The Last House Guest(49)

I told him, even, about the power outages up at his property. Said he might want someone to look into that, let him decide what to make of it all.

Then I pulled the shades and opened the folder on my screen where I’d copied Sadie’s pictures. I started piecing through them one by one. Looking for something that I hadn’t seen the first time around. Believing, without a doubt, that something terrible had been done to her. I clicked the photos one after another, trying to retrace the steps she’d taken in the weeks leading up to her death.

The police had access to these, too, now, but Detective Collins seemed focused only on the thing that wasn’t there. When Sadie was showing us something right here—the world, through her eyes.

There she was with Luce, laughing. There was Parker, by the pool. The view of the bluffs, where she’d stood at least once before. The shaded mountain road, with the light filtering through the leaves above. Breaker Beach at dawn, the sky a cool pink.

Next, a photo of Grant and Bianca standing side by side in the kitchen, in the midst of a toast. Bianca looking up at Grant, her face open and happy. The smile lines around Grant’s eyes as he stared out at the hidden guests.

And then Connor. Connor on the boat, shirtless and tan. The piece that didn’t fit. I kept coming back to this shot. The shadow of her, falling across his chest. A strand of blond hair blowing across the lens as she leaned over him.

I zoomed in on Connor’s sunglasses until I could see Sadie herself in the reflection. Her bare shoulders, the black strap of her bathing suit, her hair falling forward, and her phone held in front of her as she caught him, unaware.





CHAPTER 17


I knew I’d find Connor at the docks, even though most of the day’s work would be over—the crates weighed and shipped, the boats tied up to the moorings. Connor was the type who would lend a hand to whomever happened to be working down there.

He was cleaning his boat, currently tied to the farthest post. Even turned away, he was hard to miss. I could see the sinew of his back as he worked, the late-afternoon sun hitting the curve of his shoulders, darker than all the rest of him.

My footsteps echoed on the dock, and Connor turned as I approached, pushing the hair off his forehead.

“You busy?” I asked.

“A bit,” he said, rag in hand.

“I need to talk to you about Sadie,” I said, my words carrying in the open air.

He frowned, focusing somewhere beyond my shoulder. He dropped his rag, then started untying the rope holding his boat to the docks. “Get on the boat, Avery,” he said, voice low and unsettling. Like when he’d get angry. I shivered.

I planted my feet on the last board of the dock. “No, I need you to answer my questions. It won’t take long.”

He started the engine then, not even pausing to look at me. “Ask me on the boat, or would you rather have this conversation with Detective Collins?”

My shoulders tightened, and I started to turn.

“Don’t look,” he said. “He’s heading this way.”

I felt him coming then, in the shudder of the wooden planks under my feet. Last year, when I was questioned, I had told Detective Collins that Connor and I didn’t talk anymore, and that was true. But here I was, face-to-face with him, seeking him out even—and the detective had probably seen us. I wasn’t sure whether he was coming for me or for Connor, but after our last conversation, I didn’t want to wait to find out. He was looking into the case, yes, but he seemed more interested in how I’d found the phone—as if, once more, I’d been keeping something from him.

That list of names, it meant something, though. And Connor was on it. He’d told me when he arrived at the party, but all I had to go on was his word—and he’d already lied to me once.

I swallowed, stepping down onto the boat. Connor offered a hand without looking, but I steadied myself on the rail, taking the seat next to his behind the wheel, just as he pulled in the rope. He angled the boat away from the dock, no rush, like we had all the time in the world. But his jaw was set, and he kept his gaze on the mouth of the harbor.

I didn’t look back until we were in line with the rocks of the Point to our right. And when I did, Detective Collins was standing there, just a dark shadow on the edge of the pier, hands on his hips, watching us go.



* * *




IT HAD BEEN A long time since I was out on a boat made for function instead of comfort. The thing Connor promised with his charters and tours was authenticity. Nothing had been changed for the comfort of his guests, but that was the excitement. This wasn’t the same boat we’d taken out when we were younger—that had been his father’s—but this one was newer, and slightly larger, and cared for meticulously.

He cut the engine when we were still in the protection of the harbor, with the steady rise and fall of the sea below, and all you could hear was the hull dipping in and out of the water, the water gently lapping against the sides. “It’s nice,” I said, meaning the boat.

“It’s going to turn soon,” he said, looking up at the sky, then back at the water. Both were in shades of dark blue, but the wind blew in from offshore with an unexpected chill. Fall storms approached like that, with a colder current from both the sky and the sea. “What is it you wanted to ask me, Avery?” He sat across from me, bare feet and khaki shorts, arm slung on the back of the seat, every word and mannerism chosen with care. Like he was pretending to be the person I thought I knew.