The Last House Guest(78)

So I knew that by the time my grandmother died, any supposed large regular payment she had once received no longer existed. After her death, I had transferred the small amount left in her account to my own. That old account no longer existed. There was no easy way to find the deposit that Sadie had discovered.

But maybe it existed elsewhere, in another form—maybe evidence of it lived on.

Everything I had left of my grandmother was in the single box that I’d moved with me to the Lomans’ guesthouse—with a slanted K for Keep, which Sadie had labeled herself years ago. Now I pulled it out onto the kitchen counter, emptying the contents: the photo albums, the recipe book, the bound letters, the clipped articles about my parents’ accident, the personal folder with all the paperwork transferring assets.

I couldn’t find any receipts, anything extravagant.

The only large asset in her possession was her house.

After I sold that house, I kept all my real estate details, organized every one of them—a paper trail, as Grant had taught me.

It was the first file I had created, data I’d never looked at too closely, because why would I need to? But I had it, our payment history, stored in my computer files.

I scrolled through the mortgage history now on my laptop with a fresh eye. It seemed that in the years before her death, my grandmother had paid a low monthly sum on automatic withdrawal. But earlier, she used to pay more. There was a line in the timing, a before and after, when the mortgage payment had dropped significantly.

When she’d paid it down with one large lump sum.

Here. Here it was. Money going out. A piece of evidence left behind after all.

I traced the date, finger to the screen.

It was the month after my parents had died.

I sat back in the chair, the room turning cold and hollow. I’d thought we had gotten a life insurance payment—that’s what Grant had mentioned when he helped me organize the records. I was in good shape because of that.

But I looked again. An even one hundred thousand dollars. The same amount that Sadie had discovered, sent from the Lomans to my grandmother. Not a life insurance policy at all. Not an inheritance, either. Money, suddenly, where there had been none.

My stomach twisted, pieces connecting in my head.

I pulled up the images from Sadie’s phone—the photos she had taken. The picture of the winding, tree-lined mountain road. And I finally understood what Sadie had uncovered. The thing tying me to the Lomans. The cash payment she had found.

It was a payoff for the death of my parents.





CHAPTER 27


Here’s a new game: If I’d known the Lomans were responsible for my parents’ accident, what would I have done?

All night I played this game. In the dark of the house, with nothing but shadows and ghosts for company. What I would say, what I would do—how I would corner them into the truth. No: What I would take from them instead.

I felt it as I sat there—not the creeping vines of grief, pulling me down. But that other thing. The burning white-hot rage of a thing I could feel in the marrow of my bones. The surge gathering as I stepped forward and pushed.

I wanted to scream. Wanted to scream the truth to the world and watch them fall because of it. I wanted them to pay for what they had done.

But there was a flip side to that knowledge. Because here was what else that payment provided: a motive. My motive. All of the evidence fell back on me. The phone that I had found. Her body, with signs of a struggle, in my trunk. Me, wandering around the back of the Lomans’ house that night, looking for any piece of evidence left behind. And the note on the counter. It was my handwriting. My anger. My revenge. It was mine.



* * *




THERE WAS A KNOCK at the front door, and I peered out the gap between the front curtains, expecting that Grant or Parker had somehow found me. Or Bianca, come to tell me to leave again. But it was Connor. I saw his truck at the curb, so obvious on the half-empty street. “Avery? You in there?” he called.

Shit, shit. I unlocked the door and he strode inside as if I’d invited him.

“How did you know where I was?” I asked as he looked around the unfamiliar house. His eyes stopped on the stacks of family albums and letters on the counter.

He paused a moment, staring at the article on top of the pile, a black-and-white photo of the wreckage—Littleport couple killed in single-car wreck.

“Connor?”

“She told me what happened,” he said, dragging his eyes back to me. “Faith.” He was breathing heavy, wound tight with adrenaline.

“How did you know I was here?” I repeated. I thought I’d been so careful, but here he was, unannounced. I didn’t like the way his gaze lingered on my things. I didn’t like the way he was standing—on edge.

“What?” He shook his head, like he was trying to clear the conversation. “It’s not hard to find out if you know what you’re looking for.” I took a step back, and he frowned, his eyes narrowing. “You told me you weren’t living at the Lomans’ anymore. But you’re not at Faith’s, most of the hotels are still full . . . Plenty of people mentioned seeing you around. I checked a couple of the rental properties until I saw your car downtown. This was the closest one.” He started pacing the room again, like there was nowhere else for his energy to go. “Faith didn’t hurt Sadie, I told you. You believe her, right?”