Page 22 of Such a Quiet Place
Charlotte blinked twice, then brought her long hair over one shoulder, like I’d seen Molly do earlier in the day. Her gaze flicked to the gate and back, her lips pressed together. I followed her line of sight, worried I’d see Ruby, that she had caught me here. But it was Chase, leaning against the black iron bars.
“We haven’t done coffee in a while,” she said. “Can you make it to my house early tomorrow? Say nine?”
I nodded. She scratched my name down in an empty slot, thensmiled at Margo behind me. “Margo, truly, you don’t need to do this.”
“He’s up every few hours teething. I’m awake anyway.”
“I remember that stage,” Charlotte said with a sympathetic expression as I walked out of earshot.
I looked for Chase on the way out, but he’d disappeared in the last few minutes. He wasn’t in the line or on the pool deck. I started to think I’d manifested him from nothing. Déjà vu from the last time we did this, a cycle repeating itself. While we grasped for the illusion of safety with structure and routine.
Chase’s house was in the other direction when exiting the pool, toward the left, at the opposite corner from Margo and Paul Wellman’s home. Before the Truetts’ deaths, Chase had a career and good standing in the community. Authority and reputation. Power. I wondered if people here ultimately blamed him for Ruby’s release.
The evening had turned overcast, like it might rain, even as dusk was settling in. The streetlight on the corner flicked on automatically, illuminating me.
I walked faster than I needed to. Imagining Ruby waiting at home, with free reign over the place. Waiting for me.
I SHOULDN’T HAVE WORRIED.My car wasn’t back. Even if she could’ve fit the car inside the garage, the lights were off inside, as I’d left them. Even the porch light was off; I fumbled the key into the lock in the shadows. As I pushed the door open, a paper skittered across the entrance floor.
I flipped the foyer light, then bent for the paper. It was simple printer paper, folded in half, black ink visible through the other side. Something slid onto the floor as I unfolded the page, a message in bold ink staring back:
YOU MADE A MISTAKE.
One line, that was it. No name. No indication whether this was meant for me or for Ruby.
But on the hardwood floor, staring up at me, was a photo. I crouched closer until I was kneeling on the floor, photo in hand. It was an image, blown up and slightly blurry, only part of the scene fitting on the standard-size glossy photo paper. But I could tell that it was a picture of a hand clutched around an item. A still frame from a camera.
From the angle, only one thing was clearly visible—something small and shiny, protruding from the bottom of the closed fist. A key chain in the shape of a dog bone. Metallic, I knew. Something that got hot in the sun, cold in the winter.
A gift from the Truetts when Ruby was a teenager starting a dog-walking business. It had once been kept in our entryway drawer but had long since disappeared.
The police had been looking for this. The front door of the Truett home had been unlocked that morning. As if someone had snuck inside with a key. They never found it.
But someone else had seen this. Had captured it on camera and kept the proof for themselves.
Until now.
