I saw her purple insulated mug in the sink. The purple cup I had found abandoned on the concrete. That I’d rinsed out and drunk from when I’d been unable to find my own.
I pictured that moment last night when Tina had backed away from Ruby’s body on the pool deck, kicking over the blue cup by her side.
The one that had belonged to me.
I couldn’t breathe. I opened the fridge, pulling out anything Ruby had drunk from, anything she’d eaten, imagining all the places death could be hiding—all the ways she could’ve been poisoned. Desperately tossing any open containers. The wine, the orange juice, the open containers of fruit.
There was a second batch of sangria, and I poured that out, too—splashes of red staining the sink, chunks of fruit clogging the drain.
I washed everything down, let the faucet continue to run, scooping up handfuls of water and gulping them down to purge it all. But I couldn’t shake it—a grit I could feel on my teeth; a taste I imagined on the back of my tongue.
* * *
I CHECKED THE GARAGE, every closet, each bathroom cabinet. Under the kitchen sink, the upper shelves in the laundry room, the small attic accessible through the pull-down steps over the loft.
But there was nothing hidden away. Nothing but dust and old paint cans and things I’d had no use for in all the years I’d lived here. I was starting to doubt myself, thinking that maybe that box in my office had been missing for months; that it hadn’t been Ruby at all.
I was still searching the house, hoping some new alcove would reveal itself to me, when my doorbell rang, jarring me.
I peered out the front window, saw Mac standing on my porch with Chinese takeout in a white plastic bag and a haunted expression. He had a hat on, though it was dusk, and the dark circles under his eyes looked even more pronounced—like he hadn’t slept, either.
I opened the door, and he sheepishly held up the bag of food. “I know you said you had already gone through her things, but I figured dinner couldn’t hurt.” He let himself in as I stepped to the side.
“Thank you. I don’t think I can eat, though,” I said.
“Then at least you’ll be all set with leftovers,” he said, giving me half a smile. He made himself at home in my kitchen, pulling the containers from the bag, taking two plates down from the cabinets. I was captivated by the way he kept moving, like the way we’d continued to celebrate at the party, everyone trying to push through to normalcy by persistence alone.
“She was poisoned,” I said, in case he hadn’t heard.
He paused, standing over my counter, spoon deep in the sweet-and-sour chicken. “They don’t know for sure,” he said. “They don’t know what happened.”
I felt nauseated, staring at the food. At him. “Chase said—”
He dropped the spoon, turned to face me. “Chase isn’t even part of the investigation. Alcohol is a type of poisoning, right?”
“He said foul play,” I whispered.
Mac took off his hat, ran a hand through his light brown hair. “Hey, I’m here, and Chase is going to take over for Tina on watch tonight. We’re all safe, Harper.”
But I didn’t know how he thought that was true. All these deaths that had happened on our street. Maybe it was the degree of removal in them—as though there was nothing to fear if it wasn’t where we could see it. As though that didn’t make it something scarier at heart—that we couldn’t see it coming; couldn’t see where the danger might be hiding.
The poison; the carbon monoxide. As if someone preferred to kill without having to look at the victim while doing it. A level of deniability. Something that required the hand of fate, absolving you of guilt.
A car turned on; a death that could occur only if you kept on sleeping. Poison left for someone else; but it required the other person to consume it.
He stepped closer, hands on my shoulders, but I shook him off. “It’s all horrible, but I’m not sure what else we can do right now other than eat dinner, go to sleep, face tomorrow.”
We brought our plates to the kitchen table and ate in silence. Or rather, I watched him eat, and I moved the food around my plate. Nothing but the sound of utensils scratching against the dinnerware and the ticking of the mantel clock echoing through the room.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, standing from the table and clearing our plates.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asked, slowly rising from his chair. “I don’t mean… I mean, I could just, stay. You look like you haven’t slept.”