I had never gathered the nerve to throw it all out. The only next of kin was Brandon’s brother, and he’d had no use for anything but the dog. He’d never even set foot in this office, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask him: Do you want the vacation photo that was on his desk? A half-used Visa gift card? I’d grown accustomed to the contents of the closet, the same way I could walk by the Truetts’ front door without flinching. But now I stared at the closed door, a chill rising. Ruby’s return had shaken up everything, every memory. Nothing was spared.
As I stood there with the files tucked under my arm, I heard something from the other side of my office door, but I couldn’t tell whether it was coming from inside or outside the building. Whether it was the pipes resettling after my trip to the bathroom, an older system tucked behind the remodeled walls. Or whether it was someone trying the front door.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I turned to face the glass walls, the empty space. Here, with the historic brick buildings, we didn’t have cameras. We believed in the honor code—for our students and for ourselves. We believed we were an isolated community and that the community was ours—the town an extension of the college or the college an extension of our town. Either way, we had been conditioned to believe in our shared safety.
I stood listening to the silence. I counted to ten, then to twenty. Hearing nothing else, I decided it must’ve been the old building, the hidden pipes and air-conditioning that had not been updated during the renovations.
I locked my office behind me and walked faster than necessary for the exit. Outside, that white car still sat at the other end of the lot.
And that was when I heard it clearly: a heavy step at the side of the building, boot on gravel. I spun in time to see Preston Seaver walking into the lot.
“Hey there, Harper,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he’d been waiting or had just arrived. Whether he’d been here all along.
He was in his security uniform but on foot, not in his car or on one of the electric golf carts the security team often used to get around.
I stepped back, on instinct. “You gave me a heart attack,” I said, looking around the lot. “You’re working this week?” I’d seen him early yesterday morning, finishing Mac’s watch, and assumed he had off this week.
“Just the morning shift, making sure all the buildings are secure for the holiday. Anyone in there with you?” His green eyes skimmed over me quickly.
“No,” I said, holding up the files that had been wedged between my purse and my body. “Just bringing some work home. It’s empty in there otherwise.”
He nodded, then tipped his head to the white SUV in the lot. “You know whose car this is?”
“No, haven’t seen it before. I assumed it was someone giving themselves a tour.”
“It was here yesterday, too. There aren’t any plates.”
I looked again—the tinted windows, a contrast to the mud-caked tires. “Was it in the same spot?”
He chewed the side of his cheek. “Don’t remember.”
It reminded me then of what had happened after Brandon’s death. How the media had come to his home, our neighborhood, and then to his place of work, reporting from our lot, while we watched from behind the windows, our doors locked. How Anna had to call security to get them to leave. Murder wasn’t good press for the college, either.
“You could get it towed,” I said. “If there’s no permit.”
“You don’t want to tow the wrong person’s car, here, by accident.” He walked closer, peering in the windows, completing a slow circle.
I unlocked my car and dropped my purse and the files on the passenger seat, preparing to leave before he could question me about something else.
“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yeah, see you at the party,” I said, easing myself inside.
When I drove out of the lot, I checked the rearview mirror. Preston was standing beside the white SUV, hands in his pockets, watching me go.
CHAPTER 12
AS I TURNED IN to Hollow’s Edge, past the stone sign and the fresh flowers and the mock lanterns at the entrance, I caught a glimmer of the lake before the road curved, and my breathing stilled, like always. On the drive in, it sometimes felt like you were sliding toward the water, especially in the dark, with only the porch lights to guide you down. I knew the graded roads and elevated plots were to give the impression that each house could have a view, but sometimes it created the illusion of the entire neighborhood sloping toward the lake, like we were all fighting some gravity.