Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(53)

Was there any part of my life she hadn’t tainted?

Standing in the glass doorway to my private office, I tried to look for signs of her. But everything looked exactly as I thought I’d left it the week before. Only my mug on the blue bookshelf was off-center—HELLO THERE! now barely visible—but that had been my doing, when I’d watered the plant.

My desk was covered with files on prospective students and meeting notes and interdepartment communications. I kept nothing personal or private here. Nothing that would be of interest to Ruby. What would she have been here for if not for me? What did she think she would possibly find here? Evidence that I was not equipped to do my job? Proof that I did not measure up to Brandon Truett?

There was nothing else here except for a plant on the verge of dehydration and a closet full of junk: the detritus left behind from when Brandon Truett worked here. I couldn’t think of a reason that would interest her, but I crossed the room, throwing open that closet door for the first time in months.

It was empty.

My breath left me in a quick gust. The closet was completely, totally, empty—except for a faintly stale scent, from disuse and uncirculated air. The file box where I’d stored the remnants from Brandon’s desk, the photo of him and Fiona—all gone.

It had been so long since I’d looked in here that I couldn’t say for sure. Couldn’t tell whether the contents had disappeared sometime in the previous year, with Anna at reception, or the janitor, or someone with an attachment to Brandon Truett—or Ruby.

Absences were harder to find. Negatives harder to prove. To know for sure that it wasn’t someone else, over the last year, who had gone through here and cleaned things out. To take the leap that it must’ve been Ruby.

But she’d definitely been here.

I remembered her expression when I had caught her outside on my way home with Mac—when I told her I’d been to work. The quick frown. The worry. Had she been concerned that I’d noticed what she’d done?

If that was true, then Ruby Fletcher believed there was something worth finding in Brandon’s things. More important: She knew that the Truetts’ deaths had not been solved with her conviction. Her words at the party were not empty threats. And she believed that, here, she might find some proof.

I pictured her again, the moment she arrived at the party last night—the knowing looks she gave everyone; the way she flaunted her presence; the things she said: that we had somehow conspired against her. That she knew what each of us had done.

It seemed like maybe she had found that proof after all. A note he’d scribbled in a margin, maybe. A photo slipped behind another in the photo frame. Something that had eluded meaning when we were all so focused on Ruby. Something out of my grasp still.

But whatever she’d taken from this closet must exist.

Whatever she’d uncovered must be able to be found.



* * *



SHE’D HIDDEN THINGS, YES, distrusting all of us who had wronged her. But there were only so many places she could keep things close by.

All of them in Hollow’s Edge.

There were barely any signs of life outside by the time I returned home. No one running, or watering the grass, or talking out front. The pool was abandoned, with a black and red sign out front that I couldn’t read but which must’ve declared the premises closed. I wondered if there were guidelines in the bylaws for this.

As I passed Charlotte’s house, her front door opened. Chase slipped out, jogging down the steps, then paused on the sidewalk as he noticed me pulling into my driveway.

My mind was already three steps ahead, thinking through where Ruby might’ve left a box of Brandon’s things that I hadn’t yet uncovered—the bathroom cabinet, under my old tarp in the garage—so it took me a moment to realize Chase was waiting for me, standing in the Truett yard.

“What’s going on?” I called, meeting him halfway, the overgrown grass itching my ankles.

“I tried your house a few minutes ago. Just missed you,” he said, like we were friends. How death could alter everything, swing you from enemies to allies or the other way around. “Has someone from the BCI been by to talk to you?”

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.