Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda

CHAPTER 18

NOTHING WAS ANY CLEARER by the morning. Whether I was safe; whether I was in danger.

Alone, in the middle of my kitchen, with the chill of the tile floor under my feet, the emptiness, the quiet—I felt the need to call someone. To tell someone else what was happening here and what I was afraid of. So someone would come looking for me should I disappear. So it wouldn’t take a barking dog for people to realize that something was wrong.

My friends from work would be home from their trip by now, unpacking their luggage. But what could I say? Ruby came back while you were gone, and now she’s dead, and I’m afraid. They’d missed too much, were too connected to Brandon. And my position at work made that type of confessional friendship no longer possible.

My dad had always been the person I went to for advice—I’d stayed primarily with him after my parents separated—but we’d distanced since Aidan. I couldn’t stand that he was right. That he’d seen the worst in Aidan, and it had played out exactly as he’d predicted. When I called him after Ruby’s arrest, I could feel his words, so close to the phone: Jesus Christ, Harper, you’ve got to stop taking in people like this. You’ve got to cut out this affinity for people whowalk all over you. And look now. Look who you were living with. I could’ve gotten a call from some stranger telling me my daughter is dead—

He’d choked on his words, half anger, half fear, and I saw myself as my brother then. Understood that my father could never handle this sort of role, could not accept a future of uncertainty. He spoke like there were pieces of me that existed outside my own control. Forces at work that were always looking for a weakness. He seemed to feel that the world endangered you just by your existing within it, and it would look for your faults to exploit.

And I hadn’t even told my mom about Ruby’s arrest in the first place. Wasn’t sure how much she knew, either from my father or from Kellen. I’d always worried she had too much on her plate with Kellen, and I’d never wanted to add to it.

I laughed to myself, close to delirium, thinking how the most unreliable person I knew was suddenly the only person I could trust.

Maybe this was why I’d told him about Ruby and the trial the first time, at Christmas. Maybe it wasn’t the eggnog or the lack of sleep but this need for someone else to know—just like now. Maybe I’d needed someone else to tell me I had done the right thing. But instead, all I’d gotten was a questioning look, a questioning statement: Shouldn’t you be sure? Something that had kept me from confiding in anyone else.

I held the phone with two hands as it rang. My stomach dropped as the call went to voicemail. I was about to leave a message when my phone chimed with an incoming text. Thinking it was my brother—Why are you calling me so damn early, Harp??—I hung up.

But it was from Charlotte: Just making sure you saw the note on the boards about the meeting.

How different things were now from last weekend. When I had been kept out of the loop, not part of their meetings.

I’ll be there, I responded, dropping my shoulders back, starting the coffee.

I SPENT THE FIRSThalf of the day doing a deep clean, as if I could purge everything that had happened over the last week. Everything felt unsafe and stagnant, and this scent kept lingering as I cleaned—like wood and drywall. Like the bones of the house.

Just before noon, I saw Tina Monahan through the front window, arms crossed, head down as she strode quickly past my house, as if moving through a rainstorm.

I threw open the front door. “Hey,” I called after her. “Wait up.”

She flinched, then put her hand on her chest as she turned my way. A flush rose to her cheeks, in sharp contrast to the ashen tone of the rest of her face. “I didn’t see you there,” she said. “Sorry.”

“You heading to the meeting?” I asked, jogging to catch up with her.

She nodded too fast, still flustered. “Sorry, everything’s just…” She moved her hands around, searching for words.

“Yeah, me, too,” I said.

Up close, her eyes were bloodshot and hollowed, her short hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, her bangs clung to her forehead from the humidity. When she frowned, I could see the shadow of her father in her.

“I haven’t had to do that before,” she explained with a shudder. “Guess I should count myself lucky that I made it this far without…”

I placed a hand on her shoulder briefly, remembering the nightmares I had after we found the Truetts. The image I couldn’t shake of them in their bed, faces turned toward each other. The unearthly stillness that looked neither peaceful nor real. I wondered what image would haunt Tina.

“Your parents okay?” I asked, walking side by side with her toward the Seaver brothers’ place on the corner.

She took a slow breath in, then let it out. “As okay as any of us, I guess. My mom wants us to move. Like that’s an option right now. She’s demanding an alarm system, at the very least.” She paused and squeezed her eyes shut at the base of the Seavers’ front porch steps. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”

The front door opened above us, and Charlotte appeared in the entrance, like she was the hostess. “Tina, Harper. Good, come on in.”

I wondered if she had an attendance list. She was the only one of the three of us who didn’t look like she’d been through hell since the last time we saw one another.

When I stepped inside, a small group was already gathered in the family room, hovering between the sofas and the television, like some awkward middle school party. Chase sat on the arm of the sofa, glancing periodically out the side window like he feared someone might be watching.

Mac waved me over from the kitchen, where he was opening a beer. For however much he was trying to channel calm and controlled, his hand was shaking as he twisted off the cap.

“Sleep okay?” he asked.

“No. You?”

He tipped his head in camaraderie, then raised the bottle of beer to his mouth.

Tate and Javier Cora arrived next—all of us always prompt to Charlotte’s meetings, lest we be judged accordingly. I wasn’t sure what we were doing here. People whispered. Cleared throats. Avoided direct eye contact.

“Was this Charlotte’s idea?” I whispered to Mac.

“No,” he said.

Just then, Margo came through the door, drawing attention. Nicholas was on her hip, complaining—something between a whimper and a wail—and she had a diaper bag slung over her other shoulder. “Sorry I’m late,” she said to Charlotte, her neck turning a blotchy red.

“Where’s Paul?” Charlotte asked, peering out the front door before pushing it shut.

“He’s busy! Can’t always drop his life at a moment’s notice for you, Charlotte.” Margo’s voice carried through the quiet of the house, and we all watched as her free hand went to her hair, then to the baby.

Even Charlotte seemed caught off guard by Margo’s reaction. Charlotte must’ve touched a nerve because Margo suddenly appeared on the verge of tears. “I don’t know,” Margo said. “He’s just… stressed. And apparently, I’m part of that stress, expecting too much, so I’m just trying not to ask too much of him right now, to hold everything together, but—”

“Okay, come inside, come on,” Charlotte said, ushering her further into the house, lowering her voice accordingly. She took the baby from Margo, parked him on her hip. “Go on to the bathroom,” she said, gesturing to the powder room at the base of the stairs. Pull yourself together, the implied message.

There was no room for us to fall apart now.

Charlotte pulled out her phone with her free hand, a move she must’ve made before. “Come get Margo’s baby, please,” she said. After a beat, she rolled her eyes, hardened her voice. “No, you are not being paid, for the love of God, Whitney.” She hung up and sighed, smiled tightly when she saw me looking. “Two teenagers will be the death of me, I swear.” Then she froze, her shoulders stiffening. “Sorry. That wasn’t funny.”

Charlotte watched through the blinds of the front window until Whitney hopped up the steps. Charlotte met her at the front door, passing Nicholas into Whitney’s outstretched arms just as Margo returned from the bathroom.

“Oh,” Margo said, hands held awkwardly in front of her, like she was reaching for something.

Charlotte pushed the front door shut, put a hand on Margo’s shoulder. “No worries. Come. Relax. You can pick him up after at my place. The girls will keep an eye on him.”

Margo’s gaze trailed after Whitney through the dining room window, but she nodded, following Charlotte into the Seavers’ living room.

There were two brown leather sofas with matching ottomans, all angled toward the large-screen television over the fireplace. The layout of their house was almost identical to mine, except in mirror image, and they’d closed in the upstairs loft, turning it into a third bedroom, which they used as a shared office.

Mac had saved me a spot beside him on the couch. Tate and Javier were on the sofa beside ours, Tate looking slightly more nauseated than normal. Tina squeezed in beside Tate, and Tate winced as she shifted to make room.

“When are you due again?” Tina asked, like we were here for a friendly catch-up.

“Three more months,” Tate answered.

Charlotte seemed to be waiting for something. “Is this everyone who was at the party?” she finally asked, eyes skimming over all of us.

We looked at one another, each performing a silent tally.

“Not Pete,” Javier said. “Or the Wilsons.” Those must’ve been the people who’d left as soon as Ruby arrived.

“I meant the people who were there… during the fireworks,” Charlotte amended.

“Preston’s not back yet,” Mac said.

“Well,” Charlotte said. “You can fill him in later. Go ahead, Chase.”

Tina’s parents weren’t here, either, but no one mentioned that, not even Tina.

Chase stepped to the front of the living room, and Charlotte took his place, perching on the armrest. Apparently, Chase had worked his way back into our good graces, too. How we needed him. How we welcomed him.

“Some of you may have noticed the agents from the state police,” he said.

At that moment, the front door opened, and Preston walked in, then stopped abruptly in his tracks at the sight of us.

“Where’ve you been?” Mac called.

“With Madalyn. Sorry I’m late.” The second statement was directed Charlotte’s way.

Chase gestured for Preston to join us in his own living room. “As I was saying, there are agents from the state police who’ve been going door-to-door, asking questions. Preston, what’s going on with Madalyn?”

“Well, she’s totally freaked. I told her to go home for a little while. There’s nothing for her to say anyway. She didn’t see anything.”

“She’s a student?” Tate asked, cutting her eyes at him.

His jaw tensed. “Grad student. But yeah, she’s going back home to Ohio for a little while, I think.”

“She okay with it?” Chase asked. I couldn’t keep up with the conversation. I felt like I had just walked in instead of the other way around.

Preston nodded, then addressed the rest of us. “Madalyn wasn’t feeling well, so we left early,” he said, and it took me a minute to understand what he was saying. That she didn’t see anything. That none of us did. That she wouldn’t discuss any fight with the police or the things Ruby had said—the way she had turned on us all.

Chase nodded. Keep it simple. Keep it contained. For once, I was on the inside.

“The agent came to our house yesterday,” Tate piped in. “We didn’t answer the door.”

Tina nodded in agreement. “My mom answered the door, so we had to talk to him. Just gave him the general rundown.” She flicked her hand like we’d all been through it. Knew what she had seen, what she had said.

Margo raised her hand and started speaking. “I’m sorry, is no one going to mention the foul-play suspicion? We were all there. We were all witnesses.”

“What are we supposed to say?” Mac responded. “I sure didn’t notice anything.”

“Well, it looks pretty fucking suspicious that we were all there, and no one saw a damn thing,” Tate said. Her eyes flicked from person to person, challenging us.

This was how it began. When we started to winnow down the group, deciding whom it would be. Whose image would first raise suspicion when it appeared on one of our security cameras. Whom we were willing to feed to the masses. Did they even see what they were doing?

“Listen,” Mac said, the first time I’d heard him take control of anything, “it was a public event. It’s not like we live in some gated community. We’ve all noticed things happening on watch.”

“Javier, you said you heard people down at the lake on your shift, right?” Margo asked.

Javier nodded. “There were definitely people out during my shift at night. And Tate heard something the night you were on watch, too, Harper. Right, Tate?”

“Yep,” Tate said. “At like two-forty-five, a loud noise somewhere out front. I’m getting to the point where I can’t sleep, anyway.”

Was this how it really was? Were these truly the people I lived beside? I could feel it, this idea gaining momentum, that the danger was out there and not in this very room. Just like Ruby had claimed in her own denial. Someone else was out there. Someone else did it. It didn’t have to be one of us. We didn’t have to look at one another and wonder.

“We were ignoring her, mostly,” Charlotte said, and everyone nodded, though that wasn’t true. Maybe we’d tried to, but we hadn’t ignored her—we couldn’t, when she’d turned so clearly on all of us.

But there was something so alluring to it, a momentum I couldn’t stop. Something I wanted to be part of. An idea we could develop together, a puzzle we could solve, each of us with our own small piece. An image we could bring to light only collectively. Something that seemed suddenly possible.

Because we were friends and colleagues. Had known each other for years. Mowed each other’s yards when we were injured; thrown baby showers and graduation parties; pulled in the garbage cans when people were working late. We knew each other—we knew more about each other than any of us cared to admit.

“There were footprints at the pool,” I said, “the night I was on watch.” The gate swinging open. Footprints disappearing at the black pavement. “And a car driving off behind our homes.” I thought about that white car again—the one at the office. Who might’ve had cause to go there. “What about Brandon’s brother?” I was grasping, but it was another possibility. Someone who might’ve been keeping an eye on Ruby. Who might’ve been angry about her release.

Tate nodded. Finally, I was on the inside as we cast our suspicions outward.

“Listen,” Javier said, “I say we make a pact. No one tells them anything. No rumors or gossip. You know how it goes, right? We were all together. We can all vouch for each other. Let’s not complicate things.”

And I now understood what Chase had meant when he said not to dilute the evidence with rumors we couldn’t prove. The answers were simple. There was no great conspiracy. The simplest answers were most often the right ones.

Everyone seemed to be in agreement as I looked around the room. Even though the simplest answer, we all knew, was that someone here had done it.

Maybe it was because we each understood. There was a collective motive, and the focus could turn to any one of us. We had each testified. We were each afraid. We were protecting each other as much as ourselves.

We were just ignoring her, going on with our lives. We don’t know what happened. We didn’t see.

We were all good people here.

MARGO WAS THE FIRSTto leave, heading for Charlotte’s to pick up Nicholas. I had started paying attention to things like this—who was leaving and who was staying. The order in which we arrived and left.

Several others stuck around to talk to Chase one-on-one. The bathroom by the stairs was occupied, but there were two upstairs, and I headed that way so I could catch Chase after, ask if he’d heard anything more from his friends—whether they were sure it was poison. Whether I had cause to be afraid.

Mac had the master bedroom with its own bathroom, the mirror image of my own. But when I went to let myself in his room, the door was locked. I guessed he had done this knowing there would potentially be a large meeting downstairs. But I found it odd.

The door to their converted office was ajar, connecting to Preston’s room through the Jack-and-Jill bathroom. I peered inside the office space, but his bathroom door was closed on the other side. It felt like an invasion to use his private bathroom. Especially since we weren’t particularly friendly.

I heard the front door close and was about to return downstairs when a balled-up piece of paper caught my eye. It lay beside a metal trash can under the long table used as a shared desk. As if the paper had just missed.

But it was what I could see through the page that caught my eye. The bold black print. Something so familiar about it. I dropped to my hands and knees under the desk and gently unfurled the sheet of paper, flattening it against the beige carpet.

My hands began to shake as the three words stared back at me, a quick chill in the silence: I SEE YOU.

The same format as the warning I’d received with the photos tucked inside. As if other versions had been printed out here and decided against.

I balled it back up, dropped it in the trash can, stumbled down the staircase. I didn’t know if anyone saw me barreling through the front door. If any of the cameras caught me stumbling toward home. My flip-flops catching on a sidewalk square before I regained my footing.

I had to slow my breath, slow my heart rate. Get inside my house and regroup.

But my stomach churned over the thought of Mac. Of Mac, who had been in my house, whom I had let inside my life—

I threw open the front door, barely enough time to notice the square of paper wedged into the door. It flopped to the floor, the photo facedown.

Not again. Not this. I was still thinking of Mac, but I had just been with him the entire time.

Preston,though. Coming into the meeting late. Preston, who had ample time to leave this here.

Not Mac, then. But his brother.

The sheet of paper with that same bold print I’d seen beside the garbage can: HELLO THERE! Friendly and ominous at the same time. Like the mug behind my desk at work.

I picked up the photo, feeling nauseated. My hands shook. It was so clear. The trees and the lake and the dog-bone key chain. The Nike swoosh on the side of the sneaker, the ponytail, the face caught in profile. Looking to the side to make sure there was no one watching.

That first message: YOU MADE A MISTAKE.

The second: WE KNOW.

They were right, of course. I had made a mistake.

Anyone who saw this picture would know.

Anyone could see it was me.