“Sure thing. Not every day someone takes an interest in this little plot of land.” He inclined his head. “You have a good day now.” He was across the grassy knoll and almost at the church’s back door when he turned to look at Margot over his shoulder. “And, hey,” he called, “you ever find out who the ghost is, you let me know, okay? I’ve been wondering ’bout them for years.” With that, he turned and disappeared into the little white building.
Margot spun back around, knelt at January’s grave, and gently lifted the vase of roses from the ground, the slew of stuffed animals surrounding it falling away. On her knees, she inspected the vase and flowers, looking for anything that could indicate where they’d come from. But there was no note, no ribbon, nothing. Then, just before she was about to give up, something caught her eye. On the clear glass bottom, she spotted something white and opaque: a little oval sticker that read “Kay’s Blooms.”
Margot hastily returned the vase to its spot, then pulled her phone from her backpack. She typed the name of the shop into her internet tab and scanned the results quickly, praying Kay’s Blooms wasn’t a franchise. After a moment, she breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out there was one and only one city in which the shop was located—which meant that Margot had finally found Jace. He was in Chicago.
She was driving back to Luke’s place a few minutes later when she slammed on her brakes. Back at the cemetery, she hadn’t thought anything of the fact that the flowers had arrived the night of the storm. She’d only been associating their arrival with the anniversary of January’s death. But now, she realized what night the storm had happened. She remembered because she’d visited the Jacobs place the morning after and the pavement had been slick on the drive over. If Jace had delivered the flowers to January’s grave that night, it meant that he’d been in Wakarusa only forty-eight hours after Natalie Clark had disappeared from a playground fifteen minutes away. It also meant that he had been here the night someone had spray-painted the Jacobs family barn.
SEVENTEEN
Margot, 2019
“Hey, Luke?” Margot said. “I’m thinking about leaving town for a few days.”
It had been several hours since Margot had returned from the cemetery and she and her uncle were in the kitchen. He was at the table, she at the counter, making them sandwiches for an early dinner. The last thing Margot wanted right now was to leave her uncle alone, but she’d thought through every other option, and if she wanted this article to be a success, if she wanted to be able to continue to afford to help him, she needed to follow the story where it led her. And right now, it was leading her to Jace.
“Where’re you going?” Luke asked.
“Chicago.” Margot squeezed out a Z of mustard onto two slices of bread. “For work. Would that…be okay with you?” She finished the sandwiches, then cut them both into halves and carried the plates over to the table.
“Of course. Thanks for the—the…” He paused, and she knew he was searching for the word sandwich. “Thanks for the food.”
Margot walked to the sink to get them glasses of water, her chest tight. “No problem. Anyway, I’ll probably be gone for a few days, so I was thinking of asking someone to come here.” She kept her voice deliberately light, her eyes focused on the tap. “Just in the afternoons. To give you a hand with stuff.”
When she’d returned from the cemetery earlier, Margot had looked up the caregiver agency she’d found a few days previous and she’d prickled with guilt as she entered the number into her phone. She hadn’t arranged anything with the woman on the other end of the line, just inquired about whether they had a caregiver with availability to come by for the next few days while she was gone—they did. His name was Mateo, and apparently he was very good at his job. Margot knew this would be a hard sell to Luke, and the truth was that for most of the time, he was fine. He was forgetful and occasionally irritable and misplaced things, but he could still pour a bowl of granola for himself in the morning, and he could still put himself to bed in the evening. But it was one thing to leave him alone for a few hours while she did interviews and errands. It was another thing entirely to leave him overnight.
Margot stole a glance at her uncle, but from where she stood at the sink, all she could see was his back. “Uncle Luke?” She walked over and set the glasses of water onto the table. “Did you hear me? I thought I’d ask someone to come over in the afternoons. To give you a hand.”
She slid onto her chair, and when she caught sight of his face, she nearly contracted with guilt. He looked humiliated, furious. After a moment, he turned to look at her, and Margot had to force herself to hold his gaze.
“You mean you want to hire a babysitter.”
“Uncle Luke—”
But he had already stood and was walking toward the refrigerator. He tugged open the door, then pulled out a beer.
“I’m sorry.” Her cheeks burned. “But, Uncle Luke, you’re sick. It’s not your fault, but you are. And it would make me feel more comfortable leaving if I knew you had someone to check in on you. Not babysit you. Just come over for a few hours and make sure everything’s okay. That’s all.”
“Look, kid,” Luke said, closing the refrigerator door too hard. He opened the drawer next to it, looked around in it for a moment, then closed it roughly and moved on to the next. “I’m happy to have you here. And I get that you wanna help out because I’m not as sharp as I used to be. I’m not blind—I know you didn’t come to Wakarusa for a ‘change of pace.’ And I appreciate everything you’ve been doing. Really. I do.”
He examined the contents of that drawer, then, not finding what he was looking for, moved on to the cabinet above where he kept the drinking glasses. Margot realized with a sinking sensation that he was looking for a bottle opener for the beer. He was on the wrong side of the kitchen.
“But this is still my house,” he continued. “And I’m not going to have some stranger coming in here every day to wash my goddamn underwear.” He slammed the cabinet door, then opened the next and slammed that one too. “I’m fifty years old. So, please quit infanti—infanti—”
Margot stood and opened the drawer where her uncle had kept a bottle opener for the past thirty years. A great well of emotion surged inside her chest. She felt pity that her uncle, who’d always had a big vocabulary and sharp wit, couldn’t remember the word infantilize, and she felt ashamed for doing that very thing to him in the very moment he was asking her not to. She felt a deep sadness that this unmerciful disease was robbing her uncle of his autonomy, when that was the most important thing he’d ever taught her. And on top of everything, she felt an anger, raw and raging, at the injustice of it all.
“Please just quit infanti—” he tried again as he looked in yet another wrong drawer, but his mouth caught on the word. “Goddammit! Why can’t I find this fucking—”
“Here,” Margot said, holding out the bottle opener.
Luke froze. He stood like that, staring down at the opener in her hand, then he hurled his bottle of beer across the kitchen, where it exploded against the wall.
Margot flinched. Then she stood very still, her eyes downcast, her heart hammering in her chest. For the first time in her life, Luke had reminded her of her father.
The two of them stood across from each other like that for a long, wordless moment. Beer frothed and foamed on the floor, shards of glass glittered among it. Luke’s breath was coming in ragged gulps.
“Shit,” he said finally, his shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry, kid. I don’t know why I did that.”
Margot shook her head. “It’s okay. It’s fine.”
From his back pocket, Luke pulled the red bandanna she’d given him for Christmas all those years ago and rubbed it over his face, suddenly looking twenty years older. “No, it’s not. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s this”—he pounded the heel of his hand against his forehead—“this fucking thing.”
“I know,” she said, because she did. The disease was like a tapeworm in his brain, eating away at everything that made him who he was. “It’s okay.”
Luke dropped his hand to his side and his face fell. “I really am sorry, kid.”