Page 67 of All Good People Here

“I was trying to help. January’s murderer is still out there. Which means that whoever he is could’ve taken Natalie. No one was even entertaining that idea, except for you. And no one was taking you seriously. I thought it would help you and the police make the connection. Although,” she added bitterly, “theywere still so convinced of Krissy’s guilt they couldn’t recognize a clue when it was spray-painted in two-foot-tall letters.”

Beneath Margot’s whirling confusion, she also felt a tiny grain of vindication. She’d been right. The author of those words on the barn had been trying to connect January’s death to Natalie Clark’s. It may have been convoluted and misleading, but it had kept Margot on that path. Yet so much of what Jodie was saying still didn’t make any sense. “You said you couldn’t approach me because you didn’ttrustme? Why? I’m an out-of-town reporter. I was the only one asking all the questions you apparently wanted to get asked, the only one you thought was on the right track.”

Jodie looked down, hesitating. “I didn’t trust you because…I knew who you were.”

“You knew who I—what? What does that mean?”

“It’s the same reason I’ve been trying to protect you. I want you to write your story, to help catch whoever killed January and Natalie. I want you to clear Krissy’s name. But to do that, you need to stay alive. And that’s no guarantee right now.” She cut her eyes to Margot’s, holding her gaze. “Not when you’re living with your uncle.”

Margot stilled. “My uncle? What does he have to do with this?”

“He has everything to do with it. That’s why it took me so long to trust you—because of your last name.” Jodie paused, and when she spoke next, her voice was soft, sympathetic. “Luke Davies is a murderer, Margot. You’re living with a killer.”

THIRTY

Margot, 2019

In the wake of Jodie’s accusation, Margot felt paralyzed. Even though the suspicion had been hovering at the edge of her mind ever since she’d seen her uncle’s face in that photo, hearing it articulated out loud and by a perfect stranger sliced through her like a cleaver.

Luke Davies is a murderer. You’re living with a killer.

No,Margot wanted to say.No, you’re wrong.

Luke had given her a home, a refuge from her parents. He loved her more than anybody else did and she him.He’s not a killer. He’s my uncle,she wanted to say.Elliott Wallace is the killer.But the words wouldn’t come. She just stared, head bowed and mind spinning, at a spot on the car’s floor.

“I’m sorry,” Jodie said after a moment. “But it’s true. He killed Kris—”

Her voice broke and Margot’s head snapped up. She’d been sure that Jodie had been going to finish that sentence with January’s name. Margot opened her mouth, closed it again, then shook her head. “What?”

“Your uncle killed Krissy.”

“No,” she scoffed. “Krissy Jacobs killed herself. My uncle hardly even knew her.” Margot knew this because Luke had told her so, every time she’d asked him about January’s case. “Why on earth would he kill her?”

“Your uncle knew Krissy very well. He was the father of her children.”

Margot froze as Jodie’s words penetrated her consciousness and slowly sank in. Was this woman delusional? Unstable? Was she simply lying? And yet, even as those suspicions bloomed in Margot’s mind, there was another part that couldn’t dismiss Jodie’s claim so easily. “Can you just…start from the beginning?”

“Yes. Of course.” Jodie took a deep breath and then she began. “Krissy, Billy, me, and your uncle all grew up here together. I think he goes by his first name now—Luke—but the only thing we ever called him was Dave.”

The nickname, Jodie explained, was an abbreviation of his last name, which they apparently sometimes did—“Zoo for Katy Zook, for example.” Then she went on to tell Margot everything she’d learned from Krissy ten years earlier: During the summer after their senior year, Luke, Krissy, and Billy became close friends. Krissy got pregnant with the twins and Billy proposed, but it was Luke, not Billy, who was the father. In order to protect her secret from Billy and the rest of the town, Krissy had pushed Luke away. And then one day, twenty-one years later, when she received a letter from Jace, she decided to tell Luke the truth. Twenty-four hours later, Krissy was dead.

“So, you see?” Jodie said. “She told your uncle the truth, but in his eyes, it was too late. Jace was grown and gone, and January was dead. Krissy not only lied to him for more than twenty years, she also robbed him of his only chance at being a father.” Margot’s mind flashed to the nursery in her uncle’s house, the one that had been forever empty. “And he lost it,” Jodie said. “I warned her he would, but she trusted him.”

Margot realized suddenly that she was touching her cheek, absently prodding the sensitive spot just below where the freezer door had sliced through her skin. She dropped her hand into her lap.

“But the gun found in Krissy’s hand,” she said. “It belonged to her—them, the Jacobses. They kept it in a case in the living room.”

Jodie nodded. “Like I said, Dave—Luke—knew them. Before the kids were born, he used to go over to their place all the time. He would’ve known where the gun case was, and he also would’ve known it was never locked.”

Margot shook her head. “No. No, Luke wouldn’t have done that.”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but—”

“No,” she said again, and this time her voice was hard. “That’s not it. Or yes, it is. But that’s notjustit. Luke wouldn’t have killed Krissy when she told him he was the twins’ father, because that’s not when he found out that he was. He already knew.”

Margot had realized this the moment Jodie had told her Krissy’s secret. Because it was then that everything she’d discovered about her uncle in the past twenty-four hours suddenly made sense. It explained why Luke went to January’s dance recitals, why he kept a copy of every one of her programs. If Jace had done an activity, Luke would have gone to his events too. Her uncle didn’t have some perverted infatuation with January. He loved her—and Jace—as a father.

This even explained why Luke had lied to Margot about not knowing the Jacobs family. He was keeping Krissy’s secret too, not to avoid gossip, not to prevent Billy from getting hurt, but to protect his wife and niece: Rebecca, who’d tried for years to get pregnant; Margot, who was young and already felt unloved by her own parents. What it would’ve done to her to learn that the little boy and girl across the street were actually the children of the man she considered her own father, she didn’t know.

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