Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(10)

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d witnessed the same from the inside, growing up. With my brother, Kellen, in and out of rehab since he was sixteen, and the strain of my parents’ relationship, fracturing under the disagreements and the blame. So different from the facade we presented to the outside, glossing over reality with good posture and white lies.

Eventually, I heard Ruby coming up the stairs. I heard her in the shower. I relaxed, rolling over, eyes fixed on the door. And then I saw her shadow just outside my door. I counted to ten, and it didn’t move. I stared at the doorknob, thinking I should’ve locked it. Then wondering which was worse—Ruby coming in or Ruby realizing I was afraid?

Finally, the shadow retreated. But I heard the sound of her steps on the staircase and then the back door creaking open. I bolted upright in bed, imagining all the places she could be going. All the things she could be doing. Staring at the clock on my bedside table to mark the time—being a good witness.

Maybe there was nothing to worry about here. Maybe I was reading too much into things. Maybe she just wanted fresh air, and who could blame her, really?

But all I could think of was that other night. The one we had to keep revisiting, with the cops, with ourselves—when I’d heard that same creak of the back door and the shower running around two a.m.

It hadn’t meant anything to me then. Not even after we’d found them.

No one was afraid at first. Shocked, yes. Upset, of course. But not afraid. Or at least not afraid of anything more than ourselves, what we might’ve missed. Because when Brandon and Fiona were discovered deceased, we didn’t yet know it was a crime—well, nothing further than a domestic crime of murder-suicide (and we could make a case for it going either way). A crime that was self-contained.

But slowly, in the days that followed, the scene shifted.

The carbon monoxide detector—the same model in every home—was no longer in its place, or in the house at all.

The police started coming door-to-door, asking where we were that night, what we’d heard, what we’d noticed. And finally, we understood: Someone else had been in that house with Brandon and Fiona Truett.

Someone who had killed them.





SUNDAY, JUNE 30





HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE

Subject: REMINDER! Hollow’s Edge Fourth of July Pool Party Posted: 8:47 a.m.

Javier Cora: Come watch the Fourth of July fireworks with your neighbors on Thursday! We’ve got a great view of the lake show from our very own pool. All are welcome!

Margo Wellman: Is this such a good idea right now??

Javier Cora: Why wouldn’t it be?



* * *



Subject: Neighborhood Watch

Posted: 9:02 a.m.

Margo Wellman: Can we please get this going again?

Preston Seaver: Yeah, we kinda let it drop over the winter. I’d be in to start the rotation again.

Margo Wellman: Chase?? Didn’t you help organize this last time?

Charlotte Brock: Chase is no longer a member of this group.





CHAPTER 4


WHEN I CAME DOWN the stairs just after ten a.m., Ruby was cooking breakfast—toast and eggs, and leftover watermelon cubes in an open Tupperware container. I’d been waiting things out in my room, showering in my attached bathroom, checking the neighborhood message board, peering out my front window for any sign of activity—unsure how to approach another day with Ruby in this house.

“Morning!” she called, two mugs of coffee already on the counter, Koda eating from a fresh bowl of food at her feet. From her bright tone and easy smile, I didn’t think it was her first cup. She was wearing one of my old T-shirts and gym shorts, bare face and hair pulled back tightly. Her skin had bronzed slightly from the sun, except where it had turned pink high across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

“Ouch,” she said, reaching out to the base of my neck, two cold fingers pressing into my skin. “You burned.”

I’d felt it in the shower, hot and painful under the water pressure. “How long have you been up?” I asked, taking the mug she offered me with an outstretched hand. Old habits. Old roles.

“A while. I think my body is so accustomed to the routine, it doesn’t know what to do with itself.” Head tilted to the side, as if waiting for me to ask a follow-up question.

The lawn mower started running next door, sparing me, and I peered out the window over the sink. It was Charlotte’s turn to cut the grass at the empty house this week, and one of her teenage daughters was out there now. From a distance, I could never tell which. They were only a year apart—seventeen and eighteen—and both had long dark hair and long pale legs and a nervous habit of running their fingers through the ends of their hair as they spoke.

“Do you have work tomorrow?” Ruby asked, jarring me from the window. I wondered if she wanted me out of the house or if she was just making conversation.

“I took off this week with the rest of the department.” This wasn’t entirely true, but it was believable. We were coming up on the Fourth of July, and the three women I worked with had rented a beach house together for the week with their significant others. They’d invited me to join them, but I’d passed, though the thought of the beach made my shoulders relax, my breathing slow. Instead, I’d joked that someone needed to hold down the fort—even though we worked a flexible summer, and technically, I was the one in charge.