The Last House Guest

by Megan Miranda

  I summarized the details, passed them along to Grant, didn’t say what I knew to be true: If it wasn’t me, it was Sadie—who was technically the person in charge. I was many things, but I wasn’t a thief. I would not lose everything I’d worked for because of her misplaced rebellion.

  The fallout was handled behind closed doors, and I never asked Sadie about it. She shut me out when I tried to mention it. Back then I thought it was just her recklessness. Like her fixation on death—something to grab attention. She was always striving for an edge, seeing what she could get away with, never stopping to consider the collateral damage.

  For a month afterward, she’d avoided me, not responding to my texts or my calls. Latched herself firmly on to a friendship with Luce. With Parker, they became an impenetrable group of three. One month and I’d been cast out of everything I’d known, as I had been once before. But I was older this time. I could see things three steps forward and back, and I knew exactly what Sadie would do when presented with each move.

  I left her a note, an apology, beside a box of her favorite fudge. Positioned in the center of her desk, so I was sure she’d see them.

  I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

  So she would know I wasn’t upset and didn’t think any worse of her. I understood her, of course I did. Any apology would need to come from me. I wasn’t even sure she knew how to apologize, how to feel it. But that was the thing about loving someone—it only counted when you knew their flaws and did it anyway.

  The very next night, she sent me a text—Avie, we’re going out, come!—never mentioning what had happened, and I was back; everything was fine.

  She’d knocked on my living room window—her face pressed up to the glass, her cheek and one hazel eye, crinkled from laughter. She reminded me of Sadie at eighteen, and maybe that was the point. I could hear Luce and Parker in the driveway.

  Sadie had a bottle of vodka in her hand when I opened the door, and she pulled down a few glasses from my cabinet herself, poured at least two shots’ worth into each. “I thought we were going out,” Parker said, standing in the open doorway.

  “We are. In a minute. Don’t just stand there,” she said, rolling her eyes so only I could see. Luce crossed the room, following orders, glass raised to her lips.

  “Wait!” Sadie said, hand out, and Luce froze. “Wait for everyone.” We each picked up a glass. “Hear, hear,” Sadie said. She clinked her glass against mine. Her eyes were large and unblinking, and I believed I could see everything reflected inside, everything she never said.

  “To us,” Luce said, and Parker repeated in echo. I could feel my heartbeat in my toes, my fingers, my head. Sadie stared back at me, waiting. The silence stretched, the moment intoxicating.

  “There, there,” I said, and her smile cracked open.

  * * *

  THE NIGHT SHE DIED, she traipsed into my room without a thought, or so it seemed at the time. We’d been back to normal for two weeks, and I didn’t want to shake the foundation. If something was off, I’d been too focused on my work to notice.

  But to Bianca, I had set everything in motion. I’d gotten Sadie fired. I had ruined her. Taken her job. Revealed her to her parents. Pushed her to this inevitable outcome.

  Standing across from Bianca, I thought I finally knew the real reason Sadie had taken that money—not as a reckless act of rebellion at all. It was something she had said after I’d been welcomed back into her life, when we were all out at the Fold. From a corner of the bar, Parker had Skyped in to a board meeting he’d forgotten about, with a drink in his hand, laughing sheepishly.

  Parker can get away with literally everything. I can’t even get away, Sadie had said. The closest she had come to mentioning the fallout of her missteps.

  In retrospect, that was what I had missed. She wanted out. Out of the Lomans’ grip, out of her life, by any means possible. Out—into the directionless, limitless wild. So she stockpiled the money. And that wasn’t my fault at all. No, the blame could be traced back a few more steps.

  “You did this,” I said, stepping toward Bianca, my voice rising. “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for her, growing up in this house.” The same way grief had taken hold of me years earlier. Except I wasn’t sinking but sharpening. Wasn’t chasing something at the bottom but letting something free instead.

  I had been armed for attack with all the things Sadie had ever told me. Her whisper in my ear, one of the first things she’d said about her mother: All must worship at the shrine of Bianca Loman. “Why do you think she did it there?” I asked. “At the place you were so desperate to live? It wasn’t safe, isn’t that what Grant thought? Living so close to the bluffs? But you insisted.” Push and push until something shatters.

  “And now look,” I went on. I was shaking, my expression ferocious in the mirror. Did Sadie’s parents ever see her for the person she was and not the one they expected her to be?

  Bianca’s face did not change. A mask of fury. “Out,” she said. “I want you out.”

  “Yeah, I’m going.” I edged by her, but she reached out to grab me, her cold fingers firm on my wrist, her nails grazing the surface, as if to let me know that she was only choosing not to draw blood.

  “No,” she said, “I mean out of this family. Out of our house. You are no longer welcome at One Landing Lane.”

  * * *

  HER WORDS HAD HELD. But when I returned to Littleport that night, no one was there to tell me to go. The distance made everything hazy and ungrounded.

  No one called, no one checked. And the time, like the distance, only softened things.

  I continued overseeing the properties, and the money continued coming into my account.

  It was a mistake. A fight, then, like in any family. Words not holding, emotion that would settle.

  * * *

  FOR NEARLY A YEAR, I’d been wondering if Bianca had really meant it. And now I knew.

  I eased my car down the hill, passing Breaker Beach, heading into downtown. Like my mother, driving through town, looking for a reason to stop. Every earthly possession in the car beside me.

  As I tapped my brakes at the crosswalk, I heard the rattle of metal under the passenger seat. I reached down, felt the edges of the metal box—the keys that I hadn’t brought back inside on my return earlier.

  Like a sign. Like Sadie calling my name. All the ghosts reminding me that this was my home. Reminding me of all the reasons I still had to stay.

  * * *

  THE SEA ROSE WAS set three blocks back from the water, in a row of closely built one-story homes with pebbles in place of grass yards. At one point, the cluster of homes made up an artists’ colony, but now they were mostly quirky yet exclusive second homes, occupied only in the summers or on long weekends in the spring and fall—and they rarely went on the market.

  It was a place I could’ve imagined my mother choosing in another life. Where she could carry her supplies down to Breaker Beach and work uninterrupted back at her house—the life she must’ve envisioned for herself when she set out in her car. Instead of the discordant one she had lived—working in the gallery, raising me, and painting only at night, in the hallowed silence. Torn between two worlds—the one in front of her and the one in her head that she was continually trying to uncover.

  Still, she never could’ve afforded a place like this here.

  The Lomans’ company outbid the nearest offer for the property by almost a third to compensate for the fact that it would be a seasonal rental, but so far, it had paid off. Being so close to the downtown, on a historic street, in a place where others once crafted famous poems and art, offset the smaller size and the lack of a view.

  There were no driveways here, just homes set back from the sidewalk in a semicircle, with first-come, first-served street parking. We called them bungalows, but that was only because no one wanted to pay so much for a cabin.

  Unlike the Donaldsons, Katherine Appleton and friends had not followed protocol.
There was no key in the mailbox, and the front door was unlocked. No surprise that someone had gotten inside the night before. I was starting to think whoever was messing around at the properties was just picking the easy targets: The broken window latch at the Blue Robin. The electrical box outside at the Breakers. And Katherine Appleton failing to lock up. The only house I couldn’t figure out how they’d gotten inside was Sunset Retreat.

  The cleaners weren’t scheduled to arrive until later in the day—there were no guests scheduled for the following week—but it was even worse than I had expected inside.

  Even though it was midday, a dimness fell over the house—the curtains pulled closed, the trash bags in the corners. And the scene left behind in the living room, like a séance. “Jesus,” I said, running my finger along the counter, then recoiling, wiping the residue against the side of my jeans. The key was in the middle of the counter, beside the laminated binder, where they must’ve found my number the night before. A mystery how they’d seen that yet failed to notice the checkout procedure.

  I caught sight of the candles mentioned in the call, one still burning on the kitchen windowsill. I leaned close and blew it out. The rest of the candles had been gathered in the living room, clumped together on the end tables and fireplace mantel, as in some sort of occult ritual. There was no way they’d be getting back the cleaning deposit.

  I was scrolling through the contact information on my phone to send an email to the man who rented the place—with a note about the state his daughter had left it in—when I saw a stack of twenty-dollar bills on the coffee table. I pictured the guests opening their wallets, pulling out the contents, absolving themselves in the process. As if money could undo any slight.

  Fanning through the bills, I realized the sum was more than I would’ve asked for on my own. I deleted the email and called the cleaning company instead. “Canceling the appointment for the Sea Rose today,” I said.

  Then I went to the closet by the laundry room, pulling out the supplies. I stripped the beds, threw the sheets in the washing machine, and began scrubbing the counters as the wash ran.

  It didn’t take too long, all things considered.

  There was no garage, but cars lined the grid of streets in the blocks from here to downtown. No one would notice an extra car. I nodded to myself, dragging in the last of my things.

  This would do.

  * * *

  SETTING MY LAPTOP UP at the kitchen table, I logged on to the Wi-Fi and sent Grant an email, referencing the voicemail I’d left him earlier. I kept things businesslike and to the point, nothing but facts and figures as I listed the issues with the houses. I told him about the window that wouldn’t latch at Blue Robin, the gas leak at Sunset Retreat, the property damage at Trail’s End the week earlier, and the report of someone in the home from the Donaldsons. I asked if he wanted me to make the replacements—asked if he wanted me to file a report.

  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.

  I knew the dangers of the water, had known them half my life, growing up here. But I had not considered the dangers inside other people. That kept me from trusting myself. Wondering what else I’d gotten wrong.

  “Your picture was on her phone,” I said, circling cautiously rather than asking outright.

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move. “What phone?”

  “Sadie’s phone. They found it. I found it. At the Blue Robin.” I watched him carefully as I spoke, looking for a tell in his expression.

  His face remained impassive, but the rise and fall of his chest paused—he was holding his breath. “When?”

  “When I went to check the property, after the break-in.”

  His eyebrows rose sharply. “You mean when I was there with you?” His voice dropped lower, and I knew I’d struck a nerve. I didn’t answer, and he closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

  “I expect you to . . . I want you to tell me the truth,” I said, my own voice rising. To anyone nearby, it would’ve sounded like a one-sided conversation: me, growing louder; Connor, falling softer. Both of us on edge. “You told me at the house that you weren’t seeing her. But your picture is on her phone. And you were on this boat together. Someone saw you last year, which I guess you could’ve tried to explain away, but Sadie had your picture. Why else would she take your photo if she didn’t . . .” I took a deep breath, said what I’d come here to say. “You lied, Connor. You lied to the police, and you lied to me.”