The Last House Guest Read online

  * * *

  AFTER HANGING UP, I pulled out the stack of current rental agreements. Tomorrow I’d have to check all the properties, just to see. There were two definite break-ins that I knew of, and now this.

  Saturday was when most of the turnovers happened anyway, unless a family was staying for longer than one week. Anyone leaving tomorrow should be out by ten. I lined up the cleaning companies to hit the properties first that had visitors expected the following week. Saturday was chaos: We had six hours to turn a place over, make sure it was ready for the next batch.

  I checked the list of homes, making a schedule for myself. There were twenty-two units I oversaw in Littleport, and eighteen were currently occupied. Sixteen would be taken the following week.

  I flipped through the list again, wondering if I’d misplaced something. I didn’t have a listing for Sunset Retreat. Not for last week or the coming one.

  Sunset Retreat, across from the Blue Robin, where I’d seen a curtain fall, seen someone watching after I found the phone.

  No one was supposed to be there.

  My stomach twisted. Someone had been watching. Not just the Loman house. Not just the rentals. But me.

  CHAPTER 13

  A sharp thrill ran through me as Parker and I walked from the parking lot into the Fold. It was the dark, the promise, the man beside me. It was my place, restored. It was the Friday night, the crowd. The anticipation of what I hoped to uncover and could feel hovering just inches away.

  The bar had the feel of a local joint—the distressed wooden beams, the thick wood high-top tables, the laminated plastic menus. But it was all for show. The prices, the bartenders, the view, this was a place geared for the visitors. The owners knew what they were doing. A hidden gem, tucked away up a rickety flight of wooden steps, behind a weatherworn sign. An exposed balcony overlooking the rocky coast, a promise that this was the true Littleport, uncovered just for them.

  It had been marketed exactly this way. The owners accrued enough income on four months alone, boarding up the windows and the balcony come October, and moving their operation back to their main headquarters—a burger-and-beer place two miles inland.

  The room was loud and boisterous, but the volume dropped as soon as the door shut behind us. It was a reaction to Parker. They hadn’t seen him here all summer, and now they came to pay their respects, one by one. Girls in jeans and fitted tops. Guys in khaki shorts and polos. Each of them blending in with the next. Hands on his shoulder, fingers curled around his upper arm. A sympathetic smile. A caress.

  I’m all right.

  Thanks for thinking of us.

  Yeah, I’m here for the memorial.

  In the silence that followed, one of the men raised a shot glass and said, “To Sadie.”

  Parker was pulled into a group at the corner table. He peered over his shoulder at me, raised two fingers, and I made my way to the bar.

  The bartender raised his eyes briefly to meet mine, then went back to wiping down the countertop. “What’ll it be,” he said absently, as if he knew I didn’t belong.

  A man took the seat beside me as I ordered—a bourbon on the rocks for Parker, a light beer on tap for me—and I could feel him staring at the side of my face. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, but he knocked on the bar top to get my attention. “Knock knock,” he said, just in case I hadn’t noticed, and then he added, “Hi there,” when I finally faced him. Greg Randolph, who had taken such delight in telling me about Sadie and Connor at the party last year. “Remember me?”

  I nodded hello, smiling tightly.

  He asked it as if he hadn’t seen me around for the last seven years. As if he hadn’t met me beside the Lomans’ pool many summers ago, at a fund-raising party hosted by Bianca when I’d been dressed up in Sadie’s clothes, tugging at the bottom of the dress, which suddenly had felt two inches too short, when Greg Randolph had stepped between the two of us, telling Sadie some trivial gossip that she seemed wholly disinterested in. He paused to politely address every adult who walked by.

  Don’t let the nice-guy act fool you, she’d said when he turned away. Underneath, he’s a mean drunk, like his father.

  She had not lowered her voice, and my eyes widened, thinking someone might’ve heard. Greg’s dad, maybe, who was probably one of the adults in the group behind us—if not Greg himself. But Sadie had smiled at my expression. No one listens that hard, Avie. Only you. She’d waved her hand around in that airy way, as if it were all so inconsequential. All this. This nothingness.

  I never knew what happened between Sadie and Greg.

  The bartender placed the drinks on the counter, and I left my card to keep the tab open.

  “That for me?” Greg asked, jutting his chin toward Parker’s glass.

  “Nope,” I said, turning away.

  He grabbed my arm, liquid spilling over onto my thumb as he did. “Wait, wait. Don’t go so soon. I haven’t seen you around all summer. Not like we used to.”

  I could sense the bartender watching, but when I looked over my shoulder, he had moved on, wiping down the far end of the bar.

  I stared at Greg’s hand on my arm and placed the drinks back on the counter, so as not to make a scene. “I’m sorry, do you even know my name?”

  He laughed then, loud and overconfident. “Of course I do. You’re Sadie’s monster.”

  Everything prickled. From the way he used her name, to the leer of his whisper. “What did you just say?”

  He grinned, didn’t answer right away. I could tell he was enjoying this. “She created you. A mini-Sadie. A monster in her likeness. And now she’s gone, but here you are. Still out here, living her life.”

  Parker was standing just a few feet away. I lowered my voice. “Fuck off,” I said.

  But Greg laughed as I picked up the drinks again. “That drink for Parker?” he said as I turned to leave. “Ah, I see how it is. From one Loman to the next, then.”

  I kept moving, pretending he’d said nothing at all.

  Parker smiled as I set the drinks on the high table where he was standing. “This was a good idea,” he said. “Thank you.”

  I sipped and shivered, trying to shake off the conversation at the bar.

  Parker had barely raised his glass to his lips when three women approached us from the side. “Parker, so good to see you here.”

  Ellie Arnold. Last I’d seen her was the party the year before, shaken from her fall into the pool. Now her long blond hair was both wavy and shiny, her makeup expertly done. Her fingers curled around his lower arm, perfectly manicured nails in a subtle shade of pink. Two of her friends stood between us, offering their condolences while filling him in on all he’d missed.

  It was time. I patted my pockets. “Parker,” I said, interrupting them all. “Sorry, I think I left my phone in the car. Can I get the keys for a sec?”

  He absently handed me his key ring, and I wove my way through the crowd, pushing out the door. The night was silent as I strode for his car in the packed lot, except for the one time the bar door swung open, a burst of sound and light escaping as someone else went inside.

  I unlocked the car, the beep cutting through the night, and opened the passenger door, fishing my phone from the cupholder. I’d left it here just in case he insisted on coming with me.

  Then I looked over my shoulder and walked to the back of the car, pressing the button on the key to pop the trunk, unprepared for the light glowing from within.

  I looked around quickly, but the lot appeared empty.

  I opened the trunk farther, my hands already shaking with anticipation. There was a single crate jammed in the corner. It was covered by a felt blanket, like one that might be stored in the trunk for emergencies. This had to be the box of personal items returned from the police station.

  The first things I saw when I removed the blanket were Sadie’s sandals. The same ones I saw that night, so close to the edge of the bluffs.

  I ran my fingers over them. They had been her favor
ite, and they looked it. Gold but scuffed at the tops. Stitching showing where the straps had pulled from the base. The hole stretched from the buckle, the left shoe missing one side of the intricate clasp. A low heel, and the sound of her steps echoing in my memory.

  The door to the bar opened behind me again, a burst of sound momentarily flooding the lot. I twisted around to see, but there was no one outside that I could tell. I stared into the darkness, watching for any sign of movement.

  Eventually, I turned back to the trunk, pushing the shoes aside—and saw it. A journal. Purple, with black and white ink swirls on the front. A corner of the front cover missing, so the tattered pages rippled below.

  My stomach dropped, the edges of my vision gone blurry. And suddenly, everything made sense. Why the note matched her diary. Why the diary gave the police pause. I hadn’t seen this in years. The familiar, angry pen indentations on the cover, the tattered corners, the blackened edges.

  I shoved it quickly into my bag, then shut the trunk again, jogging the rest of the way back inside, feeling as unsteady as I had that night.

  The note matched the journal perfectly, yes. Because they were both mine.

  CHAPTER 14

  Parker was waiting for me when I returned. Ellie and her friends had left him alone. “Find it?” he asked.

  I handed him his keys, showed him my phone. “Got it. Thanks.”

  Greg arrived at our table, balancing three shot glasses between his fingers. “Here we go,” he said, like they’d both been waiting for me.

  “No, I shouldn’t,” I said. “I’ll drive us back.”

  But Parker wasn’t out to relax or reminisce, and apparently, neither was I. “Just the one,” he said, sliding it my way, his eyes on mine.

  I raised it in the air, just as they did. “Hear, hear,” Parker said, staring right into my eyes as the glasses clinked together.

  The shot glass collided with my teeth. As the liquor slid down my throat, goose bumps formed on my arms, even though the room was warm.

  I stared back into his eyes, wondering what he knew. “There, there,” I answered.

  * * *

  THREE HOURS LATER, WE were finally on the road back home. Though I hadn’t had any more to drink, I felt parched, dehydrated by the talking, the mindless laughter.

  “What was that about back there?” Parker asked, his head resting against the passenger seat as I drove.

  “With what?” I asked, holding my breath. My bag was in the backseat, and the journal was inside, and I was scared that he knew everything.

  “I don’t know, you’ve been acting weird ever since we got there.”

  “That guy,” I said, scrambling. “Greg.”

  “What about him?”

  “He was an asshole,” I said, my teeth clenching.

  Parker let out a single laugh. “Greg Randolph is an asshole. So what?”

  “Sadie couldn’t stand him.”

  “Sadie couldn’t stand a lot of people,” he mumbled.

  Sadie’s monster. I twisted in my seat. “He always had a thing for her,” I said, and Parker frowned. I could see him thinking it over. All these people who loved her, yes. But these were all people who couldn’t have her, too.

  * * *

  THE PORCH LIGHT WAS off when I pulled into the drive. The bluffs were nothing but shadows in the darkness. I left the headlights on while Parker slid open the garage door. He may have been intoxicated, but he had the frame of mind to lock up his car inside.

  After parking his car in the garage, I waited outside while he locked the sliding door back up, the night nothing but shadows.

  “Good night, Parker.”

  “Are you coming in?” he asked, restless on his feet.

  “It’s late,” I said. “And believe it or not, even though it’s the weekend for you, I have work in the morning.”

  But that wasn’t what he was asking, and we both knew it. “Sadie’s gone, Avery.” He knew then, too, the edict from Sadie, keeping me back. Maybe she said the same to him. When Sadie told me Don’t, he became all I could think about. Whenever I passed his room, whenever I saw his shadow behind the glass windows.

  An active restraint was something to do, a practice, something to focus on. It was a new sort of game, so different from yielding to impulse, as I had grown accustomed. I was forged of resilience, and I let the tension stretch me tight as a wire.

  But now Sadie was gone, and Luce was gone, and Parker was here, and what was there left to ruin, really? Without the others here, there was something simmering and unfulfilled, and nothing to stop me. Something, suddenly, within my reach.

  He was wavering in the pathway, his eyes darting off to the side, tentative and unsure, and that was what did it for me. That was what always did it. The way an insecurity stripped them back, revealing something that put me in temporary power.

  I stepped closer, and he ran his fingers through my hair. I raised my hand to his face, my thumb brushing the scar through his eyebrow.

  He grabbed my wrist, fast. The imperfection made you believe he had fought his way through something on his way to this life.

  His eyes looked so dark in the shadows. When he kissed me, his hand trailed down my neck, so his thumb rested at the base of my throat. My neck, in his grip.

  I couldn’t tell whether it was subconscious or not. With him, it was hard to tell. But I couldn’t shake the vision of three steps from now—pressed up against the side of the garage, his hands tightening, the memory of Sadie’s voice: It can happen, you know. You can’t swallow, you can’t breathe. It’s not a quick way to die, is what I’m saying.

  I gasped for air, pulling back. My hand to my throat, and Parker looking at me curiously. I wondered what else I had missed in this house—if Parker was capable of harming me. If Parker was capable of harming her.

  I had grown up an only child, didn’t understand what a normal sibling dynamic should be. Thought the bursts of animosity, the casual cruelty, were the expected result of a pair of siblings fighting their way out of each other’s shadow.

  But maybe Sadie knew something I didn’t. Maybe when she said Don’t, she was saving me instead.

  More and more, I was convinced someone had harmed her. That note wasn’t hers. That journal wasn’t hers. Without those, the police would still be interviewing all of us, over and over, until something broke. Someone’s story. A lie. A way in.

  Parker’s breath was hot and sharp, and there was no one up here but us. “What’s wrong?”

  I cleared my throat, took another deep breath of cool night air. “You’re drunk,” I said.

  “I am.”

  “I’m sober,” I said.

  He tipped his head to the side, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “So you are.”

  I never knew how to say no to him, to any of them. How to navigate the nuances of their words and mannerisms.

  But there was too much at stake here now. Too much I hadn’t seen clearly the first time.

  “Let’s go back thirty seconds,” I said, stepping back, feigning levity. “Good night, Parker. See you in the morning.”

  Even in the dark, I could see his wide smile. I felt him watching me as I walked away.

  * * *

  I LOCKED THE DOOR to the guesthouse behind me. When I flipped the light switch, nothing happened. I tried again, but there was only darkness.

  Shit. I wasn’t about to go back out there to reset the breaker. Not with Parker standing nearby, watching. Not with whatever was happening at the rental properties.

  I pictured the shape of the shadow inside Sunset Retreat and shivered. Using only my phone for light, I circled the apartment, pulling all the curtains closed. Then I collected the tea lights from the bathroom, the ones at the corners of the tub, and lit them around the bedroom. I locked that door, too. Pulled the journal from my bag. Felt the familiar grooves in the cover and opened the notebook.

  The cliffs, it began.

  The road.

  The bottle in the medici
ne cabinet.

  The blade.

  The writing was so angry, the pen leaving deep indentations in the page; I could’ve felt the emotion in the words, running my fingers over the lines in the dark. I turned the page, my hand shaking. There were more lists, page after page of them, just like this. The times death was right there, within reach. The times death had come so close.

  Walked to the edge, balanced there.

  Top of the lighthouse, leaning forward.

  Woke up on the beach gasping for air, dreamed the tide had risen.

  Slip of the blade. The blood in my veins.

  I tried to see this as the police would, reading these pages. Pictured Sadie doing these things, writing these things. Staring at her veins, like Parker had told me. Listing the ways she could die.

  I hadn’t seen this journal in years. Not since that winter. When the spark of spring never caught, and summer rolled in just the same as winter, empty and endless. It was the story of grief, of disappointment, of a soul obliterated.

  It was the story of who I had been until the moment I met Sadie Loman, and I chose her. My life in her hands, restructured, recast. No longer adrift or alone.

  This was my journal from a time in my life I would have rather forgotten—but which had colored everything that followed. When I had sunk beneath the surface and all I wanted was to slide deeper into it, like there was something I was chasing, waiting at the bottom. You could tell where I had been by the destruction in my wake.

  Within these pages, I could see exactly where I’d lost Connor, where I’d lost Faith, and where I’d lost myself.

  When had Sadie found this? I couldn’t remember where I had kept it. It had maybe been in my closet, at my grandmother’s place. It had been forgotten after I’d met Sadie and a new world had opened up to me. The world, through her eyes.

  I wondered if Sadie had found it when she and Grant were helping me move. Even so, I didn’t understand why she’d kept it.

  But the police had found it in her room and decided a person like this, she would do it. It was very, very dark. That’s what the detective had told me. A person like this, they believed, didn’t want to live. She existed in the darkness and would step off the edge.