Page 35 of All Good People Here

As he rang her up, Margot kept waiting for the guy to say something—everyone else in this town was so curious about who she was and why she was there—but he accepted her credit card wordlessly, then handed over the DVD and receipt. “Due back by Thursday.”

“Thanks.” Margot slipped the movie into her backpack. “Hey, are you Eli, by chance?”

The guy looked up from the book he’d already gone back to. For a moment, he was silent, then, “Yes.”

“I’m Margot Dav—”

“I know who you are.”

“Oh. Right…Then you probably also know that I’m looking into the January Jacobs case. I know you moved to Wakarusa after it happened, but someone mentioned that you used to be friends with Jace. I was hoping to ask you about him.”

Though she hadn’t asked a direct question, most people would have felt compelled to respond, if for no other reason than to avoid an awkward silence. Eli, on the other hand, just stared passively back at her.

After a moment, she said, “Is that true? Were the two of you friends?”

“We were friends.”

“Do you guys still talk?”

“No.”

“Do you happen to know where he is?”

“No.”

“Okay…Listen, I’m sorry I’m prying. I’m not trying to get Jace in trouble or anything. I—”

But Eli cut her off. “I don’t give a shit about that. I’m not, like, hiding anything. I just haven’t heard from the guy in over a decade.”

“Right. Okay.” Margot hesitated. She was pretty sure he was telling the truth, but she also suspected he knew more about Jace than he thought he did. She just needed to coax it out of him. “Could you tell me what he was like when youdidknow him then?”

“I honestly didn’t know him that well. We mainly just…smoked weed together.”

“That’s way more than anyone else in this town did with him. You probably remember more than you think. Please. I’m not using this for an article or anything. I’m just trying to find him.”

Eli eyed her for a moment, and then, finally, he sighed. “What do you wanna know?”

Margot gave him a grateful smile. “Did he ever talk about the future? What he wanted to be, where he wanted to live?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Okay…Whatdidhe talk about?”

“I don’t know. He was pretty quiet.”

Margot forced her face to remain neutral. “What was he like? Personality, likes, dislikes, that kinda thing.” She was getting further away from what she actually needed, but at this point, she just wanted to get Eli talking.

“Um…He liked art, painting and shit. He hated his family.”

“Really?” Margot raised her eyebrows. “How d’you know?”

“Because he’d say things likeI hate my fucking family.And, you know”—Eli shrugged—“I’d read between the lines.”

“Huh. Was his sister included in that?”

“January?” For the first time, Eli looked surprised by thequestion. “I don’t know. He didn’t ever really talk about her.” His eyes roved around the store and it seemed he was trying to remember whether or not that was true. “Yeah, no. He couldn’t have hated her. He used to bring flowers to her grave every year.”

Margot blinked. “Jace brought flowers to January’s grave?” She’d heard him clearly enough, but she was having trouble wrapping her head around it. It didn’t jibe with the boy she remembered or the grown-up version of him she’d created in her head. “Every year, when?”

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