Such a Quiet Place

by Megan Miranda

  “You should come visit me.”

  I laughed. “I don’t need Mom breathing down my neck right now, too.”

  “No, I’ve got a new place. God, it’s been a while, Harp.” Our last real conversation was the one on New Year’s Eve, I thought now. Over seven months with neither of us reaching out. “I’m in Philadelphia,” he said. “Well, close to Philadelphia.”

  “What?” That was six hours away.

  “Long story. But I have a job here, and other than dealing with Mom’s constant calls, it’s a pretty quiet time.” Quiet times was the term Mom used for his good times. As if quiet were a positive thing and not an immense blanket of deception covering what was potentially brewing below.

  But I was stuck on his prior statement. “You moved to a new city, you’re only six hours away, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “You wouldn’t be,” I said.

  “You weren’t always thrilled to see me when I came to visit Dad…”

  Because my dad expected too much of Kellen, was never able to let the past go. He’d bring it up somehow—on day two or day three—and I’d have to watch my brother harden, never able to exist in the present. “Not because of you,” I said.

  “Well,” he said, “I also don’t have a car right now, either.”

  I laughed then, remembering how his excuses always existed in layers. But knowing I could reach him in a day’s drive if needed. “I’ll call you later,” I said. “It’s good to hear your voice. Just don’t tell Mom and Dad, okay?”

  He laughed then, too. “Harper, it is my absolute pleasure to begin repaying that debt to you.”

  And then I pushed myself off the floor with that photo in hand. I wondered what Ruby felt the first day when she was home, reaching her hand deep into the soil—coming up empty.

  The first day Ruby was back, even before she’d gone to the kayak for the money, she’d gone into the backyard in the middle of the night and reached her hand down into the dirt, looking for this.

  I was seeing her more clearly now: She wanted access to all of us here—our secrets, our lives.

  When I’d found the keys this spring, Ruby had already been gone for so long. She had been convicted.

  Back then I’d wondered what she had been doing with those keys. Whether she used them to piece through our lives, stirring up gossip with a throwaway line—if our discomfort had been all for her entertainment.

  Chase told me the guys had wanted to bring up the rumors they knew but couldn’t prove during the investigation. And now I was thinking again about the way Aidan had left, so fast, desperate to escape something.

  Chase was right: She had always been dangerous, just not in the way I had assumed.

  I remembered Preston telling the police that Ruby had once been inside, broken dishes, while Mac and she were fighting. And Fiona looking in her wallet, confused. How everyone was quick to throw suspicion on Ruby after her arrest, in a myriad of ways. The access she had, not just to our things but to our secrets.

  They sleep in separate rooms, you know, she had said about the Truetts. And none of us asked how she knew. None of us doubted the veracity of her claim, either.

  Because we all believed that Ruby knew things. We just didn’t always know how.

  * * *

  IF PRESTON TOOK MY photo as I ran down to the lake, I wondered if he knew what I’d done with the keys. If he’d seen me after, as I stood at the edge of the lake, surrounded by the noises of the night, moonlight glinting off the metal.

  If he’d seen that I had not tossed them into the water at all, afraid of the sudden openness, the currents, the cameras that might place me down here. The way beer cans washed up the morning after kids had tossed them from their boats at the mouth of the inlet.

  How I’d gone deeper into the woods instead, letting the darkness protect me, the noises insulate me. Farther around the inlet, where I believed that no one could see or hear me. To the boundary of our woods, with the sign on the tree warning us: PRIVATE PROPERTY.

  The roots of that tree were thick and exposed from the soil, and I’d used my bare hands to dig out a spot at the base of the gnarled trunk. Then I’d wiped the keys carefully of any prints before depositing them in the earth, and pushed the dirt back over the top, dispersing the leaves and the twigs.

  Ruby had buried them, and so had I. But out in the woods, they couldn’t be traced back to me.

  And then I’d kept going, to the other side of the inlet. Through the trees, with the dense underbrush, to the plot of land cleared but never built upon. A dusty circle of dirt with the remnants of an old campfire in the center, though all that remained was ash in a pit.

  The dirt access road dipped and curved, marred by large rocks and mangled roots, and my footing was unsure in the dark. But in that dark, from the distance, I could see the lights from our neighborhood through the trees. I cut through the woods, hands in front of me, until I emerged across the street from the house on the corner where Tina Monahan and her parents lived.

  I returned home from the other end of our street, feeling lighter, like I had rid my life of the last of Ruby Fletcher.

  But in that moment, for the first time, I could see how she did it: The keys, to the Truett house, to the lake. The woods, to the clearing, to the access road, following the lights home. Sneaking around back to hide what she had done.

  In that moment, a year after her arrest, months after her conviction, I finally believed she had done it.

  * * *

  I HAD NO IDEA if the keys remained, especially if Preston had seen me down there. And now I feared that someone might’ve had access to our homes all along—finding that key ring for themselves.

  I had to wait for dusk, though we still had a neighborhood watch going. It was supposed to be Charlotte’s turn tonight.

  It was easy enough to wait for her on my webcam. To watch as she passed my house on her way back home.

  Thirty minutes later, I went out, locking the door behind me.

  I did not try to remain hidden; that never worked out for us here. I strode right in front of the homes, right past the cameras—just taking a walk, like Ruby once claimed.

  At the Seaver brothers’ home, I saw flashes of the television screen through the blinds. I turned at the path across from Margo and Paul Wellman’s house, remembering the camera that had caught Ruby running. I walked slowly down the dirt path, careful not to make much noise. But I turned my face to the pool as I passed by, imagining someone standing there once before, watching me. Now the pool appeared vacant.

  To my left, the noise in the underbrush, down at the water’s edge, grew louder. A cacophony of insects and animals that drowned out my footsteps. Trying to keep myself hidden, I used the light from my phone only once to judge the way.

  I had just reached that sign, my fingers brushing over the warped metal edges, the nail protruding from the trunk, reminding us to keep away, when I heard footsteps echoing over the plywood on the path in the distance.

  I ducked down, stared back, and saw the outline of long hair and long legs in fragmented glimpses through the trees. I thought it was either Whitney or Molly, and I remained perfectly still, hoping she hadn’t seen me—and wouldn’t ask what I was doing down here, in the woods, in the dark.

  She moved closer, her steps resounding on the plywood, not trying to remain hidden at all. She seemed to stare directly at me. “Whitney,” she said. “Whitney!” A little louder this time. She took out her phone and used the flashlight to illuminate the area to my right, down by the water.

  I held my breath, and she took another step—off the plywood path, into the rougher terrain. This was Charlotte, then, thinking her daughter was out here in the woods.

  A sharp peal of laughter echoed off the water—high-pitched and fast—before being smothered by the other noises. The crickets and frogs, a low buzzing that seemed too loud for an insect.

  “Shit,” Charlotte mumbled. I could see h
er clearly now, illuminated by the screen of her phone. She held the phone to her ear, but no one must’ve picked up on the other end. “I see you out there,” she said before hanging up.

  She stood there, hands on hips, staring into the darkness over the water, before turning back for home.

  My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could see the shadow of a boat out there in the moonlight. Whitney and her friends, then. What Javier must’ve heard, his night on watch. If only Charlotte would’ve told him as much—that it was probably Whitney out there—we wouldn’t have thought it was someone keeping an eye on Ruby.

  The pool gate at midnight, footsteps trailing away, the car driving off: They could all be traced to a group of teenagers, bored in the summer.

  There was truly no one else to blame out here. There was only us.

  I was tracing my hands over the roots of the tree, making my way to the base of the trunk, when I heard someone cough. Closer than the kids on the lake.

  I stood slowly, staring out at the water, looking for movement. Another one of their friends, maybe, planning to meet them out there.

  At the other side of the inlet, I thought I saw the shape of a man. But I couldn’t be sure. He did not call out to them, but the shadow moved slowly and deliberately, as if trying to remain undetected.

  None of us was alone out here.

  So much for this quiet little neighborhood. All of us were alive, at night, in the dark. All the things we needed to keep hidden during the day, set loose at night, when we revealed ourselves.

  From the distance, I couldn’t tell if the person at the edge of the lake had seen me, too. If they were turned my way even now. A prickle on the back of my neck, and I ducked down quickly, with the sudden feeling that he was looking straight at me, too.

  I held my breath and scratched my nails at the surface, tearing away chunks of compacted dirt. Then I reached my hand down into the cooler earth, deeper, deeper, panicked that I was wrong, that I’d forgotten, that time or animals or someone else had been here first. That rainwater had washed it away. But my index finger brushed something cold and curved.

  I hooked my fingers into the ring and pulled.

  SUNDAY, JULY 7

  HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE

  Subject: Did you all see this?

  Posted: 12:30 a.m.

  Margo Wellman: Just saw this article—THIRD SUSPICIOUS DEATH IN LAKE HOLLOW NEIGHBORHOOD. Anyone else seriously considering moving right now?

  Javier Cora: What do you think this does for property values? Asking for a friend.

  Charlotte Brock: This is in really poor taste. Go to sleep.

  CHAPTER 20

  IT WAS ONE A.M. and the key ring lay before me on the kitchen table, drying on a heap of paper towels, after I’d run them under the sink—mud and sludge and dirt sliding down the drain. I went through the labels more carefully this time, making a list of each key:

  T—Truett (Tina?)

  B—Brock

  S—Seaver

  M—Monahan (Margo? Mac?)

  C—Cora? Chase Colby?

  I was betting on the letter being the initial of the last name; it seemed to be a pattern that fit with each name, though there were some with more than one possibility. And there was one easy way to check—as long as the bank hadn’t changed the locks after taking ownership of the house next door.

  There was no way I was going to be caught out front, trespassing at the Truett house. Not with the cameras and people walking by, the neighbors not sleeping, watching out their windows instead. Not when the police were questioning us and what we were each doing. Charlotte might still be on watch, and I’d already evaded her once.

  I knew the Truett fence had somehow become unlocked; I’d seen it swinging ajar my night on watch. As if someone else had been in there.

  Maybe someone was able to jimmy it with a golf club from above.

  I left through my back patio, but in the dark, I collided with the white Adirondack chair on the way to the gate, forgetting that Ruby had moved it from the other side of the yard. I cursed to myself, hoped Tate and Javier hadn’t heard me—or the wood scraping against the brick patio—then hoped they didn’t hear my own gate creaking open in the stillness. Tate had said noises woke her the last several nights, that pregnancy was starting to affect her ability to sleep.

  I latched the gate carefully behind me, then peered once into the trees before sliding along the edge of the fence to the back gate of the Truetts’ house.

  Their gate was easy to unlatch from the outside, without the lock engaged. But the squeal of the hinges through the night made me cringe. I left it ajar, so as not to create any more noise than necessary. Charlotte’s house was just on the other side, and her master bedroom was downstairs, near the back.

  Key ring in hand, I walked up their patio steps. I slid the T key into the lock, but it was unnecessary. I could tell before even attempting to turn the key. The handle moved freely, and the deadbolt lock had sharp gouges around the edges. So did the wooden strip where the door met the frame.

  I twisted the key back and forth, just to check, but it wasn’t working. Either it wasn’t the key for this house, or the bank had indeed changed the locks.

  But someone had been inside here. From the look of the deadbolt and surrounding wood, someone had forced their way in.

  I ran my finger along the deep grooves, the wood splintered in sections. Wondering who had been in here. If they’d tried to force their way into my place, too.

  I’d noticed the unlatched gate here a few nights ago. My own gate had also come unlatched, swaying loose in the wind, though I was always careful to keep it locked. It seemed likely that both had been opened by the same person. Like someone was spying on each place. Or like someone was moving back and forth between our patios.

  Ruby had gone out back the first night she was here—I’d heard that creak of the back door. And the next morning, she’d been sitting in the Adirondack chair, her feet up on the wooden ottoman, while Tate and Javier were arguing next door.

  She’d moved the chair, I thought, for the single square of sunlight on the patio. But maybe she’d moved it sometime in the night. The base of the chair was solid wood, and the arms were sturdy, and it was now positioned just beside the Truett fence.

  Maybe, after looking for the keys and finding them missing, she’d decided to find a way in by any means necessary.

  I shook the fence between our properties to check for stability. It didn’t budge. These fences were meant to withstand storms and wind and wear and accidents, connecting from yard to yard, reinforcing the strength.

  I felt a chill running down the length of my arms, up my back. Like she was here with me now. Of course it was her. It was always her.

  I could picture her clearly, her determination: Unlocking my back gate, to be able to return after. Dragging the chair to the other side of my patio, perching on the base, climbing on the armrest, slinging a leg over the sturdy flat-top posts of the fence, falling to the bricks on the other side, where I now stood.

  The marks around the deadbolt—my knife in her hand to wedge her way inside.

  Ruby had been here, I was sure. Ruby had gotten inside.

  I walked up the brick steps again, twisting the handle, following her trail. Desperate to know what she had found, what she had discovered.

  The door pushed open on the first try.

  Inside, I was hit by a wave of thick humidity and uncirculated air. I flipped the switch on the wall, but nothing happened. The electricity had long since been cut. And with that, the air-conditioning and any hope of circulating air. I breathed shallowly into my sleeve, like I’d done that day when we’d found them.

  Shadows emerged from the darkness as my eyes slowly adjusted. Random pieces of furniture that had been left behind after Brandon’s brother had either sold or donated what he could—a hard-backed chair against the wall, a coffee table in the middle of the room, a stool at the kitchen counter—creating the skeleton of a
house.

  Even breathing into my arm, there was something off about the smell. Everything in this house reeked of wrong.

  I used the light on my phone to guide the way, looking for any signs of an intruder here. But the silence and the stillness had their own presence.

  I passed the kitchen window that I’d once thrown open in a panic. I kept the light pointed down so no one would see me in here.

  Next, the garage door, where Chase had yelled for me to hit the automated opener—the responding mechanical hum painfully slow in the chaos—while Charlotte had run for the living room windows, throwing open the back door, too.

  I followed the hallway, swooping my light up to the ceiling, to that small, discolored circle where the carbon monoxide detector had once been. The stairs to the right, where I’d followed Chase.

  I’d found him at the foot of their bed. I’d never forget the look on his face. Sometimes I couldn’t look at Chase without picturing them, too. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to break in here now. Especially Ruby.

  At the end of the hall, the scent suddenly changed. It became something beachy, more fragrant. A scent to mask another smell. The closer I moved to the front of the house, the more the scent grew.

  The Truetts had converted the formal dining room at the front of the house into Fiona’s office, with French doors. One of those doors was ajar, and the source of the smell revealed itself: a blue candle in the middle of the wood floor, currently extinguished but burned all the way down to the melted wax. The label declared it Ocean Breeze.

  I approached it slowly, this single sign of life in an otherwise barren house. The office was empty except for a stand-alone desk shoved against the far wall, and I didn’t want to use my flashlight in here—too visible, with the uncovered windows, from the front sidewalk.

  I almost didn’t see it in the shadows: the heap of fabric in the back corner under the desk, stuffed against the wall.