Page 60 of Such a Quiet Place
“You weren’t always thrilled to see me when I came to visit Dad…”
Because my dad expected too much of Kellen, was never able to let the past go. He’d bring it up somehow—on day two or day three—and I’d have to watch my brother harden, never able to exist in the present. “Not because of you,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “I also don’t have a car right now, either.”
I laughed then, remembering how his excuses always existed in layers. But knowing I could reach him in a day’s drive if needed. “I’ll call you later,” I said. “It’s good to hear your voice. Just don’t tell Mom and Dad, okay?”
He laughed then, too. “Harper, it is my absolute pleasure to begin repaying that debt to you.”
And then I pushed myself off the floor with that photo in hand. I wondered what Ruby felt the first day when she was home, reaching her hand deep into the soil—coming up empty.
The first day Ruby was back, even before she’d gone to the kayak for the money, she’d gone into the backyard in the middleof the night and reached her hand down into the dirt, looking for this.
I was seeing her more clearly now: She wanted access to all of us here—our secrets, our lives.
When I’d found the keys this spring, Ruby had already been gone for so long. She had been convicted.
Back then I’d wondered what she had been doing with those keys. Whether she used them to piece through our lives, stirring up gossip with a throwaway line—if our discomfort had been all for her entertainment.
Chase told me the guys had wanted to bring up the rumors they knew but couldn’t prove during the investigation. And now I was thinking again about the way Aidan had left, so fast, desperate to escape something.
Chase was right: She had always been dangerous, just not in the way I had assumed.
I remembered Preston telling the police that Ruby had once been inside, broken dishes, while Mac and she were fighting. And Fiona looking in her wallet, confused. How everyone was quick to throw suspicion on Ruby after her arrest, in a myriad of ways. The access she had, not just to our things but to our secrets.
They sleep in separate rooms, you know,she had said about the Truetts. And none of us asked how she knew. None of us doubted the veracity of her claim, either.
Because we all believed that Ruby knew things. We just didn’t always know how.
IF PRESTON TOOK MYphoto as I ran down to the lake, I wondered if he knew what I’d done with the keys. If he’d seen me after, as I stood at the edge of the lake, surrounded by the noises of the night, moonlight glinting off the metal.
If he’d seen that I had not tossed them into the water at all, afraid of the sudden openness, the currents, the cameras that might place me down here. The way beer cans washed up the morning after kids had tossed them from their boats at the mouth of the inlet.
How I’d gone deeper into the woods instead, letting the darkness protect me, the noises insulate me. Farther around the inlet, where I believed that no one could see or hear me. To the boundary of our woods, with the sign on the tree warning us: PRIVATE PROPERTY.
The roots of that tree were thick and exposed from the soil, and I’d used my bare hands to dig out a spot at the base of the gnarled trunk. Then I’d wiped the keys carefully of any prints before depositing them in the earth, and pushed the dirt back over the top, dispersing the leaves and the twigs.
Ruby had buried them, and so had I. But out in the woods, they couldn’t be traced back to me.
And then I’d kept going, to the other side of the inlet. Through the trees, with the dense underbrush, to the plot of land cleared but never built upon. A dusty circle of dirt with the remnants of an old campfire in the center, though all that remained was ash in a pit.
The dirt access road dipped and curved, marred by large rocks and mangled roots, and my footing was unsure in the dark. But in that dark, from the distance, I could see the lights from our neighborhood through the trees. I cut through the woods, hands in front of me, until I emerged across the street from the house on the corner where Tina Monahan and her parents lived.
I returned home from the other end of our street, feeling lighter, like I had rid my life of the last of Ruby Fletcher.
But in that moment, for the first time, I could see how she did it: The keys, to the Truett house, to the lake. The woods, to theclearing, to the access road, following the lights home. Sneaking around back to hide what she had done.
In that moment, a year after her arrest, months after her conviction, I finally believed she had done it.
I HAD NO IDEAif the keys remained, especially if Preston had seen me down there. And now I feared that someone might’ve had access to our homes all along—finding that key ring for themselves.
I had to wait for dusk, though we still had a neighborhood watch going. It was supposed to be Charlotte’s turn tonight.
It was easy enough to wait for her on my webcam. To watch as she passed my house on her way back home.
Thirty minutes later, I went out, locking the door behind me.
I did not try to remain hidden; that never worked out for us here. I strode right in front of the homes, right past the cameras—just taking a walk,like Ruby once claimed.
