such a quiet place book review

How did that book end? Book spoilers to jog your memory.

Megan Miranda | Such A Quiet Place

The Book: 

Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda July 13th, 2021 by Simon & Schuster Date read: June 19, 2021

The Characters: 

Harper Her former roommate Ruby

Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon

The Plot (from Goodreads ):

Hollow’s Edge used to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house, and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back.

With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge, and into the home she once shared with Harper Nash. Harper, five years older, has always treated Ruby like a wayward younger sister. But now she’s terrified. What possible good could come of Ruby returning to the scene of the crime? And how can she possibly turn her away, when she knows Ruby has nowhere to go?

Within days, suspicion spreads like a virus across Hollow’s Edge. It’s increasingly clear that not everyone told the truth about the night of the Truett’s murders. And when Harper begins receiving threatening notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else becomes the killer’s next victim.

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Ruby dies too, so we know she’s not the culprit.She was poisoned with antifreeze at the community pool.

Harper determines that it was just an accident that killed the Truetts–in the middle of a fight they left the car running and the garage door open, and succumbed to the effects of the carbon monoxide. It was unclear to me whether this was proven, or whether they just didn’t suspect Ruby anymore.

Molly (Charlotte’s daughter) was the one sending the notes.Whitney was the one sneaking around the neighborhood, and Molly was trying to protect her. Charlotte killed Ruby to protect her daughters, but this was based on assumptions she had made and didn’t really make a lot of sense.

Margo’s secret was that she had left her baby in the car alone. Preston was dating a student and just a skeevy guy, but unrelated to Ruby’s death.

The Ending:

The review: .

I’m a huge Megan Miranda fan. I always enjoy her books, and Such a Quiet Place was no exception. I flew through it in a single lazy Saturday, and couldn’t put it down! The pace was perfect, the characters were interesting, and the mystery drew me in right away.

I’ve read a few books lately that, similar to this one, take place in these small close-knit neighborhoods where everyone knows everything about each other. This setting works really well for me. It’s semi-closed door, so you know the culprit is someone in the neighborhood, but with so many secrets you can’t tell who is hiding something related to the storyline.

Ruby’s character was especially interesting to me. Why would she act so strangely if she had nothing to hide? Poor Harper was such a pushover, letting Ruby traipse back in and steamroll her life and then taking the blame for it with the neighbors. I really wanted her to stand up for herself with Ruby!

I will say that some suspension of belief is required to fully enjoy the ending. The extent of certain miscommunications is a little unbelievable–although some people just really love a scapegoat! There were some plot holes that made it hard for me to accept the ending, although it’s possible these will be resolved before the finished copy is published.

I love neighborhood drama between frenemies and I love thrillers, so Such A Quiet Place was the perfect combination of the two.

If you liked the close-knit community aspect of Such a Quiet Place , also check out:

• Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan
• The Therapist by BA Paris

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The Killer Nextdoor

A lakeside community turns ominous in Megan Miranda’s latest thriller

If suburbia skews Stepford to you, Megan Miranda’s wild new thriller Such A Quiet Place will only cement your suspicions.

Miranda is the perennially New York Times-bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Last House Guest . She doles out enough twists to keep plot-happy readers occupied, while also infusing her cast of characters with deep emotions and conflicted motivations. She weaves humanity into her stories, which always tackle deeper themes than just whodunnit.

Such A Quiet Place is no exception. Hollow’s Edge is an outwardly charming lakeside community full of families, with access to green space and the nearby college, and an active homeowner’s association.

Joining the association also includes an invite to “a private message board, not officially regulated, initially set up with the best of intentions,” Miranda writes of the area’s Nextdoor doppelgänger. “It became a different beast after the deaths of Brandon and Fiona Truett.”

Harper Nash lives on her own in Hollow’s Edge. After her boyfriend left, she’d taken on a roommate, Ruby. As the novel opens, we learn that Ruby’s been in jail for more than a year, convicted of poisoning the Truetts. But the courts have overturned Ruby’s sentence, and she walks into Harper’s house like she still belongs.

Ruby’s reappearance kick-starts this story of a neighborhood that wants to believe it’s close-knit and idyllic. The reality is far more isolating, and often sinister. Harper is a people-pleaser who finds it hard to say no to Ruby, who has a sociopath’s charismatic personality and penchant for mischief. That pits Harper against all of her neighbors, who alternate between shock and disdain at Ruby’s return.

Miranda is intensely interested in the difference between our public and private selves. “We’ve always been great pretenders here,” she writes. Her Hollow’s Edge includes couples who smile on the street and fight in their backyards, teen-age girls who skulk around after dark in the woods and mothers who mask their parenting insecurities with lemonade face-offs.

It’s against this backdrop that Ruby and, eventually, Harper begin digging into the truth of what happened at the Truetts’ house 14 months ago. Home security camera evidence and a zealous neighborhood watch both play large here, as does the collective push towards neighborhood groupthink. By the time everyone gathers at a July 4 picnic, frazzled nerves abound, and more death is on its way.

Such A Quiet Place features classic hallmarks of suspense, including threatening notes, creaking back gates and plenty of misdirection. And the insular nature of Hollow’s Edge recalls Agatha Christie -style country-house mysteries. But these familiar trappings merely gild a story that asks the most essential of questions: Who are we, when no one is looking?

(Simon and Schuster, July 13, 2021)

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Sharyn Vane

Sharyn Vane has reported and edited at newspapers in Washington, D.C., Colorado, Florida and Texas. For the last decade she has written about literature for young people for the Austin American-Statesman.

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Such a Quiet Place

This claustrophobic, suspenseful whodunit ponders the eternal question of how well we really know those closest to us.

It’s not uncommon for neighbors or co-workers to consider themselves family, and in bestselling author Megan Miranda’s Such a Quiet Place , the residents of Hollow’s Edge feel that pressure from both sides. A picturesque community of close-set homes, Hollow’s Edge is mainly populated by employees of the nearby College of Lake Hollow. But something malevolent lurks beneath the community’s pretty surface, and close bonds are frayed, even broken, in the wake of a shocking murder.

It’s been 18 months since Brandon and Fiona Truett were found dead, and 14 months since Ruby Fletcher was convicted of the crime. The community heaved a collective sigh of relief when she began her 20-year prison sentence, but as the book opens, they’re gasping in righteous horror. Ruby’s conviction was overturned, and she’s back in Hollow’s Edge, charismatic as ever and with a vengeful gleam in her eye.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Why Megan Miranda is always drawn to dark, deep woods.

After all, despite the neighborhood watch, security cameras and homeowners association message board, somebody killed the Truetts. The neighbors, convinced it was Ruby, testified against her. Only her housemate, narrator Harper Nash, seems open to the possibility that it wasn’t Ruby—and even she’s not 100% sure. But what if Ruby really didn’t do it? Who among them is the actual killer? The residents of Hollow’s Edge face a highly disturbing and dangerous state of affairs, no matter how you look at it.

Playing with perspective is a Miranda specialty, and she does so spectacularly in Such a Quiet Place , exploring how speculation can transform from idle entertainment to actual condemnation. She also touches on a favored theme of manipulative friendships, as Harper’s persistent self-doubt and empathetic nature leave her vulnerable, coloring her worldview and behavior toward Ruby. But Harper is determined to suss out the truth, and readers will enjoy riding along as she tempts fate via some daring amateur sleuthing around the woods, lake and streets of Hollow’s Edge.

Miranda has created a claustrophobic and suspenseful whodunit—a pressure cooker brimming with a host of plausible suspects, toxic HOA groupthink and plenty of finger-pointing among supposed friends—that ponders the eternal question of how well we really know those closest to us.

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Such a quiet place by megan miranda [book review].

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more info, read my Disclosure Policy .

Title: Such a Quiet Place

Author: Megan Miranda

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publish Date: July 13, 2021

Genre: Mystery Thriller

My Rating: 4/5

Welcome to Hollow’s Edge, where you can find secrets, scandal, and a suspected killer—all on one street. Hollow’s Edge used to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house, and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back. With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge, and into the home she once shared with Harper Nash. Harper, five years older, has always treated Ruby like a wayward younger sister. But now she’s terrified. What possible good could come of Ruby returning to the scene of the crime? And how can she possibly turn her away, when she knows Ruby has nowhere to go? Within days, suspicion spreads like a virus across Hollow’s Edge. It’s increasingly clear that not everyone told the truth about the night of the Truetts’ murders. And when Harper begins receiving threatening notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else becomes the killer’s next victim. Pulsating with suspense and with the shocking twists that are Megan Miranda’s trademark,  Such a Quiet Place  is Megan Miranda’s best novel yet—a twisty locked-box thriller that will keep you turning pages late into the night.

Hollow’s Edge was a nice neighborhood, until a murder occurred. Ruby was convicted of killing her neighbors, but her conviction was overturned. Much to the residents of Hollow’s Edge surprise, Ruby returned after her release. She moved back in with her roommate, Harper. Harper is as surprised as everyone else. As suspicions and lies keep all of the neighbors on edge, Harper tries to discover what really happened the night her neighbors died.

Such a Quiet Place is told through Harper point of view. She recalls events that led to Ruby’s conviction, plus the current happenings in the neighborhood. Harper is worried about having Ruby in the house, and most of the neighbors are not happy about Ruby being back. There are a lot of characters, and it seems most people are not entirely truthful.

One my favorite tropes in books is an idyllic neighborhood. So, of course, Such a Quiet Place piqued my interest. I usually find Megan Miranda’s novels to be intriguing reads, and Such a Quiet Place did not disappoint. A slow burning thriller for readers who enjoy female protagonists and neighborhood drama.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Books by Megan Miranda:

• All the Missing Girls
• The Perfect Stranger
• The Last House Guest
• The Girl from Widow Hills
• Such a Quiet Place
• The Last to Vanish
• The Only Survivors
• Daughter of Mine

2 thoughts on “ Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda [Book Review] ”

This one sounds good. I have read and enjoyed all her previous books and this one sounds interesting. I am always interested in wrongful convictions, but is that the case here? I guess I need to read this one soon.

It was a good one, but most of her books are good. I think you’ll like it ?

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Such a Quiet Place

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last House Guest —a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection—comes a new riveting suspense novel about a mysterious murder in an idyllic and close-knit neighborhood.

We had no warning that she’d come back.

Hollow’s Edge used to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house, and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back.

With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge, and into the home she once shared with Harper Nash. Harper, five years older, has always treated Ruby like a wayward younger sister. But now she’s terrified. What possible good could come of Ruby returning to the scene of the crime? And how can she possibly turn her away, when she knows Ruby has nowhere to go?

Within days, suspicion spreads like a virus across Hollow’s Edge. It’s increasingly clear that not everyone told the truth about the night of the Truett’s murders. And when Harper begins receiving threatening notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else becomes the killer’s next victim.

Pulsating with suspense and with the shocking twists that are Megan Miranda’s trademark, Such a Quiet Place is Megan Miranda’s best novel yet—a twisty locked-box thriller that will keep you turning pages late into the night.

Simon & Schuster (July 13, 2021)

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A July 2021 Indie Next List Pick #1 LibraryReads Pick for July

“Miranda, who makes the setting, where everyone knows one another and ends up fearing one another, all the more chilling for its seeming normality, is a master of misdirection and sudden plot twists, leading up to a wallop of an ending. A powerful, paranoid thriller.” — Booklist , starred review

“A claustrophobic and suspenseful whodunit…that ponders the eternal question of how well we really know those closest to us.” — BookPage (Starred Review)

“The twists keep coming until the very last page. Agatha Christie fans will welcome this 21st-century update on the classic golden age village mystery.” — Publishers Weekly

“The perfect suburban setting; the secretive, quirky neighbors; three unsolved murders; and an Agatha Christie vibe make this whodunit an excellent beach read.” — Library Journal

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Review | Such a Quiet Place, by Megan Miranda

From the blurb, I expected a page-turning domestic thriller. The title refers to the perceived peacefulness of the setting, a neighbourhood called Hollow’s Edge where the local homeowners’ association maintains a neighbourhood watch and enforces social mores. Such settings are always ripe for thrillers, since the genteel veneer often masks intra-community drama and simmering resentments.

On one hand, Such a Quiet Place does deliver such a thriller. There’s a sense of menace in Ruby’s return, with all the neighbours still convinced of her guilt and stressing over what kind of revenge she has planned. Harper, the narrator, also begins to receive mysterious, threatening notes, which threaten to reveal something she’s tried to keep secret. And about halfway through the novel, another death occurs, and new suspicions flare up. It’s a page turner, and Miranda is a skilled writer who keeps you guessing.

But mostly, to my surprise, I found the book sad. The truth behind the murders does hold menace, but the reasons actually turn out to be sadder and more ordinary than I anticipated. Beyond the central mystery around the murders, the novel delves into all the drama stirred up by the local homeowners’ association (HOA), led by neighbourhood queen bee Charlotte Brock. Still fully convinced of Ruby’s guilt, they decide she’s not welcome in the neighbourhood, snub her at the Fourth of July barbecue, and peer pressure Harper into evicting her from their home. Ruby is far from a likeable character — she does some shady things, and pretty much strong-arms her way back into Harper’s house — but I still felt bad for her with how much bullying she had to face from the HOA. 

Because the HOA drives so much of the action in the novel, the story feels not so much a thriller as pointed social commentary wrapped up in thrillerish elements. Through her characters, Miranda prompts us to reflect on what and who we consider our home and community, and how complicit we become in maintaining an exclusionary social order.

For example, the neighbours all participate in an online message board, but the message board is open only to homeowners, and not renters. At one point, Harper reflects that all the renters got out as soon as they could after the Truett murders destroyed the sense of safety in the neighbourhood, while homeowners had invested too much equity to be able to leave so easily. But, while the murders likely did play a part in it, I can’t help but wonder how many of those renters moved out simply because they were treated as second-class citizens.

Another telling example is the Fourth of July barbecue, where Charlotte decides only residents are allowed to come, because they’re the ones who pay the HOA fees that fund the event. She gets pushback from neighbours who want to bring guests, and eventually caves, but not before snarking that with guests allowed, there may not be enough food to go around. 

While Charlotte is the queen bee, all the neighbours are in some form or other complicit in the toxicity that sets them apart from ‘outsiders’. Miranda does a great job with Harper’s perspective on this, as the author manages to convey how much the HOA fosters a sense of belonging and close-knit friendships in the community while still exerting subtle pressure on residents to abide by their social norms, or else be outsiders in their own homes. 

By the end of the novel, I realized how terrifying the story was in its mundaneness. We often see thrillers with taglines like “it can happen anywhere”, and with this book, Miranda succeeds in crafting just such a thriller, and in challenging us to consider how we engage with where we live.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, such a quiet place.

• About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling author of THE LAST HOUSE GUEST --- a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection --- comes a riveting, “suspenseful” ( BookPage , starred review) novel about a mysterious murder in an idyllic and close-knit neighborhood.

Welcome to Hollow’s Edge, where you can find secrets, scandal and a suspected killer --- all on one street.

Hollow’s Edge used to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back.

With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge, and into the home she once shared with Harper Nash. Harper, five years older, has always treated Ruby like a wayward younger sister. But now she’s terrified. What possible good could come of Ruby returning to the scene of the crime? And how can she possibly turn her away, when she knows Ruby has nowhere to go?

Within days, suspicion spreads like a virus across Hollow’s Edge. It’s increasingly clear that not everyone told the truth about the night of the Truett murders. And when Harper begins receiving threatening notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else becomes the killer’s next victim.

Pulsating with suspense and with Megan Miranda’s trademark shocking twists, SUCH A QUIET PLACE is Megan Miranda’s best novel yet --- a “powerful, paranoid thriller” ( Booklist , starred review) that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.

Audiobook available, read by Rebekkah Ross

Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda

• Publication Date: June 14, 2022
• Genres: Fiction , Mystery , Psychological Suspense , Psychological Thriller , Suspense , Thriller
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books
• ISBN-10: 1982147296
• ISBN-13: 9781982147297

Book review: Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda

Such a Quiet Place is the fourth of US author, Megan Miranda’s novels I’ve read. It’s about the aftermath of murder in a (kinda) gated community, setting up an intriguing locked room-type mystery. Almost. To the relief of the locals someone was arrested and convicted of the crime. But there’s now the question of whether they were actually guilty.

Hollow’s Edge used to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house, and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back. With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge, and into the home she once shared with Harper Nash. Harper, five years older, has always treated Ruby like a wayward younger sister. But now she’s terrified. What possible good could come of Ruby returning to the scene of the crime? And how can she possibly turn her away, when she knows Ruby has nowhere to go? Within days, suspicion spreads like a virus across Hollow’s Edge. It’s increasingly clear that not everyone told the truth about the night of the Truett’s murders. And when Harper begins receiving threatening notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else becomes the killer’s next victim.

Though I’m usually a fan of Miranda’s work and love some of the clever ways she’s plotted her novels I enjoyed this less than I expected, and I suspect it was a combination of factors.

I very much disliked Ruby. I mean… we’re meant to. I don’t think Miranda has tried to portray her character as sympathetic. At all. But Harper (our narrator) also frustrated me. I – along with the neighbourhood – was agog when Ruby returned to the house she’d shared with Harper without asking, assuming she was still welcome after 14 months. I kept waiting for Harper to say something or at least ask Ruby where she was staying (or similar!) passive-aggressively… if unable to be more blatantly assertive.

But no. There’s a sense of acquiescence and we learn that’s Harper’s greatest weakness. She’s a pushover. We get some backstory / family history and learn more about the ex-fiancee who left her, so can feel some sympathy for her, but she annoyed the hell out of me. To the extent I almost put this book aside.

But Miranda introduces enough intrigue to keep me reading and I easily finished this in a sitting. I was rather happy about the turn of events two-thirds of the way through the novel and it adds a layer of complexity. But the pace remained a little slower than I’d like and even though we ultimately get answers I wasn’t sure I cared enough either way.

Of course there is a deeper context here as Miranda reflects on human behaviour in general. How easily we’re led. How easily we’re convinced to maintain the status quo, keep others happy and be accepted by (and blend in with) those around us. And a sense that – if more time is spent pursuing the truth there’ll be fewer consequences in the long term.

Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and is now available.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. 

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Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda [book review]

• 2 years ago
• Read Time: 2 minutes

Book: Such a Quiet Place

By: Megan Miranda

Published: July 13, 2021

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Genre: Thriller

Amazon | Bookshop

**Note** If you’re not sure what Bookshop is then make sure to check out my post What is Bookshop? This will give you an idea of what exactly it is!

About Such a Quiet Place

Hollow’s Edge use to be quiet. It was an idyllic neighborhood and often sought out. It was a private neighborhood where neighbors often looked out for one another. That is until someone was killed. Now a year later the neighbors are trapped. Some have been trying to sell their homes. but after the death, no one wants to buy the homes there. Now Ruby, the person convicted of the murder, has walked back into the neighborhood putting the entire neighborhood on edge. Harper has always treated her like a younger sister but now she’s back in her home she’s terrified. What reasoning does Ruby have for returning to the scene of the crime?

What I thought

So I’ve been taking full and complete advantage of the Libby app and checking out audiobooks. This app through the library has been a lifesaver this year. I just wish I had known about it a lot sooner. I discovered Such a Quiet Place through the app and felt like I had to wait a while in order to get the audiobook but the wait was worth it. The main reason I picked up such a Quiet Place one is because of the cover. I’m not completely sure why because it’s not like the cover is the most beautiful thing in the world but it definitely caught my attention. I don’t know what it is about “small town” or “close” neighborhoods that always catch my attention but they do. I think it’s partly because I come from a somewhat small town and I’ve always kind of wished to live in a neighborhood that has a community. Granted Such a Quiet Place makes me question ever wanting to live in a neighborhood like that.

The only thing that really bothers me is how Harper doesn’t push Ruby out of her home. It’s understandable because they were close, but I don’t know if I’d want someone in my home who is clearly back for revenge. Other than that the story is pretty fast-paced with loads of twists and turns. Harper is pretty realistic other than letting Ruby stay with her. Honestly, I don’t even know if I’d stay in the neighborhood after all that happens.

If you’re wanting a book similar to Such a Quiet Place then you might like The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives .

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2 thoughts on “ such a quiet place by megan miranda [book review] ”.

I need to read this. I have liked everything I’ve read by Megan Miranda so far. Great review!

Thank you! This was actually the first book I read by Megan Miranda!

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About the book, about the author.

Megan Miranda is the  New York Times  bestselling author of  All the Missing Girls ,  The Perfect Stranger ,  The Last House Guest , which was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, The Girl from Widow Hills , Such a Quiet Place , The Last to Vanish , and The Only Survivors . She has also written several books for young adults .  She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children. Follow @MeganLMiranda on Twitter and Instagram, @AuthorMeganMiranda on Facebook, or visit MeganMiranda.com.

Product Details

• Publisher: S&S/Marysue Rucci Books (June 14, 2022)
• Length: 352 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982147297

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Book World: Two great new basketball books set the mood for March Madness

Eighty years ago, an extraordinary collegiate basketball game took place. It’s such a shining moment, it’s madness that March 12 isn’t an annual hoops holiday. On that Sunday morning in 1944, when most folks (including local cops) were at church, the Duke University medical school team traveled across town to play the all-Black North Carolina College Eagles behind locked gym doors. “The Secret Game” – a legitimate contest with a referee and a game clock but no spectators – was the first college game in the segregated South with Black and white players on the same court. The Eagles’ fast break helped them torch Duke, 88-44, but the competitive juices were still flowing afterward, so the young men did something even more extraordinary: On a Jim Crow hardwood, at a time when Black teams weren’t even allowed in the NCAA or NIT tournaments, they split up the teams and ran it back, shirts and skins.

I’ve been a basketball junkie for more than 40 years but had never come across this incredible story until it popped up as a narrative detour in “The Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson and the Hidden History of Hoops,” by Jack McCallum, one of two terrific new basketball books out in time to make your tourney banter that much more intelligent. “The Real Hoosiers” is the story of a dominant but unheralded high school team that played during the same placid Eisenhower days as the squad in the beloved movie “Hoosiers.” The Crispus Attucks Tigers, led by one of the best to ever do it, Oscar Robertson, won a state title in 1955, becoming the first all-Black team in Indiana – and “quite likely,” in McCallum’s estimation, the United States – to do that. (They won it again the following year.)

In 1954, Attucks lost in the state tournament to Milan High School, the rural team that inspired the fictional Hickory High in “Hoosiers.” McCallum uses that film, and the racial dynamics of its conservative “Behold, the smart, scrappy white kids!” ethos as a jumping-off point for how much more improbable the Tigers’ real-world heroics were. For starters, they didn’t have a gym. They also dealt with consistently biased officiating, racist invective from opposing fans, restaurants that wouldn’t serve them, bigoted newspaper columnists, death threats and the murder of peer Emmett Till.

McCallum makes quick work of the movie’s legacy to tell a much deeper and richer story about life under de facto legal segregation in 1950s Indiana. The “most northern state in the South,” as it’s been called, was home to the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan, which is why the book goes well beyond simply resuscitating those Crispus Attucks Tigers and giving them their just due. “The Real Hoosiers” has a real edge to it.

McCallum, now in his mid-70s, pulls all the tricks from a Hall of Fame career out of his righteous writer’s bag to show what these teenagers endured while compiling an 85-6 record in Robertson’s three varsity seasons. He jumps back and forth in time, throws in fun footnotes about figures like Cab Calloway and Kurt Vonnegut, weaves in historical antecedents and ancillary tales, offers technical basketball analysis, and breaks the fourth wall with commentary and jokes, both grandpa groaners and one-liners dripping with animus at racial injustices past and present.

Nowhere is that animus felt more than in a chapter titled “Basketball and Blood in the Same Town Square.” In 1926, 90 miles north of Indianapolis in Marion, Indiana, the town square hosted a party after the local boys beat Martinsville (whose team featured a sophomore guard named John Wooden; hold that thought) for the state title. A raucous bonfire raged all night. Four years later, a crowd of 5,000 – a quarter of Marion’s population – gathered once again for a different purpose. This time, as McCallum describes it, “They were waiting – many of them hoping – to witness their first lynching.”

On Aug. 7, 1930, Black teenagers Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, who were in jail on unsubstantiated murder and rape charges, were brutally beaten, dragged to the Marion town square, strung up on a maple tree and left hanging for nearly 12 hours. Local photographer Lawrence Beitler captured the depraved indifference of the townspeople, some of whom undoubtedly reveled in the lynching as they had the hoops championship a few years before. The infamous photo would inspire Billie Holiday’s haunting classic “Strange Fruit.”

Strictly speaking, there is no direct link between the Marion grotesquerie and what Crispus Attucks players overcame during their dominant run, but does there need to be? Political and cultural eras bleed into one another, and they certainly did for Wooden, the Hoosier farm boy who went on to claim 10 NCAA titles as a coach in the California sunshine, including seven in a row during a time of massive American upheaval. Scott Howard-Cooper captures the wild juxtaposition of the on-court discipline required to win 88 consecutive games and the swirling campus insanity of the era in “Kingdom on Fire: Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty.”

Over time, after retiring in 1975, Wooden went from being renowned as a great hoops tactician to being seen as a kind of cartoon of the humble, hard-working “Hoosiers” mind-set. “Kingdom on Fire” restores the neurotic Wooden ground down by the expectations of winning and pining for simpler days, before he coached two of the best college centers of all-time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (still Lew Alcindor when he played for Wooden) and Bill Walton. Add in Wooden’s quirks, like being scared of L.A. traffic and believing ice in water causes stomach cramps; flaws, like discouraging interracial dating as late as 1970; and a willingness to experiment on-court well into his successful career, and you have a fascinating character, not a human motivational poster.

Hagiographies are for hacks, so Howard-Cooper doesn’t tiptoe around the subject of Sam Gilbert either. Gilbert was the millionaire building contractor/UCLA benefactor who made sure that players were always flush with cash for travel, cars, dinners, drinks, discos and, allegedly, abortions. Gilbert’s illicit largesse was an open secret, motivation for players to come to UCLA, so his prime seats near the bench weren’t an accident. As time went on, Gilbert’s profile grew, but as long as UCLA kept winning, he kept bolstering, whether Coach Wooden knew what he was up to or not (I’m calling it “willful ignorance” at best). The players knew Gilbert delivered and wanted him around, even if – according to Howard-Cooper, and a surprise to me – both Kareem and Walton considered leaving UCLA.

In those years, UCLA was more of a commuter college, filled mostly with well-tanned, “What Me, Worry?” white Angelenos. Abdul-Jabbar, whose New York City high school coach calling him the N-word played a role in why he ended up on the west coast, ultimately he wanted to transfer to the University of Michigan, which had a much more robust Black student body and was fairly close to Detroit’s jazz clubs. Walton, who was a serious activist and not just the goofy Deadhead he can seem on broadcasts today, yearned to be in the anti-Vietnam War action at Cal-Berkeley, where kids were fighting in the streets every day. The two centers respected Wooden apart from UCLA itself, stayed put and got the rings, of course, but their collegiate basketball years were far more complicated than many readers might have realized.

“Kingdom of Fire,” like “The Real Hoosiers,” places readers back in more interesting times, before the stories they tell were sanded down or inflated or forgotten. While filling out the brackets this year, consider getting your hoops mind right with these two substantial histories. The teams in them might seem a very far cry from the billion-dollar Big Dance bonanza of today, but look closer. The past will be there at tip-off. Three of the giants in these books still walk among us. Walton is 71, Abdul-Jabbar is 76 and Robertson, “the Big O,” is 85, winding down a long life that early on found him dribbling and shooting on a dusty, vacant Indianapolis lot, right about the time Black and white collegiate cagers secretly stepped on a court together.

Patrick Sauer has been a freelance writer for more than 20 years for many publications, some that still exist. He also co-hosts the live online talk show “Squawkin’ Sports,” which features interviews with authors of sports books.

Bridging the digital divide in Spokane County

There is a major challenge in cities all across Washington state, big and small.

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Such a Quiet Place

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Chapter 1 THERE WAS NO PARTY the day Ruby Fletcher came home. We had no warning, no time to prepare ourselves. I didn’t hear the slam of the car door, or the key in the lock, or the front door swinging open. It was the footsteps—the familiar pop of the floorboard just outside the kitchen—that registered first. That made me pause at the counter, tighten my grip on the knife. Thinking: Not the cat. I held my breath, held myself very still, listening closer. A shuffling in the hallway, like something was sliding along the wall. I spun from the kitchen counter, knife still in my hand, blade haphazardly pointed outward— And there she was, in the entrance of my kitchen: Ruby Fletcher. She was the one who said, “Surprise!” Who laughed as the knife fell from my grip, a glinting thing between us on the tiled floor, who delighted at my stunned expression. As if we didn’t all have cause to be on edge. As if we didn’t each fear someone sneaking into our home. As if she didn’t know better. It took three seconds for me to find the appropriate expression. My hand shaking as I brought it to my chest. “Oh my God,” I said, which bought me some time. Then I bent to pick up the knife, which bought me some more. “Ruby,” I said as I stood. Her smile stretched wider. “Harper,” she answered, all drawn out. The first thing I noticed were the low-heeled shoes dangling from her hand, like she really had been trying to sneak up on me. The second thing I noticed was that she seemed to be wearing the same clothes she’d had on yesterday during the news conference—black pants and white sleeveless blouse, without a jacket now, and with the top button undone. Her dark blond hair was styled as it had been on TV but appeared flatter today. And it was shorter since I’d last seen her in person—just to her shoulders. Makeup smudges under her eyes, a glow to her cheeks, ears slightly pink from the heat. It occurred to me she’d been out for twenty-four hours and hadn’t yet changed clothes. There was luggage behind her in the hall—what I must’ve heard scraping against the beige walls—a brown leather duffel and a messenger-style briefcase that matched. With the suit, it was easy to imagine she was on her way to work. “Where’ve you been?” I asked as she set her shoes down. Of all the things I could’ve said. But trying to account for Ruby’s time line was deeply ingrained, a habit that I’d found difficult to break. She tipped her head back and laughed. “I missed you, too, Harper.” Deflecting, as always. It was almost noon, and she looked like she hadn’t gone to sleep yet. Maybe she’d been with the lawyer. Maybe she’d gone to see her dad. Maybe she’d tried somewhere else—anywhere else—before coming here. Maybe she’d wrung these last twenty-four hours of freedom for all they were worth. Then she was crossing the room, coming in for a hug, inescapable. Everything happened on a brief delay, as if choreographed. Her walk had changed, her steps quiet, more deliberate. Her expression, too—careful, guarded. Something new she’d learned or practiced. She seemed, suddenly, unlike the Ruby I knew, each proportion just slightly off: thinner, more streamlined; her blue eyes larger and clearer than I recalled; she seemed taller than the last time we were in a room together. Or maybe it was just my memory that had shifted, softening her edges, molding her into something smaller, frailer, incapable of the accusations levied against her. Maybe it was a trick of the television screen or the pictures in the paper, flattening her into two dimensions, making me forget the true Ruby Fletcher. Her arms wrapped around me, and all at once, she felt like her again. She tucked her pointy chin into the space between my neck and shoulder. “I didn’t scare you, did I?” I felt her breath on my neck, the goose bumps rising. I started laughing as I pulled away—a fit of delirium, high and tight, something between elation and fear. Ruby Fletcher. Here. As if nothing had changed. As if no time had passed. She cocked her head to the side as I wiped the tears from under my eyes. “Ruby, if you had called, I would’ve...” What? Planned a lunch? Gotten her room ready? Told her not to come? “Next time,” she said, grinning. “But that—” She gestured to my face. “That was worth it.” Like this was a game, part of her plan, and my reaction would tell her all she needed to know. She sat at the kitchen table, and I had no idea where to go from here, where to even begin. She had one foot curled up under the other leg, a single arm hanging over the back of the chair, twisting to face me—not bothering to hide her slow perusal: first my bare feet with the chipping plum polish, then my fraying jean shorts, then the oversize tank top covering the bathing suit underneath. I felt her gaze linger on my hair—now a lighter brown, woven in a haphazard braid over my shoulder. “You look exactly the same,” she said with a wide smile. But I knew that wasn’t true. I’d stopped running in the mornings, lost the lean-muscle definition of my legs; had let my hair grow out from collarbone to mid-back, an inverse of her transformation. I’d spent the last year reassessing everything I’d thought I knew—about others, about myself. Picking apart the trajectory that had brought me here, the conviction I’d always felt in my decisions, and I worried that the uncertainty had somehow manifested itself in my demeanor. I grew uncomfortable under her gaze, wondering what she might be looking for, what she might be thinking. At the realization that we were alone here. “Are you hungry?” I asked. I gestured to the food on the counter—the cheese and crackers, the strawberries in a bowl, the watermelon I’d been in the process of cutting—willing my hand not to shake. She stretched, extending her thin arms over her head, lacing her fingers together: that sickening crack of her knuckles with one final reach. “Not really. Did I interrupt your plans?” she asked, looking over the snacks. I shifted on my feet. “I saw you yesterday,” I said, because I had learned from Ruby that responding to a direct question was always optional. “I watched the news conference.” We all had. We’d known it was coming, that she was going to be released, could feel the shared indignation brewing, that after everything—the trial, the testimonies, the evidence—it was all about to be undone. We’d been waiting for it. Hungry for information, sharing links and refreshing the neighborhood message board. Javier Cora had put the details up, without context, and I’d seen the comments coming through in quick succession: Channel 3. Now. Watching... Jesus Christ. How is this LEGAL? We knew better by now than to say too much on the message board, but we had all seen it. Ruby Fletcher, wearing the same thing she’d worn the day she was taken in, a banner across the bottom of the screen as she stood in the center of a crowd of microphones: PRESUMED INNOCENT. Simple yet effective, if maybe not entirely true. The trial had been tainted, the investigation deemed unfair, the verdict thrown out. Whether Ruby was innocent was a different matter entirely. “Yesterday,” she said breathlessly, euphorically, face turned up toward the ceiling, “was wild .” She’d seemed so poised, so stoic, on television. A suppressed version of the Ruby I knew. But as she’d spoken, I had leaned toward the television from my spot on the couch. Even from afar, she could bend the gravity of a room her way. On the broadcast, I’d heard a reporter call out to her: How are you feeling, Ruby? And her eyes had crinkled in that charming way she had of holding back a smile, as she looked straight at the camera, straight at me, for a beat before responding: I’m just looking forward to getting on with my life. To putting this all behind me. And yet, twenty-four hours later, she had come straight back here—to the scene of the crime for which she’d been incarcerated—to face it. THE FIRST THING RUBY wanted was a beer. It wasn’t yet noon, but Ruby never worried about such mundane things as public perception or social approval. Didn’t try to make an excuse, like the rest of us here might— summer hours; rounding up— craving acceptance or someone else to join in our small rebellions. She stood in front of the fridge, letting the cold air wash over her, and said, “Oh, man, this feels so good,” like it was something she had missed. She closed her eyes as she tipped back the bottle of beer, her throat exposed and moving. Then her gaze drifted over to the knife on the counter, to the cubes of watermelon. She picked one up and popped it in her mouth, chewing with exaggerated slowness, savoring it. A faintly sweet scent carried through the room, and I imagined the taste in my own mouth as she licked her lips. I wondered if this would go on indefinitely: every item, every experience, something unexpected and taken for granted. Wild. My phone buzzed from where I’d left it beside the sink. Neither of us made a move to look at it. “How long, do you think, before everyone knows?” she asked, one side of her mouth quirked up as she leaned against the counter. As if she could sense the texts coming through. Not long. Not here. As soon as someone saw her, it would be on the message board—if it wasn’t already. When you purchased a home in the Hollow’s Edge neighborhood, you automatically became a member of the Hollow’s Edge Owners’ Association—an official, self-run group with an elected board that decided on our budget, collected our dues, made and enforced the rules. From there, you were also invited to join a private message board, not officially regulated, initially set up with the best of intentions. It became a different beast after the deaths of Brandon and Fiona Truett. “Do you want them to know?” I asked. What are you doing here? How long are you staying? “Well, I guess they’re bound to notice eventually.” She crossed one foot behind the other. “Is everyone still here?” I cleared my throat. “Plus or minus a few.” The renters had all gotten out when they could, but the rest of us couldn’t sell without taking a major loss right now. The Truett house was still empty next door, and Ruby Fletcher, longtime resident of Hollow’s Edge, had been convicted of the killings. It was a double hit. Maybe we could’ve recovered from one or the other, but not the combination. Tate and Javier Cora, my neighbors to the left, were looking to move, but they were two doors down from the crime scene and had been advised by their realtor to wait it out. But there were others who had slowly disappeared. A fiancé who had left. A husband who was rarely seen. Breaking the case had broken a lot of other things in the process. Instead, I said: “The Wellmans had their baby. A boy.” Ruby smiled. “Guess he’s not such a baby anymore.” I pressed my lips together in an approximation of a smile, unable to figure out the right thing to say, the right tone. “And Tate’s pregnant.” Ruby froze, beer bottle halfway to her mouth. “She must be unbearable,” she said, one eyebrow raised. She was, but I wasn’t about to tell Ruby that. I was always trying to decrease animosity, smooth over tension—a role I’d long inhabited in my own family. But these were safer conversations than what we could’ve been discussing, so I ran with it. “And Charlotte’s oldest just graduated, so we’ll be losing one more by the end of the summer.” I was filling the silence, my words coming too fast, practically tripping over one another. “Can we vote someone else out instead?” she asked, and I laughed, imagining the many names Ruby might propose, wondering which was at the top of her list. Chase Colby, most likely. It felt like no time had passed. Ruby was always like this: disarming; unpredictable. A hypnotic personality, the prosecutor had declared. As if we were all the victims and therefore blameless in our allegiance. It was something I repeated to myself often, to absolve myself. But then I realized why she was asking about everyone, about who was here and who would remain: Ruby was planning to stay. IN TRUTH, I HADN’T given much thought to where Ruby would go after her release. It hadn’t occurred to me that here would even be on her mind, with everything that had happened. We hadn’t spoken since that day in the courtroom after I testified, and that could barely count—she’d just mouthed the words Thank you as I passed. I’d pretended I hadn’t noticed. If I’d had to make a guess, it might have been that she’d go to see her dad in Florida. Or hole up in some hotel suite funded by the legal team who had gotten her released, working the case angles with her lawyer. I would’ve thought she’d be more likely to disappear entirely—seizing her chance, reemerging in some faraway place as someone new. A person with no history. I checked the clock over the fridge, saw it creeping past noon, drummed my fingers on the countertop. “Expecting company?” she asked. She was looking at the spread on the counter again. I shook my head. “I was going to bring this to the pool.” “Great idea,” she said. “I missed the pool.” My stomach plummeted. How many things had she missed—the cool blast of the refrigerator, the pool, me. Would she keep listing them off, twisting the knife? “Be right back,” she said, heading toward the hall bathroom at the base of the stairs. I washed the knife as soon as she was out of the room—it was too much, laying out there on the surface, taunting us both, unspoken. Then I picked up my phone quickly, scrolling through the messages piling up. From Tate: Why didn’t you tell us she was coming back here?? From Charlotte: Call me. So they already knew. But I ignored them, instead firing off a quick message to Mac, fingers trembling with leftover adrenaline: Do not come over. I had no idea how long she intended to stay. Ruby’s bags were sitting just outside the entrance of the kitchen. Maybe I could get a sense of things without asking directly. I listened for water running in the bathroom, but the house was eerily silent. Just the cat, Koda, hopping off a piece of furniture somewhere upstairs, and the muffled call of a cicada from the trees out back, growing louder. I slowly unzipped the larger piece of luggage, peering inside. It was empty. “Harper?” I yanked my hand back quickly, the side of my finger catching on the zipper. Ruby’s voice had come from the top of the staircase, but only her shadow was visible from where I stood. I didn’t know what she could see from this angle. As I backed away from her bags, she came into view, moving slowly down the stairs, hand sliding down the railing. “Is there something you want to tell me?” Her voice had subtly changed, the way people had pointed out during the investigation—what some called hypnotic but what others called cunning or angry. It was all loaded together on a razor’s edge. Either way, it made you pay attention. Made you tune in acutely to whatever Ruby was going to tell you. “About what?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat inside my chest. There were so many things I could tell her: Everyone still thinks you’re guilty. I don’t know why you’re here. I slept with your ex. “My things. Where are my things, Harper.” “Oh,” I said. I hadn’t had time to explain. Hadn’t thought it would be an issue. Hadn’t thought she’d expected any differently. “I talked to your dad. After.” She paused at the bottom step, raised a single exacting eyebrow. “And?” I cleared my throat. “He told me to donate them.” It wasn’t that I was unsympathetic, it was just, twenty years was a long time. She acted like she’d been gone a week, not fourteen months. Ruby closed her eyes briefly, took a slow breath in. I wondered if she had learned this during her time behind bars. It was not at all how Ruby Fletcher used to handle disappointment. “Did Mac come by for anything?” God, I didn’t know what she was asking. Everything she said was laced with something else. “I can take you to the store. For anything you need,” I said. I could buy her new clothes, new toiletries. I could offer to put her up in a hotel, hand her some cash, wish her well. Wish I’d never see her again. But she flicked her fingers at the air between us. “Later.” She bent and picked up her bag—her empty bag—and returned up the steps. It occurred to me that I might be witnessing a crime against my property. That she was going to rob me, and I was going to be complicit in it, as it was so easy to grow complicit to the desires of Ruby Fletcher. WE DIDN’T ALWAYS LIVE together. The situation was unspoken but understood, I thought, to be both brief and temporary. After Aidan moved out of my place, after Ruby’s dad retired and sold their house, it was a momentary necessity—a period of time when we both needed a pause, needed to grasp our bearings, figure things out. Decide what we wanted next. But she didn’t leave, and I didn’t ask her to. It seemed that what we both wanted was for her to stay. We had developed an allegiance of convenience, if only for someone to feed the cat. I’d grown accustomed to the solitude since she’d been gone. I’d grown to value my independence and my privacy, on my own for the first time since college. Knowing that everything here belonged to me. When she came downstairs wearing my clothes—the maroon tie of a bathing suit top visible under my black tank dress—I didn’t have much of a position to argue from, after getting rid of her things. She was taller, and now slimmer, than I, but our clothes were the same general size. Koda followed her down, weaving between her feet, the traitor. She had been Aidan’s cat first, was firmly antisocial, and seemed to spurn attention from all humans except Ruby. Ruby gathered her hair into a short ponytail, one of my elastics on her wrist. “Do you have an extra pair of sunglasses?” she asked. I blinked at her. This was like watching a car crash in slow motion. “What are you doing?” I asked. In answer, she opened the drawer of the entryway table—the same place we’d always kept the keys—the same place Ruby had also kept the Truetts’ key, when she walked their dog. For a brief second’s pause, I thought she was looking for it, but then she grabbed the electronic pool badge that granted us entrance through the black iron gates. “Going to the pool. Aren’t you?” “Ruby,” I said in warning. Lips pressed together, she waited for me to continue. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea right now,” I said. She had to know it. Of course she knew it. She turned her face away, but not before I caught what I thought was the glimmer of a smile. “I’m ripping off the Band-Aid,” she explained as she opened the front door. But that wasn’t quite right. Prison had softened her metaphors. She was flirting with an inferno. She was dousing a gaping wound in vinegar. She walked out barefoot, front door left ajar—an offering that I had no intention of taking. Not in broad daylight. Not on this street. Not in this neighborhood. It was bad enough she was here, in my house. But I stepped out onto the front porch, watching her walk past the front of the Truett house without a glance toward the empty porch, the darkened windows. No hesitation or change in her stride as she passed the house she’d once allegedly let herself inside in the middle of the night, let the dog out, started the old Honda in the garage, and left the interior door to the house ajar, so that Brandon and Fiona Truett died silently of carbon monoxide poisoning in the night. My house was situated at the center of the court, six homes around the half-moon edge, a wide-open circle of pavement with a grassy knoll in the middle, with a scattering of trees that blocked the view of the lake in the summer but not the winter. The pool was on the main neighborhood road, bordered by the woods and overlooking the lake, and from a certain vantage point, with a generous frame of mind, it could pass for an infinity pool. As Ruby strode by each house, I imagined the security cameras catching her. Watching her. Recording her in jolts of time that could be pieced together later to track her every movement. The Brock house, whose video feed had picked up a noise that night. The house on the corner, belonging to the Seaver brothers, whose doorbell camera had caught the hooded figure striding past, and who had plenty to share about Ruby Fletcher besides. Ruby was out of sight now, probably passing the Wellman house, whose camera had identified Ruby sprinting into the woods, toward the lake. I was listening hard to the silence when I sensed movement from the corner of my eye. Tate was standing at the entrance of her garage next door, half in, half out, arms crossed over her abdomen. Our separate houses were only a few yards from being townhomes with shared walls. We were practically side by side. I felt her staring at the side of my face. “I didn’t know she was coming,” I said. “How long is she staying?” Tate asked. I thought of the empty bag in my house. “Not sure yet.” Officially, Tate and Javier Cora hadn’t seen or heard anything that night—they’d gotten home from a friend’s party after midnight, and there was nothing on their camera. Unofficially, they weren’t surprised. Now I could sense her teeth grinding together, but I wasn’t sure whether it was from anger or fear. Tate was maybe five feet tall, and small-framed at that. I’d learned it wasn’t her true first name only during the investigation. It was her maiden name, but she and Javier had met in college, where she played lacrosse, and everyone had called her Tate then. So did he. She still wore her thick blond hair in a high ponytail with a wraparound athletic headband, like she might be called onto the field at any moment. I could picture it well. She could summon an intensity that compensated for her size. Everyone knew Tate and Javier as the gregarious couple of the neighborhood. They hosted weekend barbecues and helped plan the neighborhood social events. “Do something,” Tate said, making her eyes wide. Pregnancy had turned her less gregarious, more demanding. But we’d all hardened over the last year and a half. We’d each become, in turn, more skeptical, wary, impenetrable. I nodded noncommittally. We both stared in the direction Ruby had gone. “Chase is going to lose his shit when he sees her,” she said before retreating inside. Though Tate was prone to overreaction, this was not one of those times. If Chase saw her there— If no one had warned him first— I grabbed my things in a rush, taking off after Ruby.

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