Page 57 of Such a Quiet Place
We were all good people here.
MARGO WAS THE FIRSTto leave, heading for Charlotte’s to pick up Nicholas. I had started paying attention to things like this—who was leaving and who was staying. The order in which we arrived and left.
Several others stuck around to talk to Chase one-on-one. The bathroom by the stairs was occupied, but there were two upstairs, and I headed that way so I could catch Chase after, ask if he’d heard anything more from his friends—whether they were sure it was poison. Whether I had cause to be afraid.
Mac had the master bedroom with its own bathroom, the mirror image of my own. But when I went to let myself in his room, the door was locked. I guessed he had done this knowing there would potentially be a large meeting downstairs. But I found it odd.
The door to their converted office was ajar, connecting to Preston’s room through the Jack-and-Jill bathroom. I peered inside the office space, but his bathroom door was closed on the other side.It felt like an invasion to use his private bathroom. Especially since we weren’t particularly friendly.
I heard the front door close and was about to return downstairs when a balled-up piece of paper caught my eye. It lay beside a metal trash can under the long table used as a shared desk. As if the paper had just missed.
But it was what I could see through the page that caught my eye. The bold black print. Something so familiar about it. I dropped to my hands and knees under the desk and gently unfurled the sheet of paper, flattening it against the beige carpet.
My hands began to shake as the three words stared back at me, a quick chill in the silence: I SEE YOU.
The same format as the warning I’d received with the photos tucked inside. As if other versions had been printed out here and decided against.
I balled it back up, dropped it in the trash can, stumbled down the staircase. I didn’t know if anyone saw me barreling through the front door. If any of the cameras caught me stumbling toward home. My flip-flops catching on a sidewalk square before I regained my footing.
I had to slow my breath, slow my heart rate. Get inside my house and regroup.
But my stomach churned over the thought of Mac. Of Mac, who had been in my house, whom I had let inside my life—
I threw open the front door, barely enough time to notice the square of paper wedged into the door. It flopped to the floor, the photo facedown.
Not again. Not this. I was still thinking of Mac, but I had just been with him the entire time.
Preston,though. Coming into the meeting late. Preston, who had ample time to leave this here.
Not Mac, then. But his brother.
The sheet of paper with that same bold print I’d seen beside the garbage can: HELLO THERE! Friendly and ominous at the same time. Like the mug behind my desk at work.
I picked up the photo, feeling nauseated. My hands shook. It was so clear. The trees and the lake and the dog-bone key chain. The Nike swoosh on the side of the sneaker, the ponytail, the face caught in profile. Looking to the side to make sure there was no one watching.
That first message: YOU MADE A MISTAKE.
The second: WE KNOW.
They were right, of course. I had made a mistake.
Anyone who saw this picture would know.
Anyone could see it was me.
