Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(8)

Preston stood next, towel slung over the distinct tan line on his upper arm, and nodded in our general direction as he headed toward the gate. I tipped my chin back, the faintest response, a force of habit. Ruby, committed to the cause, did not acknowledge him.

I checked my phone, but no one else had contacted me. Mac never responded. To be fair, I wouldn’t, either—not if I thought she might notice. I would keep my distance. Keep out of it. Hope this was temporary and we could all go back to our lives tomorrow.

No one else came to the pool, though the hours grew hotter, more stifling.

“How lucky for us,” Ruby said, reaching into the Tupperware bowl of fruit, “to have the pool all to ourselves.”

We passed the time in silence. Sun and drinks and me, always, with my eye toward the entrance.

Ruby dove into the deep end, floated on her back, and I felt myself being drawn into the past. All these things we had done before, as if we could excise the time between. The scent of sunscreen and chlorine and Ruby’s steps leaving footprints across the concrete, her hands twisting the ends of her hair, squeezing out the excess water.

She hooked her ankle around the leg of her lounger, pulling it farther away from the encroaching shade, in a sharp kick of nostalgia—so that I could almost taste the extra-sweet sangria Ruby would make, tossing in whatever fruit I happened to have in the fridge at the time, the mixture cloying at the back of my throat. The way my skin would feel on those endless days, absorbing the summer sun, before I showered off back home later, when the sting of the burn slowly revealed itself from the inside out.

And then the neighbors started passing by for a closer look: walking dogs or strolling by, on their phones. One by one, as if it were coordinated. Each one slowing, watching briefly, and then moving on.

These people who, after her arrest, always had a feeling about Ruby Fletcher, her perceived crimes expanding in retrospect. Saying, Money went missing from my wallet at the barbecue; from my living room at that New Year’s party; from my pool bag—it was Ruby. I know it. The paranoia gaining force as people searched for signs, for clues, for how we had missed the danger among us for so long.

Finally, I saw Chase. He wasn’t in uniform, but he was walking as if he were. Confident and full of authority, with his large frame and ramrod-straight posture. Stopping and staring from across the street as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Dark hair buzzed short, wide stance, arms hanging stoic at his sides. He stood there for a long time. If Ruby noticed, she didn’t let on.

We used to see Chase as our cop. We could count on him to fill us in on the cause of the sirens, or the status of the car break-in investigation, and we called on him at neighborhood meetings, plying him for information with beer at the pool. He lent a sense of security. But he became something different after Brandon and Fiona Truett.

The message board had started the same way—as a source of information: Who has the number for a good plumber? or What was that loud noise in the middle of the night? and Did you hear about the prowler in the neighborhood up the road?

Hollow’s Edge was a force, as a group, over the last five years. We caught package thieves. We saw a coyote and warned neighbors to keep their small pets inside at night. We caught Charlotte’s husband bringing another woman home when Charlotte was out. We solved mysteries. We solved problems. We crowdsourced data and posted the video feed from our security cameras. We extrapolated results.

But the board, too, had subtly morphed with time. After the deaths of Brandon and Fiona Truett were deemed suspicious, eventually, and with Chase’s guidance, we believed we had solved the case of who killed them. We pieced together Ruby’s movements, her time line, and the police came by for our evidence, our message board comments morphing into official statements.

We were more careful now. In person and on the message board. Posts were deleted as soon as people stopped responding and sometimes sooner.

Ruby picked up her purple insulated cup and raised it toward the iron gates where Chase stood, in a mock salute. Of course she’d known he was there.

He finally turned back up the road, and I breathed slowly, deeply, as he disappeared from sight.

“Okay, you made your point,” I said. “I’m baking here. Let’s go.”

“All right,” she said, stretching. “Anyway, I’m famished for some real food.”



* * *



I SCANNED THE AREA for Chase as we walked back, worried he was somewhere else: waiting in the woods; waiting in front of my house. I kept an eye out for anyone at all. But no one came outside.

They were watching, though. I could feel it in the shadows behind the windows. In the way everyone remained behind the safety of their walls.

All the things that seemed so appealing when we moved to Hollow’s Edge: Its insular nature. Its privacy. That close familiarity. The safety of neighbors who would look out for one another.

All of us were held hostage by it now.

The truth was, after the deaths of Brandon and Fiona Truett, we were trapped here. We were trapped with one another and what we had each said and done.





CHAPTER 3


I CONVINCED RUBY TO LET me order in, to relax with a pizza in the living room, Koda curled up beside her on the other end of my couch as she sat with my laptop open in front of her.

“You sure you don’t mind paying?” she asked as she quickly added an assortment of clothes to the online cart.