Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(13)

“I don’t know.” In truth, I wasn’t sure if she wanted anything in particular.

Mac groaned, ran a hand down his face. “I can’t believe she came back here—” He stopped abruptly, turning at a sound in the woods—an animal scurrying. He took a subconscious step backward. “Guess we’ll find out more tonight.”

“Why tonight?” I asked.

“Charlotte’s meeting?”

I shook my head once, confused. “No one told me about any meeting.” If it had been on the message board, I’d missed it.

Mac shrugged, glancing behind him, the pool deck empty except for the striped towel designating his seat and the small red cooler on the pavement beside it. “Well, there is one. Charlotte texted. At seven-thirty, I think.”

“You’re going?” I asked. Mac wasn’t much of a joiner. He didn’t plan. He stumbled into things, happily surprised by the opportunities that presented themselves.

“Yeah, well, she asked if we could have it at our place instead.”

“Charlotte did?” We half-jokingly referred to the Seaver brothers’ home as the frat house, even though they were the neatest among us. In truth, they were beloved here, our Seaver brothers, with their easygoing appeal, their friendly banter. Like there was something of youth clinging to them instead of the other way around. But I couldn’t imagine Charlotte asking Mac or Preston for anything.

“Yeah, she doesn’t want to make it a thing so close to where it happened, you know?”

Or so close to me.

He talked like I shouldn’t be insulted for being excluded. Like there wasn’t a line drawn and me firmly on the other side, with Ruby here.

“Who?” I asked. “Who’s going to be there?” Had everyone gotten an invite except me?

“No clue, Harper. I’m just providing the venue.”

Sometimes I didn’t understand how someone who seemed so bold in personality could be so passive in action. Though I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Mac was solidly in his thirties but had leaned into his lack of ambition long ago. Or maybe his ambition just took another form; he’d found the way to expend the least amount of energy for a relatively comfortable life. But his contentment was contagious. His smile, disarming. The fine lines radiating out from the corners of his hazel eyes—new in the last year or two—only added to his charm.

During the trial, Mac hadn’t testified for either side. Hadn’t taken a stand one way or another, content even then to let the cards fall however they may. He’d let his brother do the hard part, corroborating the security footage of Ruby from the stand.

Just then the pool gate clicked open, the creak of the hinges crying, as Preston pushed through the gate. His steps faltered briefly when he saw me.

“Hey,” Mac called over his shoulder, and Preston raised a hand in greeting before heading to the chair beside Mac’s.

When they were close together, Preston looked like a compressed and cleaner-cut version of Mac—a few inches shorter, a few inches broader, the same shade of sandy brown hair kept shorter and neater, held in place with some sort of product. In profile, they had the same ridge to their nose, the same shape to their eyes, but Mac’s were hazel to Preston’s striking green.

Though five years younger than Mac, Preston was the more successful of the Seaver brothers, the more driven, the more dependable. Even though Mac said he took his brother in after college to help him get on his feet, it was Preston who had secured Mac the job in the grounds department at the College of Lake Hollow. Up until then, Mac had worked at the private dock on the other side of the lake, taking out the boats on the lift, prepping them for their owners.

Mac had developed something of an aesthetic from that job, whether he meant to or not. The bold-patterned board shorts, the worn gray T-shirts over deeply tanned skin, the flip-flops and the way he walked because of them. A slow drag of his heel that managed to stay just this side of appealing.

“Listen,” I said, lowering my voice, “just keep your distance. Okay?”

“Okay, yeah. I was going to.” Mac looked over my shoulder, toward the water. “I don’t know why she doesn’t just leave. I would. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll find out what she’s doing here. Tell Charlotte. Tell them I’ll find out.”

“Be careful, kid,” he said, tapping the bars once before walking away.

“What was that about?” Preston’s words carried across the pool deck as he cracked open a beer, sitting upright with his legs swung to the side of the lounge chair, but I couldn’t hear Mac’s response.

I sidestepped my way back down the steep slope, half-skidding over the dirt and fallen leaves, listening for the paddle dipping in and out of the water in the distance, growing closer.

It was pointless to show up at that meeting. All of them here with their watching, with their meetings—they were focused on the wrong thing, the wrong part.

No one had budged in their opinion. Not during the investigation and not even now. They believed Ruby Fletcher was guilty.

Back then we believed she had done it because we had to. Because if she hadn’t been the one to sneak inside the house next door—to turn that key, to start that car—then it must’ve been someone else.

It must’ve been one of us.