Page 95 of The Quiet Tenant

In a paper bag, more photos. Polaroids, too, separate from the first stack but similar in style. Taken from afar, the subject unaware. You shuffle through them. Brown hair and pale skin. White coat. Mundane moments: stepping in and out of a Honda Civic, going inside a restaurant. The shots are blurry, but you make out a silhouette and a bar and a crimson apron.

One neat photo, like an asteroid falling to earth. Her face. Her pretty face. You know her. Of course you know her. You met her right here in this house.

She is the woman from the living room. The one who wore your necklace.

She is a project. A target.

Stacked with the Polaroids, a cardboard disc with the wordAmandinewritten in loopy cursive. Amandine, like the restaurant you saw the day he took you out for a drive. A coaster. He must have gone there, slipped it into his pocket. A piece of her world, smuggled intohis. Like the trinkets he plucked from the other women and gave to you. Your books, the empty wallet, the stress ball. All stolen.

You must keep going. For her, for you, for all the ones like you.

At the bottom of the box, stacked in a corner, you find three little books. Guidebooks, you realize.Secrets of the Hudson Valley,Beyond the Hudson,Hidden Upstate Gems.In all three of them, the same chapter, dog-eared and highlighted.

The name of a town. Seven letters, agh—silent, according to the guides. This has to be it. The town, his town. This town.

A map. A few scribbles, nothing dramatic. NoXmarking the new house, noxmarking the former one. No code signaling his victims or geometric shape connecting his kills. Just roads and clusters, expanses of green and trickles of blue.

Near the center, almost hidden in the fold, a tiny white shape—the symbol for a local landmark, says the key in the bottom left corner. You squint. How long has it been since your last eye exam? How long has your body been drifting, every part of you aging faster than normal?

the wishing well.That’s what it says in small black letters, next to a page number for more information. You flip to that location. Next to the history of the well—built centuries ago, visited by families wishing for good crops and healthy babies—are photos.

Splintering stones. A rusty chain. Moss wherever it can grow, and even in places it shouldn’t be able to.

It’s the well. The one you passed that day in the truck, from the house to downtown and back. Right next to the cows. Right next to the Butcher Bros.

Focus. Search for the map’s scale. Find it. Do the math. Faster. Come on, now. Could you run that far? Maybe. You have no idea what your body is capable of.

Focus. Look at the map. You have to learn this. Now. Quick. Remember the twists and turns,left, left, right, and straight ahead past the Butcher Bros.’ cattle.Reverse. Apply to the map. Zoom out, zoom back in. This is where you are.

Now you know. You know for sure.

Something else. At the back of one of the guides,Secrets of theHudson Valley.A list scribbled on a sheet of paper, folded, hidden away. Names. Addresses. Times. Job titles. The paper is thick and yellow, the ink purple. He wrote on it a long time ago. When he moved here, probably, with his wife and maybe his kid. When he made the town his project, when he turned it into his playground. A space where he’d live above suspicion, a world tailored to his needs.

He’s been watching, studying everything and everyone for so long. Creating a place where he could get away with things.

You’ve reached the bottom of the box.

Put everything back the way you found it. Check, check again.

A sound comes from upstairs. A voice.

“Rachel?”

Shit.Shit.If it’s not the father, it’s the daughter. Stay still. She doesn’t know where you are. What if she comes looking for you? Slide the boxes back on top of one another. Wipe your hands on your jeans. Look around and find something—an excuse, an idea, anything.

The door at the top of the stairs opens. In a few seconds, she’s downstairs, next to you.

Can she feel them, her dad’s secrets floating like vapor in the air? Can she hear the women’s voices whispering in the dark, begging you, begging her, begging anyone who will listen not to forget about them?

“Hey,” she says, “I was looking for you.”

Well, you found me,you want to tell her, but you can’t speak.

“Do you want to come walk the dog with me?” she asks. “I was just about to leave. Not going far, just to the water and back.”

The water.You assume she means the Hudson, if the guidebooks and the map are to be trusted. The same river you used to run by in the city.

“Oh, thanks,” you tell her, “but I can’t. I have to, um, get some work done. Upstairs.”

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