Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(65)

This time, she had the power, and we were afraid.



* * *



I WASN’T SURE WHAT she’d done with my car in the days when I’d thought she was gone. Why she wanted to take it from me. Whether she wanted to trap me here.

Or maybe she just wanted time when people weren’t looking for her, looking at her—to watch, one-sided, without the fear of being watched.

We didn’t need cameras in Hollow’s Edge. We only needed to open our eyes.

The notebook captured page after page of this activity. As if Ruby had lost herself in these details, circling deeper, so sure that some pattern, some truth, would emerge from the page.

But the part that struck me as odd was the way she’d been keeping track of Margo. The MW at night, always followed with a question mark, like she couldn’t be sure what Margo was doing. Like there was something that struck her as odd. Something worth noting.

We knew Margo wasn’t sleeping much. The baby kept her up, she’d told us as much. And she and Paul were obviously having issues. Maybe she took the baby for a walk when he woke in the night, to lull him back to sleep. Maybe she went out by herself, for the freedom, whenever she could.

But Ruby marked her name often, and only late at night. With an arrow pointing left.

Always heading toward me, toward Tate and Javier Cora, toward Tina Monahan—to the left.



* * *



FROM THE MESSAGE BOARD, I could see that Margo was up late last night. But so were others: Javier, Charlotte. Me. None of us seemed to be sleeping much.

Ruby had kept that post, using those names to guide her way. She’d had keys to most of their homes. Must’ve known that our neighbors were hiding things.

Now those keys were in my possession. There was a certain power to the feel of the ring in my pocket as I walked out back again. To imagine Ruby doing this as well—listening in.

The secrets we told inside our high back patio gates, as if that protected you. The arguments that carried through open windows or poorly insulated glass. The churning air-conditioning units outside that acted like a white-noise machine before abruptly cutting off, exposing you.

The things people revealed when they were afraid.

I passed Tate and Javier Cora’s yard—silent, empty—but heard Tina Monahan’s parents on their back patio, arguing about lunch. About whether to wait for Tina, to see what she brought back from the store. Tina was gone. No one would be inside her house right now. My muscles twitched with nervous energy, but I had to know.

It was curiosity, mostly. I had no intention of going inside. Just wanted to see whether the M was for Monahan or Margo. Both their names had been on the message board post that Ruby had kept.

And her repeated note—MW?—kept haunting me. The way she was tracking Margo made me nervous. Like I was missing something.

I wanted to know whose privacy Ruby had invaded. Who might’ve had something to hide back then—and something still worth keeping hidden.

At the corner, I circled back to the front of the street, turning up the path to Tina’s house. Not worried about being seen at the Monahan house—What would I need a security camera for, Officer?—as I walked up their front steps, hand on the keys in my pocket.

I planned to check quickly. Slip the key into the lock and turn, before heading away. Pretend I was just knocking, and no one had answered, with Tina at the store and her parents out back.

I gripped the ring of keys in my hand, sliding the one marked M into the lock—

The front door swung open with force, dislodging the key, still tight in my grasp. Mrs. Monahan stood in the entrance, wide-eyed and friendly. “I thought I saw you heading up the steps, dear,” she said. “It’s been so long since we talked!”

My hand dropped quickly to my side as I attempted to hide the entire ring of keys in my closed fist. “It has,” I said, pasting a friendly smile onto my face. I could hear my own heartbeat echoing in my skull. Feel it pounding against my ribs. The fear. The rush. The thrill of coming so close—

“Is Tina home?” I asked, dropping the keys back in my pocket.

“No, she’s picking up food. But we could use your help if you have a minute. Come,” she said, not waiting for my response.

I found myself following her deeper into the house, passing the kitchen, through the living room, to the back door, left ajar.

“George is stuck,” she said, peering over her shoulder as she opened the back door to the patio.

“I’m not stuck,” he said from the edge of the wooden patio ramp. He frowned when he saw me, like he’d been expecting someone else. It was the same look he’d given me when I ran into him and Tina during my watch shift. The only thing he’d asked me then was if Ruby was back.

“He is so stuck,” Mrs. Monahan whispered.

Mr. Monahan’s wheelchair was wedged at the base of the wooden ramp. The bottom lip of the ramp looked like it had broken or chipped, and it seemed neither could maneuver the front wheels up the incline.

“Chase said he was going to help us fix the ramp this weekend, but I think he got distracted. Understandably. But it’s gotten worse, and I can’t quite manage it on my own,” Mrs. Monahan said.

“No problem,” I said, heading down to the base of the patio. I leveraged the seat back and then forward, easing it over the start of the wooden ramp.