Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda
CHAPTER 2
IT’S FAIR TO SAY that no one here had loved Brandon and Fiona Truett.
On the surface, everything was fine. We smiled, we waved. But we didn’t really socialize with them.
Brandon was the head of admissions at the College of Lake Hollow, where many of us worked, and he believed vigorously in a separation between work and relationships. He was standoffish, and judgmental of the rest of us who did not adhere to his personal code of conduct, and kind of an asshole. Fiona was standoffish by proxy, judgmental by proxy, an asshole by proxy.
We liked them more in hindsight. In sympathy.
Their house had been unoccupied since the day they were found. It belonged to the bank now, but no one was offering, and so it sat—empty, haunting. A constant reminder.
In the months after, the yard had run wild and overgrown until we coordinated a schedule to keep up appearances, like we did after Charlotte Brock’s accident and knee surgery. We did not have altruistic intentions; we were not such good people. But we cared enough about our own status not to let the property go to hell, bringing us all down with it. We were all dependent on one another here.
The neighborhood of Hollow’s Edge hugged a finger of Lake Hollow, a semicircle of fifty closely packed homes oriented toward the water, half-moon courts set off from two main roads. The development had been completed about five years earlier, and many of the homes were occupied by their original owners. They were similarly designed and modestly priced; there weren’t large industries in the area to commute for. Most of us in Lake Hollow worked for the college, or Lake Hollow Prep, or the public education system.
We were highly educated, though not highly compensated. But we had this: the view, the convenience of a suburb, and the ambience of our own private stretch of nature—you could hear it coming alive at night, down by the water. And the summer: Administrative positions required year-round employment, but the rest had the expanse of mid-June to mid-August for themselves. Two-plus months of unstructured, unaccountable hours. Though I technically had a year-round position at the college, the days turned flexible in the summer, the hours more like a suggestion than a requirement.
There were other, more exclusive subdivisions on the opposite side of the lake, closer to the college: larger homes, more established communities, with lake access and boat docks. Our neighborhood didn’t officially have direct access, though there was a cleared path through the wooded area across from the Wellmans’ home, a gently sloping path where people dragged kayaks and canoes. A strip of plywood atop the rougher section, to ease anything over the roots without damage.
There weren’t many young children here yet, the neighborhood self-selecting based on its facilities. The lack of playground. The pool with no lifeguard. The proximity to the lake. All hidden dangers that parents could see. We were mostly young professionals, upwardly mobile, still establishing ourselves.
Aidan and I had fit right in. We’d been welcomed into the fold as soon as we’d unloaded our things, fresh out of the large academic setting of Boston University, where we’d first met, enamored with the possibilities of the life we would build for ourselves here. We’d both grown up near the water—me, a mile from a stretch of cape where I’d learned to fish and sail and keep time by the tides; him, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, where he’d developed an affinity for biology and boating. We’d felt a pull here, a faint familiarity, like there was something in it that recognized us, too.
Five years later, I could name every family on the street as I walked to the pool, as I followed Ruby.
I thought about stopping at Mac’s house on the corner to make sure he’d gotten my message, but it remained dark, the blinds tilted shut. In fact, the stretch of road behind me and in front of me remained still, unnaturally silent, only the cicadas starting up again in the trees, calling out to one another. I was used to hearing my neighbors.
Our backyards collided, high white fences in a grid, granting the illusion of privacy. We couldn’t see one another, but we could hear everything, though we pretended we couldn’t. Everyone was reduced to a caricature of themselves on the other side of the fence, winnowed down to their most defining features. Sometimes you could see colors moving through the thin slats, the movement of a person, when you thought you were alone.
On a typical weekend morning around this time, most people were up, working on house projects or reading in their backyards. Others would ride their bikes around the lake into downtown, or go for a walk before the heat really kicked in.
But on this particular Saturday, the neighborhood appeared quiet. Sleepy is what the news reports once called us, as if we were collectively lazy, oblivious to the danger among us.
In truth, summers here were always dangerous. In their luxury. In their sleepiness. With their lack of structure and sudden influx of time. Time to notice the things we were too busy for during the rest of the year. Time to fixate. Time to make a change.
Anything taken to an extreme was dangerous. Here, in the summer, there was nowhere to hide—not from others and not from yourself.
On the surface, Hollow’s Edge could still give the illusion of a quiet little neighborhood, but that was a lie. Even if it had been true at one time, the reality was a very different thing now. One thing I could say for sure: We had all awakened.
THE POOL WAS NOTcrowded, for which I was grateful. Ruby had already claimed a blue lounge chair, setting herself up by the pool steps. But she had my key, and I couldn’t get in without calling her attention.
Chase, thankfully, wasn’t here. Neither was Mac.
There was a man in the far corner, a dark hat pulled low over sunglasses, chair angled directly toward the sun, tanned arms resting beside his pale torso. Preston Seaver. Mac’s younger brother. I wasn’t surprised; he could usually be found at the pool on the weekend, probably on a mission to even out his tan. Preston worked in security at the college during the week and always seemed to know what was happening, in and out of work—and he was usually all too willing to share.
Preston Seaver, who had told the police how one time, when Ruby and Mac were fighting, someone had broken into their home and smashed some dishes, establishing a pattern. Preston, who now held me at arm’s length, like I was not to be trusted.
But it was a mutual distrust, and I wasn’t sure which of ours was the strongest. The way he’d turned on Ruby so fast. I warnedmy brother, he’d told them. As if he had always sensed some menace lurking in her, threatening to emerge.
Sometimes, when he looked at me, I wondered if he saw in me something untoward. Something worth warning his brother about, too.
Now he remained perfectly still, but I couldn’t tell whether he’d noticed Ruby or was sleeping. They had never gotten along, not even before. Preston believed Ruby was full of herself; Ruby believed Preston was irrelevant, an unfortunate extension of Mac’s existence. Even before, they could circle each other without interacting. It was a skill, but it worked only by joint agreement, some sort of pact they had entered into together.
Margo Wellman had noticed Ruby, though. She had the baby in the pool, and every few seconds she sneaked a glance—but she didn’t change her own plans. She was pulling the baby—a toddler now—in a yellow float, in lazy circles.
I stood at the gated entrance, not wanting to call Ruby’s name—not wanting to declare an allegiance, disrupt the balance—when she approached the edge of the pool, crouching down. “Is this your little one?” she asked Margo.
Margo didn’t move any closer, but she didn’t retreat, either. She was just out of reach of Ruby, and she pulled the float subconsciously closer. “Yes, this is Nicholas.” Nicholas had the same curly red hair as his mother, fine and wispy but undeniably hers. Margo had her hair tied up in a bun on top of her head to keep dry, though tendrils had come loose and clung to her neck, waterlogged.
“Hi, Nicholas,” Ruby said, waving. She smiled when Nicholas waved back, all chubby arms and baby-faced delight. “Congrats, Margo, he’s precious.”
“Thank you,” Margo answered.
Nothing about Ruby being out or here. No apologies or condolences or congratulations. Their entire interaction was exquisitely, painfully civil. Nothing about the fact that it was Margo’s camera, with its wide-angled view of the lake and the path cutting into the woods, that had caught Ruby running down through the trees that night—making us wonder if she might’ve been disposing of some evidence in the lake or the surrounding woods, though nothing was ever found.
When she stood back up, Ruby noticed me at the gate and smiled as she let me in. “Look who decided to come after all.”
“Hey,” I said. I held up my pool bag. “I have towels and sunscreen. And the food.” As if her lack of preparedness was my reason for coming. The scorching summer Virginia sun, which she might’ve forgotten about.
“I can always count on you,” she said.
Margo caught my eye as I passed. I wanted to explain. To tell her I was here to diffuse any sort of situation. To keep my eye on Ruby; to deescalate.
With her free hand, Margo hitched the navy blue strap of her swimsuit farther up one shoulder, then the other, her gaze trailing after us. It seemed like Margo’s body kept changing by degrees ever since the baby was born, month after month, in subtle realignments, so that she was constantly fidgeting with a strap, or cinching a waistband, or holding a neckline in place.
Once I settled in a lounge chair beside Ruby, Margo returned her focus to the baby, gently humming. I handed Ruby the sunscreen, passed her the fruit, watched the gated entrance.
It was easy to fall into old habits—the purple insulated cup, hers; the blue one, mine. The chair closer to the umbrella would be for me, for the shade, because I was more likely to burn than she was, though I never noticed until it was too late.
It was so easy to pretend that everything was normal. We’ve always been great pretenders here.
When I looked over at Preston, he had his phone propped on his stomach, peering down like he was reading something on his screen. But then I thought, from the angle, that maybe he was taking pictures of us. Recording us. It was not the first time I’d thought he was taking photos of people at the pool.
He tilted his phone slightly, and he pressed his lips together, as if trying not to smile. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I sat up straighter, staring straight back at him. His expression didn’t change, until I wondered whether I was being paranoid. Whether he was watching a video—he had earbuds in, after all—or reading an article, or texting his brother: Guess who’s sitting on the other side of the pool right now…
He grinned, then placed his phone facedown beside him, resting his head back once more.
No one said anything. Margo kept pulling the baby around the pool; Preston remained almost motionless, only his fingers giving him away, tapping out some beat on the side of the lounge chair.
I wished someone would break. Say what they were thinking. None of us were strangers here. We’d all known Ruby since she was just barely on the cusp of adulthood. And last fall, we’d all testified at her trial.
I’d first met Ruby when I was twenty-five, working in the admissions department, and she was a twenty-year-old student staying with her dad in the summer. That was when Aidan and I moved in, and she was a kid bringing her friends to the pool.
People complained, covertly, passive aggressively, on our message board: What’s the policy on guests at the pool? For example, how many underage college kids can be drinking before someone should say something?
Flirting, even then, with Mac, who was older than I was and wouldn’t give her the time of day, just a nod as he passed with a can of beer in his hand.
I’d always had a soft spot for her. She reminded me of the best parts of my brother. The fun and the joy and the excitement that teetered on recklessness—the parts I imagined must still exist in him, if you stripped all the rest away.
After Ruby graduated, she’d gone on to get her master’s, working part-time in our department, giving student tours, and I got to know another side of her. We started having lunches together. She talked about her future.
She got a job teaching English at the prep school right after she’d earned her master’s, still staying with her dad, to save. That was the same year Aidan finished his postdoc.
That was also when he left me, in a sudden, jarring blindside—so fast and unexpected that the anger first masked the heartbreak, and even now I wasn’t sure whether I was more upset about the loss of the relationship or the way it had happened.
He was leaving for a better opportunity, he said, and maybe it’s time we stopped pretending this was working. This could be an opportunity for both of us. And when I argued, tried to understand where this was coming from, he threw his arms out to the sides and said, My God, Harper, I just have to get out of here.
Like some switch had been flipped and he was seeing this place with fresh eyes—the four walls limiting him, the neighborhood roads circling back around, and me, always the thing he was coming back to.
As if I were something that required escaping.
There was nothing secret about our breakup—it was a casualty of the summer, and there was nothing better to do than watch the unraveling. There was a moving truck, because he took half the furniture. I demanded the cat in a moment of insanity. Aidan held a going-away party with the guys in the neighborhood—Javier Cora, Mac and Preston Seaver, Chase Colby—and they all pretended this was a normal thing to do. No one mentioned how I supported him through his education, and then the second he was done, he left me.
Even my dad was unsympathetic when I told him. He’d never been a fan of Aidan, had tallied his shortcomings on both hands when I told him we were moving here together; said it was in my nature to want to see only the potential in people—like it was some great character flaw.
Aidan and I had bought the house together, in theory. But it was only my name on the mortgage because Aidan had terrible credit and an unappealing debt-to-income ratio (one of the many warnings from my dad), so it was easier to qualify without him.
And then Ruby’s father sold their house and moved away. When Ruby asked if I could use a roommate, I was still recovering from Aidan’s blindside, still caught off guard at the end of each day by the silence here. The unsettling emptiness that seemed to have its own presence.
I gave her Aidan’s office, on the second floor, across the loft from the master suite. She piled her things in her car and drove it the two blocks to my place, and I scooped up her clothes from the backseat, laughing. I was twenty-eight, she was twenty-three, and I wasn’t sure which of us was doing the other a favor right then.
Now, at thirty and twenty-five, the gap between us felt smaller.
Eventually, Margo made a production of leaving the pool, saying to no one in particular that it sounded like nap time, as if she needed a polite excuse to make her exit. She swooped her gear into the stroller, the yellow floatie spilling over the seat, and hitched the baby onto her hip.
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 AREAfor 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.