The Last House Guest(56)

A shadow suddenly emerged—a woman with her hand on the side of the house for balance. She was in platform shoes, a skirt that hit just above her knees, a top that draped low in front. Unfamiliar but for the red glasses. “Erica?” I asked.

She stopped, narrowed her eyes, then took one more step. “Avery? Is that you?”

She had something in her other hand, and she twisted it out of sight, looking over her shoulder into the dark alley, then back at me. Her face nervous and unsure—like she had something to hide.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, walking closer. I had to see what was in her hand. What she was hiding.

“Just walking. For my car.” She stepped back as I approached, as if I were something to fear.

And then a voice from deeper in the alley. “What’s going on?”

I saw it then—a phone held out in her other hand. Like I might do when walking in an unfamiliar place, the light guiding the way. A man jogged the rest of the way through the alley, calling, “Erica? You okay?”

He slid an arm around her. She looked shaken, confused by my presence here. Like she was remembering the stories her aunt must have told her. The things I had done and therefore was still capable of doing. “You guys scared me,” I said. “Someone’s been messing with the properties around here.”

She blinked twice, slowly, as if unsure about what had just happened. Whether to trust her own instincts. She gave me a small smile, her eyes drifting to the side. “I was just cutting through. From Nick’s.”

“Nick’s?” The guy she was with, maybe. But he didn’t react.

“The bar behind Breaker Beach,” she said. “Straight shot from here.” She extended her arm like an arrow down the dark alley. “We were just . . . going to get my car.” She cleared her throat. She was drunk, I realized.

“Oh. Oh.”

The break-in the other night could’ve been a crime of opportunity, then. A house on the way back from the bars. Unlocked.

The man beside her watched me carefully. He had sandy blond hair, the shadow of a beard that matched; taller than Erica but not by much—I didn’t recognize him. I was thinking of the image of the person on the bluffs with the flashlight. The fact that I’d seen the power go out, and now Erica was here with a strange man, slipping beside this house where someone had been the night before, lighting candles.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was visiting a friend. Heading home now.”

She nodded once and shifted her weight, leaning in to the man beside her. She kept looking down, and I realized it wasn’t nerves—she was embarrassed that I had seen this other side of her.

I wanted to tell them not to drive. But Erica was maybe a year younger than I was, and there were a lot of dangers in Littleport. You learned them by living them.

Still. “I can give you a ride,” I said.

“No, no . . .” she said, waving me off.

“She’s fine,” the guy answered. “Well,” he corrected, “I’m fine. And I’ve got it.”



* * *




I WAITED UNTIL THEY were out of sight, the sound of their laughter drifting farther away, before letting myself in to the Sea Rose. The place was just as I’d left it—dark but warm. I wasted no time in emptying my purse, opening the Ziploc bag, pulling out the box, and removing the flash drive.

When I held it to the light, I saw a small circle engraved on the front with the logo for Loman Properties. I’d seen a collection of these at the Lomans’ house in the desk drawer of the office upstairs.

My God, this was hers. This was definitely hers.

My hands shook as I inserted it into the USB port of my laptop, waiting for the folder to pop up. There was only one file inside, a JPEG, and I leaned closer as I opened it.

It was a screenshot, a long horizontal bar with two rows in a spreadsheet, slightly out of focus, all blown up on my screen.

Sadie had majored in finance, interned with her father in the process. Before she died, she’d been working with the cash flow of his company.

There were three columns, each containing a string of numbers, but only one made sense: the one with a dollar amount—$100,000.

The other two I recognized as bank account and routing numbers. I pulled out my checkbook from my purse to confirm. And yes, it all made sense.

Account numbers. Payments. Something she’d felt the need to hide away, outside the reach of all of Littleport. But there wasn’t enough information. No names, no dates. It all meant nothing in a vacuum.

Maybe this was where the stolen cash was going? Maybe what I’d uncovered last summer was just a small part of it all—

My phone rang, jarring me. A name I’d never thought I’d see again lighting up the display.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Hi. Sorry I was a little impatient.” In all the years that had passed, I’d never deleted Connor’s name from my phone. And Sadie had found him here. In the things I had lost but held on to.

“It’s hers, Connor. It’s bank stuff. Two payments. I don’t know what any of it means or why she hid it.” The words coming without a second thought, a habit of trust. He’d covered for me once before, he claimed. Like a promise that he was on my side. But I wanted to take the words back as soon as I said them, no longer sure of his intentions—of anyone’s. Things were moving too fast, and I kept making mistakes.