There was truly no one else to blame out here. There was only us.
I was tracing my hands over the roots of the tree, making my way to the base of the trunk, when I heard someone cough. Closer than the kids on the lake.
I stood slowly, staring out at the water, looking for movement. Another one of their friends, maybe, planning to meet them out there.
At the other side of the inlet, I thought I saw the shape of a man. But I couldn’t be sure. He did not call out to them, but the shadow moved slowly and deliberately, as if trying to remain undetected.
None of us was alone out here.
So much for this quiet little neighborhood. All of us were alive, at night, in the dark. All the things we needed to keep hidden during the day, set loose at night, when we revealed ourselves.
From the distance, I couldn’t tell if the person at the edge of the lake had seen me, too. If they were turned my way even now. A prickle on the back of my neck, and I ducked down quickly, with the sudden feeling that he was looking straight at me, too.
I held my breath and scratched my nails at the surface, tearing away chunks of compacted dirt. Then I reached my hand down into the cooler earth, deeper, deeper, panicked that I was wrong, that I’d forgotten, that time or animals or someone else had been here first. That rainwater had washed it away. But my index finger brushed something cold and curved.
I hooked my fingers into the ring and pulled.
SUNDAY, JULY 7
HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE
Subject: Did you all see this?
Posted: 12:30 a.m.
Margo Wellman: Just saw this article—THIRD SUSPICIOUS DEATH IN LAKE HOLLOW NEIGHBORHOOD. Anyone else seriously considering moving right now?
Javier Cora: What do you think this does for property values? Asking for a friend.
Charlotte Brock: This is in really poor taste. Go to sleep.
CHAPTER 20
IT WAS ONE A.M. and the key ring lay before me on the kitchen table, drying on a heap of paper towels, after I’d run them under the sink—mud and sludge and dirt sliding down the drain. I went through the labels more carefully this time, making a list of each key:
T—Truett （Tina?）
B—Brock
S—Seaver
M—Monahan （Margo? Mac?）
C—Cora? Chase Colby?
I was betting on the letter being the initial of the last name; it seemed to be a pattern that fit with each name, though there were some with more than one possibility. And there was one easy way to check—as long as the bank hadn’t changed the locks after taking ownership of the house next door.
There was no way I was going to be caught out front, trespassing at the Truett house. Not with the cameras and people walking by, the neighbors not sleeping, watching out their windows instead. Not when the police were questioning us and what we were each doing. Charlotte might still be on watch, and I’d already evaded her once.
I knew the Truett fence had somehow become unlocked; I’d seen it swinging ajar my night on watch. As if someone else had been in there.
Maybe someone was able to jimmy it with a golf club from above.
I left through my back patio, but in the dark, I collided with the white Adirondack chair on the way to the gate, forgetting that Ruby had moved it from the other side of the yard. I cursed to myself, hoped Tate and Javier hadn’t heard me—or the wood scraping against the brick patio—then hoped they didn’t hear my own gate creaking open in the stillness. Tate had said noises woke her the last several nights, that pregnancy was starting to affect her ability to sleep.
I latched the gate carefully behind me, then peered once into the trees before sliding along the edge of the fence to the back gate of the Truetts’ house.
Their gate was easy to unlatch from the outside, without the lock engaged. But the squeal of the hinges through the night made me cringe. I left it ajar, so as not to create any more noise than necessary. Charlotte’s house was just on the other side, and her master bedroom was downstairs, near the back.
Key ring in hand, I walked up their patio steps. I slid the T key into the lock, but it was unnecessary. I could tell before even attempting to turn the key. The handle moved freely, and the deadbolt lock had sharp gouges around the edges. So did the wooden strip where the door met the frame.
I twisted the key back and forth, just to check, but it wasn’t working. Either it wasn’t the key for this house, or the bank had indeed changed the locks.
But someone had been inside here. From the look of the deadbolt and surrounding wood, someone had forced their way in.
I ran my finger along the deep grooves, the wood splintered in sections. Wondering who had been in here. If they’d tried to force their way into my place, too.