The Last House Guest(6)
* * *
I WOKE TO SILENCE.
It was still dark, but the noise from the television was gone. Nothing but the window rattling as a strong gust blew in from somewhere offshore. I flipped the switch on the bedside table lamp, but nothing happened. The electricity was out again.
It’d been happening more often, always at night, always when I’d have to find a flashlight to reset the fuse in the box beside the garage. It was a concession for living in a town like this. Exclusive, yes. But too far from the city and too susceptible to the surroundings. The infrastructure out on the coast hadn’t caught up to the demand, money or not. Most places had backup generators for the winter, just in case; a good storm could knock us off the grid for a week or more. Summer blackouts were the other extreme—too many people, the population tripled in size. Everything stretched too thin. Grid overload.
But as far as I could tell, this was localized—just me. Something an electrician should take a look at, probably.
The sound of the wind outside almost made me decide to wait it out until morning, except the charge on my cell was in the red, and I didn’t like the idea of being up here alone, with no power and no phone.
The night was colder than I’d expected as I raced down the path toward the garage, flashlight in hand. The metal door to the fuse box was cold to the touch and slightly ajar. There was a keyhole at the base, but I’d wedged it open myself earlier this month, the first time this happened.
I flipped the master switch and slammed the metal door closed again, making sure it latched this time.
Another gust of wind blew as I turned back, and the sound of a door slamming shut cut through the night, made me freeze. The noise had come from the main residence, on the other side of the garage.
I cycled through the possibilities: a pool chair caught in the wind, a piece of debris colliding with the side of the house. Or something I forgot to secure myself—the back doors left unlatched, maybe.
The lockbox for the spare key was hidden just under the stone overhang of the porch, and my fingers fumbled the code in the dark twice before the lid popped open.
Another gust of wind, another noise, closer this time—the hinges of a gate echoing through the night as I jogged up the steps of the front porch.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I slid the key into the lock—it was already unlocked. The door creaked open, and my hand brushed the wall just inside, connecting with the foyer switch, illuminating the empty space from the chandelier above.
It was then that I saw it. Through the foyer, down the hall at the back of the house. The shadow of a man standing before the glass patio doors, silhouetted in the moonlight.
“Oh,” I said, taking a step back just as he took a step closer.
I would know the shape of him anywhere. Parker Loman.
CHAPTER 2
Jesus Christ,” I said, my hand fumbling for the rest of the light switches. “You scared me to death. What are you doing here?”
“It’s my house,” Parker answered. “What are you doing here?”
Everything was light then. The open expanse of the downstairs, the vaulted ceilings, the hallway spanning the distance between me and him.
“I heard something.” I held up the flashlight as evidence.
He tipped his head to the side, a familiar move, like he was conceding something. His hair had grown in, or else he was styling it differently. But it softened his edges, smoothing out the cheekbones, and for a second, when he turned, I could see the shadow of Sadie in him.
He shifted and she was gone. “I’m surprised you’re still here,” he said. As if their local business had continued to operate for the past year on momentum alone. I almost answered: Where else would I go? But then he grinned, and I imagined I must’ve shaken him pretty good, walking in his front door unannounced.
The truth was, I had thought about leaving multiple times. Not just here but the town itself. I’d come to believe there was some toxicity hidden at its core that no one else seemed to notice. But more than the business, more than the job, I had made a life for myself here. I was too tied up in this place.
Still, sometimes I felt that staying was nothing more than a test of endurance bordering on masochism. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to prove anymore.
I could feel my heartbeat slowing. “I didn’t notice a car,” I said, taking in the downstairs, categorizing the changes: two leather bags at the base of the wide staircase, a key ring thrown on the entryway table; an open bottle on the granite island, a mug beside it; and Parker, sleeves of his button-down rolled up and collar loosened like he’d just arrived from work, not sometime in the middle of the night.
“It’s in the garage. Just drove up this evening.”
I cleared my throat, nodded to his bags. “Is Luce here?” I hadn’t heard her name in a while, but Grant kept our conversations focused on the business, and Sadie was no longer here to fill me in on the personal details of the Lomans’ lives. There’d been rumors, but that meant nothing. I’d been the subject of plenty of unfounded rumors myself.
Parker stopped at the island, a whole expanse between us, and picked up the mug, taking a long drink. “Just me. We’re taking a break,” he said.
A break. It was something Sadie would’ve said, inconsequential and vaguely optimistic. But his grip on the mug, his glance to the side, told me otherwise.