“She had a car?” she said. “God, she really had us all fooled. She really was a terrible person, Harper.” Just like I’d said to her at the party. Charlotte’s grip loosened, and I pulled my arm back. But she still stood between me and the front door and made no indication to leave.
“She didn’t do it,” I said, taking a step back. There was another door, another way out—
“She did. And she’s dead now. It’s time for us all to move on, to heal.”
My neighbor who was the voice of reason, who was in complete control, calm and efficient, who said, I think it’s best to ignore Ruby.
“Harper, stop,” she said. Only then did I notice I’d been backing slowly down the hall and that she’d been matching me, stride for stride.
“Listen,” I said, hand held up to keep her back, though I didn’t know what I feared her doing to me. We were the same size. We were not violent people here. We ignored confrontations, performed them in thinly veiled comments instead. “I know Whitney was out there the night the Truetts died. She was in my house that night, too. I thought it was Ruby, but it wasn’t. Whitney was in my house.”
I heard only her sharp intake of breath in the silence. “Do you have any proof?” she asked. But I was chilled, wondering why she wanted to know. What she was after. The threat of proof could keep me safe. Safe, until she found it for herself.
“You knew,” I said. “You thought it was Whitney, too.” Mr. Monahan had told her she was out that night—
Charlotte stepped closer, lowered her voice like there were people listening even now. “You would do the same,” she said. “One day, when you have children of your own, you’ll understand.”
“Did you ask her, Charlotte?” I said, my voice rising with the horror of it. “Did you even ask her?”
“Sometime, when they’re teenagers, you lose them,” she said, like she was back in her typical role, giving advice. “They go quiet, and you just have to pay attention, have to anticipate their needs.”
My God, everyone here, not talking to each other. Not asking each other directly. And look what we had become. Look what we had created.
“Whitney didn’t do anything,” I said. “She was out at a party on the lake. Ruby heard them down there.” Someone else was out there, she’d promised, to anyone who would hear. “Whitney came to our house after because Ruby told her she would always be welcome there. But Ruby wasn’t there.” That tight time line we’d traced of Ruby’s path. Like she’d gone down there only to dispose of evidence before heading right back.
I wasn’t sure whether Whitney needed help that night; whether she wanted to talk to someone; whether she just wanted to wash away the evidence of a night out before returning home. It was all forgotten the next morning when we discovered what had happened.
We hid everything else we had done that night.
“I promise, Charlotte,” I said, speaking more forcefully. “Whitney didn’t hurt the Truetts.”
Charlotte froze only for a beat before nodding once. “Then I did the right thing. Ruby was guilty.” Creating in herself, once more, a righteous person. Someone justified in her actions.
I shivered. Who was this person I’d lived beside for so many years? “Did the right thing? You poisoned her! Were you going to say anything when I picked up that mug?” Realizing, with horror, that the antifreeze had been in Ruby’s mug all along. That Ruby must’ve put it down, forgotten where it was, and taken mine after. But she’d already consumed it earlier at the party—had appeared drunk, increasingly unsteady on her feet. And we had watched her slowly succumb to it, unaware.
“I saw you rinse it out, Harper. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Don’t be so…” I closed my eyes, the rage within me growing. “No one did it, Charlotte!” I was yelling now. “No one killed the Truetts! It was an accident. A terrible fucking accident. A tragedy. But no one did it.” I showed her the box under my arm.
“What is that?” she asked, because it was so dark inside, and nothing could be clear in here. Not what we had done or what we were doing. Everything felt buried under a haze of heat and disorientation.
“Come on,” I said, walking toward the back door, and she didn’t object.
But she wrapped her hand around my upper arm as we descended the back steps. To an outsider, it might look like she was helping me.