One of Those Faces (42)

He looked again at the drawing. “Thank you. She’ll love this.” He pushed the door open behind him. “Do you want to come in?”

It was a bold offer unless he was home alone. I could only imagine the horrified look on Anna’s face if she saw me. I never again wanted to see the expression that Sarah’s mother had made when she’d confronted me on the street. “No, that’s okay,” I said, taking a step back. “I have to go.”

“I looked into Holly,” he began before I turned around. “You were right.” Something about his gaze unsettled me.

“Oh. I hope they find who did it,” I said after a pause.

He sighed. “Thanks again,” he said, lifting up the illustration, the sleeve of his shirt rising up to reveal a leather bracelet with a small wooden pendant, the same color and size of the one on my key ring. The bohemian accessory was at odds with his preppy collared shirt and iron-pressed slacks.

I pointed to his wrist. “I like your bracelet.”

He glanced at it, and his eyes creased in a grimace, as if I’d injured him. “Sarah used to make these,” he said. “She got into woodworking after we had Anna. She used to sell them to that shop that I saw you at in Wicker Park. That’s actually how she found your artwork.” He twisted the bracelet so he could see the pendant. There was an etched detail in this one as well. It was the same decorative, slanted heart on mine, with a Celtic knot in the center. “She was headed home from there the night she . . .” He shook his head, closing his lips.

So Sarah had a connection to Wicker Park and, on some level, to me. A shiver raised goose bumps along my skin. “Oh.” I felt sorry for asking, both for Sam’s sake and mine. How had one of Sarah’s creations ended up in front of Iann’s place and in my hands? “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

He attempted a smile. “Yeah, people will be arriving anytime now. Um, anyway, I appreciate you coming all this way.”

“No problem.” I lingered for a moment on the top step as he closed the door, before shoving my hands in my pockets, my fingers knocking into the wood pendant and tracing over the heart.

My hands shook the entire way back to my apartment. Instead of racing thoughts, my mind had frozen, unable to conjure even one plausible explanation for how I had ended up with Sarah’s pendant. I thought back to that early morning leaving Iann’s place for the first time. The muddy footprints, the boot marks that disappeared into the rain. And beside them, Sarah’s pendant discarded among crumpled cigarettes.

A car rumbled toward me as I unlocked my front door.

Wilder parked by the curb in his dark-gray sedan. I waited at the top of the stairs as he closed his car door and walked up to me, my bag in his hands. Relief washed over me.

“Where did you find it?” I asked as I grabbed it from him and looked inside. My phone and wallet were at the bottom.

“A Good Samaritan returned it to the station, I guess,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, sliding the strap of the bag on my shoulder. “I can’t believe everything’s still here.”

He nodded. “People aren’t all bad . . . well, not all the time,” he said. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

My hand tightened around the door handle. Had he followed me to Sam’s? “Sure.”

He trailed behind me to the kitchen and sat at my tiny table between the bar and TV. “Have a seat,” he said, motioning across from him.

I resented his attitude but obeyed.

He leaned his elbows on the table in front of him. “Let’s talk about Holly.”

My back straightened against the squeaky chair. “I told you I don’t know anything.”

“No,” he said deliberately. “You told me you heard a sound. Did you see anything? Anything?”

I thought back to that night. “I saw a figure moving, I think. It was really dark. There aren’t any lights on that side by the alley.”

He settled into his chair. “Have you thought any more about what I asked you before? Is there anyone you think would want to hurt you?”

“Why are you asking me all of this again?” I asked. We’d been here before. Didn’t he have anything else to go on?

The answer was all over his face, and it scared me. “Just standard procedure,” he said. “Following up with potential witnesses.”

I sighed. “I think you’re looking at this wrong. There must be something Holly and Sarah had in common.” Sarah and I had something in common—something small—although I couldn’t tell Wilder how I knew that without risking his wrath. Maybe there was a link between the three of us that I was missing.

He watched me for a moment. “They did have one thing in common that I can tell.”

I leaned forward slightly.

“They both looked remarkably similar to you.” He tapped a finger on the table. “Describe what the figure you saw looked like.”

I rubbed my fingers into my forehead. “Average, maybe? It was so dark. I don’t know.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “I was looking down from the top of the staircase, so I don’t really know how tall he was.”

“He?”

I reopened my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just assumed . . . I mean, it’s a man, right?”