The Last House Guest(77)

Finally, I had a piece of evidence that proved what I had believed, that everyone would take seriously—a place to point the investigation. My car, with the trunk open, where Sadie had been—except everything circled back to me.

I couldn’t say anything without implicating myself.

He couldn’t search that car without a reason—unless he thought I was drunk or high. I had to get ahold of myself.

“Carsick,” I said, hand to my stomach. “And . . .” I waved my hand around uselessly, searching—

“I know, I know,” he said, patting my knee. “The dedication tomorrow. Everything coming back. I know you two were close.” He let me sit there in silence, looking over his shoulder. “Did you need something from the trunk?” He gestured to the car, the sickly dim light beckoning.

“No. I thought I had some water, something to drink, in there. I don’t, though.” I didn’t want him to look. Didn’t want him to see what I had seen, discover what I had just discovered. I sucked in a breath, and it sounded like a sob.

“Sit tight,” he said, and I was powerless to stop him. Powerless to prevent him from looking if he wanted to. That piece of metal still in view—how obvious would it be?

But he headed for his own car, parked behind mine. It wasn’t his police vehicle, I realized now, but a sedan, blue or gray, hard to tell in the dark. He turned off the engine, so it was just me and him and the crickets and the night.

He came out with a water bottle, half empty. “Sorry, this is all I have, but . . .” He poured the rest of the water onto a hand towel, then placed it on my forehead. The crispness of it helped settle my stomach, focus my thoughts. He moved it to the back of my neck, and when I opened my eyes, he was so close. “Better?” he asked, the lines around his eyes deepening in concern.

I nodded. “Yes. Thank you. Better.”

I pushed myself to standing, and he reached a hand down to help me. “All right, I’ve got you.” Compassion, even from him, in this moment. “Listen, I’ve been looking for you. Hoping to talk to you. Can I follow you back? Or swing by sometime later? There are some things we need to clear up first, before Sadie’s dedication tomorrow.”

“Is it . . .” I started. Cleared my throat, made sure I sounded lucid, in control. “Is it about the investigation? Is it reopened?”

He frowned, but it was hard to see his face clearly in the dark. “No, it’s something we found on her phone. Just wondering who took some of the pictures. Whether it was Sadie or you.” He smiled tightly. “Nothing major, but it would help to know.”

I couldn’t tell, then, whether this was a trap. Whether he was luring me in under false pretenses, ready to strike. But I needed to hold him off. “I can’t tonight,” I said. Not yet. Not right now, with the car. Not until I had a direction to point him instead. His face hardened, and I said, “Tomorrow morning?”

He nodded slightly. “All right. Where are you staying?” And I knew, right then, he’d heard what had happened with the Lomans. That I wasn’t supposed to be living there. That I had been kicked out and abandoned. Every single thing happening right now was telling him to look closely at me.

“With a friend,” I said.

He pulled back slightly, like there was someone coming between us. “Does this friend have an address?”

“Can we meet for coffee in the morning? Harbor Bean?”

His mouth was a straight line, his face unreadable in the night. “I was hoping for a bit more privacy. You can come by the station, if you’d prefer . . . or I can pick you up, we can chat on the way to the dedication.”

I nodded. “I’ll send you the address tonight when I’m back.”

“Great,” he said. “You sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Yes,” I said, shutting the trunk as I spoke, swallowing dry air.

His headlights followed me all the way into downtown, until I circled the block and he continued on, up toward the station. I parked one block up from the Sea Rose, walking back. I couldn’t shake this feeling that nothing was safe here. Not Sadie and not me. Someone watching in the dark. Something waiting for me still.

That there was something toxic at the core here—a dark underbelly happening in the gap between us all, where no one else was looking.



* * *




BACK INSIDE THE SEAROSE, I took the list of arrival times from my purse. Added one final name: Sadie.

Had I been talking with Luce and Parker when she sneaked inside? Had she slipped through the front entrance, heading straight down the hall for the bedroom?

I tried to feel her there, place her in my memory. Find the moment when I could turn around and see her, call her name and intervene. Change the course of everything that followed.

Someone had brought her there. Anyone could’ve hurt her, but someone else knew she had been there, and had kept silent. A house full of faces, both strange and familiar. Luce had summed it up when she stumbled out of that room upstairs: I have never seen so many liars in one place.



* * *




A YEAR AND A half after my grandmother died, Grant Loman bought her house, helped with my finances. He took control when I was barely keeping afloat, and he made sure I stayed upright. But at some point, I remembered how to read a ledger, how to track my finances.