Such a Quiet Place

by Megan Miranda

  “Yeah, my lawyer gave me some to get me here. To get started.” Of course. How else had she taken a cab? Maybe that’s why she was here, to retrieve what was left behind. But I’d gotten rid of her things, ruining her plans—and suddenly another path presented itself to me.

  “Do you need more?” I asked. The prosecutor had made her out to be a grifter, a thief, a sociopath—take your pick. Maybe I needed to accept that possibility, too. I might be a victim, but I was a willing victim. I held my breath, hoping she would take the offering and move on, move out. Leave Hollow’s Edge and never look back.

  Ruby paused, one hand on the stair rail. “You’ve done enough,” she said. “But maybe you can get me a job in the meantime?” I stared at her—her expression unreadable, eyes fixed firmly on mine—until finally, she added, “You are the director of admissions now, right?”

  The air between us felt charged, alive. “Right.” A pause. “We’re not exactly hiring right now…”

  Her face split into a smile. “I’m kidding, Harper. Oh my God, can you even imagine?” she asked. “Can you imagine if I worked in that department now, after everything? How that would look?”

  She said it with levity, but I couldn’t shake the chill, rooted to my spot. I wasn’t sure how she knew that—what sort of information she’d had access to or why she’d been searching: What I had been doing for the last fourteen months. The role I’d acquired. My life, continuing on, while she was locked away—

  I needed to get out of this house. Clear my head. But I didn’t want to leave her unattended.

  When she disappeared upstairs, I stepped outside but stayed close.

  I hosed off the kayak, hosed our shoes, muddy water streaming down my driveway. Waiting for one of the neighbors to come out—Tate, demanding to know what Ruby was doing here; Charlotte, filling me in about the meeting—but the street remained empty and quiet.

  A dog started barking from somewhere down the street, and—like always—my shoulders tensed, my stomach turned. A sign. A warning. An unshakable reminder that something unspeakably terrible had happened here.

  * * *

  THAT CRISP MORNING LAST March, I’d been outside; I’d gone for a run. When I’d left, I heard the dog barking next door at the Truett house. And I’d thought: Of all people to neglect their pet. Look who’s violating the noise ordinance now.

  When I’d gotten back, thirty minutes later, the dog was still barking out back—louder now, a periodic whimper, and this time I thought: Maybe Ruby was supposed to walk their dog and forgot. It was the first day of spring break, and maybe the Truetts were heading out of town. Maybe they’d left the dog out back, assuming Ruby would be over shortly.

  But then I’d thought of Ruby getting in at two a.m., the sound of the shower running, and hadn’t wanted to wake her if I was wrong.

  It was nearly seven a.m., but they were typically early risers. Still, I knocked gently, not wanting to wake anyone on a vacation day. Especially not my boss, who didn’t like running into me outside of our work environment.

  It was then, as I’d waited on their front porch, that I heard the hum from the garage. The running car, like maybe someone was getting ready to go. I’d waited for the garage door to slide open, but it didn’t. I kept waiting until I knew, in my gut, that too much time had passed.

  I rang the bell this time, twice in a row, and still no one came to the door.

  My hand shook as I reached for the handle. It was unlocked.

  I pushed the door open, and I knew. Immediately, I knew.

  I did not go in. I stumbled back, looked frantically around, saw another jogger at the corner, and recognized the familiar stride. I screamed for him—Chase! Chase!—and there must’ve been something in my tone that warned him. Because he shifted direction, his stride faster, more erratic. Charlotte must’ve heard me, too, because she came outside in her pajamas, met me on their porch. The car has been running, I said, and her hands rose to her face.

  It was Chase who covered his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm as he raced inside to turn off the car engine, yelling at us to open the doors and windows.

  It was too late.

  Ever since, the sound of a dog barking put me on edge, brought me back to that moment—the moment before I knew, and everything changed.

  Thinking about that time was like thinking of another version of this neighborhood, when the perception of our own safety was shattering. When we were realizing that here—with our lazy summers, with our neighbors who were also colleagues and friends, with our cop down the street—we had only convinced ourselves that we would be protected.

  This was not the same place anymore, and we were not the same people.

  * * *

  WHEN I WENT BACK inside my house, I heard the shower running upstairs, and I tried calling Charlotte. When she didn’t pick up, I texted instead: Heard about the meeting. Anything I can do?

  I’d long since learned that the best way to get what you needed from Charlotte was to offer to help. As the head of the owners’ association, she had enough people stopping her outside or coming by her house at all hours, asking her questions or complaining. Between that and her job as a counselor at the college, she was surrounded by other people’s problems.

  A door upstairs crashed open, and Ruby came running. She stumbled down the steps in such a rush that a sense of panic spread through the room. The tags were still on her clothes, and her hair was wet and unbrushed, and I looked for the danger, for who was after her. But she stopped in the living room, frantically moving the couch pillows. “It’s on, it’s on.”

  “What? What’s happening?” I stood beside her, trying to help, but had no idea what she needed.

  It was then I noticed the phone in her hand. A phone I’d never seen before and didn’t know she had. She held it up to me. “My lawyer called. The news. They’re doing a program.”

  “You have a phone?” The wrong comment. The wrong question.

  “Yes, my lawyer gave it to me. I don’t have anyone’s number, though.” She was half-paying attention, her gaze roaming around the room until she found the remote.

  It was the first time since she’d arrived that I saw behind Ruby’s carefully constructed facade. A tremble in her fingers as she turned on the television, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. She was practically breathless, standing in front of the couch, shifting back and forth on her feet.

  “That’s her,” Ruby said, pointing the remote at the screen. “That’s my lawyer.”

  The woman had sleek dark hair, cut blunt to her collarbone, angled cheekbones, a sharp suit. Her name was displayed on the bottom left of the screen in bold print: Blair Bowman. And now her words were coming through: “A grave miscarriage of justice. Evidence that could’ve exonerated her early on had been destroyed by those who should’ve known better. The crimes against Ruby Fletcher go back further than the trial itself. She never should’ve been arrested.”

  Ruby eased onto the couch, perched forward. On the screen, Blair Bowman was sitting at a table with a man and another woman, discussing the facets of the case. How one of the neighbors was a cop and never should’ve been professionally involved; how he’d tainted the investigation from the start, advising others on what to say and what not to say. How the video evidence did nothing but prove Ruby was in the vicinity—and of course she was, she lived there, it wasn’t a crime to be outside. How witnesses had lied. “The relationships between all of these neighbors were contentious from the start,” the lawyer said, punctuating her point with her hand on the table.

  A noise escaped Ruby’s throat, and the tension in my shoulders ratcheted up another notch. It hadn’t been me. I hadn’t lied. I’d been called by the defense—the only neighbor called by their side—to vouch for Ruby, and that was my plan. I thought I’d done the right thing, the good thing.

  But in the witness box, in that moment, whatever you were thinking up to that point, it changes. What you say is between you and your god—or your faith in
a system. A belief all the same. That the system we built would not wrongly convict or wrongly acquit. That justice can be served only if all play by the rules. And you play by those rules as a belief in something greater than you.

  So I told them: Yes, she sometimes walked their dog; yes, I believed she had a key; yes, she was out that night, and I’d heard her come in at two a.m. through the back door, had heard the shower running soon after.

  But I also told them she had no reason to do it. I told them we had all known Ruby for years. I told them she was a good roommate and reliable, and there was no animosity between her and the Truetts, no more than the rest of us. I told them the Truetts trusted her.

  But I didn’t know what the others had said. I didn’t know about the footage that was shown. The very tight time line we had created. I did not hear Chase’s testimony.

  How he’d told them that, on the morning we’d found the Truetts, all the neighbors came running. In the commotion, every one of us came out. Everyone except Ruby. As if she already knew the scene we had uncovered.

  I didn’t know about the map that was shown of where each of us lived. The evidence attached to each house and the very clear path, established by each witness, of a closed loop—from the scene of the crime to Ruby’s return home: Charlotte Brock. Preston Seaver. Margo Wellman. Me.

  When I went into the courtroom, I didn’t think they had enough. Neither did Ruby, it seemed—who, without bail, had pushed for a fast trial, believing she’d soon be out.

  In that moment, on the stand, I did not know I was providing the final missing piece that would convict her.

  Ruby leaned forward now, chin in her palm, rapt with attention.

  Her lawyer was closing out the discussion. “We are looking into options, but rest assured this is not the last you’ll be hearing from us.”

  Ruby shifted to face me then, practically drunk with some unnamed emotion—excitement or power. “We’re going to sue,” she said.

  She smiled then, and I recognized it—her first real smile. The authentic Ruby Fletcher. The one I remembered. And suddenly, I knew why she was here. Knew exactly what she was doing, what she wanted. Even before she said it, I knew: “Someone’s going to pay.”

  MONDAY, JULY 1

  HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE

  Subject: Sign-up for the party on the Fourth!

  Posted: 9:22 a.m.

  Tate Cora: BYOB. Preston, will you be working the grill again this year? Everyone, let us know what you’re bringing so there’s no doubles! I’ll bring the lemonade.

  Preston Seaver: Of course! I’ll also bring the hot dogs.

  Mac Seaver: Chips and salsa

  Margo Wellman: I’ll make my lemonade!

  Tate Cora: I already said that.

  Charlotte Brock: It’s fine. We drink a lot of lemonade. I’ll bring the burgers and buns.

  * * *

  Subject: Sign-up for Neighborhood Watch

  Posted: 10:47 a.m.

  Charlotte Brock: Hey all, a few of us have been talking, and we’re going to get this going again, starting ASAP. There will be an orientation meeting at the pool clubhouse today at 7:00. In the meantime, does someone want to volunteer to start tonight?

  Mac Seaver: I’ll do it.

  CHAPTER 6

  THERE WAS NO SIGN of Ruby when I woke. When I stepped out of my bedroom, groggy and light-headed, the house was eerily quiet. No scent of coffee or sound of her milling about. How familiar she had become once more, her absence now more jarring than her presence. The door to the Jack-and-Jill bathroom was open from where I stood in the loft, so I could see straight through to her darkened bedroom.

  “Ruby?” I called, before taking a step inside the bathroom. The bed was a double pushed up against the far corner, and the turquoise comforter was thrown back haphazardly. The blinds were tilted shut so that streaks of light filtered through the gaps onto the floor.

  Last night, after the news program with her lawyer, Ruby had taken a phone call and disappeared upstairs, never to reemerge. I’d heard her through the closed door—the low, periodic sounds of a conversation—but couldn’t make out what she was saying. Only her tone: clipped words, rising voice, before the room fell into a prolonged, unnatural silence.

  Her room was empty now. I wondered how long it had been this way. Whether she’d gone out last night after I’d fallen asleep.

  I backed out of the bathroom quickly, not wanting her to find me snooping, then descended the steps, hoping she was in the kitchen or lounging on the couch.

  I didn’t see Ruby anywhere, and my heart rate slowly increased. She had no car—there were only so many places she could be. None of them good options.

  My eyes scanned the downstairs for anything irregular—the front door was still locked, but the back… I walked closer until I could be sure: The back deadbolt was unlocked.

  I threw open the door and there she was, on the worn white Adirondack-style chair that she’d moved to the opposite corner of the yard, into the single square of sun, her feet up on the matching wooden ottoman. “There—”

  She put her finger to her lips, cutting off my comment. At first I heard only the birds, animals leaping from branch to branch in the trees behind us. But she tipped her head toward the high white fence that separated my yard from the one next door. There were voices, slightly muffled—I could just barely make them out. Not in the yard itself, more like someone had left a window open at their house.

  Slowly, as we listened, the voices rose, gaining clarity in steadily rising emotion.

  In all the years I’d lived next door to Tate and Javier Cora, I had never heard them fight. Argue, sure, in a gently teasing way—what they must’ve learned to do in front of others at the local middle school, where they both worked. If only you had remembered to take out the trash and Try not to forget the appointment this time. But never voices raised, accusations thrown. Not even during the investigation, when tensions were high and relationships were fracturing, fissures exposed everywhere. Tate and Javier had remained a united front.

  Oh, but not today.

  “You’re not thinking, Javi.” Tate’s words sounded like they were forced out through clenched teeth.

  “I’m not thinking, I’m not paying attention—I’m always not doing something, according to you. Maybe you should be the one changing. Maybe you should just calm the fuck down for once.”

  Ruby’s mouth fell open in exaggeration, eyes wide with glee. I felt my expression mirroring her own—a shared, delighted shock. I couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone Javier, telling Tate to calm down.

  A beat passed, and then two—long enough for me to think they’d moved to another room—before Tate’s voice, high and tight, cut through the still morning. “Maybe you should get the fuck out of here.”

  And then the sound of their back door being thrown open, Javier’s feet on the steps, and his rapid breathing, so close, on the other side of the fence. A flash of bright blue from his shirt as he passed back and forth.

  We were stuck. I was standing at the bottom of the brick steps, trying not to give myself away. Ruby sat on the chair, one hand raised comically in mid-motion. She pressed her lips together. I felt myself holding my breath.

  The unmistakable sound of texts being sent and received chimed from his side of the fence; he kept moving, a blur of blue passing through the slats. I wished I could see him, see what he looked like—whether his fists were balled up, whether his face had reddened—but the only way to see into your neighbor’s yard was from the second floor, and even then you could see only the back corners of the patio, where the gate gave way to the rise of trees beyond the fence line.

  When Aidan and I moved in, Tate and Javier Cora became our closest couple friends. We spent evenings in their yard or ours, drinking beers, grilling, laughing. The guys would go out sometimes in the evenings together, and Tate and I would meet up at the pool, drinks in hand, chairs turned toward the lake, faces angled into the breeze.

  Afte
r Aidan’s departure, it became clear they had known for a while that he’d been considering leaving me; neither of them seemed surprised. When I told Tate—the first person I wanted to see; I showed up on her front porch with righteous anger and a bottle of wine—it was obvious that someone had beaten me to it. And it was then I understood that, at some point along the way, Tate had decided not to tell me that my fiancé wasn’t in it for the long haul.

  I thought of every opportunity she’d had to tell me. Every time I had mentioned the ideal time for the wedding—Oh, yes, May is perfect, she’d agreed, anything later and you’ll melt—or how we were waiting for Aidan to finish his program first. Afterward, whenever I looked at her, I could only wonder how long she must’ve known. How many times she and Javier had discussed it, how they must’ve felt such pity for me. Something that verged on embarrassment.

  It was hard for a friendship to recover from that. Every time I saw them together, I pictured them discussing it, hushed whispers in their kitchen, where they could peer from their window straight into our living room: It’s not our place, Javi. Oh, but poor Harper. I don’t think she has a clue.

  Another chime came from the other side of the fence, and Ruby raised one eyebrow, her whole face shifting into a question. I knew what she was implying, letting me fill in the blanks. Who would Javier be texting after a fight with his wife?

  A window suddenly slammed shut. Their back door swung open, the hinges crying. A pause as some silent communication seemed to be happening: No one was moving; no one was speaking. Like Tate had just realized their mistake—the open window, their voices carrying.

  Ruby pushed the wooden ottoman slightly with her bare foot so that it scraped against the brick of the patio, and I didn’t think it was an accident. A small smile broke onto her face. I heard Javier take a deep breath, heard his feet on the steps, the door closing, the lock turning with unnecessary force.