“What do you want me to do or say to her?” Ace asked resignedly, knowing Holt was right.
“We will brief you tomorrow morning at the station,” Holt told him. “Oh, and you’ll need to wear a wire.”
“You want me to wear a wire?” Ace spluttered, gaping at Holt.
Holt’s expression confirmed it before he spoke. “Yes.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ace said flatly.
“I’m completely serious,” Holt replied.
Ace looked at the lake. He looked at the memorial stone visible beyond the rows of chairs. He thought about what it had taken to get the truth on that stone, the ten years and the five lives and everything that had happened over the past several weeks to bring it there.
“Okay, but I’ll need more than something doesn’t feel right,” Ace told him. “You’re asking me to deceive someone I’ve known for years.”
“I know that,” Holt acknowledged. “And I’m asking you to do it because I believe there’s more to this than what we have. The Victoria narrative is clean. Too clean.” His voice was quiet and entirely certain. “I’ve spent thirty years building cases. Cases that fall together this neatly almost always have a door somewhere that somebody left open on purpose.”
Ace felt that land.
He turned it over for a moment.
“I’ll have to tell Willa,” Ace said. “I can’t ask her to?—”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Holt cut in. His voice was firm but not unkind. “Only you, June, and I know about this. It has to stay that way.”
Ace’s brows shot up, and he looked at Holt for a long moment. Then he looked past him to where the table was visible through the crowd. Willa’s profile stood out among the people gathered around her, her head tilted toward Margo, one hand wrapped around her coffee cup.
He looked at Grace beside Katey at the teenagers’ gathering. At Andy, who was laughing at something Tyler had just said. At Becky with Zoe. All of them, innocent and carefree, needed this to end completely so they could all remain that way.
Then that ghostly voice moved through his memory with clarity once again.
Look after them and love them for me.
Ace exhaled slowly.
Doing what Holt was asking was exactly that. The threat wasn’t over. Victoria was still out there. Her accomplices were still out there. Until they were found and the full truth of what they’d done was on record, nobody in that circle was entirely safe. Which meant the people he’d been asked to protect were sitting at a table twenty feet away, eating caramel pie and thinking the worst of it was over.
Ace had to let them keep thinking that.
“Fine,” Ace said quietly. “I’ll call Sienna back and make the arrangements.”
“Thank you,” Holt replied. He glanced toward the table, his eyes landing briefly on Willa before looking back at Ace. “She’ll understand eventually. When it’s done.”
Ace didn’t answer that.
“Come to the station in the morning,” Holt continued. “I’ll brief you on the wire and on what we need you to establish. Sienna knows you’re working with us, so she might ask questions about her mother’s case.” His eyes held Ace’s. “June and I will have answers prepared that won’t compromise the investigation.”
“Okay,” Ace said, blowing out a breath. “I’ll be there bright and early.”
Holt put a hand briefly on his shoulder. “And Ace.” He paused. There was something in his expression now that was less direct and more fatherly. “Keep your distance from Willa and her family while you’re doing this. The less connected you appear to be to that circle, the less likely Sienna is to guard herself around you and the less danger you’ll put Willa’s family in.”
The words arrived in Ace’s chest like something heavy being set down from a height.
He knew Holt was right. He’d known it before Holt had said it. The logic of it was clean and unavoidable, which didn’t make it feel any less like the ground had just shifted underneath everything he’d been carefully, patiently building toward.
Holt moved away through the crowd.
Ace stood where he was.
