“It’s past eleven. Let’s go to bed.”
Margot closed up for the night as he got ready, then she went into his room to make sure he’d brushed his teeth and changed clothes.
Back in her room, after she’d bid him a terse good night, Margot leaned against the door and squeezed her hands into fists. She dug her nails into her palms until they stung, then she kept pushing. There had to be an explanation for all this. There had to be some reasonable alternative to the story her brain was churning out. Her uncle was a good man. He wasn’t like Elliott Wallace. He would never, could never, hurt anyone, let alone a six-year-old girl. And yet, for the first time since she’d been there, that night she locked her bedroom door.
* * *
—
The next morning as Margot was making coffee, Luke padded into the kitchen, looking as if he’d aged a decade overnight. She felt the same. His episodes, this case, those notes—everything was taking its toll.
“Morning, kid.”
“Morning.” She flashed him a tight smile. “How’d you sleep?”
What she wanted to ask him was what he knew about January, but she couldn’t force the words from her mouth. It was clear he was lucid this morning, as he was most mornings, but what would an accusation from her do to that precarious state? Worse, what would it do to them?
A vibration from her back pocket made her jump. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the screen: Pete. Margot hesitated. She didn’t want to talk to him. She was still annoyed about how easily he’d found her underbelly and slipped in the knife. She declined the call.
She was grabbing two mugs for their coffee when her phone vibrated again. Again, it was Pete. This time she answered.
“I thought you might be avoiding me,” he said.
She let out something between a sigh and a laugh. “My phone was just in the other room.” She poured coffee into one of the mugs and handed it to her uncle, who settled down with it at the kitchen table.
“Right.” There was something in his tone that told Margot he wasn’t quite over yesterday either. “Well. How’re you?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. You?”
“Fine. Look, I’m calling because I found Elliott Wallace’s sister.” At the name, Margot’s heart lurched. After she’d all but kicked him out yesterday, she didn’t think there was a chance Pete was still planning on helping her. She angled herself away from Luke, who’d begun to work on his book of crosswords. “He’s been harder to track down,” Pete said. “But I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, I thought you might like her address. Her name’s Annabelle Wallace and she lives in Indianapolis.”
“Oh my gosh, Pete. I owe you one. Seriously.”
“No problem.”
He recited the address and Margot jotted it down on a paper towel. “Thank you. And listen. About last night—”
“Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have told you how to live your life.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, sorry. And thanks again.”
They said goodbye and Margot was about to hang up when something occurred to her. “Pete! Wait.” She threw a glance at Luke, but he seemed completely absorbed in his crossword. Still, she stepped out of the kitchen and walked quickly to her room, shutting the door behind her. “Has anybody at the station found anything about who could’ve left that note on my car?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. One of the guys brought in a few kids yesterday. Three boys in the upcoming senior class. They didn’t get a confession or anything, but they have a history of shit like that. The officer told them that if anything like that happened again, they were gonna really crack down. Why?” he asked, sounding suddenly alarmed. “You didn’t get another one, did you?”
“No,” she said a little too quickly. “I was just wondering.”
“Okay, good. And speaking of, I haven’t come across that woman you described either. I’m hoping that was nothing after all, but obviously if you see her again, make sure to report it.”
“Right. Thanks again, Pete.”
When she hung up, instead of heading back to the kitchen for coffee, she got changed. She wanted to head out for Indianapolis as soon as possible. She preferred leaving Luke in the mornings when he was most lucid and independent, but more than that, her need to solve this case now felt dire. Proving Elliott Wallace’s guilt wasn’t just about securing a breaking-news story or about understanding what had happened across the street all those years ago. Nor was it even about bringing Wallace to justice. Now, what she wanted most was simply to ensure her uncle had nothing to do with January’s death—to ensure he was still the man she knew, still the man she loved.
Back in the kitchen, she put up her mug and poured her coffee into a to-go cup. “I’m gonna be gone for a bit,” she said to Luke. “I’ll be back by this afternoon.” She tried to smile, but it felt tight, and without meeting his eye, she hurried out of the house.
* * *
—
Three hours later, Margot was knocking on Annabelle Wallace’s front door. Elliott’s sister’s house, a two-story red brick in a suburb of Indianapolis, was about twice the size of the one where Elliott had lived when Margot interviewed him three years ago. While Annabelle’s home wasn’t by any means new, it looked well kept with a manicured lawn and neat landscaping.
Margot only had to wait a few moments after knocking before the door swung open, revealing a woman in her late forties, wearing fitted jeans and a white blouse. Margot could tell at once that this woman was Annabelle Wallace. She had the same big brown eyes as Elliott and the same dirty blond hair. But more than that, Margot recognized the woman by her ears. Abnormally large, they stuck out from her head at the same sharp angle her brother’s did.
She gave Margot a polite, perfunctory smile. “Can I help you?”
Margot returned the smile much more warmly. “Hi. I’m Margot Davies. Are you Annabelle?”
“I am.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry to show up like this unannounced, but I’m actually trying to find your brother, Elliott.”
“What’s he done this time?” Margot opened her mouth to respond, but then Annabelle held up a hand. “No, never mind. I don’t care. And I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I haven’t spoken to Elliott in years.”
“Oh, I see.” Margot flicked her eyes to the ground as she pretended to think this over. When she looked up again, she squished her face into what she hoped looked like guilelessness. “In that case, would you be willing to talk? Just for a few minutes. I’m a reporter. Learning a little bit about your brother might help me find him.”
It was a gamble using this as leverage. From her experience, the proclamation that she was a journalist either piqued people’s curiosity or made them put up their defenses. To her great relief, it seemed Annabelle was one of the former.
“A reporter? What story are you working on? And what does my brother have to do with it?”
“Well, I’m a crime reporter and I’m covering a few different cases at the moment. Have you heard of Polly Limon?”
Margot watched Annabelle’s face closely as she said this, searching for any sign of recognition, but the woman just stared back at her blankly. “Who?”
“She’s a girl from Dayton, Ohio. I’m also writing about January Jacobs.”