“Chase said that?” He had lied. When he’d told Javier to keep it simple, he was, indeed, trying to close up her time line. Trying to make it stick.
“What time?” I asked.
She looked to the clock over the oven, then back to me. “Four a.m.”
“You’re sure,” I said. “You’re sure it was her. That she was coming back home at four a.m.”
She shrugged. “That’s what we saw.”
It didn’t make any sense. It was possible Ruby could’ve left again, come back. But she would’ve stayed hidden. It was inconsistent, and Ruby was nothing if not consistent—in the way she tainted my friendship with Tate, in the way she sowed discord; she thought she was better than all of us here. She would not have made that mistake.
There was only one answer, and it nauseated me. Made me take a step back even as Tate called after me. “I have to go,” I said.
“This is why we didn’t say anything,” she said. “It only complicates a simple case.”
But she was wrong. The explanation was alarmingly simple. Horrifyingly clear.
Ruby had come home at four in the morning, not two.
Someone else had been out there, just like she said.
And whoever was out there had been the one to sneak in the back door of my house that night.
Whoever I’d heard—it was not Ruby.
CHAPTER 23
EVERY TIME THAT BACK door creaked open in my memory, I shuddered.
It was someone else. Someone else in this house. Someone else who had access. Who found a way in.
There was no way I was heading into work anymore. I quickly called Anna at reception, so they wouldn’t be expecting me. “I’m so sorry, I’m not feeling well—” I began.
But she was already talking. “Oh my God, everyone’s been talking about… what happened…” I couldn’t tell whether it was a statement or a question.
“It’s horrible,” I said, because all I could do was stick to the truth. “Anna, is there a car in the lot? A white one?” That car had been in the lot twice, and I thought it might be a reporter, following Ruby’s case. They’d be coming back for sure now.
“No,” she said. I could hear her straining for a better look. “No, it’s just us. Is it the media? Should we lock the door?”
Last time we had to, before they walked right in—for a statement, for a photo. Ruby’s death would be splashed across the news, circulating through the community, if not further.
I peered out my front window, on the lookout for Agent Locke passing by again. “Yes,” I said. “Lock the door.”
* * *
I NEEDED TO KNOW what had really happened that night the Truetts were killed.
Ruby might’ve been desperate to prove her innocence, but now so was I. Those were my fingerprints on that mug. That was my image on the photo left in my house. There were too many pieces that could be twisted against me, should someone want to do it.
It was possible that whatever Margo had received could provide answers. All these secrets we kept from one another—Tate, and me, and others.
I watched as Javier returned home, and then as the state agent drove off in his dark car. He’d probably noticed my car still here, just one more piece that could be used to craft a story.
No one appeared to be home at Charlotte Brock’s house, or at Mac and Preston Seaver’s. All of the cars that were usually parked out front were gone. Maybe everyone had gone back to work, in a show of normalcy and routine, except for me.
I couldn’t tell if anyone was home at Margo and Paul Wellman’s house—there were no cars in the driveway—but I rang the bell, hoping I didn’t wake up a sleeping baby. No one answered. I had just started walking down the front steps when I heard laughter coming from the direction of the pool.
Crossing the street, I could see the bright yellow of Nicholas’s pool float standing out among the greens and browns of the trees.
There was no longer a sign posted at the pool gate, keeping us out. Apparently, the scene of Ruby’s death had been released back to regular use.
Margo was the only person inside, standing in a growing puddle of water on the pool deck and wrapping Nicholas in a towel. She was standing maybe six feet from where Ruby had been found.
“Margo?” I called.
She straightened slowly, pulling up the front scoop of her bathing suit. “Hey,” she said. But she didn’t come closer.
“I don’t have my key. Can you let me in?”
She looked from me to the baby, then placed him in his stroller. “Just a minute,” she said, taking her time buckling him in place, adjusting the shade, pouring Cheerios into the front snack tray. I had started to think she’d forgotten about me until she finally headed my way, though she kept peering back at Nicholas as she walked. She took a step backward at the click of the gate, already turning for the stroller, cinching the towel around her waist.