Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda

CHAPTER 17

RUBY HAD BEEN ON campus. With my car. With my keys.

Chase thought she’d been trying to get inside his house, too, in the days when we thought she’d been gone.

Which meant she was looking for something. And there was one place I could go to start tracing her path.

Campus remained eerily empty, the July Fourth holiday bleeding into the long weekend. At the staff entrance, I passed the security center building, the electric vehicles all lined up in a row, unused. Every lot I passed was empty, the wind whipping up the brittle leaves, scattered across the narrow road.

When I pulled into the lot behind my building, I half expected to see the white car again under the oak tree, but mine was the only car here. Maybe even on the entire campus, judging from the drive in.

Before entering the building, I peered through the glass panel beside the back door, but the motion lights remained off. I paused at the entrance when I stepped inside, taking it all in—trying to see things as Ruby might. This place where she once gave student tours, and joined me for lunch, and asked for advice, and smiled when Aidan stopped by to say hi.

Everything about her, a deception.

The lights flicked on one by one as I moved deeper inside. I moved fast, using my key for my office, imagining Ruby doing the same days earlier. How compliant I must’ve seemed to her. How easily manipulated. Ruby in my house; Ruby in my car; Ruby in my place of work—

Was there any part of my life she hadn’t tainted?

Standing in the glass doorway to my private office, I tried to look for signs of her. But everything looked exactly as I thought I’d left it the week before. Only my mug on the blue bookshelf was off-center—HELLO THERE! now barely visible—but that had been my doing, when I’d watered the plant.

My desk was covered with files on prospective students and meeting notes and interdepartment communications. I kept nothing personal or private here. Nothing that would be of interest to Ruby. What would she have been here for if not for me? What did she think she would possibly find here? Evidence that I was not equipped to do my job? Proof that I did not measure up to Brandon Truett?

There was nothing else here except for a plant on the verge of dehydration and a closet full of junk: the detritus left behind from when Brandon Truett worked here. I couldn’t think of a reason that would interest her, but I crossed the room, throwing open that closet door for the first time in months.

It was empty.

My breath left me in a quick gust. The closet was completely, totally, empty—except for a faintly stale scent, from disuse and uncirculated air. The file box where I’d stored the remnants from Brandon’s desk, the photo of him and Fiona—all gone.

It had been so long since I’d looked in here that I couldn’t say for sure. Couldn’t tell whether the contents had disappeared sometime in the previous year, with Anna at reception, or the janitor, or someone with an attachment to Brandon Truett—or Ruby.

Absences were harder to find. Negatives harder to prove. To know for sure that it wasn’t someone else, over the last year, who had gone through here and cleaned things out. To take the leap that it must’ve been Ruby.

But she’d definitely been here.

I remembered her expression when I had caught her outside on my way home with Mac—when I told her I’d been to work. The quick frown. The worry. Had she been concerned that I’d noticed what she’d done?

If that was true, then Ruby Fletcher believed there was something worth finding in Brandon’s things. More important: She knew that the Truetts’ deaths had not been solved with her conviction. Her words at the party were not empty threats. And she believed that, here, she might find some proof.

I pictured her again, the moment she arrived at the party last night—the knowing looks she gave everyone; the way she flaunted her presence; the things she said: that we had somehow conspired against her. That she knew what each of us had done.

It seemed like maybe she had found that proof after all. A note he’d scribbled in a margin, maybe. A photo slipped behind another in the photo frame. Something that had eluded meaning when we were all so focused on Ruby. Something out of my grasp still.

But whatever she’d taken from this closet must exist.

Whatever she’d uncovered must be able to be found.

SHE’D HIDDEN THINGS, YES,distrusting all of us who had wronged her. But there were only so many places she could keep things close by.

All of them in Hollow’s Edge.

There were barely any signs of life outside by the time I returned home. No one running, or watering the grass, or talking out front. The pool was abandoned, with a black and red sign out front that I couldn’t read but which must’ve declared the premises closed. I wondered if there were guidelines in the bylaws for this.

As I passed Charlotte’s house, her front door opened. Chase slipped out, jogging down the steps, then paused on the sidewalk as he noticed me pulling into my driveway.

My mind was already three steps ahead, thinking through where Ruby might’ve left a box of Brandon’s things that I hadn’t yet uncovered—the bathroom cabinet, under my old tarp in the garage—so it took me a moment to realize Chase was waiting for me, standing in the Truett yard.

“What’s going on?” I called, meeting him halfway, the overgrown grass itching my ankles.

“I tried your house a few minutes ago. Just missed you,” he said, like we were friends. How death could alter everything, swing you from enemies to allies or the other way around. “Has someone from the BCI been by to talk to you?”

I was still trying to figure out how Agent Locke fit in. But Mac had implied we were together in this. All of us on the same side.

“Yes,” I said.

Chase nodded. “The local PD won’t be allowed to handle it. Not with the lawsuit pending.”

“Handle what?” I asked.

He glanced to the Truett house, the dark, empty windows, narrowing his eyes. “They suspect foul play,” he said, leaning closer.

I blinked twice, trying to process. Foul play, such a generic euphemism. Downplaying the truth: They suspect someone hurt Ruby. They suspect someone killed her.

“Did they say how?” I asked, and I could hear the waver in my own voice. I pictured Ruby on the lounge chair, how she’d looked the night before, under the corner light. No blood. No signs of a struggle.

“This isn’t official,” he said with another glance to the Truett house. “Just friends on the job. Small town, you know?” I nodded, urging him on. “They suspect she was poisoned.”

I stepped back, hand to my mouth, something churning in my stomach. Could taste the vodka from yesterday, the acid rising, the scent of chlorine in the back of my throat.

“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.

The poison; the carbon monoxide. As if someone preferred to kill without having to look at the victim while doing it. A level of deniability. Something that required the hand of fate, absolving you of guilt.

A car turned on; a death that could occur only if you kept on sleeping. Poison left for someone else; but it required the other person to consume it.

He stepped closer, hands on my shoulders, but I shook him off. “It’s all horrible, but I’m not sure what else we can do right now other than eat dinner, go to sleep, face tomorrow.”

We brought our plates to the kitchen table and ate in silence. Or rather, I watched him eat, and I moved the food around my plate. Nothing but the sound of utensils scratching against the dinnerware and the ticking of the mantel clock echoing through the room.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said, standing from the table and clearing our plates.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked, slowly rising from his chair. “I don’t mean… I mean, I could just, stay. You look like you haven’t slept.”

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” I said, feigning levity. “Thanks, but I think I’m about to crash.”

Because all I wanted was to be left alone. Alone with my fears. Alone to work it through. To trace each thread through the night of the party, as if something new would suddenly emerge.

Because as he was eating, I’d felt myself fracturing. My thoughts had disconnected from the present, circling back to the events of the last few days.

I saw Ruby again, holding her purple mug in the air—The gang’s all here!

I couldn’t stop my mind from taking the alternate path. Step by step, from the day Ruby had returned to the day she had died. On the lounge chair, being lowered to the ground, my blue cup rolling across the concrete—

Foul play.

Poison.

Working it through, day by day, to its inevitable end.

To the sudden fear that maybe this ending wasn’t meant for her but for me.