Years ago, Tate and I had swapped keys in case one of us was ever locked out. Though our friendship had cooled, we’d never asked for them back. Such an admission would be too direct. Too confrontational. And so Tate and Javier Cora’s key was still buried at the back of the top drawer of the entryway table, should they ever need it.
Ruby had plenty of chances to find it, copy it, use it. From the look of it, she had gotten us all. Every one. And now this set of keys was in my hand.
I’d debated what to do with the ring of keys that day, sitting on the brick patio, as the late afternoon turned to evening. And then I thought of the lake, of fingerprints disappearing—a hand of fate that might or might not drag them to the surface someday in the future, freeing me of any role or suspicion.
So I’d headed that way in the dark, passing the closed front doors, the glow of porch lights. The jangle of keys in my pocket was too jarring in the quiet night. I’d clenched them tightly in my palm, cut down the path in the woods by the pool, heading toward the water. Believing I was alone.
But someone had seen me. Someone had stood at the back corner of the concrete pool deck, watched as I ran by—and caught me.
* * *
NOW I KNELT ON the cold wooden floor of the front foyer, this photo in hand, with all the things I knew it could imply—all the ways it could be twisted against me. Wondering why someone was taunting me with this and what they were planning to do with it now.
Though Preston and Mac shared that upstairs office space, Mac had been with me at the meeting. He’d already been there when I arrived. It was Preston who came in late. Who had time to leave this threat in my door.
Preston had been so quick to turn on Ruby after the Truetts were found dead. And when Ruby was gone, his distrust seemed to transfer to me, by rule of proximity alone.
Preston, who had been at my place of work, watching me. Preston, who had a master set of keys at work. Who had printed other warnings in his office, the I SEE YOU crumpled under his desk. Preston, who lived three doors down, who had walked straight through my front door when I’d been out on watch.
I’d thought these warnings had been to try to push me to get Ruby to leave. A threat that, if I did not, this could be revealed—to others, to Ruby herself.
But Ruby was gone now, and this newest picture had still arrived. And I no longer knew whom I could trust.
I didn’t know whether Mac was a part of this somehow. I didn’t know how much the brothers shared with each other, whether family mattered above all else. I felt entirely afraid and alone.
I was remembering the way Mac came over at the start of summer break, beer in hand, crooked smile on his face—the coincidence of his timing. Whether the rumors of Ruby’s case had brought him to my front door once more. And if so, what he was truly after.
I called my brother again, sitting on the cold floor of the foyer, the photo in my hand.
This time he answered on the first ring. “Harper? Is it Dad?”
“Sorry, no, everyone’s okay,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Good.” He paused for a beat. “It’s just, you’ve called twice on a Saturday. I have a missed call from you from earlier.” Our calls were infrequent, our relationship existing primarily on holidays and via parent updates.
“What kind of person would you say I am?” I asked abruptly. I was staring at a photo of evidence I’d hidden. Had listened as Ruby called me an opportunist, unable to be happy as myself.
“Are you drunk?” he asked as answer.
“No. Just if you had to describe me to a friend. Like My sister is…”
“The good one,” he said without pause.
“Ha,” I said.
I heard his sigh through the phone. “I guess I would say: I wish I knew her better growing up, but I fucked up our family pretty good. I would say: She gave me more chances than I deserved, and she’s a better person than me.”
I’d forgotten this about my brother: that he was direct and honest, always trying to atone for himself but unable to stop the cycle. I was wrong—nothing existed in him that reminded me of the true Ruby.
In the silence that followed, he said, “Is everything okay? You’re not having some sort of breakdown, are you?”
“Well,” I said, thinking of how to even begin. How to present this without inviting judgment. And then I stopped worrying. It was my brother, and I’d seen him at his worst, and maybe it was only fair that he saw me at mine. “The verdict in my neighbors’ murder was thrown out.”