“That’s nothing.” I swipe my hand before me. “He travels all the time for concerts. He’s in demand. He’s an amazing musician. I’m sure if you check each of those concerts, his whereabouts can be accounted for.”
“We have checked, and there are some large blanks in his schedule. He arrived way earlier than necessary for his gigs and left a good two days after he wrapped up each of his performances.”
“Again, that means nothing.” I see myself grimacing in the bathroom mirror. “Wallace is that way.” I keep my voice down still. “He likes to take things slowly, absorb his surroundings—unwind before and after events. He doesn’t like to feel rushed, and he enjoys the places he travels to. He loves Montana, but he relishes it whenever he gets away to anyplace with some urban culture, where he can take in other musicians, museums, plays.” But even as I say it, the thought that he, more than anyone, would know what I did with Sophie and have reason to hate me for it takes root in my mind.
“We figure that’s what he’ll claim, but the facts remain.”
“You haven’t spoken to him?”
“We wanted to talk to you first. We’re visiting him in the morning. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, you need to be extra careful with everyone you come across. Trust no one.”
“Look, I’ll have him out of here in five.”
“Okay, but if I don’t hear back from you in six, I’m calling Zane.”
I go back to the living room, where I left Wallace, but don’t see him. I turn the corner and find him beside the fridge, leaning against the counter with one hip, his back to me. I’m about to ask him if he’s hungry, like I normally would, but another part of me hears Alderson’s voice.
Sixminutes. Get him out of here in the next few minutes so I can get back to work.
Then he turns, and I see that he’s holding my gun.
Chapter 32
I stop dead, then take a step back.
Wallace stares at me with a look I can’t parse. Could be,How in the world have you become some sicko’s target?Or, just as easily in the senseless world I’ve been thrust into the last few days,I could shoot you right now.
The dark metal of my weapon—the weapon that should be inmygrip—contrasts with his creamy fingers. They’re immaculate, and I see them gliding over his piano keys. The gun in his palm is 100 percent at odds with the image.
It’s just Wallace,I tell myself, but the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I’m holding my breath.
“It was right there on the counter,” he says. “All the times I’ve been over, I’ve never seen it out.” He’s inspecting it now, turning it this way and that. His blue eyes are intense, but focused, like when he’s composing or playing.Hashe held a nasty grudge against me for convincing Sophie to go camping? Did she share with him that I encouraged her to be more free-spirited? If she did, he never breathed a word about it over all these years.
“You know how I feel about gun safety,” I say, holding my hand out. “A gun is never a solution to any situation when I’m off the job. Rarely on the job, either.”
He inspects it some more. I can see the tension in his jaw, the muscles tightening under the pale skin of his throat.
“Wallace.” I shove my hand closer. A sick sensation mixed with dread rushes to my head. Could it be him? Has he hung on to and nursed resentments over Sophie until they reached a breaking point? Could he just pull that trigger right now here in my kitchen? “Give me the damn gun.”
He pulls his head back in surprise. A nervous laugh escapes. “Jesus, Crosbie. What? Oh my God. You really think I could hurt you?”
“No,” I say.Maybe.I don’t know what to think, who to trust, anymore. “But give it to me.”
He shakes his head in annoyance and sets the gun on my palm, but his eyes stay on mine. It’s so much more than irritation. In the sharp, bright blue of his irises, I see the rage. Even hate, like the teeth of an open-mouthed shark breaking up through dark waters. I pull my head back, oddly even more shocked with this than at the gun pointing at me.
“Wallace?” I whisper it more than say it, like I’m trying to understand if he’s the same guy I’ve always known standing in my kitchen.
“Crosbie,” he says firmly, like a parent scolding a child. “What have youdone?Whatdo you need to confess?”
“What?” Hearing these two questions leave his lips—thesurenessthat I’ve done something awful—jars me horribly, goes right to my deepest shames.
I can practically see him thinking,What has this person who I’ve been involved with—intimatewith—done?
Or maybe,I know what you did, how you lured my sister out to those woods with a pack of guys,encouragedher, for God’s sake, to not be guarded, pushing her right into the arms of that monster so her first time was fuckingassault.
The pain is unbearable. I feel lightheaded. More nausea climbs. I take a strained breath. But then the anger trails. The damn anger. But it’s easier, so, so much easier than the agony. I curl my fingers so tightly around the handle of my gun that it feels like they might break. Howdare he ask me that right here, right now, after fondlingmygun. Does he not realize how insensitive it is?
Or is that the point?
