Page 65 of The Quiet Tenant

Immediately, you scan it. He needs only a second to realize his mistake—maybe he didn’t think you’d dare, maybe he forgot, maybe he thought you were still too slow, too injured. He takes the envelope back and stuffs it in his front pocket.

You couldn’t get the address, the name of the town. But you got something else.

It fills your brain like water gushing out of a fire hydrant. Shiny, new information. A world to explore. A father’s name.

Aidan Thomas.

He never said. You never asked. It went without saying that he didn’t want to tell you. What good would it have done, in the shed, a name? But now. Now you are in the house and the man who keeps you has a name.

Aidan Thomas.

Later, in the dark, you form the syllables with your lips, silently. Ai-dan Tho-mas. A-i-d-a-n-T-h-o-m-a-s. You taste it. Tap your fingers against the floor, once per letter. It’s a beginning and an end. A birth and a death. The final word of a myth. The first word of a true story.

Back in your previous life, when you listened to podcasts and trawled online forums, when you were the weird crime friend, you learned the details, the theories, the nicknames. You knew about the Golden State Killer. The Unabomber. Son of Sam. The Grim Sleeper, the Green River Killer, the Butcher Baker. Always the same story: men without a name, without a face. Until they got caught. Until theygot names and jobs and biographies. Until cops handed them boards scribbled with the date and place and snapped their mug shots.

The name was always the first thing to pin them down to reality.

You hold on to two words, eleven letters, like a buoy. Aidan Thomas.

The man in the shed, he began and ended with you. But for years, Aidan Thomas has existed without you. On credit cards, tax forms, Social Security cards. On his marriage license, on his daughter’s birth certificate. He made his way into the world, and it had nothing to do with you.

One day, Aidan Thomas will exist without you again.

CHAPTER 43

Emily

The day after the scream, I texted him. “Hope everything’s all right”—I hesitated, then added a “:).”It’s what we do,I told myself.We kiss. We put our hands on each other. We exchange secret presents. We put smiley faces at the end of our messages.

I tucked the phone into my apron, snug against my thigh. All through service, I waited for it to vibrate. Nothing. Bargaining:After I make one drink, he’ll text back. After I make two drinks. After I make five. If I take a bathroom break, things will reset and he’ll text back. If I stop looking at my phone for five minutes. Maybe ten. If I switch my phone off and then back on.

He didn’t text back.

He always texts back.

Men do this,I told myself.People do this. He’s busy. He works. Maybe a power line collapsed. Hundreds of people in a nearby town without electricity, and I’m worried about a text. Maybe his daughter needs him. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe he’s sick. Bottom line is, people don’t answer texts sometimes and it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. Life just happens.

Not with him, though. With him, it was special—isspecial.

It’s been almost a week. I haven’t seen him at the restaurant or in town.

I know what happened. His hands on my skin, his breath in my mouth. The silver chain, cold around my neck. The present he gave me. That was real. I have proof.

—

DINNER SERVICE. IT’Sa Thursday. I watch out for him. Any second now, he’ll show up. He’ll smile at me from across the room and my worries will dissolve. He’ll have a perfectly valid explanation. I won’t even have to ask. You won’t believe what happened, he’ll say.My truck broke down. My phone was stolen. It broke. Fell into the toilet. You didn’t try to text me, did you?

The door opens and shuts. It’s Judge Byrne. It’s Mrs.Cooper. It’s my former schoolteacher. It’s everyone but him and the night is stupid busy and I tell myself that at least I’m paying less attention to my phone and that’s bound to compel it to buzz.

It doesn’t buzz.

Eric drives us home. He adjusts the rearview mirror to catch a glance of me in the back. “What’s wrong, baby girl?” he asks. “You’ve been quiet all night.”

“Just tired.” I give him a pinched-lip smile, mime sleeping on the back of my hand. He nods and gets his eyes back on the road.

I lean my forehead against the window. It’s so cold that it hurts, and I press harder, harder until my skin goes numb. I welcome the pain and the emptiness that follows.

We’re a couple of streets from Aidan’s house. How I wish I could tell Eric to drive there and drop me off. I would knock or ring the doorbell. He’d pull back the shade, glance outside. His face would light up. “I’m so happy you came by,” he’d say. He’d wrap his arms around me and I’d breathe in his smell, my whole body a celebration.

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