Page 89 of The Quiet Tenant

Slide down on the concrete floor, cold and hard under your flesh, all the soft parts that are left of you.

You have to get to know her all over again. The younger you.

Black hair, freshly cut, brushing against her shoulders. Big, round eyes. Plump lips. The clothes you had packed for your trip upstate—leggings and loose sweaters and duck boots. Makeup. You wore a lot of it, all the time, even by yourself. You liked it. Red lipstick and winged black eyeliner and pale foundation, rosy powder on your cheekbones.

So young. A woman with traces of girl left in her. More future ahead of her than past behind her.

She just wanted a break. The young woman in the Polaroids. Just needed to catch her breath. To sleep through the night. To slow down.

You’re on the go in every photo. Stepping in and out of your rental car, driving to town, coming out of the drugstore.

A wave of nausea shakes you from deep within. Your lips twitch.

He watched you.

You always wondered how he had found you. If he knew you’d be there, or if he had run into you by chance and seen an opportunity. Now you know. The photos confirm it. For days before, he trailed you. Studied you. Picked you. Prepared for you.

Your stomach roils. Breathe. You can’t be sick. Not now, and definitely not here. It’s just pictures. It’s just faces.

Look at number seven, eight, nine. The ones who came after you. The ones you couldn’t save.

I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.

It’s not just pictures and it’s not just faces. Deeper in the box, you dig up a soft navy sweater. A bottle of nail polish, red and crusty. Astraw hat. A silver ring. A single sneaker, the sole caked with dry mud. Sunglasses you recognize from the shed, the same pair he handed to you and immediately took back. Treasures. Memories. Things. Their things.

You hold each item for a few seconds.It’s all I can do,you tell them.Look at your pictures and hold your things and try to match them to the silhouettes on the photos. I don’t know your stories. I don’t even know your names.

Pack everything back up—this is the most important—the way you found it. Check, check, and check again. Pull out box number two. There are no more photos, thankfully. Just more stuff.

Jeans, stained with grass. Yellow stilettos with red soles. A gray cashmere sweater—yourgray cashmere sweater. The one you put on the final morning, before you set out on your usual walk in the woods. You didn’t wear a coat. You weren’t planning to stay out long.

You bring the fabric up to your face. Search for the scent of the other woman, the former you. All you get is the smell of mold.

More things. A bra, pearl earrings, a silk scarf. None of these are yours. He didn’t keep anything more of you, just the sweater and the necklace he ended up giving to Emily. The rest—your wallet, your cards—he must have disposed of.

That leaves box number three.

You bring it to the top of the pile, peel it open.

It’s not memories. It’s not sweaters or bras or makeup.

It’s tools.

Tools of a different kind. Handcuffs, similar to the ones he uses with you. Binoculars. The Polaroid camera.

Toughness wrapped in softness. Metal that comes tumbling out of a dirty rag. A gun.

Not the one you’re familiar with. This one is light gray with a black grip. No silencer.

You pick it up with trembling fingers, lay it flat on your palm.

A sound nudges you out of your daze. Even in the basement, it reaches you. First a purr, then a growl, and then a roar.

The full, open-throated roar of his truck in the driveway.

CHAPTER 61

Emily

---