The Last House Guest(43)



“You the person who called this in?” the closest firefighter asked. He still wore the bottom half of his uniform but had removed the rest and was wearing a T-shirt and ball cap. He looked a good decade older than the rest, and I assumed he was in charge.

“Yes, I’m Avery Greer. I manage the property.”

He nodded. “A connection at the back of the stove, come loose. Probably a slow leak. But must’ve been going on for a while, with nobody there to notice.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt nauseated, sick. The shadow inside the house—had they been waiting for me to walk inside next?

He shook his head. “Lucky nothing made a spark.” Then he motioned for the maintenance crew that it was safe to enter. “Still, I’d give it some time to air out,” he said. Then, as if he could see something simmering within me, some fear made clear, he put a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. You did the right thing, and we caught it in time. Everything’s okay.”



* * *




I’D BEEN DEBATING CALLING Grant on the drive home. I hated to do so unless it was urgent, didn’t want him to think I couldn’t handle things on my own.

As I was passing Breaker Beach, I decided to do it.

He would know whom to contact, and his name would carry more weight than mine. We were taught to always consult with the company lawyer before engaging. I’d already failed when I let Detective Collins inside. If the gas leak was a crime, I needed Grant’s input on how to proceed before involving the police further.

His cell rang until it went to voicemail. I turned the car up the incline of Landing Lane, leaving him a message on speakerphone. “Grant, hi, it’s Avery. Sorry to bother you, but there’s a problem. With the rentals. I think I need to talk to the police. Please call me back.” When I turned down the stone-edged drive, I tapped my brakes. There was another car in the driveway—dark, expensive-looking, familiar.

I swung around the corner of the garage, parked in my spot, hidden out of sight. I could hear voices coming from the backyard—Parker’s and someone else’s, deep and firm.

I moved as quietly as I could, hoping no one noticed my arrival. So I wasn’t paying attention as I approached the door of the guesthouse.

The front door was unlatched. A sliver of light escaping from inside. I held my breath, pushed the door slowly open.

The living room was in disarray. My box of things in the middle of the room. My clothes pulled out of the closet, heaped on the couch. And waiting in the center of the room stood Bianca.

“Hello,” she said. Her blond hair was pulled back so severely it seemed to blend in with her scalp. She was imposing, even at Sadie’s height, both of them at least four inches shorter than I was.

“Hi, Bianca,” I said. I’d been waiting for Bianca and Grant to return since the start of the season.

No one had mentioned anything about my job in all the time since Sadie’s death. The money kept coming. I thought maybe it was just a moment when we’d said things that each of us would rather take back, and we could chalk it up to grief, on both sides.

The state of my living room suggested otherwise.

Bianca’s face remained expressionless, and I knew I’d had it all wrong. “I thought I told you to leave,” she said.





SUMMER


?????2017





The Plus-One Party


10 p.m.

The police were coming. That was what everyone was whispering when I stepped outside the master bedroom, joining the rest of the party at the other end of the darkened hall.

The blackout. Ellie’s scream as she fell into the pool. Someone had heard it, called it in. Three people told me in the course of two minutes. I didn’t know any of them by name, but I assumed one of them was the person Parker had told me about who’d been looking for me. It was a small thrill to realize that they knew who I was, that I was the one to turn to. That I was the person in charge here.

Depending on the source, there was either a police car outside, or an officer out front, or one of the guests had received a call in warning. But the message was clear: Someone was coming.

Okay, okay. I closed my eyes, trying to focus, trying to think. Parker’s family owned the house; Ellie Arnold was fine. I scanned the sea of faces until I saw her—there—across the room, half in the kitchen, half in the living room. Hair wet and now braided over her shoulder, face clean of makeup, in a loose-fitting blouse and ripped jeans that hung a little low on her hips. Enough to give away that they weren’t hers. But she was here, and she was fine. Laughing, at that moment, at something Greg Randolph was saying.

I let myself out the front door, the hinges squeaking behind me as I pulled it shut, in hopes of interceding if the police had already arrived. I’d explain what had happened, retrieve a safe and unharmed Ellie Arnold, a witness or two, and keep everything outside.

But the night was empty. It had dropped at least five degrees in the last hour, maybe more, and the leaves rustled overhead in the wind. There was no police car that I could see—not with the lights on, anyway—and there was no officer on the doorstep. Just the crickets in the night, the soft glow of the porch light, and nothing but darkness as I stared into the trees.

I walked down the front porch steps, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the night so I could see farther down the road. The stars shone bright through the shifting clouds above. It was part of the town bylaws to keep the lights dim, to opt for fewer street lamps rather than more, leaving the town untouched, poetic, one with the surroundings, both above and below. It was why we had the dark winding roads in the mountains. The beach lit only by bonfire. The lighthouse, the sole beacon in the night.

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