Page 79 of The Quiet Tenant

There’s someone inside. Someone who’s not him. Someone who didn’t come to the door.

I hold my breath as the key slips into the lock. One last moment of hesitation—a story, I need a story. What’s it going to be?I thought I smelled smoke and wanted to make sure everything was all right?

Sure, why not. That’ll do.

The world stops spinning. I push the door open.

CHAPTER 54

The woman in the house

A woman stands in the doorway.

She’s young. Your age, maybe, or the age you were when you went missing. It’s all so hard to tell, how old you currently look, how old you would look if he hadn’t happened to you.

She’s pretty. That, you know for sure. Glossy hair, glowing cheeks, tweezed eyebrows and—is that lipstick?

The dog goes to greet her, but you hold on to the collar.

“She’ll run out,” you say, bent in half. “She doesn’t know her name yet.”

The woman steps in and shuts the door behind her. As soon as you let go, the dog leaps. She sniffs the stranger’s coat, tongue out, tail wagging.

I’m so dead,you think. His phone must be buzzing like crazy.

For fuck’s sake,you tell her inside your head.Do you have any idea what I’ve done to stay alive all this time? Of course you don’t. It doesn’t matter, now that you’ve wasted it all away. Now that he’s going to kill us both.

The stranger gives the dog a distracted pat on the head, then focuses on you.

“I’m a friend,” she says.

Should you warn her? Push her outside and tell her to run, run and never return?

She continues, answering questions you didn’t ask. “I thought I heard…I thought I smelled smoke. I’m off work today, so I was just…killing time, walking around. I smelled smoke and wanted to make sure the house wasn’t burning down.”

She holds out her hand. “Anyway, I’m Emily.”

Her palm is soft against yours. She is a visitor from another world, one with nightstands and tubes of cream, nightly rituals. You used to lather your hands and feet, too, every night before sleep.

She—Emily, she’s Emily now—holds on to your hand a bit longer than necessary. She is waiting, you realize, for you to say your name back.

Maybethisis the test. Maybe he sent her to see how you’d react.

Do you trust this woman you know nothing about, except that she just lied—very obviously so—about smelling smoke?

You think about cameras, about microphones. You think about the house and all the ways it whispers your secrets to him.

Your name is Rachel. You will act naturally.

If he can hear you, and you stick to the plan, maybe there’s a chance. A chance for you, and a chance for the stranger.

“I’m Rachel,” you tell her. “I’m a…friend.” You remember the story he told the judge back in the truck. A lie for strangers, different from the lie he crafted for his kid. “Well, a relative. A relative who is friendly.” You chuckle, or try to. “Cousin. Visiting from Florida. I just arrived for the holidays.”

If she can tell you’re lying, she doesn’t show it. She smiles and gathers her shiny brown hair on one side of her neck, and that’s when you see it.

The necklace.

It looks just like—no.

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