Page 69 of All Good People Here

In the car, outside the storage unit, Margot turned to see Jodie studying the baseball cap in her hands. “Jodie?”

Throughout their drive to Waterford Mills, Jodie had seemed stoic, resolute. But now, the reality of what they were about to dowas clearly hitting her. She was taking deep breaths through her nose and letting them out slowly through her mouth.

Jodie glanced over at Margot. “What if you just call the manager back tomorrow? He gave you the unit number. He might let you in.”

“He’s not gonna let some stranger into a random unit. My ID doesn’t even have the same name I told him over the phone.”

“Okay…But I still think if we just went to the police—”

“I already did. We don’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant. This is the only way.”

Jodie frowned.

“Listen,” Margot said. “You don’t have to do this. You can wait in the car if you want. I just—I at least need a ride home.” It was true; she didn’t absolutely need an accomplice to break into the unit. But if Jodie went with her, she could help keep an eye out for cameras. More important, once they got inside, having another person to go through Wallace’s stuff would split the search time in half.

“Fuck,” Jodie breathed. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“You sure?”

Jodie nodded. “If everything you said is true, this man killed three girls. He ruined Krissy’s life. If we can prove it…” Her voice faded and she finished the thought by putting the baseball cap on her head.

Margot gave her a thin smile. “Thank you.”

Still wearing her own hat, she stuffed the flashlights and two pairs of latex gloves into her jeans pocket, grabbed the bolt cutters from the back seat, and got out of the car, closing her door quietly behind her. Jodie followed suit, joining Margot on the other side, and the two of them made their way over to the chain-link fence.

For perhaps the first time in her life, Margot found herself grateful for the provinciality of the Midwest small town—the Waterford Mills storage unit was far from state of the art. Though thefence was eight or nine feet high, there was no barbed wire at the top, so it was scalable, and while she had spotted a security camera affixed to the corner of a nearby unit, she had her doubts about whether or not it actually worked. Still, she felt hot with nerves. If she got caught, she’d not only lose her lead to Wallace but would be facing criminal charges. Everything she’d worked so hard for would slip through her fingers.

Margot gazed through the fence at Wallace’s unit. “That’s his.” She gestured to it with her chin. “Seventy-four. Third from the right.”

Jodie nodded tightly.

“I’ll climb over first,” Margot said, bending down to press the two flashlights through one of the metal diamonds. “Then you can toss the bolt cutters over and follow.”

Jodie glanced at the top of the fence. “I hope I can make it.”

“You will.” Jodie may have been on the cusp of fifty, but she was in the kind of shape that hinted at regular jogging and Pilates.

Jodie threw her a look. “You are considerably younger than me, Margot.”

“You’ll be fine.”

Margot glanced around one last time for any sign of someone, but there was nothing but empty fields. The night was still and quiet. She took a deep breath, then grabbed high on the fence, dug a toe into it, and hoisted herself up.

The fence wobbled violently beneath her weight, but Margot held on, and after a moment, it grew still. She reached a hand up to grab another hold. The metal dug into her skin painfully, and holding herself up with nothing but her fingers and the toes of her shoes was much harder than she’d expected, but after five minutes or so, she reached the top, swung her leg over, and headed down again. Finally, she jumped onto the patchy grass, grateful to be back on solid ground.

She bent to grab the flashlights and stuffed them back into herpocket, but just as she did, she heard the sound of an approaching car. Through the fence, she caught Jodie’s gaze, and the woman’s eyes widened with panic. Margot’s heart thumped as she listened, her feet frozen in place. Then, she realized the sound of the car was growing fainter. She waited until it faded and let out a breath.

“Okay,” she said. “Throw over the cutters.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jodie muttered, shaking her head before she heaved the tool over and began to climb the fence too. It took her longer than it had Margot, but eventually she made it. Jodie caught her breath as Margot retrieved the cutters and the two of them walked, fast but quiet, toward unit seventy-four.

“All right,” Margot said in a low voice when they came to a stop outside the unit’s massive door. She glanced around them, careful to keep her head down in case she was wrong about the cameras. “Can you keep an eye out?”

As she’d seen from scoping out the facility hours earlier, the door of Wallace’s unit was, like all the rest, locked with a padlock. As she stared down at it, it seemed impossible a mere tool could break through its thick metal loop, but it was the only chance she had.

She fitted the bolt cutters around the metal and squeezed the handle fast and tight. Margot pressed as hard as she could, but the metal was thick and the blades wouldn’t penetrate. She continued to squeeze, harder and harder, until her arms began to tremble. Finally, when she couldn’t do it any longer, she gave up and pulled the cutters away. She felt as if the blades hadn’t even scraped the surface of the metal loop, but when she examined it, her breath coming in heavy gasps, she spotted two very small dents on either side.

“Shit,” she said. “I think it might be working.”

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