All Good People Here(80)

“What are you doing here?” Luke snapped again. “What do you want?”

He hadn’t lowered the gun, not even an inch, and the look in his eyes sent a fresh shiver of panic through Margot. She wished for all the world that she hadn’t decided to dig into January’s case. She wished she knew nothing at all about her uncle’s connection to the little girl from across the street, wished she could unsee the photo of his face at her dance recital and the stack of programs locked away in his desk. If she’d simply come to Wakarusa and focused on helping her uncle instead of chasing answers to the twenty-five-year-old murder case, maybe she wouldn’t be here right now, on the wrong side of Luke’s gun.

Margot swallowed. “U-Uncle Luke?”

Luke hitched the rifle higher onto his shoulder. Her uncle had never really been a hunter, but everybody in their hometown owned a gun, and Margot knew the basics of how his worked from a few long-ago days of target practice. He had a single-action rifle, which meant if he wanted to kill her, he wouldn’t have to cock the hammer or do anything else. With one simple pull of the trigger, she’d be gone.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. “Uncle Luke.” This time her voice came out more clearly, more steadily. “It’s me, Margot. Your niece.”

Something flickered in Luke’s eyes—a flash of confusion, as if she’d said something that didn’t quite add up.

“I used to spend every afternoon at your house,” she said. “I’d do my homework at your kitchen table. You’d make me cheese quesadillas as a snack.”

Luke’s brow slowly furrowed and she recognized the faintest trace of recollection in his eyes, as if she’d reminded him of a long-buried memory.

“I, um, I gave you a stupid red bandanna for Christmas one year when I was, like, five. And you’ve worn it ever since. And…” Margot wracked her mind for something, anything, that could jog his memory. “We’d order pizza and play Battleship on Friday nights. You showed me how to stand up for myself and you taught me every SAT word I know.”

Luke was still pointing the gun at her, so she continued.

“You encouraged me to follow my dream and become a reporter. You taught me to be honest, to always tell the truth.”

The irony of this last one twinged in her chest, but it seemed to be working. His anger was slowly morphing into something else.

“My name’s Margot,” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “But usually you call me kid.”

And then, finally, the look of confusion on her uncle’s face cleared, as if a light had gone on in his head and he could finally see. “Kid?”

His grip on the rifle slackened, and when he looked down at it, it was as if he was seeing it for the first time. Panic flashed in his eyes and he fumbled, the gun slipping from his hands.

Margot lunged toward it, one foot through the doorway, the other still on the stoop, and seized the rifle from him before it clattered to the ground. She immediately aimed the muzzle toward the ground then stepped into the house. Luke instinctively backed away.

She hadn’t unloaded her uncle’s gun since she was probably fifteen years old when he’d taken her to hit Coke cans in an empty field, but she remembered how to do it. She emptied the chamber, then the magazine, stuffed the bullets into her pocket, then laid the gun down on the floor, tucked beneath the back of an armchair.

When she turned back to her uncle, her chest contracted. His gaze was fixed on the open doorway as if he could still see Margot’s terrified face through the scope of his gun. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. His hands were shaking. She walked tentatively toward him and he turned his head to look at her.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he said through his tears. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

The sight of her uncle undone like this made Margot want to cry, but she swallowed it down. She wouldn’t let him see how much he’d scared her, didn’t want to cause him any more pain. She placed a gentle hand on his back, and to her surprise, Luke let himself be guided into her arms. He was almost a foot taller than she was, so his head didn’t reach her shoulder, but he sobbed into her nonetheless, his body trembling.

“Shh,” she said, rubbing a hand over his back. “It’s okay.”

It felt strange to be the one comforting her uncle, who’d always done that for her. And it felt even stranger to be hugging the man whom she still had lingering suspicions about. Because although she felt deep in her gut that Elliott Wallace had killed January and Polly and possibly Natalie Clark, that didn’t explain why Luke had gone to January’s recitals or kept her dance programs or lied about it all.

It was the same complicated feeling Annabelle Wallace must have had this afternoon. Despite everything her brother had done to her over the years, despite the fact that she knew he was being accused of murder, Annabelle had defended him because he was family. If it turned out Margot was wrong and Luke was a killer after all, she would hate him. She’d excommunicate him from her life, and whenever she’d think of him, she’d be filled with rage. And still, he’d be her uncle. Underneath all that anger and hate, she knew she could never quite stop loving him.

The two of them stood like that—Luke bent over, Margot getting achy beneath his weight—for a long time. And then, eventually, his crying slowed, then stopped.