Chapter Twenty-five
‘We’ll have to come back soon. Next week is out for me, but maybe the following?’ says Liam as he pops the trunk.
The cabin is locked up and we’re leaving. Liam seemed disappointed that I had to get back to the city so quickly, but he hasn’t resisted.
‘George’s wedding,’ I mumble as I sling my backpack into the trunk next to Liam’s. He closes the trunk.
‘Oh, right!’ He leans against the car, looking dreamy, content.
‘Then maybe the next. It’s so perfect out here in the summer.
Maybe we can stay for two or three nights next time.
I can cook you a proper meal, not just eggs and charcuterie.
And we can walk to the point. And maybe drive into Sheboygan for dinner.
They have a pizza place that will blow your mind. That’s a promise.’
‘Can we just get going?’ I snap, because I am not indulging in his twisted little fantasies. Is that when he’d kill me? The second time?
‘Sure. Also, this is a new side to you. Cranky Margot.’ He grins. ‘I like it.’
He’s trying to be cute, but I refuse to meet his eyes.
We both climb into the car. Liam gives me the side eye as he starts the engine.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Why?’
‘You seem … off.’ He reverses down the gravel driveway and out on to the private road.
I’ll definitely breathe easier once we’re on a main thoroughfare.
And once I make sure we’re really headed back to Chicago.
If he tries to take me to another location, I’ll jump out of the car, even if I end up breaking all my bones.
Better than being smothered, frozen and dumped.
‘Was it last night?’ He flickers a look at me, then back to the road. We turn out of the private drive and on to the paved road. ‘If I did anything you didn’t like …’
You mean murdering my friend?
‘Sorry to be rude, but I’m really tired,’ I say stiffly. ‘I’d prefer not to talk right now.’ I pull out my phone and angle my body toward the window. I hold my phone up, willing at least one bar to come back. That’ll make me feel at least fifty per cent safer.
‘Yeah, no problem,’ he says, but when I steal a glance, I can tell his feelings are hurt.
Whatever. The guy’s a serial killer.
The next twenty minutes pass in tense silence. I have my purse full of weapons, and I will not hesitate to use them if there is a single reason to.
Then, suddenly, one bar! Bingo. Two, three. Notifications flood my screen – a few texts, and my own news alerts.
There’s that influencer thing again … the same alert I remember seeing on Liam’s phone last night. I swipe it open and immediately recognize the name. Brooke Walsh. I’m pretty sure I follow her. I had a brief kick with sourdough bread and Brooke’s tutorials were everything. I scan the article.
Candlelit vigil for missing Chicago tradwife influencer draws thousands
If you haven’t heard the name Brooke Walsh, perhaps you’ve been living under a rock.
A self-proclaimed ‘urban tradwife,’ Brooke’s Instagram account has exploded in recent years, garnering over a million followers for her content about cooking, raising chickens and doing her laundry by hand in her small city bungalow in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood.
Two thousand of her fans gathered Saturday night to hold a vigil and pray for her safe return.
Brooke’s husband Michael Walsh was the first to sound the alarm.
While away on a hunting trip in Alaska, he became concerned when Brooke didn’t call at their usual time in the evening.
When a neighbor confirmed she wasn’t home, he immediately booked a flight back to Chicago.
After filing a missing person report, Mr Walsh has offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information that leads to finding Brooke …
Chills race up my arms. Another disappeared woman from the North Side of Chicago. And right on time – it’s been six months.
I glance sideways at Liam’s profile. His expression is neutral, his eyes focused on the road.
It has to be him.
I try to reconstruct the timeline as we speed through Milwaukee.
If she’s been missing for only a couple days, when did he kidnap her?
Maybe the morning of George’s party – or could it have been the night before?
But where did he stash her? At his condo?
Or – oh God – somewhere close to the cabin?
Did he take me out there so that he could keep an eye on Brooke?
Is she still alive? Or did he murder her while I was napping on the couch?
There was a small shed, I’m now remembering it – I saw it as we drove in. I never looked inside it. Stupid.
‘Thinking deep thoughts?’ says Liam, his tone light, obviously trying to build a bridge.
‘Just spacing out.’ I focus my stare out the window, trying to hold myself together.
Are the strange smells in his condo more than just sauerkraut and kimchi after all? Are the screams really his upstairs neighbor? Why did I believe that so quickly? The minutes and the miles tick by as my mind races through various scenarios and a whole host of self-recriminations.
Finally, as we breach the city limits of Chicago, I glance over at Liam. ‘Do you have more vacation homes, or just the cabin?’
‘Just the cabin.’ His tone is guarded. He knows I’m acting weird. But how am I supposed to act, sitting inches from a serial killer in this very vulnerable position?
‘What about a storage unit? Do you have one of those? And what’s in the shed near the cabin?’
‘Some tools. Shears, a kayak, you know. Shed stuff. Why are you asking me these questions?’
Maybe it’s stupid. But I can’t hold this all in. ‘Have you heard of Brooke Walsh?’
His brow crinkles. ‘She’s an influencer, right?’
‘She disappeared.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’
He’s so calm. Too calm. Oh my God, he’s a psychopath.
And then, crashing through everything, a horrific realization hits me. Yes, Brooke fits the pattern. But there’s another part to it. When someone new disappears, the body of the previous person shows up.
Shit, fuck, shit.
Feverishly, I swipe open a browser and head to Reddit.
Sure enough, there’s a notification from my thread.
YourMamasWife Hey @looking_for_Zoe I figure you probably already saw this, but sharing just in case. Same beach as the others. SO sorry for the loss of everyone involved, and praying for her family. TW graphic content.
No, no, no.
I click on the link.
It takes me straight to the Cook County Unidentified Persons site, which I fucking failed to check because I decided to move on. How could I?
The entry is from four days ago. I scan with my heart in my throat.
ME2026-05720 … Beach off Sheridan Road … found on the sand on pile of cremated human remains … Human Left Foot of a White Female / unk age / Tattoo above ankle in black ink ‘Live Free Or Die’—
My soul exits my body.
It’s her.
I don’t have to look to know.
Still, I click on the photo, because there’s always a photo.
And I’m looking at my friend’s foot, sitting on the beach on a pile of pale, grayish dust – her ashes.
‘Holy shit fuck,’ I whisper, furiously swiping back tears so I can see it.
‘Margot – are you OK?’ Liam insists.
I ignore him and expand the picture to take a closer look. The toenails have the remnants of purple polish at the tips. I remember that exact shade. The bottle is still in her room. And the tattoo is hers, in the scrolly black cursive I know so well.
All I can hear is a vast silence in my head, like I’ve suddenly been transported to a different world.
A world where my friend is actually dead. Dismembered. Cremated. And tossed on a beach.
It’s no longer just a suspicion of mine, or a far-fetched theory. It’s reality.
The foot is pale, but it doesn’t look decomposed, likely because she was frozen like the others – until the killer incinerated the rest of her.
Oh God, here it comes.
‘Pull over,’ I order.
‘What?’ Liam looks at me, then back at the interstate. Cars are whipping along on either side of us. A truck barrels past.
‘I’m going to puke!’ I shout.
Liam merges right, then right again, and barely screeches on to the shoulder before I’m stumbling out of the car and emptying my guts between the car and the cement barrier.
Liam jogs around the car toward me. The wind from passing cars whips my hair.
‘Get away from me!’ I shout over the noise of the interstate, holding up a hand. ‘Don’t touch me!’
‘Sorry, sorry!’ Liam holds up both hands. ‘I’ll give you space. Sorry. Let me at least get you a tissue …’ He rummages in the glove compartment and comes back with a flattened box of tissues, which he holds out cautiously, still keeping his distance. I pull one out and dab my mouth.
‘I didn’t realize you were feeling sick,’ he says.
My eyes feel red, my mouth tastes disgusting, my friend is really and truly dead and I’m stuck in a car with her killer.
‘Let’s go,’ I say. There’s no other safe way home than to get back in. ‘Just get me back to Chicago, Liam. Please.’
*
I get out of Liam’s car at the first exit, ignoring his objections that we’re nowhere near an L station. Grabbing my backpack from the trunk, I hold up a hand to Liam as he comes around to help me.
‘Stay away from me,’ I say, the tension of our confined ride boiling in my skin.
‘Margot – what’s going on?’ He takes another step toward me, and I whip out my stun gun, holding it up in all its hot pink glory.
‘I said stay the fuck away!’
A couple across the street stops their walk to watch us. There’s a man in a Sox hat walking toward us from behind Liam. He stops too. Maybe it’s the fact that I have witnesses present that I let myself explode.
‘You lied to me! You said you didn’t date her, but I found your messages to Zoe, you liar! You flirted with her for weeks, and then you went on a date, and she never came home!’
His face drains of blood. ‘Wait – Margot – I can explain—’
‘Did you kill my friend? Tell me the truth.’
‘Margot, no—’ He holds up his hands.
‘Where were you holding her, all that time?’ I scream.
‘Margot, I swear to God I never met her.’