Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(49)

“Harper,” he said, “get her the fuck out of here.”

I laughed into my drink, draining the rest. “I’m trying,” I said. But I feared I had lost the ability to do anything about her. She was here to taunt us, to prove something, to disrupt the foundation of all of our lives. Simpler, even: She was here for revenge. And we all knew it.

When I looked up, Ruby was swaying to the music. She had my blue cup in her hand, had drunk so much she could barely stand upright, her hand wrapped around an iron bar to steady herself.

The first rocket cried through the night, a burst of red flames over the top of the trees, and Preston let out a whoop. Ruby stumbled into the nearest lounge chair, head tilted back, the colors reflecting off her exposed skin.

I looked from her, to Mac, to Javier; Tate, just outside their group, hands resting on her stomach; Charlotte perched on the edge of Whitney’s chair, Molly beside them; Tina and her parents around the table, faces tipped up to the fireworks; Margo covering the baby’s ears while he began to cry; Paul looking down at his phone, burger in his free hand; Preston with his date in his arms, hands wrapped around the iron bars behind her.

For this brief moment, we could all look away, forget about Ruby Fletcher and all she threatened to uncover here. The bright lights singeing the sky. The explosion vibrating in your chest.

I was betting no one even noticed when I left. With the fireworks show still happening, I grabbed the pool bag and went back home, my brain moving too fast, working through the simplest way to get her out of here. The first step, I knew, was to lock the door behind me.

The second step was to pack up her things, get them out of my house.



* * *



THE POUNDING ON THE door began just before midnight. I was upstairs piling the last of Ruby’s clothes into that empty suitcase.

Back in my room, I opened my laptop to watch the camera feed, to see which Ruby Fletcher I was dealing with.

But on the frame was Margo Wellman, casting glances behind her as she pounded on the door with the side of her closed fist. I heard her sharp breathing, a single whimper.

“Coming!” I yelled as I raced down the stairs, because she looked afraid, and she was on watch tonight, and I worried Ruby had done something.

As soon as I opened the door, I knew something terrible had happened. I’d seen the expression before. Chase, turning from the end of the bed, eyes wide with horror, mouth slightly open, choking on his words—

I placed both hands on her upper arms, her skin clammy and cold. The rough feel of goose bumps or a heat rash covering her shoulders. “What did she do?” I asked, trying to force the words from Margo. Picturing the endless possibilities: the pool water, the lake water, the knife under her bed—

“Ruby’s at the pool,” Margo said. “She’s still there.”

I squeezed her shoulders tighter, thinking of everyone who had been down there together. All these people I suddenly cared for.

She sucked in a gasp of air. “She’s not breathing, Harper.” Hand to her mouth, fingers shaking, while faces scrolled in my mind: Charlotte and her girls, Tate, Tina—

Margo started running toward the pool, and I followed, barefoot, heart pounding.

That moment when Chase lunged toward the bedroom windows, throwing them open, and I caught a glimpse—

The lights at the Seaver brothers’ home were on, and a door swung open like they could sense something happening—

Chase’s raspy voice that morning as he’d yelled at me, “Call 911. Harper, move!”

The front door of the Wellman house also ajar, the lights off. A baby crying inside, ignored.

Voices yelling from the pool. “Get her on the ground!”

Tina, the first person I saw, in her pajamas under the corner light of the pool. Paul Wellman helping her lower a figure from the lounge chair. The chair I’d last seen Ruby in—

And then I understood. It was Ruby, still at the pool, not breathing. My foot caught on the curb, and my knee hit the grass outside the pool entrance.

The sharp cry of a siren, a flash of red and blue, and Chase’s shadow illuminated from up the road, heading our way.

And then time slowing down, my body sluggish, the scene coming in fragments:

The EMTs pushing their way in and Tina stepping back, kicking over my blue insulated cup that Ruby had taken. Tina looking out the pool gates straight at Margo and me, her face set. A single shake of her head.

The street filling up behind me. The sirens and the lights, the gathering crowd. The police arriving in new vehicles, beckoning us back.

And still we watched, standing on our toes, leaning around one another. There was movement on the trail beyond the pool, people sneaking closer for a better look.

Everyone watching her, even now. The commotion she could create, bending the gravity of a room her way. A spectacle, still—living or dead.





FRIDAY, JULY 5





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CHAPTER 16


SILENCE.

It stretched up the road and around the corner. No doors opening or closing, or neighbors calling to one another, or voices carrying from backyards or open windows. It moved through with a heavy warning, a physical presence—something worth heeding.

This was the opposite of what had happened after the Truetts, the way we had all called to one another, reached for one another, arms entwining in comfort and relief. The feel of skin on skin, reminding us that we were alive.