Page 89 of Such a Quiet Place

He’d asked if I knew she was guilty, and I couldn’t answer. That look in his eyes—that question—it stuck with me.

It must’ve stuck with him, too, for him to call me about it again on New Year’s Eve. His apology, though, had not absolved me.

Was Isure?

Were we ever?

I believed back then that the system would shake it all out—but that was naive. Wewerethe system. Decided what went in and what stayed out.

And so, spending the end of winter break alone in this empty house, I’d revisited everything, trying to convince myself.

I’d saved every post from that message board—so sure, like we all were, that the truth would emerge between the lines. I’d prove it to myself. So I knew we had done the right thing, the good thing.

When I saw that post, I’d barely remembered it. But I started to imagine the motives behind the comments. The meaning within the questions. Margo asking,What if we find something else?And Chase telling her:Don’t. Javier, Tina, Charlotte, and Chase, each of them doubling down on Ruby. And I wasn’t sure why.

“I thought it would get the case looked at again. Get her an appeal, if there was something to it,” I said. “So we could all be sure. I didn’t know it would take everything back to square one. I didn’t know it would get herout.”

There were times when I held tight to her innocence. There were times later, like after I’d found the keys buried in my yard, when I believed she was guilty.

And now Blair Bowman was in my house, talking about closure, like that was possible. I was responsible for Ruby’s release—not sure, at the time, if she was innocent or guilty. I’d felt responsible for her: for what she did and what was done to her.

“Do you think it was worth it?” I asked Blair now. Ruby had been set free, but she was killed because of it. If it was justice we were after, I didn’t think we had achieved it.

Blair didn’t answer, looking around the house again. “I told her not to come back here,” she said. Like she was trying to excuse herself, too, for all that had come after. Like she felt some of that same guilt. “I told her not to see you. She promised me she wouldn’t.”

I stared back at her as the realization hit me. “She knew it was me?”

“Of course. She saw that email and she knew right away.”

Goose bumps rose on the back of my neck as I remembered those last words—the ones she’d allegedly spoken to Mac at the edge of the lake.Can you believe it? Harper, of all people.

“She never said anything,” I said. How many things would bedifferent if she had said it? If she had asked? If we had talked about all the steps that had gotten us to where we were?

“I guess she wasn’t sure of your motivations.”

I looked to the clock. I had to finish packing, had to hit the road soon, if I wanted to make it before dark. “I’ve got to get moving,” I told her, leading her back to the front door.

“Some advice, Harper?” she said as she stepped outside.

“Shoot.”

“If you don’t want someone else to dig it up, delete the account. Make sure nothing’s on your computer. Pretend it never existed. If someone else comes by? Pretend you’re not home.”

And then she started walking away, down the steps, back to her car.

“Don’t worry,” I called after her. “I know how to stay quiet.”

She gave me a quick, uncertain look over her shoulder as she opened her car door.

Like she had forgotten, already, what great pretenders we all were here.

The things we had feared—and the things we had become.