“Stop,” she said as we stood in the center of the patio. I took a deep breath of air, turned the box to face her. The print was visible in the moonlight. The words on the label clear to see.
“A carbon monoxide detector,” I said. “Brandon had ordered this before his death. Their old one failed. No one took it and hid it anywhere. It was just a terrible accident. It was no one’s fault.”
Her gaze met mine, and the whites of her eyes reflected my own horror in the moonlight. “You don’t know that,” she said. “The police would’ve found that. Or seen it on his credit card.”
“He ordered it with a gift card,” I said. “It came to the school, and I never opened it. Ruby found it, though.”
Ruby had fourteen months to run through the series of events, unspooling every one of them, knowing that she wasn’t to blame. And if she wasn’t, then who was?
The suspicion fueling her search. The sickening truth that she’d uncovered. A defense so difficult to prove—there wasn’t somewhere else to cast the blame. There wasn’t someone else to reveal.
There was no one.
“Let me see,” Charlotte said, wresting it from me. But I had a tight grip on it and pulled it farther from her reach.
“Don’t you see what you’ve done?” I asked, expecting her to give something—some show of remorse or regret. To show something real. But she couldn’t do that. She was too far gone, too committed to the path. There was no way back and no way out.
I saw her then, saw everything she had done to get to this point, and what she must’ve been willing to do to maintain it. The righteous cause: to protect her family. Built on presumptions and lies.
She stared at me, and I saw her gaze roam around the patio, the open doorway to the house—and I knew she couldn’t stop now.
I raced out the back patio, the gate creaking sharply, the wood hitting the fence on the other side. I had to get home, lock the door, call someone—
“Stop it!” she called, and I felt her arm wrenching mine back, just outside my fence line.
“What are you doing?” The voice came from beside us. We turned to face it together.
Tate stood before us with a gun in her hand, haphazardly pointed toward the ground.
“Why do you have a gun, Tate?” I asked. Her hair was in a bun, and she was wearing a matching pajama set, and she looked so young—so disconnected from the gun in her hand.
“Why do you think?” she asked, gesturing with it. “For protection. For our protection. Why were you in the Truett house?” Her arm swung wildly in the direction of the open gate behind us, and I cringed as the gun arced my way.
“Tate,” Charlotte said, “my God, put down the gun. We’re just talking things through—”
“I heard you,” she said as her back gate creaked behind her, swaying in the wind. “I heard yelling.”
“Everything’s fine,” Charlotte said. “Tate, go back to bed. Put the gun away, and—”
“Charlotte killed Ruby,” I said. I blurted it fast. So someone else would know. So that the proof—the truth—could not disappear. Could not be buried by someone casting the suspicion elsewhere first. Get help, call the police, do something.
But Tate only stood there, gun at her side, looking between the two of us.
“Harper, stop,” Charlotte said through clenched teeth. “We’re all on the same side here. It’s over, it’s done. She’s gone.”
“Because you killed her,” I repeated.
“Stop saying that. I kept us safe. She was dangerous. Tate, you know that. You know the things she did. She was so dangerous.”
She was dangerous, but not in the way they meant.
“She didn’t kill the Truetts,” I said.
“That’s not possible, Harper,” Tate said. “I told you, there was no one else on the camera—”
“No one killed them, Tate,” I said.
“What?” she asked, her voice impossibly small.
“It was an accident. A horrible accident, but no one did it. And I think I can prove it.”
“Tate,” Charlotte said, making a calming motion with her hands. “Everyone played a part. We’re all liable here.” She gestured to the box tucked under my arm. “Take that, please.”
Tate looked between the two of us slowly, as if debating. Deciding. Working through each path to see which would work out the best in her favor.
Ruby was right, we had all done it. Had conspired against her even if we didn’t mean to. Individually, we couldn’t have done it. But together, we were powerful. We could set laws, enforce rules, make someone feel welcomed or ostracized.