped the man next to her. He shot her a dirty look and she mouthed Sorry in return.

Five hours earlier, Margot emerged from her room at Luke’s, ready to head to Shorty’s. She’d just spent an hour and a half prepping for interviews in Nappanee and had allotted two more to talk to people in Wakarusa. But when she walked out of her room, she stopped short. Something about the air was off. It was too still, too quiet.

She slid her backpack to the floor, then walked softly to Luke’s bedroom in case he was taking a nap, but his door was open and dark, the attached bathroom empty. Back in the hallway, she called his name, her voice echoing loudly around the house. There was no response. “Uncle Luke!” she called again, but still there was nothing. She walked past the empty living room to the kitchen, where she felt idiotic as she turned in a slow circle and opened the pantry.

Margot’s heart started to pound, but she didn’t even know if her fear was justified. After all, Luke was an adult who, as he’d pointed out that morning, had survived many months by himself. Still, leaving the house without so much as a goodbye wasn’t like him. She strode to the door to the garage and flung it wide, breathing in relief at the sight of her uncle’s old Pontiac gathering dust. At least that meant he couldn’t have made it far. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. Presumably, he was just on a walk. And yet, these past two days in Wakarusa had shown Margot just how bad things had gotten. What if he had an episode when he was out? What if he lost track of where he was or who he was and was wandering, confused and scared?

She turned on her heel and walked through the hallway to retrieve her cell from her backpack. But when she called him, it rang through to voicemail. She tried again and again, but it just rang and rang.

“Shit,” she hissed, rubbing her fingers into her forehead.

She disconnected the call, grabbed her keys from her backpack, and rushed to the front door. The only thing left to do now was look for him.

But Luke wasn’t at Granny’s Pantry or the pharmacy or Shorty’s, and no one she asked in any of those places had seen him. And when she checked the time and saw that she’d been driving around for almost an hour, she began to panic. How far could he have gotten? Did she need to get on the highway and widen her search, or was he simply somewhere she hadn’t yet checked? In her car, in the lot outside the grocery store, Margot tried to think of all the places her uncle frequented, but her mind was maddeningly blank. She slammed her palms against the steering wheel. She knew Luke better than anyone in the world, and yet here she was, unable to find him in one of the smallest towns in the country.

From the seat beside her, her phone chimed with an incoming call. Margot sucked in a sharp breath and spun to grab it, her heart leaping to see the Wakarusa area code. Maybe this was Luke borrowing someone else’s phone. But when she answered, she didn’t recognize the voice on the other end.