All these things we knew about one another; all these things we had on one another. Everyone so afraid to speak up, to disturb that balance and give ourselves away.
“Tate,” I said as she took a step closer. “Please. You don’t understand. Ruby found this. Ruby knew—”
“Stop talking,” Tate said, the gun rising in my direction. “Both of you. Just. Stop.”
We both raised our arms on instinct.
I had no idea who I was dealing with anymore.
Everyone taking pictures of each other, recording each other, and so we had to exist on two levels. The one where we knew we were being watched, and the one where we believed we weren’t.
A secret, simmering existence behind the facades.
“Tate, you understand,” Charlotte said, her voice no longer calm but pleading. “The things you would do for your children. The things you would do to protect them.”
“I do,” Tate said, widening her stance.
I’d thought she wanted safety. I’d thought the gun was for her protection. But there were different types of safety. Different things we wanted to protect.
I didn’t know any of them at the heart. I didn’t know what any of us were capable of doing.
Tate flicked a latch on the side of the gun: I could hear it from where I stood; could hear my heart racing, too.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I begged.
But her arm kept lifting until it was pointed directly over her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and shot the gun into the air, the noise deafening.
I crouched on impulse, dropped the box, covered my ears, until the ringing subsided. When I opened my eyes, Tate’s eyes were wide open, staring at the gun. She had taken several steps back, been unprepared for the recoil—like she’d had no idea what would happen when she pulled the trigger.
Only that people would come.
The sound of steps approaching, the back gate screeching open, and Javier spilling out into the night in his boxers. “Tate?” he called, skidding to a halt.
“Javier,” she said, waving the gun in our direction as she spoke. “Pick up that box.”
He did as he was told, eyes barely skimming over me as he bent down in front of me, taking the box from where it had fallen. He looked at it carefully, eyebrows furrowing, then back at his wife, like he’d never seen her before.
Chase arrived next, sprinting from the other direction, in tune to the sound of a weapon firing. “Whoa,” he said. “Everyone calm down.” He looked behind him for anyone else. “Shit.”
Charlotte’s gate creaked open slowly, and I saw eyes peering out from the darkness. “Mom?” Whitney stepped out in an oversize T-shirt, messy hair, rubbing at her eyes. She looked so far from adulthood right then, with no understanding of all the steps that had led to this moment. No idea the role she herself had played.
Molly emerged behind her, eyes wide, meeting mine—as if she understood. Someone else who quietly watched.
All of us stood there, in the trees behind the fence line, with no cameras and no other witnesses.
“What the hell is going on?” Preston asked, standing beside Chase as if they were the people in authority here and not the three of us—with the knowledge and with the gun.
“Call the police,” I said. I begged it, really. The fear of inaction, the danger of it.
“Harper, stop,” Charlotte said. “Listen, we’re all a family here. Every family has secrets. Things we need to keep together. A bond that makes you stronger.”
Another back gate opened, and everyone turned to look.
“Girls,” Charlotte said, taking control, hands still raised, afraid to make any sudden move. “Go back inside. Don’t say a word.”
But they both remained, staring at the scene unfolding before them.
Preston looked to Mac, slow to arrive, slow to react. Chase looked between all of us, trying to unravel it all.
“Harper says that no one killed the Truetts,” Tate said. And they looked to each other, considered each other, eyes wide, voices silent.
“Ruby was innocent,” I said. “The Truetts’ death was an accident, and Charlotte doesn’t want anyone to know.”
Molly whipped her head from her mother to her sister.
“She poisoned Ruby,” I said, though I had no proof. Just the conversation inside the house that no one else had heard.
We weren’t a family.
Us, with our taste for true crime and gossip. With our view into each other’s homes, our voyeuristic desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves.