Page 69 of The Quiet Tenant

Where he took you after the woods. Where his tools live. Where, judging by how quickly he springs to his feet, he really doesn’t want his daughter to go.

You stay in the kitchen with his kid, the two of you hovering over the dog. She looks at you and bites her lip, like she has something to say but isn’t quite sure how. Before you can think of a way to articulate your own thoughts, her dad is back with what looks like an old couch pillow. He sets it on the ground, in a corner of the kitchen. Cecilia picks up the dog again and gently lays her down. The dog lets out a moan, then a long exhale. Finally, she settles, front paws on each side of her snout.

He sighs. “We’ll see if she makes it through the night,” he says. Cecilia goes to pat the dog’s head, then decides against it. “We could…” she starts. The rest of her sentence goes unsaid. She was probably going to suggest taking her to the vet, now that the bleeding is controlled. See if there’s anything an actual pro can do. Stitches might be a start. But she knows her dad. She knows to take her victory and leave the rest.

He gets up, puts the disinfectant and the leftover gauze back in the first aid kit, and starts cleaning up.

Behind his back, a hand wraps around yours. You hold your breath. She squeezes gently around your fingers.Thank you.A silent gesture, loud as a drum to you.Thank you.

You wait for her dad to busy himself with a mop and a bucket. A father, focused and matter-of-fact, casually cleaning blood off his kitchen floor.

Cecilia’s pulse beats faintly against your wrist. You stand still for a few seconds, then give her fingers a squeeze back.

CHAPTER 45

The woman on the move

He walks into the room, uncuffs you, and says, “Let’s go.”

“What?” you ask.

He urges you with a wave. “Come on,” he says. “I don’t have all day.”

You get up—slowly, in case you are misunderstanding. But he doesn’t freak out. If anything, he wants you to go faster. He pulls you by the wrist, hurries you down the stairs.

It’s the middle of the day. A Monday. Cecilia’s at school. He’s supposed to be at work. You weren’t expecting him back until dinnertime at the earliest.

The dog. He had to come back to check on her. And while he was at it, he decided to do…whatever this is, too.

He lifts the bottom of his sweater, shows you the gun in the holster. Waits for you to nod, then opens the door.

“To the truck,” he says.

He has eyes everywhere—on you, on the pickup, on your surroundings, on the trees and houses and birds. His arm wraps snugly around your shoulder. He guides you to the truck, opens and shuts the passenger door, jogs to the other side. You can feel the atmosphere shift, his relief once you’re both inside.

“What’s going on?”

He clicks his tongue like the answer is obvious. “We’re going for a ride.”

Your stomach contracts. You have no idea what he means. He turns the key in the ignition, focuses on pulling out of the driveway. His face is blank, undecipherable.

Fuck.

He doesn’t tell you to close your eyes. You wait until the truck is on the road—a country road, trees on each side and houses, actual damn houses, but no one in sight—to ask.

“Can I…can I look?”

“You can do what you want,” he says, as if that’s not the biggest fucking lie to ever come out of his mouth.

Your eyes are glued to the window. Focus. Everything—every leaf, every window—is a vital clue. Since that night in the living room, processing information has been like pedaling in dry rice, nothing sticking, everything slipping through, but you must try.

You must try.

He drives slowly, passing house after house. The neighborhood is a residential cluster, the opposite of his former home—that large property hidden in the woods, no one else around, acres of land shielding him from view.

This isn’t a natural environment for him. So exposed, so intrusive. You put a man like this in a place like that, he’s bound to turn into a powder keg.

There are trees and power lines and not much else. No one in the front yards. The grown-ups are at work, the kids at school. You pass a herd of cows on the right. A meat plant is advertised a few feet farther, the Butcher Bros. Next to the billboard, an old well—rusty, creepy. The kind of well you read about in fairy tales from another century.

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