I was still trying to figure out how Agent Locke fit in. But Mac had implied we were together in this. All of us on the same side.
“Yes,” I said.
Chase nodded. “The local PD won’t be allowed to handle it. Not with the lawsuit pending.”
“Handle what?” I asked.
He glanced to the Truett house, the dark, empty windows, narrowing his eyes. “They suspect foul play,” he said, leaning closer.
I blinked twice, trying to process. Foul play, such a generic euphemism. Downplaying the truth: They suspect someone hurt Ruby. They suspect someone killed her.
“Did they say how?” I asked, and I could hear the waver in my own voice. I pictured Ruby on the lounge chair, how she’d looked the night before, under the corner light. No blood. No signs of a struggle.
“This isn’t official,” he said with another glance to the Truett house. “Just friends on the job. Small town, you know?” I nodded, urging him on. “They suspect she was poisoned.”
I stepped back, hand to my mouth, something churning in my stomach. Could taste the vodka from yesterday, the acid rising, the scent of chlorine in the back of my throat.
“Shit,” Chase mumbled, stepping closer even as I backed away. “Look, it’s not official, right? Just something I heard. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, but I didn’t want anyone to be caught off guard by it if they hear from somewhere else.”
I shook my head. “No, right, thank you for telling me.” I stepped back again, itching to be inside, behind the closed door, all the dangers held at bay.
He rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. “What did he ask you?”
“What?” I asked. “Who?”
“The guy from the BCI.”
“Nothing,” I said. Then I shook my head. “Just where I last saw her. How I found out. He wanted to see her things, but there was nothing there.” I swallowed. “He asked if my video feed records.”
Chase’s gaze went to the front of my door, where the camera was positioned.
“I told him no.” Another step back, so I could get away from Chase and this conversation. “He asked what she was drinking. I told him she made sangria.” I sucked in a gulp of air, heard myself wheezing. “I thought it was because she drank too much. I thought she had died because none of us had checked on her…”
“Hey,” he said, one hand at my shoulder, the closest I had ever been to Chase Colby. His breath, up close, smelled of mint and cigarettes. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. But you should know that’s what they’re looking for. You don’t have to talk to them, Harper. Remember that.”
I blinked slowly, waited for him to remove his hand, back away. Wondering if he thought I had something to hide.
“Let’s keep this between us,” he said, but he gestured up and down the street. And I realized he’d been going door-to-door, telling each of us. Warning us.
I was shaken as I walked up the front steps. Couldn’t steady my hand to unlock the front door until I’d leaned my forehead against the wood, taken deep breaths, counted to ten.
Inside, my plan had been to search the hidden corners of my house—see what she might’ve found in my office. But I only got as far as the kitchen.
I saw her purple insulated mug in the sink. The purple cup I had found abandoned on the concrete. That I’d rinsed out and drunk from when I’d been unable to find my own.
I pictured that moment last night when Tina had backed away from Ruby’s body on the pool deck, kicking over the blue cup by her side.
The one that had belonged to me.
I couldn’t breathe. I opened the fridge, pulling out anything Ruby had drunk from, anything she’d eaten, imagining all the places death could be hiding—all the ways she could’ve been poisoned. Desperately tossing any open containers. The wine, the orange juice, the open containers of fruit.
There was a second batch of sangria, and I poured that out, too—splashes of red staining the sink, chunks of fruit clogging the drain.
I washed everything down, let the faucet continue to run, scooping up handfuls of water and gulping them down to purge it all. But I couldn’t shake it—a grit I could feel on my teeth; a taste I imagined on the back of my tongue.
* * *
I CHECKED THE GARAGE, every closet, each bathroom cabinet. Under the kitchen sink, the upper shelves in the laundry room, the small attic accessible through the pull-down steps over the loft.
But there was nothing hidden away. Nothing but dust and old paint cans and things I’d had no use for in all the years I’d lived here. I was starting to doubt myself, thinking that maybe that box in my office had been missing for months; that it hadn’t been Ruby at all.
I was still searching the house, hoping some new alcove would reveal itself to me, when my doorbell rang, jarring me.
I peered out the front window, saw Mac standing on my porch with Chinese takeout in a white plastic bag and a haunted expression. He had a hat on, though it was dusk, and the dark circles under his eyes looked even more pronounced—like he hadn’t slept, either.
I opened the door, and he sheepishly held up the bag of food. “I know you said you had already gone through her things, but I figured dinner couldn’t hurt.” He let himself in as I stepped to the side.
“Thank you. I don’t think I can eat, though,” I said.
“Then at least you’ll be all set with leftovers,” he said, giving me half a smile. He made himself at home in my kitchen, pulling the containers from the bag, taking two plates down from the cabinets. I was captivated by the way he kept moving, like the way we’d continued to celebrate at the party, everyone trying to push through to normalcy by persistence alone.
“She was poisoned,” I said, in case he hadn’t heard.
He paused, standing over my counter, spoon deep in the sweet-and-sour chicken. “They don’t know for sure,” he said. “They don’t know what happened.”
I felt nauseated, staring at the food. At him. “Chase said—”
He dropped the spoon, turned to face me. “Chase isn’t even part of the investigation. Alcohol is a type of poisoning, right?”
“He said foul play,” I whispered.
Mac took off his hat, ran a hand through his light brown hair. “Hey, I’m here, and Chase is going to take over for Tina on watch tonight. We’re all safe, Harper.”
But I didn’t know how he thought that was true. All these deaths that had happened on our street. Maybe it was the degree of removal in them—as though there was nothing to fear if it wasn’t where we could see it. As though that didn’t make it something scarier at heart—that we couldn’t see it coming; couldn’t see where the danger might be hiding.
The poison; the carbon monoxide. As if someone preferred to kill without having to look at the victim while doing it. A level of deniability. Something that required the hand of fate, absolving you of guilt.
A car turned on; a death that could occur only if you kept on sleeping. Poison left for someone else; but it required the other person to consume it.
He stepped closer, hands on my shoulders, but I shook him off. “It’s all horrible, but I’m not sure what else we can do right now other than eat dinner, go to sleep, face tomorrow.”
We brought our plates to the kitchen table and ate in silence. Or rather, I watched him eat, and I moved the food around my plate. Nothing but the sound of utensils scratching against the dinnerware and the ticking of the mantel clock echoing through the room.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, standing from the table and clearing our plates.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asked, slowly rising from his chair. “I don’t mean… I mean, I could just, stay. You look like you haven’t slept.”
“You don’t look so hot yourself,” I said, feigning levity. “Thanks, but I think I’m about to crash.”
Because all I wanted was to be left alone. Alone with my fears. Alone to work it through. To trace each thread through the night of the party, as if some
thing new would suddenly emerge.
Because as he was eating, I’d felt myself fracturing. My thoughts had disconnected from the present, circling back to the events of the last few days.
I saw Ruby again, holding her purple mug in the air—The gang’s all here!
I couldn’t stop my mind from taking the alternate path. Step by step, from the day Ruby had returned to the day she had died. On the lounge chair, being lowered to the ground, my blue cup rolling across the concrete—
Foul play.
Poison.
Working it through, day by day, to its inevitable end.
To the sudden fear that maybe this ending wasn’t meant for her but for me.
SATURDAY, JULY 6
HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE
Subject: Meeting today
Posted: 8:02 a.m.
Charlotte Brock: For anyone who was at the party. Noon, at the Seavers’. Tell any neighbors not on the board. I’ll be deleting this ASAP.
Preston Seaver: BYOB, friends
Tate Cora: Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Preston Seaver: Sorry, I deflect with humor
Charlotte Brock: Humor implies something is funny.
Javier Cora: I mean, I thought it was a little funny…
CHAPTER 18
NOTHING WAS ANY CLEARER by the morning. Whether I was safe; whether I was in danger.
Alone, in the middle of my kitchen, with the chill of the tile floor under my feet, the emptiness, the quiet—I felt the need to call someone. To tell someone else what was happening here and what I was afraid of. So someone would come looking for me should I disappear. So it wouldn’t take a barking dog for people to realize that something was wrong.
My friends from work would be home from their trip by now, unpacking their luggage. But what could I say? Ruby came back while you were gone, and now she’s dead, and I’m afraid. They’d missed too much, were too connected to Brandon. And my position at work made that type of confessional friendship no longer possible.
My dad had always been the person I went to for advice—I’d stayed primarily with him after my parents separated—but we’d distanced since Aidan. I couldn’t stand that he was right. That he’d seen the worst in Aidan, and it had played out exactly as he’d predicted. When I called him after Ruby’s arrest, I could feel his words, so close to the phone: Jesus Christ, Harper, you’ve got to stop taking in people like this. You’ve got to cut out this affinity for people who walk all over you. And look now. Look who you were living with. I could’ve gotten a call from some stranger telling me my daughter is dead—
He’d choked on his words, half anger, half fear, and I saw myself as my brother then. Understood that my father could never handle this sort of role, could not accept a future of uncertainty. He spoke like there were pieces of me that existed outside my own control. Forces at work that were always looking for a weakness. He seemed to feel that the world endangered you just by your existing within it, and it would look for your faults to exploit.
And I hadn’t even told my mom about Ruby’s arrest in the first place. Wasn’t sure how much she knew, either from my father or from Kellen. I’d always worried she had too much on her plate with Kellen, and I’d never wanted to add to it.
I laughed to myself, close to delirium, thinking how the most unreliable person I knew was suddenly the only person I could trust.
Maybe this was why I’d told him about Ruby and the trial the first time, at Christmas. Maybe it wasn’t the eggnog or the lack of sleep but this need for someone else to know—just like now. Maybe I’d needed someone else to tell me I had done the right thing. But instead, all I’d gotten was a questioning look, a questioning statement: Shouldn’t you be sure? Something that had kept me from confiding in anyone else.
I held the phone with two hands as it rang. My stomach dropped as the call went to voicemail. I was about to leave a message when my phone chimed with an incoming text. Thinking it was my brother—Why are you calling me so damn early, Harp??—I hung up.
But it was from Charlotte: Just making sure you saw the note on the boards about the meeting.
How different things were now from last weekend. When I had been kept out of the loop, not part of their meetings.
I’ll be there, I responded, dropping my shoulders back, starting the coffee.
* * *
I SPENT THE FIRST half of the day doing a deep clean, as if I could purge everything that had happened over the last week. Everything felt unsafe and stagnant, and this scent kept lingering as I cleaned—like wood and drywall. Like the bones of the house.
Just before noon, I saw Tina Monahan through the front window, arms crossed, head down as she strode quickly past my house, as if moving through a rainstorm.
I threw open the front door. “Hey,” I called after her. “Wait up.”
She flinched, then put her hand on her chest as she turned my way. A flush rose to her cheeks, in sharp contrast to the ashen tone of the rest of her face. “I didn’t see you there,” she said. “Sorry.”
“You heading to the meeting?” I asked, jogging to catch up with her.
She nodded too fast, still flustered. “Sorry, everything’s just…” She moved her hands around, searching for words.
“Yeah, me, too,” I said.
Up close, her eyes were bloodshot and hollowed, her short hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, her bangs clung to her forehead from the humidity. When she frowned, I could see the shadow of her father in her.
“I haven’t had to do that before,” she explained with a shudder. “Guess I should count myself lucky that I made it this far without…”
I placed a hand on her shoulder briefly, remembering the nightmares I had after we found the Truetts. The image I couldn’t shake of them in their bed, faces turned toward each other. The unearthly stillness that looked neither peaceful nor real. I wondered what image would haunt Tina.
“Your parents okay?” I asked, walking side by side with her toward the Seaver brothers’ place on the corner.
She took a slow breath in, then let it out. “As okay as any of us, I guess. My mom wants us to move. Like that’s an option right now. She’s demanding an alarm system, at the very least.” She paused and squeezed her eyes shut at the base of the Seavers’ front porch steps. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
The front door opened above us, and Charlotte appeared in the entrance, like she was the hostess. “Tina, Harper. Good, come on in.”
I wondered if she had an attendance list. She was the only one of the three of us who didn’t look like she’d been through hell since the last time we saw one another.
When I stepped inside, a small group was already gathered in the family room, hovering between the sofas and the television, like some awkward middle school party. Chase sat on the arm of the sofa, glancing periodically out the side window like he feared someone might be watching.
Mac waved me over from the kitchen, where he was opening a beer. For however much he was trying to channel calm and controlled, his hand was shaking as he twisted off the cap.
“Sleep okay?” he asked.
“No. You?”
He tipped his head in camaraderie, then raised the bottle of beer to his mouth.
Tate and Javier Cora arrived next—all of us always prompt to Charlotte’s meetings, lest we be judged accordingly. I wasn’t sure what we were doing here. People whispered. Cleared throats. Avoided direct eye contact.
“Was this Charlotte’s idea?” I whispered to Mac.
“No,” he said.
Just then, Margo came through the door, drawing attention. Nicholas was on her hip, complaining—something between a whimper and a wail—and she had a diaper bag slung over her other shoulder. “Sorry I’m late,” she said to Charlotte, her neck turning a blotchy red.
“Where’s Paul?” Charlotte asked, peering out the front door before pushing it shut.
“He’s busy! Can’t always drop his life at
a moment’s notice for you, Charlotte.” Margo’s voice carried through the quiet of the house, and we all watched as her free hand went to her hair, then to the baby.
Even Charlotte seemed caught off guard by Margo’s reaction. Charlotte must’ve touched a nerve because Margo suddenly appeared on the verge of tears. “I don’t know,” Margo said. “He’s just… stressed. And apparently, I’m part of that stress, expecting too much, so I’m just trying not to ask too much of him right now, to hold everything together, but—”
“Okay, come inside, come on,” Charlotte said, ushering her further into the house, lowering her voice accordingly. She took the baby from Margo, parked him on her hip. “Go on to the bathroom,” she said, gesturing to the powder room at the base of the stairs. Pull yourself together, the implied message.
There was no room for us to fall apart now.
Charlotte pulled out her phone with her free hand, a move she must’ve made before. “Come get Margo’s baby, please,” she said. After a beat, she rolled her eyes, hardened her voice. “No, you are not being paid, for the love of God, Whitney.” She hung up and sighed, smiled tightly when she saw me looking. “Two teenagers will be the death of me, I swear.” Then she froze, her shoulders stiffening. “Sorry. That wasn’t funny.”
Charlotte watched through the blinds of the front window until Whitney hopped up the steps. Charlotte met her at the front door, passing Nicholas into Whitney’s outstretched arms just as Margo returned from the bathroom.
“Oh,” Margo said, hands held awkwardly in front of her, like she was reaching for something.
Charlotte pushed the front door shut, put a hand on Margo’s shoulder. “No worries. Come. Relax. You can pick him up after at my place. The girls will keep an eye on him.”
Margo’s gaze trailed after Whitney through the dining room window, but she nodded, following Charlotte into the Seavers’ living room.
There were two brown leather sofas with matching ottomans, all angled toward the large-screen television over the fireplace. The layout of their house was almost identical to mine, except in mirror image, and they’d closed in the upstairs loft, turning it into a third bedroom, which they used as a shared office.
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