Page 84 of The Quiet Tenant

The ground comes alive underneath you. Your skin burns as if you’re standing on a pile of toxic waste. What if your feet betray you? Leave traces on the carpet? What if he can tell somehow—what if he can smell you, feel your presence lingering in his corner of the world?

This isn’t worth it. You exit in one long step, check that the carpet won’t give away your intrusion.

You must carry on.

Just as you head downstairs, Cecilia materializes behind you. She settles on the couch and buries herself in a book. The living area will have to wait. You give the downstairs bathroom a cursory sweep—extra towels, toilet paper, more soap bars, more bleach.

That leaves the kitchen. With Cecilia a few feet away, you do your best to be discreet. Open the cabinets, peer inside the drawers. You’ve never been able to memorize their contents, not in his presence. Now you can take inventory. On the counter, the block of knives. Lastdrawer before the sink: long scissors, roll of tape, pens, a couple of takeout menus. Under the sink: cleaning products, disinfecting wipes, bleach, bleach, bleach.

In the cabinets, no surprise: plates, coffee mugs. An old toaster, possibly broken. Mismatched glasses.

She was right here. In this house. The woman who was wearing your necklace.

That necklace. You haven’t stopped thinking about it.

He keeps memories. Treasures. Some of them, he has given to you. Your necklace, though? He kept it for himself, until he decided he wanted to see it on someone else.

He must have kept other things. Where does he stash them? In his bedroom? Something tells you no. It’s so clean, so staged. That’s not where he lets loose. In there, he still pretends.

Where, then?

You sit on the couch. Cecilia gives you a quick look, then goes back to her book.

The door underneath the staircase.

Leading somewhere. Downstairs.

What you know of downstairs: a workbench, the floor beneath your body. Piles of boxes.

Downstairs is where he took you in your darkest hour. Downstairs is a place you remember as being all his.

You have to check.

But you can’t go in there with Cecilia watching. You need her to leave.

You peer over her shoulder.

“What are you reading?”

She shuts the paperback so you can see the cover, a microscope slide dotted with drops of blood. “It’s one of my dad’s,” she says. “It’s okay. I’ve already guessed the ending. I’m just waiting for the detective to catch up.”

With the tip of your finger, you lift the volume as if to look at the back cover. If you keep badgering her, maybe she’ll go to her room.

“What’s it about?”

She shoots you an amused look, her eyebrow a suspicious arch. “You bored or something?”

She gets it from him. Questioning other people’s motives, trying to see through them. You’d be like that, too, if he had raised you.

“Just curious,” you tell her.

“It’s about a doctor,” she says. “A surgeon who keeps killing his patients. No one stops him, because people can’t tell if he’s evil or just really bad at his job.”

You tell her that sounds like something. She nods and starts reading again.

Get up,you want to tell her.Go to your room. Go to your damn room already.

You go back upstairs and bring down your own book. You are not ready to borrow one of his, dog-ear the pages, bend the spine. You go back toLoves Music, Loves to Danceand keep Cecilia in the corner of your eye.

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