All I could do was lock all the doors and windows, keep my phone close, sleep with a paring knife under the mattress, and wait.
MONDAY, JULY 8
HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE
Subject: They’re back
Posted: 9:06 a.m.
Tina Monahan: Going door-to-door for follow-up statements. Just a heads-up.
* * *
Subject: STOP
Posted: 9:23 a.m.
Preston Seaver: Whoever is leaving these baseless, threatening notes, knock it the fuck off.
Margo Wellman: Seconded.
CHAPTER 22
I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE who got messages.
Someone had been leaving messages for others, making us all on edge. For Margo Wellman. For Preston Seaver? Judging by his post, I’d been completely wrong. Maybe that note I’d found on the floor of their office—I SEE YOU—hadn’t been meant for me but had been left for Mac or Preston. Something one of them had found and balled up in a rage.
The line between culprit and victim kept shifting.
How much had I misinterpreted because I’d held my secrets close? We all had.
Ruby was right about that—how none of us ever talked face-to-face. How we talked around one another, about one another, aired our grievances in thinly veiled comments on the message board. One-upping each other in passive aggression.
How long had others been receiving the notes? How many more of us were there? All of us frantically keeping them a secret. Fearful and ashamed of what they might expose—until Preston, of all people, had the guts to mention them.
* * *
I WANTED TO TALK to them. But Preston seemed to hold me at arm’s length. And I didn’t have Margo’s cell. All this time living on the same street, and we communicated by message board or when our paths crossed.
It was Monday morning, and Margo would probably be home. I could catch her before I left for work if I hurried.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I threw open the door—then jolted backward from the figure standing on my front porch.
Agent Locke stood there, blue eyes sharp, mouth a tight line. He was dressed the same as the last time I saw him, in the uniform button-down and black tie, but there was a graying stubble along his jawline today, which made him seem older, more solemn. “Am I interrupting you, Ms. Nash?” he asked.
“I was heading out…” I trailed off. “I have work.” I didn’t see his dark car, but it must’ve been parked around here somewhere. Like Tina had warned, he must’ve been going door-to-door.
“I just wanted to share some updates with each of you,” he continued as I stepped out on the porch, pulling the door shut behind me. “But it seems like most people are out this morning,” he added, with a glance toward Tate and Javier’s house. Javier’s truck was no longer in the driveway.
I didn’t reply, didn’t feel the need to explain why my neighbors may or may not be home on a Monday morning. The pause stretched awkwardly until he said, “The medical examiner is calling Ruby’s death a homicide.”
I swallowed nothing, could feel a cold sweat breaking out. “Oh,” I said, the panic rising, even though I’d known this call was coming.
He raised his eyebrows, motioned to my front door. “Are you sure you don’t want to take this inside?” He looked up and down the quiet street as if I should fear what he was about to share. As if I should fear being seen with him. Maybe he understood this place better than the rest of us did.
I shook my head and gestured for him to continue.
He sighed, shifting on his feet. “There was an insulated cup found beside her,” he said. “Since it seems everyone got their drinks from the same pitchers and appeared just fine, we have to wonder if the cup itself was the source.”
I nodded, even as my eyes drifted shut. Just as I had imagined. My blue cup with the poison inside.
“There are a lot of fingerprints on that cup besides hers,” he said, and my eyes shot back open. “Seems like it was handled by a bunch of people.”
“The cup is mine,” I said, trying to get ahead of it. Because of course my prints would be among them. “Everything she used was mine. Everything in this house was handled by me.”
I kept it to myself that the blue cup had been the one I was using that night, because it didn’t seem like the truth would set me free. It seemed like it could trap me, corner me: Someone who had access to that cup. Who had it in her possession. Who had motive and opportunity.
“Of course,” he said, nodding slowly. “That’s the impression I’ve been getting.”