I nodded, started emptying boxes from the closest tote bag. Because what could one say when she was in your house, with your keys, and she’d been locked up for the last fourteen months?
“I really am sorry, Harper,” she said, voice lower, more confessional.
“You scared me,” I said, our eyes locking over the span of counter between us.
She held my gaze, unmoving, until I looked back to the tote bags. There was something almost eerie about the groceries she’d purchased. She knew exactly what I’d been needing. A new carton of eggs, the type of orange juice I drank, everything that was running low—she’d gotten it all and then some. I thought of the money in the bathroom. How much more of it did she have? She’d come back in new clothes with new food. I assumed she’d stayed at a hotel near her meeting, but maybe I was wrong.
“Go,” she said, and I was shocked by the word—the one I’d been thinking to say to her instead. “Go relax. I’ve got this. Please, let me do this.”
When I didn’t move—because it was my house, my kitchen, my cabinets she was currently opening—she pulled out the wine from the last bag. “Here,” she said, “still your favorite?” And something softened inside me, because it was. Because, fourteen months later, a lifetime later, she still knew this. And I remembered the other side of her, before the investigation: how thoughtful she’d always been. When I’d had a bad workday, when Aidan had left, she’d somehow known exactly what to say or do.
She’d brought me flowers—lilies, my favorite, in an assortment of colors that brightened the room. She’d stood on my front porch with the vase in her hands and said, He’s an asshole, and I’m sorry. I’d invited her in, and she looked around my half-empty house, and it was then, seeing the empty spaces that needed to be filled, that she asked if I could use a roommate. When all I could feel were the people who had been our friends, who were no longer reaching out, as if my heartbreak might be contagious.
It wasn’t a roommate I needed in particular, but Ruby filled up the space with her things, her laughter, her thoughtfulness.
Ruby checked the right drawer on the first try, held up the corkscrew, and opened the bottle, pouring me a healthy portion. I took it from her hand, our fingers brushing.
“Now,” she said, with a crooked grin, “let’s see if I remember how to use a stove.”
This time I smiled, too. I went along with it, leaning into the awkwardness, the way she just embraced it, made it a part of her, didn’t try to fight it or pretend it didn’t exist—the opposite of Charlotte, in so many ways.
I took the glass of wine out back, sat in the Adirondack chair with the chipping white paint, watching the shade creep across the brick patio. Thinking about how the trial had painted her, the way they wanted to make her into a manipulative villain instead of someone fully formed. Who could be both generous and careless, fearful and feared.
Next door, I could hear the daily monotony of Tate and Javier’s dinner routine—banging cabinets, the rattle of a pan on the stovetop, Javier’s muffled voice. Whatever had happened yesterday, they seemed back on track today.
I curled my toes on the wooden stool, watching the bees darting from flower to flower in the mulched garden against the house. The far-right corner of the mulch bed was disturbed—Ruby was right, though it wasn’t obvious unless you sat at a distance. An abrupt gap between the flowers and the edge of the brick, the mulch between them dark and overturned.
When Ruby swung open the door a while later, her face was shiny, and the scent of garlic and oregano trailed after her. “Dinner is served,” she said with a flourish of her arm, beckoning me inside. She was brimming with nervous energy, watching for my expression as she led me past the kitchen.
She’d set the dining room table off the front foyer, which we never used. It ended up functioning as a holding area for mail or packages, usually. We typically ate at the kitchen table, or standing at the counters, or on the couch with plates balanced on our laps, wineglasses on the coffee table.
Now the chandelier looked like a candelabra, dimmed and atmospheric. Half the lights had burned out over time, and I’d never found the replacements, which gave the room a certain ambiance, shadowed and quiet.
“That’s you,” she said, pointing to the place setting against the far wall, without the wineglass. Her glass was poured fresh, next to her dish in the place beside mine, facing the front window. She had made shrimp and pasta, a salad, garlic bread. With intense formality, she gestured for me to sit first. She was watching me closely, every movement, waiting for my reaction.
“This looks really good, Ruby,” I said, and I meant it. It had been a long time since someone had cooked for me.
“I hope you’re hungry?” She said it as a question, and wasn’t it? Wasn’t this a test of some sort? Whether I believed she was a killer. Whether I believed she could become one. The ultimate question: Did I trust her?
Would I move the food around, looking closely? Would I chew tentatively, wondering at each bite what she would be capable of? Would I eat it?
Of course I would. I didn’t even wait for her to take a bite first, twisting the pasta around my fork, closing my eyes as I chewed. With Ruby, I knew, you were all in or you were nothing at all. “Oh, God,” I said around the bite, “it really is good, Ruby. Like, really fucking good.”
She smiled, her entire demeanor relaxing as she speared some lettuce on her fork. “You know what I missed the most inside? Being able to break from routine. Not just the big freedom—that’s not the worst. It was the little ones. They were harder to deal with than the bigger concept, honestly.” I saw her throat move, her eyes drift somewhere over my head. “Just the idea that I could cook dinner for someone…”
It took me a second to realize what she meant by inside. That she didn’t mean within her. She meant a place. A place where she had existed for fourteen months. And this, even cooped up with me, with the neighbors watching—this was out. She could finally do anything she pleased. Whether that was staying out a night without checking in, on a whim; buying a new outfit because she could. And could I fault her for that, really? Every day, a steady notch. An accumulation of weeks that became routine. Adding up to an unforgiveable passage of time.
Time to grow a child. For a child to grow teeth, learn to speak, turn from baby to toddler. To graduate and become an adult. And for us, time to decide on something. Come to terms with the truth—let it seep into your bones, gather weight, and become part of your understanding: Ruby was guilty. A jury agreed. We were right. All changes that were impossible to undo, in reverse.
I cleared my throat. “How did the meeting with the lawyer go?”
A pause. “Good,” she said. “And you? How was the meeting?”
I froze, then reached for my glass of wine, trying not to show how she shook me. How did she know about the meeting here? Had I mentioned it? Had she seen it on the message board somehow, logging in to my computer when I wasn’t looking? Had she spoken to someone else here?
But I felt my allegiance shifting in her presence. The wine, the food, the honesty. The words at the bottom of the television screen the day of her release: presumed innocent.
“As expected,” I said. “They’re starting a neighborhood watch.”
“Is that why I just saw Javier Cora walk by?”
I hadn’t noticed. But Ruby was facing the window, and I wondered if that was on purpose. Whether she’d grown accustomed to keeping an eye on her surroundings. Whether she was watching for something now.
Her gaze trailed after something out the window; for the first time, I could see the signs of fatigue on her: the thin skin under her eyes, dulled and discolored; the slightly sunken cheeks, like she was ravenous for something to drink.
“Probably,” I said. It was dusk.
“Or maybe not,” she said with a wry grin. And for a second I thought her look was for me—that she’d caught me watching her too closely.
I didn’t respond; didn’t know whether Ruby’s
throwaway lines meant anything at all or if I was reading too much into every word, every gesture.
“Well, anyway. What about you? What have you been up to?” she asked.
I thought of Mac last night, Charlotte this morning. “Hmm?”
“Fourteen months,” she said. “What did I miss?”
“Oh, nothing much.” Nothing I could tell her, the mundane things I’d taken for granted with the freedom she’d lacked. She already seemed to know about my new job somehow. But now I was really thinking about it—how maybe I, too, had been in a holding pattern for the last fourteen months. That I’d somehow understood—or believed, or feared—that someday she’d be back, and I had lost trajectory of my own life in the process. That I was only waiting for her return.
Fourteen months, and what did I have to show for it?
“I know one thing,” she said, fork resting in her hand. She stared at me, and I held my breath, and then she smiled, teeth first, before it reached her eyes. “You turned thirty, and I missed it. I hope you celebrated.”
Though I was stuffed, I made myself eat the last bite just to have something to do with my body. “We did a work thing,” I said. It was February, solidly winter, and Mac and I had cooled with the season. I’d gone out to dinner with my group of friends from the office; it had been nice and fun, but I had also become their boss, which altered the dynamic.
My friendships in the neighborhood had drifted since the trial. Maybe even before that. What I’d lost after Aidan—the couple friendships, the joint activities that were no longer possible—what I’d gained with Ruby. The easy way she could say, Your ex is a moron or You’re really pretty in the way girls used to in college, the type of simple compliment that we no longer gave or received outside that close confinement.
“Well, let’s do it now,” she said. “There’s no rule against that.” She left for the kitchen and returned with a second bottle of wine—I couldn’t remember when we finished the first, didn’t notice how much she’d kept pouring. How close some things were to the surface.
“How do you want to celebrate?” she asked. “We can do anything, really.”
The way she said it then, like I hadn’t looked far enough or close enough—like I’d taken my options for granted and had no perspective on the things that were possible, because they had never been taken from me.
I wondered then what I really wanted—maybe, for the first time in a long time, I really considered it. I’d gone to my father’s alma mater, and moved to a new part of the country with Aidan, and taken over Brandon’s job on an interim basis because I was the one with the most seniority left behind—then I’d worked so hard that no one could find a reason to take it from me. I’d learned to hold tight to the things I had earned. But sitting with Ruby, every path I’d taken seemed so narrow, so preordained.
Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was her, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the things that were suddenly possible beyond the walls of this house; beyond the borders of this town.
But I thought of Javier on shift, patrolling, keeping watch and reporting back to a community who believed they were keeping themselves safe. The note I’d found last night. The picture left inside. The dangers out there.
“This,” I said. “This is how I want to celebrate.”
She raised her glass to mine, nearly empty. Insisted on doing the dishes after, even though she’d cooked, while I found an old movie we both liked.
I gave over to it, to this, to her. Drunk on the wine and the freedom she’d just unveiled. With her face close to mine as she bent over laughing on the couch, her legs hanging over the end, everyone else seemed so far away. Another life, another world.
That morning with Charlotte, I’d lied, of course.
Of course I wouldn’t tell Ruby to go.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 3
HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE
Subject: Watch last night
Posted: 5:35 a.m.
Javier Cora: Just finished up my shift, and yeah, there were definitely some kids hanging out down by the lake. Heard them in the woods but couldn’t get a good look. Didn’t call the police because they left fast. Think they had a boat on the other side of the inlet.
Margo Wellman: Didn’t some local kid drown out there a few years ago at night??
* * *
Subject: July Fourth party rules
Posted: 10:52 a.m.
Charlotte Brock: Due to the fact that this is being partially sanctioned by our HOA fees, we are unable to accommodate any nonresidents.
Preston Seaver: That’s some bullshit. We’re bringing the food.
Javier Cora: Yeah, you can’t actually prevent us from bringing a guest to the pool. The rules already say we can bring up to two.
Tina Monahan: I don’t think this was directed at you guys.
Preston Seaver: Well maybe she should be more direct next time.
Charlotte Brock: Ok sorry for the confusion, after talking things over with the board, you are correct on the rules. Just an FYI though we may not have enough food for everyone. And just a reminder, you are responsible for your guests.
Preston Seaver: Don’t worry. I’ll tell my guest not to eat.
CHAPTER 11
I ALWAYS WOKE EARLY AFTER a night of drinking. Jolting awake in a panic while my mind raced to catch up, trying to remember what I might’ve said or done.
I was in my bed, the bedroom door wide open, the sun shining through the gap in the curtains. I couldn’t remember all the steps that had gotten me here. There was Ruby’s dinner, the movie, our conversation—and though I couldn’t pull every specific topic to mind, I remembered mostly laughter. Fits of it, doubled over, clutching our stomachs, the armrests of the couch, each other.
And then: more wine out on the back patio—I couldn’t remember how we’d gotten there—and then Ruby coming in from the dark, the warm gust of air following her as she tripped through the doorway. More laughter. Her saying, as if she’d merely stumbled onto a thought, We should call Mac. He was always good for a party. And me at least having the presence of mind to say, No, no, thank you, it’s my party, anyway.
Playing the game even way past sober. Something that had been deeply ingrained.
And then: Ruby perched on the edge of my dresser, singing a really terrible rendition of “Happy Birthday” while I fell into bed.
In a panic, I lurched from my bed to that dresser and pulled open the top drawer, reaching my hand into the bottom. I let out a breath at the feel of the paper folded up under my pajamas: the image inside, safe and secret and secure.
My head spun from standing upright too quickly, and I gave serious thought to getting back into bed and remaining there indefinitely. But the other part of me needed to see Ruby, to know where she was, and maybe discover where she had been. How quickly I’d fallen back under her spell last night. All for the price of one home-cooked meal and my favorite wine.
I tiptoed out to the loft, approaching her room. The bathroom door was closed, but the door to her bedroom was cracked open. Peering in, I saw her facedown on the turquoise comforter, dressed in yesterday’s clothes, with one arm over the edge. Her face was turned toward the wall, so all I could see was her dark blond hair, the slight but steady rise and fall of her back. The cat glared back at me from the edge of the bed.
I got ready for the day quickly—a fast shower, hair in a wet braid, no breakfast, so as not to wake her—and let myself out the front door, my key ring safely back in my possession. I would probably be back before she woke.
In the car, I adjusted the mirror she’d moved last, a fingerprint smudge on the edge. Then I backed out of the driveway, eyes on the front door of my house as if I expected her to come outside and beckon me back. As if I were her prisoner, oblivious to the boundaries that held me.
But she didn’t emerge, and I drove down the street, passing in front of the pool, where I stopped for a moment.
I wanted to look for clues of where Ruby might’ve been for
those thirty hours. Where she’d met the lawyer with the blunt haircut and sharp cheekbones and catchy name; where she’d stayed after, where she had shopped—picking up the new clothes, the fresh groceries—before returning to me. Her words a chill on the back of my neck: Someone’s going to pay.
I checked the odometer, but I couldn’t be sure of what my mileage count had been when she left. Inside the glove box, I looked for anything out of the ordinary, rifling through my own assortment of old receipts stuffed around the car handbook. I dipped my fingers into the cupholders, the pocket on the door, finding nothing but loose change and a hair tie. All that remained was a scent, like an air freshener. Like something else had needed to be covered up.
Maybe Ruby had smoked. Maybe she’d driven with the window down, wind in her hair, arm held out the window with a cigarette between her fingers. Maybe she’d dreamed of driving forever and gotten carried away by the feel and the scent and the freedom.
Maybe it was nothing: hours at a business park, like she said; drinks over dinner; the lawyer pointing out a hotel across the street, a big box store across a highway where she’d picked up a change of clothes and groceries on the way home; the scent of the hotel soap lingering.
All these little mysteries. Did they even really matter? Or was I letting my mind get carried away, like this entire neighborhood had done, working themselves into a frenzy, piecing together their story?
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