“None of you are paying attention,” Molly continued. “Watch him. Ruby was.”
“Ruby was watching him?”
“She knew. She asked me about it once—I had her for class, you know. She asked me, and she asked Whitney, if there was anything we wanted to tell her. Promised us that she was someone we could tell, and she’d make sure no one found out it had come from us.” She rolled her eyes. “But knowing Ruby, I’m sure she just wanted to screw him over.”
Preston knew she’d been watching him, and he didn’t trust her. Maybe he thought I knew as well. Maybe Ruby had told Mac about it when he went to visit her. And he’d come to me after, to see what I knew.
Maybe I was being paranoid. Seeing danger everywhere, in everyone. Doubting every motivation, every interaction. As if the foundation of this entire neighborhood had been built on half-truths and white lies.
“You took his picture?” I asked.
“He shouldn’t be talking to my sister. Should he even be allowed to live here?” She put her hands on her hips, channeling power. “You think people will be mad at me when they find out?”
“Yes,” I said. Because it wasn’t just Preston. “I think people are going to be very angry.”
Molly handed the photo back to me like a reminder: It was time to go, and I needed to remember who had the power here. But I wasn’t done.
“Ruby told you both she was someone you could always turn to,” I said. “I remember that.”
“Yeah, well, good thing I never did.”
“She left a spare key out back,” I continued, “told you where you could find it.”
Molly swallowed, saying nothing.
“I know Whitney was out that night,” I said. And Molly must’ve known, too. Charlotte knew. They all knew. Casting suspicion outward to protect someone else.
There was a duffel bag packed up to get her daughters out of here after Ruby’s return. To keep them away. Just like they’d been sent to their father’s after the Truetts’ deaths. Not just because of the dangers Charlotte feared for her daughters. Because of what she feared they might have done.
Molly lifted one shoulder in an exaggerated shrug. “She goes out, meets friends from the other side of the lake. So what?” But her eyes cast to the side.
“Molly… what did you do?”
“Me? Nothing.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, don’t act like Ruby was so innocent. Don’t you dare. She was an ex-con.” I heard an echo of her mother then. “She had you all fooled. But you know what she’s been doing? Messing with you all.”
No, I thought, she’s been watching you. Trying to work out what happened. Coming to terms with the truth. And now she was dead.
“Ruby lies about everything,” Molly continued. “My mom told us that. And she’s still doing it. You know she’s got a car, right?”
“What?” A chill ran through the room, and Molly smiled. Like she knew she finally had me. I had forgotten what seventeen was like. So close to adulthood, you could taste it—the freedom of it, the power.
“She’s got a white car, parked off the road, down by the pit. Whitney saw it there. Ruby could come and go whenever she wanted, but I heard she took your car anyway. She was messing with you,” Molly said. “Because she could.”
I closed my eyes, shook my head. Of course it had been Ruby. Of course. “I didn’t say she was a good person,” I said. “But that doesn’t make her a killer.”
Her face turned hard. “My mom said they’re going to retry the case. It has to be Ruby.” Her voice cracked midsentence.
I felt for her then. Even after everything. The things you would do to protect your sibling. The ways you weren’t sure whether you were helping or hurting, but you tried anyway because doing nothing seemed worse.
The little lies we told our parents—No, he wasn’t out—that became like second nature. The way I’d lie awake at night, listening for the sound of him returning home.
A fear that fueled the bigger lies, deep at the heart of a family.
I left her there, in her empty house, all alone. Knowing, one day, she’d have to come face-to-face with who she was—and what she had done.
CHAPTER 24
A WHITE CAR.
According to Molly, there was a white car, off the road, down by the pit.
But it was dark, and the investigators from the state had been going door-to-door, and the arc of a flashlight swept across the sidewalk in the distance, coming closer. It passed Tate and Javier Cora’s house, then paused briefly in front of my own.