All Good People Here(71)

Thud.

This time when Margot heard the noise, there was no mistaking. Someone was outside the house. She stuffed the programs back into the drawer, replaced the false bottom and the wire rack, then slammed it shut, locked it, and threw the key back where she’d found it. She strode quickly to the door, her hands in fists by her sides.

Margot slipped quietly out the door, tiptoed to the edge of the living room, and peered around the corner, half expecting Luke to be gone, but there he was, sitting at the far end of the couch, his body trained to the TV. Margot studied him for a moment. Was it just her imagination or was he breathing too fast? But the noise had come from outside—at least, she thought it had—and it didn’t seem possible that he’d left and come back in without her hearing.

Margot walked to the front door and threw it open. But beyond the dim glow of the porch light, there was only blackness. She stood there, waiting for her eyes to adjust, the tap, tap, tapping of moths beating their bodies against the bulb overhead. Margot peered out into the night, but there was nothing to see. She listened for another sound, but the night was quiet. Adrenaline slowed in her veins.

Then, as she was turning to go back inside, something drew her attention down: a folded piece of paper beneath her shoe. Even though some of the letters had been obscured by her foot, it was clear that her name had been scrolled on its front. Margot bent down slowly, picking it up with a shaky hand. She shot one more glance around her, then opened it.

This note had been written in the exact same hand as the one that had been left on her car, but while the first could have been construed as a warning—It’s not safe for you here—this was an order. And at only two words, its message was loud and clear: GET OUT.





TWENTY-FIVE


    Krissy, 2009


It was late Saturday night, Billy had long since gone to sleep, and Krissy sat at the kitchen table with an overfull glass of white wine. Jace’s last letter trembled in her hand, his words staring up at her: I don’t know what you think happened to January, but I’m not the one who killed her.

That one line had her mind in chaos, as if it had wriggled into her brain and unspooled everything she knew. She took a long sip of wine and, for what felt like the millionth time over the course of her life, she relived that terrible night in her mind: the basement door open, a yawning blackness beyond. Jace, standing over the dead body of January, her own body going cold. And the bizarre, unfeeling words that had crawled up her spine: “Can we play tomorrow, Mommy? Just you and me?”

The memory felt solid, a thread woven into her DNA. How could Jace not remember? Was he lying? But why? She already knew the truth and had protected him. Had he blotted it all out? He’d been only six at the time, his brain still mushy with youth. Yet surely it was impossible not to remember killing your own sister. No matter what your age, that had to leave its mark on you, an indelible scar on your soul.

The mere possibility that Jace hadn’t killed January felt like someone had upended her life, flooding her with both relief and shame. On the one hand, it would mean her son wasn’t a monster; on the other, it would mean she’d alienated him for no reason at all.

Krissy needed to understand. She took a deep breath, picked up a pen, and on a blank sheet of paper wrote down every detail of what she remembered from that night, everything she’d done. Then she asked Jace to do the same. She mailed it early the next morning, and when she received his response the following week, she didn’t even wait to get back to the house to read it. She tore it open there at the mailbox, reading over the pages with a hammering heart. When she got to the end, it was clear: either Jace was lying, or for fifteen years, she’d been wrong about everything.

Back inside the kitchen, Krissy grabbed the phone from its cradle on the wall and, with shaking fingers, dialed Jodie’s number. Billy was spending the weekend at a farming equipment convention in Indianapolis, so it didn’t matter where she talked or what she said.

“Whoa, hey,” Jodie said when she heard Krissy’s trembling greeting. “What’s going on? What’s the matter?”

“Can I come over? Now?” Krissy glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was a Friday and she and Jodie had made plans for later that evening. Jodie’s husband and two boys were at some overnight soccer retreat and her daughter was going to a slumber party. With Billy out of town too, it was one of those rare occasions where they had an empty house and a full night to themselves. But Krissy wasn’t supposed to go over until six and it was only four.

“The boys have already left,” Jodie said, “but Amelia’s still here. Let me call the mom who’s hosting and see if I can drop her off early, okay? I’ll call you back in a minute.”

The moment Jodie called her back and told her to come over, Krissy grabbed her overnight bag and hopped into her car. Half an hour later, she was standing on Jodie’s doorstep.

“Hey. Come in,” Jodie said, opening the door wide and ushering her inside, where they exchanged a perfunctory hug and kiss. “What’s up?”

“I just got a letter from Jace.”

“Ah.” Jodie nodded. Though Krissy had never told her just how afraid she was of her own son, Jodie was the one who’d held Krissy’s hand during the worst of his teenage years, the one who listened while she talked, the one whose shoulder Krissy had cried on each time Jace got in trouble.