The Last House Guest(14)

“Sadie?” A woman’s voice echoed from somewhere out of sight. “Is that you?”

“Here we go,” Sadie mumbled, nudging my hip with hers.

I came to understand that this was what the flourish of her hand always meant—the mother, Bianca. Grant had only one mood, stable and unrelenting, but at least it was predictable. From him, I learned what power truly was. Bianca could lull you into complacency with her praise, only to strike when your guard was down. But anyone could take someone down; even I could do that. To hoist someone out of one world and into another—that was true power.

That first dinner, I copied Sadie’s every movement, sitting quietly, hoping to slide in. But I noticed their jaws tensing as the list of offenses mounted: no college on the horizon; no career plan; no future.

Sadie won them over for me, in small doses, in her way. I was a project. By the end of that summer, her father had offered me a stipend to take some business courses nearby, an investment in the future, he said. The next, they purchased my grandmother’s house, letting me stay at their guesthouse as part of the trade. A taste of what it meant to be Sadie Loman.



* * *




EVENTUALLY, I WAS WORKING full-time for Loman Properties, managing and overseeing all of their assets in Littleport while they were away. I had worked my way up, had proved myself.

But it was hard to shake the sort of paranoia that comes from the doorbell ringing twice in the middle of the night, long after my parents should’ve been home, when I expected to open the door to my mother rifling through her purse, laughing, pushing the dark hair from her eyes—I lost the keys again—and my dad’s sly smile as he watched her, shaking his head. Only to reveal police officers on the front porch instead.

So I was always early—for a meeting, a walk-through, a phone call. Falsely believing I was in a position to see something coming head-on this time.

“Reservation for Parker Loman,” I told the hostess. There was always a thrill in giving the Loman name, watching the subtle shift in an expression, the quick accommodation. She smiled as she led me to the table, in service to something greater than me.

I sat with my back to the wall, facing the open room and the windows overlooking the dock and the harbor beyond, from one story above ground level. But I froze a few moments later when Detective Collins was led by the same hostess in my direction. A flip of her hair as she gestured to my table, and my stomach dropped. His smile fractured for just a second when he saw me, but I had composed my face by the time he sat down. “Hi, Avery, I didn’t realize you’d be joining us,” he said.

The napkin was bunched together in my lap, and I slowly released my grip. “Didn’t realize you were a member of this committee, either, Detective.” But it made sense; had I given it much thought at all, I probably would have landed on his name.

“Ben, please,” he said.

Along with Justine McCann, the town commissioner, Detective Ben Collins organized and hosted most public relations events in town, from the kids’ parade on July Fourth to the Founder’s Day festivities on Harbor Drive. He was the man whom I’d seen on the cliffs that night. Who had shone his flashlight in my face, blinding me with the light. And he was the man who had interviewed me, after. Who wanted to know everything about the party and why I’d been back at the edge of the cliffs.

He was considered traditionally handsome—broad-shouldered, strong-jawed, bright-eyed, just beginning to show the signs of age, which somehow seemed to heighten his appeal with others, but I could only ever see him in negative space. Always, as on that night, with a beam of light cutting him into horrific angles.

“Well,” he said, taking a sip of his water, “it’s good to see you. Been a while. Where’ve you been staying these days?”

I didn’t answer, pretending to look over the menu. “Good to see you, too,” I said.

It was hard to know where small talk ended and interrogation began. Before they’d found Sadie’s note, he’d sat across from me at my kitchen table and picked through my story of that night over and over. As if he’d heard something in my initial statement that had struck him as off.

Who were you with? Why did you call her? Text her? And here, he would always stop: But you didn’t go back for her?

It was rapid-fire and brutal, so that sometimes I couldn’t tell whether I was pulling a memory of that night or just of what I’d told him last.

Who else was there? Did you know she was seeing Connor Harlow?

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “Truth is, I was getting ready to call you this afternoon.”

I held my breath, waiting. That list of names he’d given me, I’d realized, was a way to find a hole in someone’s story. To shake out the truth. So when he’d stood to take a call during the interview, and his partner had turned away, I’d snapped a photo of that list with my phone, trying to see what they saw. It was all for nothing, though. They found Sadie’s note the same day, and none of it mattered anymore. But sitting across from him now, I half expected him to pick at a detail again, searching for a discrepancy.

“Heard there was some trouble at one of the properties last night,” he said.

“Oh, yes.” I shook my head. “Nothing was taken.”

He smoothed the tablecloth in front of him. “The tenants were spooked pretty good.”