Such a Quiet Place

by Megan Miranda

  Ruby didn’t have to make a scene. She could disrupt the balance with the shift of her chair. With the mere possibility of her on the other side of a high fence. Her small smile stretched into a wide grin, and I shook my head, though I was grinning, too. I felt the last fourteen months dissipating—the bond threatening to form once more, the same one that had made our living arrangement so easy.

  After Aidan left, Ruby had quickly joined me in my coolness toward Tate, picking up on some undercurrent. There had been a vacancy left behind, a sharp sting of betrayal, and Ruby had filled it.

  “Wonder what that was all about,” Ruby said, standing from the chair. Then she ambled across the small brick patio, casting a quick glance toward the edge of the mulch bed, where the soil had been disturbed in sections. Rabbits, she had said, but it looked too organized. Too deliberate.

  “Come on,” I said, gesturing for her to follow me inside. “How long were you out there?” I asked once the door was closed behind us. Always, always, tallying her minutes. As if I could control her actions by accounting for her time. Knowing how guilt emerged in the gaps: The time to unscrew the carbon monoxide detector from its spot on the ceiling; the time to take Fiona’s car keys from their spot beside the garage door; the time to start the car and run—down to the lake, down to the woods; the time to dispose of evidence and sneak back home—

  “Not too long,” she said. “Hey, can I borrow your car today?”

  My train of thought faltered. “I can drive you,” I said.

  She skirted by me, walking past the kitchen into the foyer. “I have a meeting with my lawyer,” she said, her voice echoing as she headed for the stairs. “She’s coming through town and asked if I could meet her and the team in private. It’s in some business park, and I don’t know how long it will take.” She paused at the bottom step, one hand on the railing. “Okay?”

  It was not. Handing over my car was not the same as an extra bathing suit, a pair of flip-flops. “I was planning to go to the grocery store,” I said.

  “We can do that tomorrow,” she said, and I remembered that, with Ruby, you had to be firm and definitive, had to say what you meant. She would not give you the benefit of nuance or concede a point that had not been earned.

  “I’ll call you an Uber,” I said, and her fingers curled tightly on the railing, the ragged nails bitten down to the quick.

  “Harper,” she said, “the case is all over the news. I can’t have some kid with a license picking me up, driving me around, taking his shot for his fifteen minutes of fame after.”

  The implied threat: Following her back here. People watching. Media vans camped outside, like they had been the days after her arrest—

  Every decision was a balance, and I couldn’t see the right option, the right answer. I felt the pieces spinning out of my control.

  She didn’t even wait for me to say yes.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE CAME BACK downstairs a short time later with that brown leather messenger bag slung across her chest, she went straight for the drawer beside the front door, where I kept my ring of keys. This was another skill of hers, to push you into something, catch you on your heel before you realized what was happening. Asking, half as a joke, Any chance you could use a roommate, filling the backseat of her car and taking up residence in your house; saying, with the police on the front porch, Will you tell them, Harper? Tell them I didn’t do it? That I don’t have their key anymore? That I couldn’t have done it? So that the only thing you could possibly say, with her right there, eyes wide and searching, was Yes, of course, yes.

  “Thanks, Harper, I owe you one,” she said, heading for the front door. My whole life, suddenly in her grip.

  I followed her outside, watched as she slid into the driver’s seat of my car. She started the engine, lowered all four windows as if the inside of my car felt too contained. Hands on the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead—

  “Like riding a bike, right?” She gave me an exaggerated grimace, and I wanted to ask, Do you even have a license? Is it still good? But more than anything, I wanted her gone—before anyone else noticed her sitting in my car. Ruby in my house. Ruby in my car. Slowly infiltrating my life once more.

  “That’s what I hear,” I said.

  She gave no indication that she heard me as the car glided down the slight incline.

  I watched from the sidewalk as she drove to the stop sign, turning out of sight at the Seaver house, then I listened as the sound of the engine faded into the distance—not sure what I was waiting for. An accident? A change of mind or heart, my car suddenly returning up that same road? Ruby apologetic, stumbling out of the car, handing me back the keys, all the while saying, Oh my God, I don’t know what I was thinking.

  A flash of movement in the front window of Charlotte Brock’s house caught my eye: curtains dropping back into place.

  Of course people were watching. Whatever had happened at their meeting the night before, no one was reaching out to fill me in. This would probably make it worse.

  I crossed in front of the Truett house and shuddered at the lingering scent of exhaust from my car. A trigger of a memory, my arms rising in goose bumps—Chase yelling at me to open the garage door as he turned off the car, then the mechanical churning so painfully slow as I held my breath—

  The smell had taken a while to dissipate. It lingered so long that sometimes I wondered if it was what had brought me to their house that morning to begin with. Some subconscious understanding of wrong, only exacerbated by the barking dog.

  Past the Truett house now, I marched up the porch steps to Charlotte’s front door, still feeling a chill, like the ghost of a memory following me in the dark.

  When I rang the bell, I heard footsteps on the other side of the door—and then silence. As if someone was watching. Deciding.

  “Charlotte, come on,” I called as I knocked.

  The door abruptly swung open. Molly glanced past me.

  “Hey, is your mom home?”

  She blinked rapidly, long eyelashes and faint freckles on her cheeks, like her mother’s. Her gaze finally settled back on me. “No, she had to take Whitney to the dentist.”

  I noticed her own teeth then, white and sparkly. I’d thought she had braces; she must’ve just had them removed. She ran her thumb along the top row now, like she was still getting used to the feeling.

  As she started closing the door, I caught sight of the duffel bag in the hall, deep blue against the light gray walls, matching the set of landscape photographs hanging in the foyer. As if even this had been coordinated. The layout of their house was much the same as my own, but with a master down along with the two extra bedrooms upstairs, and decorated with a much better eye for design.

  “You going out of town?” I asked.

  Molly shifted to block my view, narrowed her eyes, a new distrust—as if the fact that I had harbored Ruby tainted my own character. As if she hadn’t known me for years.

  “Mom wants us to go stay with our dad. But she didn’t check with him, and he’s not home.” Hand running through the ends of her dark hair, gathered over her shoulder.

  Bob Brock had seemed as generic as his name, tall and thin and nondescript. Blandly handsome in person but nothing to remember. He had the type of face I thought I’d seen before. That had made me ask, Have we met? when I’d first moved in. Nothing like Charlotte, who was easy to notice, easy to remember. She had dark hair and freckles and looked much younger than her age. From a distance, walking together, Charlotte and her daughters could all pass for siblings. They were striking on their own, even more so as a group.

  Even his job seemed ordinary—he worked in accounting. Which was what made what happened so hard to believe. Bob worked from home, depending on the project, and apparently had a habit of asking his girlfriend to park around the corner, keeping her car out of sight, and walk up our street, entering through their double garage, before she came into frame on their security camera.

  But Margo Wellma
n had noticed the unfamiliar car at the curb, noticed the trend of the timing, and posted a photo to the message board of the blue sedan with a short blond woman exiting, because we had a strict no-solicitation rule. Anyone know this woman? she’d written. She’s been parking here every day this week around noon. I’ve never seen her before. And then Preston Seaver searched through his security feed and posted a clip of her walking past his house, sunglasses on, head down: Looks like she was heading up our street. But she never made it onto Charlotte’s camera next door. Charlotte was the one who posted: She never shows up on my video. Disappears somewhere between your front door and mine. ??

  No one responded, not a word, until the truth sank in, and the drama shifted from the board to reality.

  Charlotte was nothing if not detail-oriented and organized. She piled Bob’s things neatly into boxes and stacked them out front. We saw the locksmith’s van parked along the street before the end of the day.

  The girls aligned themselves, as expected, with their mother—remaining here more often than not, even though their parents lived in the same town and shared custody. Bob had stuck it out with the girlfriend. Word was, he’d moved straight in with her on the other side of the lake after Charlotte had kicked him out.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Molly said to me, pushing the door closed. But she was too old to be wary of strangers—and anyway, I wasn’t a stranger. However much the sisters looked alike, their personalities were very different. Even though they were only a year apart, Molly was always the more cautious of the two, the more hesitant, the quieter. Sometimes, if her sister wasn’t around, you could forget she was there.

  It was the older one, Whitney, who was bold. Who ran the lawn mower close to the window to get a glimpse of Ruby.

  “Will you tell your mother I stopped by, please?” I asked.

  “Tell her yourself tonight,” Molly said. “Isn’t there some big meeting at the clubhouse?” Bolder than I remembered, then. Older, anyway.

  “By the way, no need to be nervous. She’ll be gone for a bit,” I said as I stepped back. Molly blinked twice, her face blank of emotion. “Ruby,” I continued. “You don’t have to hide out inside.”

  Molly stared at me. “She’s guilty, you know,” she said, a tinge of disgust in her expression—at me or at Ruby, I wasn’t sure. “She shouldn’t be allowed to stay here.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to remember myself at seventeen, how I hated being lied to by adults; how all I wanted then was honesty, “they didn’t prove it.” It was the one honest thing I could think of. I figured it was Charlotte’s job to explain the legal system to her children.

  “Yes,” Molly countered with a roll of her eyes, a spot-on impression of her mother. “They did.” And then she shut the door, effectively ending the conversation.

  * * *

  AS I WALKED DOWN their porch steps, I saw Chase jogging up the street, his familiar broad frame, mechanical stride, quickening pace. I walked faster for home, hoping to avoid him. Knowing that Ruby was currently out in the world, having a discussion with her lawyer. I wondered whom she was referring to when she said Someone’s going to pay, whether it was only Officer Chase Colby of the Lake Hollow Police Department. Chase had already been placed on leave from the department, pending internal investigation. He had all the time in the world to let things fester. And now the source of all of his troubles, all he had lost, was here—with me.

  I strode up my porch steps, head down. Had just shut the door behind me when I heard the steady stomp of his tread passing by. I peered out the front window, watching him retreat. Who needed a neighborhood watch when we knew Chase was watching?

  The truth was, I didn’t blame him. I didn’t blame any of them, walking past the pool to get a closer look, pushing the lawn mower for a peek in our window, jogging by to check up on her—they weren’t the only ones who wanted to know what Ruby was doing here.

  We’re going to sue, she said. On the news, the lawyer had implied that there was contention with the neighbors, with us, that Ruby had been wronged by more than the system. I no longer trusted that she would confide the truth to me, not anymore. If she ever had. Tell them, Harper. Tell them I couldn’t have done it—

  It was instinct, at first, to want to believe her. Before her image was found on the cameras. Before the trial and the testimonies. I’d heard the echo of my brother in her plea, appealing to something baser inside of me.

  Maybe that’s what made me confide in Kellen, in an ill-advised confession on Christmas night, after too much eggnog and not enough sleep. Thinking he would understand, tell me I had done the right thing.

  By tradition, we spent Christmas Day with my mother’s side of the family, at the cape house we’d grown up in, and where she and sometimes Kellen still lived—occasionally by his choice, more likely by her heavy suggestion.

  After dinner, we had made a joint escape from our extended family’s probing questions—Have you met someone new, Harper? How’s the job working out, Kellen?—seeking solace on the covered patio, even in the bitter cold.

  We had always looked more similar than either of us would’ve preferred: large brown eyes and a downturned mouth; high cheekbones and a smile that felt familiar, reflecting back. At times, it made me believe we were closer than we really were.

  And so I’d told him, in the dim glow of the yellow light beside the back door, with the voices muffled on the other side. My roommate was found guilty of killing our neighbors, I’d said, breaking the silence. I testified.

  Kellen looked at me with an expression I’d never seen before. Like he wasn’t sure who I was, the secrets I kept. You knew she did it? he asked.

  No, I said. I wasn’t sure.

  His expression shifted again, to something darker, introspective. His breath escaped in a fog of chilled air. Shouldn’t you be sure before you testify?

  But I’d thought that was the purpose of the trial. To present each piece as one, and to know beyond all reasonable doubt. I only told the truth. I’m not the one who found her guilty. As if we could each individually absolve ourselves.

  The conversation had ended awkwardly, and I’d flown out early the next morning without saying goodbye.

  But he’d called me a week later, on New Year’s Eve, close to midnight—holidays, the most acceptable times for reaching out—and apologized, as if he’d been thinking about it. Said he was projecting, then tossed in a self-deprecating line about himself—Like I should talk, right?—and some comment about how no one could ever be sure what other people were capable of. We’d said Happy New Year and hung up the phone and, in another Nash family tradition, hadn’t connected again since.

  Now I heard the echo of his question: Shouldn’t you be sure? I wasn’t even sure what she was doing here now. But suddenly, with Ruby out, I saw the opportunity.

  This time I approached her room with purpose.

  Since the main door to her bedroom was closed, I entered the bathroom, like I had this morning, so as to disturb as little as possible. I took a closer look. On the counter were the essentials we had purchased online yesterday: fresh toothbrush and toiletries, half of them piled in the far corner, unopened. Humidity lingered in the bathroom, condensation clinging to the mirror, like she’d only just stepped out. I flipped the exhaust fan to circulate the air, and something fluttered overhead.

  Above, a tight wad of paper had been wedged between the vent blades. I closed the lid of the toilet and stepped up carefully, balancing with one hand against the wall. Reaching up, my fingers brushed against the edge of a paper—a twenty-dollar bill that had unfurled, flapping with the gust of the fan. I leaned to the side, getting a better look at the roll of cash. If those were all twenties, that was far more money than I would’ve thought the lawyer would give her to get herself started.

  From what I could see from this angle, there was an assortment of small bills—fives, tens, twenties. Like a hand had reached into a bucket of cash and randomly pulled. I couldn’t imagine her lawyer o
pening her wallet, counting out her assorted cash, and handing it over with a shrug, but I couldn’t figure out where else Ruby would’ve gotten it.

  I quickly flipped the fan switch off.

  My heart raced as I opened the cabinets under the sink, looking for more things she might’ve hidden, when I spotted a bright yellow pouch tucked behind the plumbing. I knelt on the ceramic tile and pulled it out. A small drybag, like we used when we were kayaking, to keep our phones and keys safe and dry.

  It was empty.

  She must’ve found this in the storage compartment of her kayak, buried under fourteen months of junk. Suddenly, I understood. This money hidden in the bathroom; the empty drybag under the sink; her fear that I’d gotten rid of the kayak and her insistence on taking it out—she had hidden her money there before her arrest. Maybe she’d been planning to make a run for it.

  And now she was back for it.

  A chill ran through me at the realization that maybe the neighbors hadn’t been paranoid with the rumors after her arrest. Their claims of money that had gone missing from a wallet, a purse, a house during a party. Maybe I had never known Ruby as well as I’d thought.

  But I could feel my pulse slowing again, because I could finally make sense of her actions. She’d sneaked inside that first day, shoes in her hand, empty luggage in the hall. She was here, in my house, for the things she’d left behind. This was a series of steps I could trace forward and back, understand her motivation, see it through to its inevitable end: with her leaving this place.

  Koda leaped off the edge of her bed in the connecting room, and I jumped, startled.

  Ruby’s luggage sat in the far corner of the room. When I checked, it was still empty. I pulled open one of the drawers to the small dresser she’d brought over from her dad’s house when she moved, carefully searching through the clothes we had ordered together, tags still on. Some things, like the socks, remained in the plastic bag they’d arrived in.

  There was nothing unexpected as I checked the rest of her drawers. I stood at the single window, peering out between the tilted blinds, where her room overlooked the back of our square patio and Tate and Javier Cora’s backyard. The branches of the trees outside the fences swayed, though there hadn’t been any breeze when I’d been out.