“If he’s available,” Holt said.
“I’ll give him a call.” Harvey nodded and headed toward the door to make the call, leaving June and Holt in the hidden bay with the truck and the smell of machine oil and old secrets.
June stood very still for a moment.
“Why on earth would someone need an identical truck to Lucy’s?” June asked Holt.
“To set Lucy up,” Holt said. “Maybe whoever ran Lacey off the road and then thought they had trapped her in the burning vet’s office needed a plan C to get her out of the way.”
June’s eyes widened even more at Holt’s words.
7
MARGO
Margo had planned to march into the police station, straight to June and Director Dillinger, where she planned to plant herself in front of them and insist they stop trying to handle everything in little separate pockets of information while the rest of them stood around piecing scraps together like children left with a puzzle and no box lid.
Margo understood why law enforcement couldn’t simply open the floodgates and tell civilians everything. She wasn’t unreasonable. But she, Rad, Willa, Ace, Carmen, and half the people they cared about had already been dragged into this, whether anyone liked it or not.
And if what was happening now had anything to do with ten years ago, whether it was a copycat or something much worse, then the people who had lived through that time might remember something that mattered. That was valuable information that could help crack this case wide open. Margo smiled at her choice of words. She had always wanted to say that line. She gave her head a shake and got back to the task of giving herself the pep talk she needed to keep moving.
It was a task Margo had decided she was going to tackle while buttering her toast that morning.
She was barreling toward the police station, rehearsing exactly what she was going to say in her head when she saw June and Holt turning toward Harvey’s auto repair shop.
She stopped for a few seconds and watched, wondering if she should go into the police station and wait for them there or… Margo frowned as she read the body language. Harvey looked rather keyed up, and the way the three of them were moving made it clear they were heading toward something important.
Curiosity changed Margo’s direction before common sense could interfere, and she veered away from her original destination.
Margo slowed only long enough to give them time to enter the auto repair shop. Her head tilted as she watched Harvey glance around as if to make sure no one was watching before he followed them inside.
That’s very curious, Margo thought as she started walking again.
Whatever they were going into Harvey’s shop for had the shape of something interesting, secret, and probably terrible.
Which, lately, seemed to cover most things in Sandpiper Shores.
Margo crossed the street and slipped inside behind them.
The front of Harvey’s shop smelled like oil, warm metal, and old rubber, just as it always had. The sounds of tools and low conversation bounced around the main work area, but Harvey had already led June and Holt farther in. Margo moved past the open bay, through the side passage, and then into the older rear section of the building.
She stopped dead.
For one awful second, Margo saw her mother’s truck. But something was off about it.
The color was right. The shape was right. The general size and lines were so close that her stomach dropped before her brain caught up. Then she heard Harvey’s voice and whatever he had just said about bumpers and identification being stripped, and the scene rearranged itself into something even stranger.
“What on earth is going on?” Margo hissed before she could stop herself.
All three of them spun around, wide-eyed.
Harvey looked startled. June looked caught off guard. Holt’s expression hardened instantly into that particular look of his that suggested he would have preferred a private room, three locks, and a less persistent audience.
Margo had already blown her cover, so she might as well press for answers, and she folded her arms.
“Well?” she asked.
Holt recovered first.
