Page 23 of Such a Quiet Place
CHAPTER 8
FOOTSTEPS TRAIPSED UP THEfront porch stairs—too heavy to be Ruby’s—and the image of the key chain trembled in my hand. I scrambled from my spot on the floor and flipped on the porch light in a rush before throwing the front door open. Mac stood there, mouth agape, hands held up in surprise.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, even as I was sliding the photo and note into the back pocket of my shorts.
“You said she was gone,” he said with half a smile. “We haven’t gotten a chance to talk.” He slipped inside, stepping around me and scanning the open front area.
I closed the door behind him, realizing he was planning to stay. “Well, she’s not hereright this second. But she’ll be back. Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be on watch?”
He paused to look at me from the corner of his eye. “She’s not here, Harper. What the hell do you think I’m watching for? Nothing’s gonna happen right now, you know that.”
It wasn’t Ruby I was worried about now. It was the knife she kept under her mattress for protection. And the note and photo of missing evidence that had been wedged into my door while I was at the pool meeting with everyone else.
My mind went straight to Chase. I tried to remember who had left before I had. Who had arrived after. Who would’ve had the chance to leave this here without me noticing.
But then Mac’s arm was at my waist, and he was guiding me toward my own kitchen. “Come on, you look like you could use a drink,” he said. All of us in Hollow’s Edge moved around each other’s homes with ease, each model so familiar that you felt at home even when you weren’t.
I felt my shoulders relaxing. I’d been running on high alert since Ruby’s return, feeling like I was two steps behind, trying to keep everything under control. I needed to relax. Make sound decisions. Think things through.
There was something contagious in Mac’s demeanor—something I lacked on my own—an ability to live in the moment, never looking too far ahead or too far back.
Once we were in the kitchen, Mac stepped to the side of the fridge, deferring to me, which I had come to appreciate as part of his allure. I opened the fridge and pulled out two beers, held one to the back of my neck for a moment while handing him the other.
“You all right there, kid?” he asked, twisting the top off his beer, tossing the cap on the kitchen table.
“Yeah, fine,” I said. “You scared me.”
“Everyone’s so jumpy right now. She’s just a person. One person. I asked Charlotte, you really think she’d do anything now that she’s out?” He shook his head, leaned against the counter beside me, waiting for me to take a drink. He held his bottle out until I clanked mine against his.
I knew exactly how this would go, and there was a comfort in the simplicity, in seeing the steps laid out before me, predictable and dependable. It had been much the same the first time.
He’d come over after Ruby’s trial, looking lost, like he couldn’t believe what had happened and didn’t know what had brought himto my door, except that maybe I was someone who might understand. I was someone who had seen the other side of Ruby, who was willing to speak in her defense. That day, like now, Mac kept staring deep into the heart of the house, like it was all some trick and Ruby would arrive from around the corner of the living room at any moment. I’d offered him a beer then.She called me,he’d said, his voice cracking with emotion.It was an automated message, a call from…He’d let the thought trail.
Did you take it?I’d asked, picturing Ruby standing against a cinder-block wall, one hand over her other ear.
He shook his head and looked up at me.Did I do the right thing?he’d asked. And I got it suddenly. Him. The way Ruby had chased after this feeling, on and off, for years. The way he looked up from the seat at my kitchen table, the puppy-dog gleam in his eye. The way his words felt raw and honest, like he was confessing something deeper. The gently lilting drawl that pulled you in. The way he deferred to my judgment, to my opinion—it was its own brand of power.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.You did the right thing,I had told him.
Well, I feel like an asshole.Head in his hand, twisting the bottle of beer back and forth on the tabletop.
Twenty years is a long time,I told him, as if absolving us both of what was still to come.
There’s also the double homicide to consider,he’d said, one side of his mouth raised in that private smile I’d come to know better. It was the first time anyone could, or would, make a joke. I had laughed, loud and unrestrained, more than was warranted. An emotion that had been bottled up. I hadn’t laughed since before we’d found the Truetts’ bodies. As if everything since then had been tamped down with a heavy weight. And now that it had been released, I assigned it disproportionate significance.
But everything back then was raw emotion. The fear, the loyalty, the shame. Everything felt so raw and exposed that it was easy to think:So what? What’s a little more?
So when he said,We weren’t that serious. I mean, you know that. We never were,I could answer:I know.
I knew roughly how it would go after that, had watched the same routine with Ruby. The way he called herkiddo,the way he skirted around her, stayed in her orbit, always making sure she was turned to him, following.
He’d stood and placed the empty beer behind me on the sink, leaning close.I needed that,he said. I was no longer sure what he was referring to, and I no longer cared.
BEFORE MAC, BEFORE THEtrial, before the sound of the engine humming too long in the garage next door, I had often felt like I was standing on the edge of something, looking down, always careful not to get too close. Growing up with my brother, I had always felt the pull toward the other extreme. Like I was fighting to maintain a delicate balance; like any slip would send the rest of our family into a spiral. I’d believed strongly in the necessity of control—for myself and for others. I’d spent my entire life staying within the confines I’d established for myself or the boundaries others had set for me.
What would happen, I’d suddenly thought, if I breached those confines? If I did not pull back but leaned forward instead, giving in to the impulse and recklessness of the moment?
The answer, it turned out, was both relieving and terrifying: nothing. There was no repercussion, no slide I’d set in motion, and there was something alluring about that realization.
