Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(54)

“Shit,” Chase mumbled, stepping closer even as I backed away. “Look, it’s not official, right? Just something I heard. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, but I didn’t want anyone to be caught off guard by it if they hear from somewhere else.”

I shook my head. “No, right, thank you for telling me.” I stepped back again, itching to be inside, behind the closed door, all the dangers held at bay.

He rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. “What did he ask you?”

“What?” I asked. “Who?”

“The guy from the BCI.”

“Nothing,” I said. Then I shook my head. “Just where I last saw her. How I found out. He wanted to see her things, but there was nothing there.” I swallowed. “He asked if my video feed records.”

Chase’s gaze went to the front of my door, where the camera was positioned.

“I told him no.” Another step back, so I could get away from Chase and this conversation. “He asked what she was drinking. I told him she made sangria.” I sucked in a gulp of air, heard myself wheezing. “I thought it was because she drank too much. I thought she had died because none of us had checked on her…”

“Hey,” he said, one hand at my shoulder, the closest I had ever been to Chase Colby. His breath, up close, smelled of mint and cigarettes. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. But you should know that’s what they’re looking for. You don’t have to talk to them, Harper. Remember that.”

I blinked slowly, waited for him to remove his hand, back away. Wondering if he thought I had something to hide.

“Let’s keep this between us,” he said, but he gestured up and down the street. And I realized he’d been going door-to-door, telling each of us. Warning us.

I was shaken as I walked up the front steps. Couldn’t steady my hand to unlock the front door until I’d leaned my forehead against the wood, taken deep breaths, counted to ten.

Inside, my plan had been to search the hidden corners of my house—see what she might’ve found in my office. But I only got as far as the kitchen.

I saw her purple insulated mug in the sink. The purple cup I had found abandoned on the concrete. That I’d rinsed out and drunk from when I’d been unable to find my own.

I pictured that moment last night when Tina had backed away from Ruby’s body on the pool deck, kicking over the blue cup by her side.

The one that had belonged to me.

I couldn’t breathe. I opened the fridge, pulling out anything Ruby had drunk from, anything she’d eaten, imagining all the places death could be hiding—all the ways she could’ve been poisoned. Desperately tossing any open containers. The wine, the orange juice, the open containers of fruit.

There was a second batch of sangria, and I poured that out, too—splashes of red staining the sink, chunks of fruit clogging the drain.

I washed everything down, let the faucet continue to run, scooping up handfuls of water and gulping them down to purge it all. But I couldn’t shake it—a grit I could feel on my teeth; a taste I imagined on the back of my tongue.



* * *



I CHECKED THE GARAGE, every closet, each bathroom cabinet. Under the kitchen sink, the upper shelves in the laundry room, the small attic accessible through the pull-down steps over the loft.

But there was nothing hidden away. Nothing but dust and old paint cans and things I’d had no use for in all the years I’d lived here. I was starting to doubt myself, thinking that maybe that box in my office had been missing for months; that it hadn’t been Ruby at all.

I was still searching the house, hoping some new alcove would reveal itself to me, when my doorbell rang, jarring me.

I peered out the front window, saw Mac standing on my porch with Chinese takeout in a white plastic bag and a haunted expression. He had a hat on, though it was dusk, and the dark circles under his eyes looked even more pronounced—like he hadn’t slept, either.

I opened the door, and he sheepishly held up the bag of food. “I know you said you had already gone through her things, but I figured dinner couldn’t hurt.” He let himself in as I stepped to the side.

“Thank you. I don’t think I can eat, though,” I said.

“Then at least you’ll be all set with leftovers,” he said, giving me half a smile. He made himself at home in my kitchen, pulling the containers from the bag, taking two plates down from the cabinets. I was captivated by the way he kept moving, like the way we’d continued to celebrate at the party, everyone trying to push through to normalcy by persistence alone.

“She was poisoned,” I said, in case he hadn’t heard.

He paused, standing over my counter, spoon deep in the sweet-and-sour chicken. “They don’t know for sure,” he said. “They don’t know what happened.”

I felt nauseated, staring at the food. At him. “Chase said—”

He dropped the spoon, turned to face me. “Chase isn’t even part of the investigation. Alcohol is a type of poisoning, right?”

“He said foul play,” I whispered.

Mac took off his hat, ran a hand through his light brown hair. “Hey, I’m here, and Chase is going to take over for Tina on watch tonight. We’re all safe, Harper.”

But I didn’t know how he thought that was true. All these deaths that had happened on our street. Maybe it was the degree of removal in them—as though there was nothing to fear if it wasn’t where we could see it. As though that didn’t make it something scarier at heart—that we couldn’t see it coming; couldn’t see where the danger might be hiding.