Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda

CHAPTER 13

RUBY DID HER LAUNDRY.

Ruby made French toast for lunch, the scent of syrup permeating the downstairs.

Ruby went for a walk down by the lake—for some fresh air, to clear her head—and had to clean the mud from the bottom of her new white sneakers after.

In the late afternoon, Ruby ran her fingers over the books on the built-in shelves on either side of the television, pulling out titles she’d never read. Flipping to the back cover, opening to a seemingly random page, skimming the words.

My gaze trailed her through the house from my spot at the kitchen table. I had set myself up with my laptop open, files stacked on the table beside me, pretending to work, distracted by her every move.

She did not mention her phone or any calls. She did not talk at all unless responding to a direct question. The silence had grown into something solid, something that took on too much meaning, too much possibility. All the things I was keeping hidden. All the things I thought she might know. A tension building throughout the house until it had to break.

“I’m on watch tonight,” I said, clearing my throat.

She turned from the bookshelf, crossed the room, long strides and silent steps. “Whose idea was that?”

“I told Charlotte to put me down whenever they needed me. I guess they needed me tonight.”

She laughed once. “Of course it was Charlotte’s idea.” She sat in the chair across from me, fingers splayed on the stack of blue file folders between us. “What are you watching for, Harper?”

I shook my head. “Suspicious activity, obviously,” I said. I tried to get my smile to mirror hers, like we were in on the same joke.

“Let’s make a bet,” she said, slouching back in the wooden chair. “Let’s keep it fun. I’ll write down what I think you’ll see out there tonight, and you can tell me how close I was after.”

At least this was better than her offering to come with me, which had been my first fear.

“What do you get if you win?” I asked. Because there had to be a trade. Every game had a winner.

“The knowledge that I was correct,” she said, eyes boring into mine. “That I can still guess every little thing happening around here.” She punctuated each word carefully, deliberately. “Write it down, Harper. You’ll see.”

A chill ran through me, but I forced a grin. “There won’t be anything to report,” I said, trying to match her nonchalant posture. “Everyone’s going to be staying in tonight.” That was the whole point of a watch in the first place. We knew people were out there, and we all stayed put, a self-imposed deterrent.

She tilted her head, almost smiled. “Oh, I am willing to bet anything that you won’t be the only one out there tonight.”

I flinched, remembering the noise from the patio when Mac was here; the still-frame image left behind while I was at the clubhouse meeting; the knife I’d found under Ruby’s mattress.

She was probably right. Hadn’t we learned that before? In Hollow’s Edge, someone else was always watching.

I PREPARED TO LEAVEfor my first pass at dusk.

Ruby was lying on the couch, head resting on a folded arm, watching the evening news. I kept thinking she was waiting for something. Blair Bowman with a new announcement, maybe; or an update on the case, a shift in a new direction. But the main topic of discussion was the drought, the current level of the lake, the fact that we might have to implement water restrictions, our squares of lawn turning brown and brittle.

I pulled the front door quietly shut behind me without saying goodbye. In the settling darkness, I saw an unfamiliar car at the curb, a figure walking up the porch steps at the Brock house. “Hey, Charlotte,” I called as I headed her way, but the figure didn’t pause. The car drove off in the other direction, and it took me a second to realize it wasn’t Charlotte on the porch but Whitney, arriving home. Long hair covered the side of her face as she threw open the front door, just as Charlotte’s disappointed tone carried out into the yard. “You missed dinner.”

The rest of the neighborhood appeared to be winding down. Lights had started turning on in the houses down the street, illuminating my path.

A figure approached from the corner, slowly moving up the road. Tina, pushing her father in a wheelchair, his hands folded in his lap.

“How you doing, Harper?” she asked as they approached. She brushed her dark bangs to the side of her forehead.

“Okay,” I said. Her friendliness and sincerity were a welcome relief. “I’m on watch tonight, just getting started.”

“That girl back?” her dad asked, suddenly alert. Mr. Monahan had a stout frame, his head sunken almost directly into his broad shoulders. He looked like someone who had once been strong. Tina had that same frame, short and broad, her loose clothes camouflaging her strength—I’d seen her load the wheelchair into the back of her vehicle like it was weightless. Her mother, on the other hand, was petite and frail-looking and probably would’ve had difficulty caring for her husband even in her youth.

“Dad,” Tina said in warning.

“She is,” I said. No point lying when we all knew the truth.

Mr. Monahan raised a hand to his thinning white hair, his fingers trembling as he smoothed a few flyaway strands to the side.

Tina sighed. “I better get him home soon or my mom will worry,” she said.

“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” Mr. Monahan said with a childish roll of his eyes. Tina squeezed his shoulder, then gave me a small smile as they continued toward home.

“Good night,” I called after them.

“Be careful,” her father called back.

As I continued my walk around the perimeter, I took stock of the routines of our community: Paul Wellman turning his silver sedan into his driveway, pulling straight through to the garage, the mechanical door lowering before he’d even exited the car. A couple leaving the pool at closing time, barefoot and wrapped in towels, their laughter trailing behind them.

Porch lights turning on, fragmented scenes visible through the open curtains. Flashes of television screens, the scent of burgers cooking on a grill, as I walked the road that backed to the high white fences of our patios.

When I arrived home, I debated how many more passes I really needed to do.

“All safe on the home front?” Ruby called. She seemed to be in exactly the same position on the couch.

“All clear.”

The television was tuned to the same news station, though the volume had been lowered, more for background noise than active listening. She had a book in one hand—a paperback, cover folded over so I couldn’t read the title.

I returned to my spot at the kitchen table, opening my laptop again, deciding I’d go out once more before bed. Split the night at a reasonable hour. Surely no one would complain when the person they really wanted to keep an eye on was currently inside my house. The more I was home, the more I could keep an eye on her.

At eleven, Ruby stood and stretched, turning off the television now that the main news broadcast had finished. “Well,” she said, book in hand, “good night and good luck. Wake me if you want company?” Like we had done last time, sharing our shift for extra security.

But I had become someone different, too, in the time she’d been gone. “I’m good,” I said.

She paused in front of the kitchen table, standing there until I looked up from the screen of the laptop. “Let me know who you see out there,” she said. Her eyes flicking away, like she didn’t want me to read any more into her bet. Like it mattered what I saw. That it wasn’t just a game.

I WAS LATER THANI intended. I left again just after eleven-thirty, taking a flashlight from the kitchen drawer this time. Flicking it on as soon as I closed the door behind me. At night, the stillness seemed rife with possibilities. The stifling humidity, the crickets and the frogs, the faraway sound of an animal darting into the woods, a door slamming shut inside one of the homes.

Ruby’s words echoed as I passed the Seaver house: that I wouldn’t be the only one out here. My eyes trailed to the upstairs right window—Mac’s bedroom—where I could see the warm glow of a lamp beside the closed curtains.

I was standing there, staring up, when I heard it: the sound of metal on metal. A gate opening or closing. From the direction of the pool.

I kept the flashlight trained ahead of me—maybe the couple I saw leaving on my last walkthrough, neglecting to secure the gate behind them.

But the gate was closed now. I pulled at the bars just to check, but the latch was secure, the clang of metal against metal echoing through the night. I paused with my hand on the iron rungs, listening closely. I arced the beam of my flashlight across the surface of the pool—still and quiet—and then the pool deck.

A trail of water. Footprints leading from the pool, across the white concrete, to the gate where I stood on the sidewalk, then disappearing into the black pavement of the road.

At the pool, so close to the lake, the sounds of the night became almost deafening: the lapping of the water at the roots and rocks, the wind through the leaves of the trees, the frogs no longer in the distance but here—surrounding me in the trees around the pool deck. I slapped at my leg but felt the welt of the mosquito bite already rising.

It was probably a resident at the pool, anyway. Someone with a key, even though it was technically off hours. A midnight dip. A violation of our owners’ association rules but nothing worth reporting.

Still, I shuddered, imagining all the things that could happen at night with the rest of us oblivious, behind locked doors and closed walls. I started walking faster, planning the route, keeping to the sidewalk, with the flashlight guiding the way. I wanted to be home, to be done with this. Of course there were other people out at night. It wasn’t a crime. That had been Ruby’s defense, after all.

“Hey.” A soft voice up ahead stopped me in my tracks before I could see anyone. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it under the sounds of the night. I scanned my flashlight to the side and stopped at the figure sitting on the top porch step. Chase stood up. “I was hoping to catch you,” he said.

But his porch light was off, and he was wearing sneakers and gym shorts and a dark T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. I wondered if he’d been watching me. Following me. From here, in the daylight, the pool was just barely in sight. He could’ve been out here all along.

“You’re sitting in the dark,” I said, as close to an accusation that I could get, even as I started moving again, passing his front door.

“I didn’t want you to avoid me,” he said, hand extended in my direction, palm up, case in point.

I stopped walking but didn’t get any closer.

“You need to be careful, Harper,” he said, walking down the steps.

I made myself stand my ground, not showing my discomfort. He wasn’t a cop anymore; I didn’t have to follow his instructions. “Or what?” I said. “People will talk?”

He frowned, suddenly another step closer. “She tried to get in my house yesterday morning. When I was out for a run. I know it.”

I shook my head, but I understood. The paranoia had taken hold of him, taken him over. “She was gone all day yesterday,” I said. “Until dinner.”

“Says who. Her?” When I didn’t respond, he continued, “Look, I left the garage open, and someone tried to jimmy the inside lock—who else could it be? She’s dangerous, Harper, and you don’t even see it. You always wanted to protect her, and sometimes I wonder why.”

The space between us had disappeared, and I was aware of his size, his anger. “You need to keep out of this,” I said, my voice low. “She could get a restraining order.” Reminding him who was at fault here. Who was really the danger.

He took a step back. “No, she can’t. I’ve never threatened her. I’ve never laid a hand on her. I’m going to be cleared. Everyone knows it. I did everything by the book. Where was the lie, Harper?”

There hadn’t been a lie. It had been the way it was handled. The lines we all knew we were walking. All in the name of self-righteousness and good intentions.

“I heard you,” I said, so he would know. “My house is right next to Tate and Javier Cora’s. You hear everything.” Through the fences and open windows, voices carrying in the night. I’d heard him talking to Javier during the investigation.

Chase looked at me closely, the only sound his breathing. “What are you talking about?” Head tilted to the side.

“You were discussing the strategy. That everyone needed to keep it simple. Don’t complicate things.” That was the one specific that stuck in my memory. Like he was telling them what pieces of evidence would help and which would not. “So tell me again, Chase, how you’re going to be cleared?”

“That’s not…” He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know what you think you heard, but you’re wrong. She was a suspect, and we worked the case. A jury found her guilty.” His gaze flicked to the side. “When we found them, she didn’t come out. You know it.” His voice had lowered, as if he were seeing that same unspeakable scene.

I squeezed my eyes shut, chasing away the image. “Ruby was sleeping. She sleeps like the dead,” I said. She’d been out, after all, until two a.m. “She said someone else was out there.”

“You’re seeing what you want to see,” he said.

“Or you are,” I countered. “We all knew there were cameras everywhere on the street.” This had always bothered me; it must’ve bothered him, too. What I should’ve said on the stand if given the chance. What I should’ve explained to the police in the first place. Our cameras had caught Charlotte’s husband cheating. They’d trapped package thieves. Why would Ruby waltz right by them, knowing she would be recorded, if she was committing a crime? If she had killed the Truetts?

Chase flicked his hand at the air as if swatting at a bug. “Don’t put this on me. You were the one who testified that she came home at two in the morning through the back door, that you heard her in the shower. She moved fast, and she tried to hide what she had done, washing away the evidence. She knew it was a mistake. Killers, Harper, they aren’t always thinking clearly. They’re not always methodical or logical. A crime is chaotic. Sometimes it’s just the heat of the moment, but they’re still a killer. They may not be master criminals, but they’re still guilty.”

“The lawyer said…” I began, because hadn’t he watched the same program? Heard the same implied threat of her statement? “She said there was evidence that would’ve exonerated her.” Someone else was out there, Ruby had insisted, and maybe there was proof—

He spread his hands in front of him as if unveiling the end of a magic trick. “Do you see this mysterious evidence?” he asked. “You think, if it really existed, they would have waited until now to show it?” He shook his head. “They’re playing a game for money. They want to sue the police department, to get everyone doubting. Before they decide to retry her. Look, she’s been out less than a week, and they’ve already got you.”

“They don’t have me. She’s innocent until proven otherwise.”

His head jerked to the side, like he thought someone was listening. Then his focus turned back to me. “Don’t you think it’s weird that she came back here? That she came back to you?”

I did. I’d thought she’d take the money and go. But she was still here. Still waiting for something. “She trusts me,” I said. “I was the only one who spoke in her defense.”

His expression twisted up in confusion. “You can’t possibly think she trusts you.”

“She thanked me. After I gave my testimony.” I shrugged, remembering that final communication as I stepped down from the witness box. The last time I’d seen her.

“She…” He trailed off, shook his head. “That’s not at all what she said.”

“You weren’t there,” I said. He had testified earlier in the trial, so he couldn’t watch the rest.

“I know, but plenty of my friends in the department were there. They sat through the whole trial, and it’s all they could talk about after. What she said when her roommate stepped down.” His eyes widened, the whites glowing in the moonlight. “They were legitimately worried for you, Harper. If she hadn’t been found guilty.”

I blinked rapidly. “What—”

“How she turned to you, clear as day, with everyone watching, and mouthed: Fuck you. Like she didn’t even care if the jury saw.”

My mind was scrambling, trying to make sense of the scene. I shook my head, stepped back. “No, she didn’t,” I said. I was there, and he was not. But I couldn’t stop my mind from returning to that day, the way my head was light and dizzy as I stepped down from the witness box—all those eyes on me, and the questions, and Ruby sitting right there. I’d felt ungrounded and removed, everything distorted through a filter. And this time, in my memory, as I passed Ruby, I saw her teeth catching on her lip at the start, her message becoming something else—

“Seriously, Harper,” he said while I was still caught on my heels. “Be careful.” I closed my eyes, trying to see. The memory morphing each time: Thank you. Fuck you. “Hey,” he said, hand on my shoulder. “You have my number, right?”

But I shrugged him off. Ruby had known this would happen—that there would be someone else out here. Someone else watching. Chase had ruined his own career, his entire future, and now he was desperate to get it back.

“Stop watching us,” I said. Because he was obsessed. Had been back then and was still now. Jogging by my house, standing outside the pool, waiting for me, even now.

He raised his hands in proclaimed innocence, heading back inside.

I couldn’t get away from him fast enough, and I wasn’t paying attention as I rounded the corner, up the next road, behind our street. My mind was stuck on that scene in the courtroom—Ruby’s face, turning my way; Ruby’s eyes, meeting mine—so I didn’t tune in to the noise at first.

A car driving off. Brake lights disappearing around the curve ahead.

There were plenty of possibilities: someone lost; someone curious; someone who knew that Ruby was here and was watching.

As I stood there, staring at the space where the car had disappeared, I sensed something off in our backyards.

Something moving. Not behind the patio gates but closer—in the trees.

I ran my light through the pine trees, looking for any sign of someone else. I was worried that this was the person whom Chase might’ve mistaken for Ruby, testing the boundaries of his house. Who had been in my backyard when Mac was over.

I stood perfectly still, then heard that same familiar noise—of a gate creaking.

I paced the line of fences until I came to the unlatched gate: at the house beside mine.

The Truett house.

I pushed open the gate, shining the flashlight into the corners. But there was nothing inside the patio fence. A rusted spot on the brick where a grill had once stood. Dark, uncovered windows giving way to the empty house.

I pulled the gate shut, unable to lock it from the outside, wondering how it had gotten unlocked in the first place. Whether someone had found a way in and was snooping around.

And then I stopped.

Maybe it was Chase’s words, or thinking back to my testimony, but I stood frozen in place. Contemplating once more what I’d heard that night. The story it created.

Ruby, leaving through the front, taking the keys to the Truett house. Bringing the dog outside. Peering into the Truetts’ bedroom, watching them, making sure they were asleep. Taking Fiona’s car keys, starting the car, leaving the door ajar—

Planning it so carefully. So methodically. So ruthlessly. From the moment she took those keys.

In which case, what was she doing, waltzing in front of the cameras after?

If she’d been planning to return by sneaking in the back gate, she wouldn’t have let herself be spotted in the front by half the cameras on the street.

Either she planned it carefully and was not careful at all, or it was a crime of chaos. Both of these things could not be true.

Chase had to be wrong. About her, about what she’d said.

I hugged the edge of the fence line on the way around the block, passing each enclosed patio, until I could circle to the front of our street again, at Tina Monahan’s house. Without the porch light, the corner was pitch dark. As I passed in front of Tina’s house, a bright light suddenly shone across the driveway. They must’ve had a motion detector.

It illuminated my path until I approached my front steps, where I’d left the porch light on for my return. I tried to unlock the front door, but the key didn’t turn—it was already unlocked. Had I forgotten to lock up after myself when I’d left? With the late hour and all that had happened, I couldn’t be sure.

Stepping through the front door, I almost slipped. Under my sneaker, a paper had been left in the center of the entryway, folded on the hardwood floor of the foyer.

The room buzzed, and I remained perfectly still, listening to the silence of the house. Someone had been inside.

Maybe someone still was.

My shoulders tensed and I held my breath, trying to hear the sound of an intruder, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat, the pounding inside my own skull steadily increasing. I felt the adrenaline coursing through me—fight or flight; stay or run.

I flipped the lights on, thinking this would set someone fleeing, but nothing happened. A clatter as the ice maker dropped newly formed ice in the freezer, and I jumped, hand to heart.

I stepped silently around the paper on the floor and continued deeper into the house, flicking on each downstairs light as I passed. A rustling upstairs, and I paused at the base of the steps. I could feel my pulse in my fingers, gripped to the banister, as I listened. Ruby, probably, turning over in bed.

I took the steps slowly, cautiously, my senses on high alert, until I stood in the entrance of Ruby’s darkened room. The light from the hall stretched across the carpeting, and I saw her facedown on the bed, her legs moving in some restless dream.

Feeling more secure, I checked every corner of this house, assuring myself that we were alone. Checking each lock, closing the curtains.

All the while, thinking of Ruby sleeping upstairs with the knife under her bed. The blasé way I’d walked outside, unsure whether I’d left this house unsafe, unguarded, when everyone knew I was on watch tonight.

How sure I had been when I’d told Ruby that no one would be out there tonight.

How wrong I had been. How unquiet our street truly was.

Heart still racing, I picked up the paper left behind in the foyer, and a photo slipped out once more.

It was a printout of the same image, of that dog-bone key chain. But the frame had been pulled farther out, everything else gaining context: a person running down the sloped wooded path toward the lake—the water nothing more than a darkness stretching into the distance.

A black line obstructed the left side of the frame, and it took me a moment to make it out.

A black iron bar, surrounding the pool.

The photo had been taken from a distance. But not from the security camera of someone’s house. It had been snapped from the corner of the pool, from inside the fence. Where Mac had stood the other day, beckoning me closer.

The image was black and white, taken in the dark, but I could make out different details this time. Jean shorts and pale legs and sneakers, the Nike swoosh reflecting in the moonlight.

Details that could be identifiable.

A scene that someone had silently watched, standing at the edge of the pool deck.

I unfolded the paper it had arrived inside. Two words typed in black ink. A simple, stark message: WE KNOW.