Page 82 of Such a Quiet Place
I heard a noise in the woods, and my head jerked to the side, my heart thundering.
A raccoon scurried across the dirt road in front of the car, disappearing into the brush on the other side.
Was it possible?
I had to see. Had to walk it through to believe, as I knew Ruby must have, that simple, horrible truth: that no one had killed them at all.
I STARTED RUNNING, THEbox with the carbon monoxide detector tucked under my arm—the only thing that mattered anymore. Proof. Proof, if I could make sense of it.
Proof, but I had to see it. I had to be sure.
I raced through the woods, the twigs scratching at my bare legs, my breath catching. Seeing the flicker of lights through the trees in the distance—Hollow’s Edge, leading me back.
What had we done?What had we done?
Had we covered up a tragic accident? Blamed it on Ruby?
Because negatives were harder to prove. Absences, harder to find.
I burst out into the road, not worried about being seen anymore. Not even looking for Preston, or the investigators from the state, or the neighbors who might be watching out their front windows, who might hear my frantic breathing on the other side of the back patios.
There was only one thing that mattered anymore.
That house. What had happened in that house.
I didn’t stop at my backyard, continuing on to the Truetts’ house instead. Opening their back gate, sprinting across their patio, where the dog had been left.Where he might’ve been left all night—
Pushing open the back door and stepping into the living room, where I was hit by a wave of humidity again. Walking to the center of the hallway, looking up. At the discolored circle left behind.Not removed by the killer, but by the Truetts, days earlier: an incessant beeping that wouldn’t stop, a malfunction that needed to be replaced—
Stopping at the garage door at the base of the stairs that had been left ajar. Fiona’s car keys in the ignition, which had been hanging beside the garage door.
Fiona leaving in the car, Brandon trying to get her to stop, closing the garage door—
A fight. The bang of her car door, picked up on the Brocks’ footage, as she followed him back inside, just for a second—
Please, just let’s talk about this…
An argument that had trailed into the kitchen, up the stairs, not realizing what they had forgotten.
I followed them now—the ghosts of them—up the steps to the front master bedroom. Over the garage.
Imagining them succumbing to exhaustion, emotionally spent, not thinking. Or succumbing to something else. A slow but heavy fatigue setting in.
I stared into the empty room from the same spot I’d stood long ago, where they were both found—not in separate rooms, as Ruby had promised us—but together.
I took a slow, wavering breath in, my throat hitching from the memory—and heard it.
A creak at the base of the stairs, shattering the stillness.
My shoulders tensed, everything on high alert.
Another step, and then I was sure: I was not alone.
