The Last House Guest(39)

“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.