CHAPTER 21
BY NOON, I HADN’T slept, but I believed that I had worked out Ruby’s system; that I knew what she was doing in that house at night, curled up in a sleeping bag in the front room.
Ruby was watching us. Tracking each of us.
She’d been in that house even when I thought she was gone.
From her journal, it was obvious she’d been here all along, watching us.
Under the heading for each day was a list of initials, and arrows, and times, kept in columns. I realized she was keeping track of who was passing in front of the window and in which direction. She watched us during the day, and she watched us at night.
I wasn’t sure when she slept, other than the few times I’d seen her in the upstairs bedroom of my house.
I could find myself, even, on these pages. HN, passing the front window of the Truett house, going to the right—when I was heading to the pool or to Charlotte’s. A chill ran through me as I realized I’d seen Ruby there once. That the chill at the back of my neck had always been her: a flash of movement in the front window as I passed. The feeling that someone was watching me.
She noticed Mac coming and going, too. MS to the left—to see me. A wave of nausea rolled through me, even though she was gone. Of course she’d known. She must’ve known about Mac almost from the start.
In the evenings, she marked the movements of the people on watch: Mac and Javier and me, passing by, on each shift.
All these mundane movements—she’d been keeping track of them all.
Beginning June 29, she knew there was nothing quiet about this neighborhood. She knew she’d caused a stir with her return and that people would show themselves, reveal themselves. Believing we’d be afraid.
And we were.
Not of the physical things she was capable of but something more—something she might know. The year before, we had been a steamroller gaining momentum, but that momentum had shifted direction. She had endured, she had returned, and she knew what we had done.
This time, she had the power, and we were afraid.
* * *
I WASN’T SURE WHAT she’d done with my car in the days when I’d thought she was gone. Why she wanted to take it from me. Whether she wanted to trap me here.
Or maybe she just wanted time when people weren’t looking for her, looking at her—to watch, one-sided, without the fear of being watched.
We didn’t need cameras in Hollow’s Edge. We only needed to open our eyes.
The notebook captured page after page of this activity. As if Ruby had lost herself in these details, circling deeper, so sure that some pattern, some truth, would emerge from the page.
But the part that struck me as odd was the way she’d been keeping track of Margo. The MW at night, always followed with a question mark, like she couldn’t be sure what Margo was doing. Like there was something that struck her as odd. Something worth noting.
We knew Margo wasn’t sleeping much. The baby kept her up, she’d told us as much. And she and Paul were obviously having issues. Maybe she took the baby for a walk when he woke in the night, to lull him back to sleep. Maybe she went out by herself, for the freedom, whenever she could.
But Ruby marked her name often, and only late at night. With an arrow pointing left.
Always heading toward me, toward Tate and Javier Cora, toward Tina Monahan—to the left.
* * *
FROM THE MESSAGE BOARD, I could see that Margo was up late last night. But so were others: Javier, Charlotte. Me. None of us seemed to be sleeping much.
Ruby had kept that post, using those names to guide her way. She’d had keys to most of their homes. Must’ve known that our neighbors were hiding things.
Now those keys were in my possession. There was a certain power to the feel of the ring in my pocket as I walked out back again. To imagine Ruby doing this as well—listening in.
The secrets we told inside our high back patio gates, as if that protected you. The arguments that carried through open windows or poorly insulated glass. The churning air-conditioning units outside that acted like a white-noise machine before abruptly cutting off, exposing you.
The things people revealed when they were afraid.
I passed Tate and Javier Cora’s yard—silent, empty—but heard Tina Monahan’s parents on their back patio, arguing about lunch. About whether to wait for Tina, to see what she brought back from the store. Tina was gone. No one would be inside her house right now. My muscles twitched with nervous energy, but I had to know.
It was curiosity, mostly. I had no intention of going inside. Just wanted to see whether the M was for Monahan or Margo. Both their names had been on the message board post that Ruby had kept.