All Good People Here(78)

“Elliott Wallace.”

A few moments later, the man came back on the line and told her the number of Wallace’s unit. She jotted it into her phone, thanked him for his time, then hung up and immediately called Pete.

“Margot?” he said. “Hey. What’s up?” By his tone, she could tell their mutual halfhearted apologies had smoothed things over as far as he was concerned, for which she was grateful.

“I found a lead to Wallace,” she said without preamble. “We need to tell state to get a search warrant for a storage unit in Waterford Mills.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. What’re you talking about?”

Margot forced herself to take a deep breath, then explained what Annabelle had told her about her brother’s unit. “It has years’ worth of Wallace’s stuff,” she said when she finished. “What if he stored away something incriminating? It makes sense. Serial killers like to hold on to trophies of their kills, but Wallace is too transient to keep everything with him through every move. What if he stored them away?”

“Okay…But wait, Margot. The only thing you have on this guy is that he was a person of interest in Polly Limon’s case. No detective in the world is gonna bother a judge for a search warrant because of that.”

“That’s not true. I also have—”

“Oh right,” he interrupted. “You also have the twenty-five-year-old memory of a pothead saying that January had an imaginary friend with the name Elephant Wallace.”

Margot huffed out a breath. “Wallace was at January’s dance recital. I have a picture proving it. That’s not a coincidence. He’s connected to two dead girls.”

“I know. And I agree with you. All I’m saying is that no one’s gonna approve a search warrant based off what you have. I’m sorry.”

Margot closed her eyes. “He’s the answer to this case, Pete. I know it.”

“Okay then. Keep digging. I’ll do what I can over here. Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

After they hung up, Margot slammed her phone onto the seat next to her and let out a frustrated groan that turned into a scream. She grabbed her steering wheel and rattled it hard. She felt so sure Wallace was the answer to this case—but how the hell was she supposed to prove it?

She let go of the steering wheel, giving it one last smack of her hands, then slumped back into her seat. She sat like that for a long moment, her breath steadying, her heartbeat slowing. Then, finally, she sat up and twisted the key in the ignition. By the time she got home, it was dusk, the overcast sky a gunmetal gray. Yet again, Margot had left her uncle alone for too long. Yet again, her stomach twisted with guilt. Although she was used to the feeling by now, it hadn’t lost its sting.

She parked in the driveway, then walked through the brittle grass to Luke’s front stoop, but when she tried to twist the doorknob, it stuck beneath her hand. And that was when she remembered she still hadn’t made a copy of his house key. She’d gotten close—she’d driven halfway to the hardware store the other morning—but she’d been interrupted by Linda’s call with her lead to Jace and had gotten distracted. And then, the next few days had unspooled such a flurry of revelations that making a copy of the key had simply fallen out of her head.

Margot rattled the knob again, but again it didn’t budge. She knocked, waited. Nothing happened. “Shit,” she hissed beneath her breath. “Uncle Luke! It’s me, Margot!”

She listened, but the house was still and quiet.

“Fuck.” She knocked again, harder now. “Uncle Luke! Can you let me in?”

She stopped to listen, and this time, she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Margot let out a breath of relief, but when the door swung open a few moments later, it caught in her throat. Adrenaline coursed so quickly through her body it felt like electricity running through her veins. Her vision spotted and she swayed.

Standing in front of her was Luke, her beloved uncle, her favorite person in the world. And in his hands was an enormous hunting rifle, aimed at Margot’s face.





TWENTY-SEVEN


    Krissy, 2009


With a trembling hand, Krissy opened the front door of her house, rushed inside, and clicked it shut behind her. She had the feeling of being followed, hunted, but she knew it was only the truth that was hounding her now.

Despite Jodie’s protestations, Krissy had met with Dave, but now that she had, she wasn’t so sure it had been a good idea. If everything Jace had told her in his letter had flipped Krissy’s world upside-down, Dave had exploded it wide open. She now understood just how much damage she’d done by keeping her secrets for all those years, understood how much pain and anger she’d inflicted.

She wanted—needed—to make it right.

She dumped her purse by the door and hurried to the kitchen, where they kept a pad of paper and pens. Krissy wished she could call Jace, but he’d still refused to give her his number, so she yanked out a chair and sat at the kitchen table to write to him instead. And yet, as she brought the pen to the page, she realized she didn’t know how to start, didn’t know what to say. For fifteen years, she’d ostracized her own son for a murder he didn’t commit. How could she say sorry for that in a letter? And beyond an apology, there was what she now had to explain, what she needed to tell him. It was all too much.