The Last House Guest

by Megan Miranda

  The sound of laughter from the window over the sink made me bolt upright and freeze. But the footsteps continued past. Another group cutting through from the bar after being out near Breaker Beach.

  “Avery? You there?”

  I kept my eyes on the dark window. “I’m here. Maybe I can track it, see why this was important?”

  A pause. “I think you should stop,” he said.

  “What?” She had hidden this on an island, paid Connor to bring her there, and now she was dead. And Connor thought this was the place to stop?

  “Payments? Avery, come on. Every family has secrets. And that’s one family I don’t want to touch. She’s dead, and we can’t change that.”

  But it wasn’t just that she was dead. If she had fallen, yes. If she had jumped, even, yes. But there was a third option, and it was the only one I could believe anymore. “Someone killed her, Connor. And I think the police suspect one of us. Are you just going to sit there and hope for the best?” Silence, but he didn’t object. “That person is still here. That person was at the party with us.” My breath caught—couldn’t he see? We were living with evil. Someone who was still out there.

  Even tonight, just outside our reach. The flashlight on the bluffs. Shutting down the electricity at night. He was a shadow behind the window. Watching me to see what I’d do. Or maybe: to see what I knew.

  I double-checked the locks around the house, the phone pressed to my ear, glad I’d parked a few blocks away.

  “Where are you?” he asked, voice flat.

  I paused. It didn’t seem like he wanted to help. It seemed like he wanted to talk me out of something. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

  I saved the file to my laptop, then rifled through my purse for the closest piece of paper—the list with all of our names and the times we arrived at the party. And then I flipped it over and copied the account details down. I spent the next several hours staring at those numbers. Willing them to mean something. I knew only that the information must’ve come from somewhere in the Loman house, and Sadie did not feel safe leaving it there.

  I fell asleep on the couch, the sound of footsteps periodically passing through the night. A side of Littleport I’d never known. A side of Sadie, too.

  Something new I’d just uncovered, even after all this time.

  CHAPTER 20

  I woke to the sound of gravel footsteps outside again, and it took a moment to remember where I was. To place the furniture with the room, the window with the light slanting in through the curtains.

  The footsteps receded—someone walking to the beach, maybe. Heading in the opposite direction from last night.

  I had fallen asleep on the couch, the open laptop, already low on charge, draining while I slept. I fumbled my way through the dim room, finding my bag with the cable to recharge it. While it was charging on the kitchen table, I cracked open the window so I could smell the ocean on a gust of wind. The phone buzzed from somewhere in the couch cushions, and I took my time finding it, expecting Connor again.

  But it was Grant’s name on the display. Like he could sense me opening that file last night.

  “Grant, hi,” I said as a greeting.

  “Good morning, Avery,” he said, his voice the same monotone as always, businesslike and unreadable. So that I was constantly trying to please him, to see my worth reflected in his expression. “Not too early for a call, then?”

  “No, not at all,” I said, my eyes focusing on the nearest clock. There, over the kitchen sink—frozen in time at noon.

  “Tell me what’s been happening.”

  “Well,” I began, “like my email said, there’ve been some petty break-ins, not anything major. A television that needs to be replaced at Trail’s End, and a new window at Blue Robin. But there was a gas leak at Sunset Retreat, and I’m worried it’s all related.”

  He didn’t respond, and I cleared my throat, waiting.

  “Have you called the police?” he asked.

  “Well, I had to. I called 911 when I smelled the gas, and the fire crew came straight up.” A pause. “It wasn’t safe.”

  “I see. And what did they say?”

  “A loose connection behind the oven. We should replace that, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” he repeated.

  He waited to see if I’d say more, but I knew this was a tactic—silence and waiting for someone else to fill it, to reveal the things they’d wanted to keep hidden. I’d learned a lot from Grant over the years, nearly everything I knew about the business and how to conduct myself within its boundaries—the rules both spoken and unspoken.

  He once told me I had something his own children lacked. The secret to success that eluded even Parker, he said, was that you had to take great risks for great rewards. That to change your life, to truly change it, you had to be willing to lose.

  Parker will be good at the job, he explained. He’ll keep the company strong. He’s good at working with what we have. He understands the game, the ins and outs of it all. But what he gambles, he hasn’t built on his own. Your risk must come at some counterbalance. Neither of my children is truly willing to take the risks.

  Because, I thought then, they already had everything.

  “You mentioned the main house,” he said now. “Something about the electricity?”

  And suddenly, I understood what had made him call me back. It wasn’t the email I’d sent or his concern about the properties. It was the lights going off at night; the flashlight I’d seen on the bluffs. The fact that he also suspected something was happening up there.

  “Yes,” I said, “it’s happened a few times. The grid going out. I’ve had to reset the fuse box. You should probably have that looked at.”

  “All right, well, thank you. Is there anything else?”

  What have you risked, Avery? He’d asked me that, too, when he called me into his office. When he gave me Sadie’s job. Because I knew he understood. I had risked my place in their world. I had gambled my friendship with Sadie. Where I was for where I might be.

  There were no gains without some great risk to yourself. And now I was desperate to hold on to what I was losing.

  “I wanted to explain about Bianca. About—”

  “That’s really not necessary, Avery.” His voice remained even and controlled, and I felt my pulse slowing, my fingers relaxing. “Listen,” he continued, “we appreciate your help through this very difficult year. The truth is, I don’t think we would’ve been able to keep things going without you. Not like you’ve done for us. But we’ll be moving the responsibilities to one of the management companies for the next season.”

  I waited for a beat, two, seeing if he would continue, if his words were leading anywhere else—a new position, a new opportunity. But the silence stretched so long, he had to call my name again, just to make sure I was still there.

  “I see,” I said. I was being fired. A quick one-two. My home and my job, both gone.

  And then his voice did change. Something lower, more personal, more powerful. “I took a chance on you. Thought you had something different, worth the time and energy. But it seems I overestimated you—my fault, really. A weakness of my own, I suppose.”

  The sting was sharp and deep—I could imagine him saying those same words to Sadie as she stood on the other side of his desk in the office upstairs, when he took her job and gave it to me. I didn’t respond, because there was a line between drive and desperation, and he respected only the former.

  It was all I could do to keep my breath steady, bite my tongue—as I had learned. And then he was back, even-toned and professional, expecting me to keep on going. “I’ve had a look at the schedules, and this is just about the last week of the season, isn’t that right?”

  “It is,” I said. Next week was Labor Day weekend, and the town would clear out soon after.

  “Right. Let’s go ahead and close out the year, then. At the end of the season, we’ll repay you for your time.” And then he hung up. I listened
to the empty air, even though the call had disconnected.

  How had I not seen this coming? Three steps ago, when Parker arrived. Two, when Bianca kicked me out. One, the flash drive file on my computer. Sadie, trying to show me something. Waiting for me to notice her. In the entrance to my room, in her blue dress and brown sweater, and those gold strappy sandals, worn out and left behind.

  I felt something surging in my bones. The same thing I felt when I pushed Faith, when Connor found me with someone else—some prelude to destruction. I’d felt it again when Greg had called me Sadie’s monster. But wasn’t I? Who could understand, better than me, the push and pull that guided her life? That set the path for her death?

  The laptop light turned green, the screen flickering as it booted back up. I shivered, heard the echo of Connor’s warning, telling me to stop. Because he understood the danger immediately. A hidden file and Sadie dead. Something potentially worth killing over.

  * * *

  I SAT AT THE kitchen table, trying to make sense of things.

  It was possible this wasn’t even about something in Littleport. First step, I could find out if the routing number was for one of our local banks. Even if it wasn’t, that didn’t necessarily mean anything—there were plenty of national chains and online banks. But it was a place to start. There were two local banks in town, and I was a client at one. I had already checked last night—the number didn’t match the routing number in my checkbook.

  I drummed my fingers on the surface. Thought about calling Connor, Hey, which bank do you use? Can you tell me your routing number? I wondered if I could call the bank, but it was Sunday, and they were closed.

  I pushed back from my seat at the kitchen table. My grandmother had used the other bank. She’d added my name directly to her account so that, when she died, I didn’t have to wait for any will to be sorted out—I had direct access to the money, not that there was much. But I knew I had this information somewhere. In that box, I’d kept all the paperwork transferring our assets. Everything that had been hers, and my parents’ before, becoming mine.

  The paperwork still existed. I dug through that box until I found the old file.

  Inside, I found a canceled check—the one I used to transfer the money from my grandmother’s account to mine.

  I brought the check to the computer, reading the numbers off, double-checking.

  The paper was shaking in my hand. Yes, yes, they matched. This was the bank. A Littleport branch.

  But I couldn’t stop looking. Back and forth. The screen. The checkbook. Back to the screen.

  I leaned closer, holding my breath. Reading them twice.

  It wasn’t only the routing number that matched. It was the account. One of the account numbers, one of the recipients of this money—it was my grandmother’s.

  The room spun.

  “Wait.” I said it out loud, though I didn’t know whom I was talking to. Just. Wait.

  Every family has secrets, Avery. Connor had said those very words last night, but I had never considered my own.

  Erica’s words in my living room—that Sadie had requested me by name. I had never considered that this could be true. Never stopped to think what could’ve drawn her to me in the first place.

  But here it was.

  I pushed back from the table, reimagining the scene. The bathroom. Sadie turning around, finding me there. The red creeping up her neck.

  Had she known, all along, I was in there?

  The slip of the blade. The toilet paper pressed to the blood.

  Don’t hurt yourself. She had said that so clearly, so earnestly, when I’d stood too close to the edge.

  As if, from the start, she had known.

  She had seen me in the kitchen of her house. Followed me. Known what I had done.

  Later, she’d found that journal, and she knew the hidden things I dreamed and feared. Keeping it all a secret for herself.

  What did she want with me? Did she know I’d once sneaked into her house? Shimmied inside with Faith and Connor?

  Or that I had watched from Connor’s boat, staring in those big portrait windows—her life, her body, that I wanted to inhabit?

  She had sought me out on the beach after, inviting me back. Into her home, into her life. Welcoming me—

  Or. Or.

  Something that belonged to her. Oh. Oh, no. No, Sadie.

  Bringing me to dinner, watching her parents’ faces, the stiff expressions. Her guileless smile. Do you see me now?

  A sad story to share: Look what has become of this girl. No family, nowhere to live. Won’t you help? Grant’s voice when they offered me the guesthouse: It’s the right thing to do.

  The ink on my body, same as hers, the shape of an S—I have found you, and you belong, here, with me.

  Don’t, she said when her brother walked by.

  She believed I was the secret. And, like the locals would gossip, she planted me right out in the open. Look what I have found. Look what I have done.

  She believed I was a Loman.

  SUMMER

       2017

  The Plus-One Party

  10:30 p.m.

  The threat of the police was now a distant, alcohol-infused memory. As much a nonconcern as the power outage, or stepping into the pool, or your secrets exposed for all to hear over a game at the kitchen island. The second round had begun.

  I had been waiting to see what Parker would do after the scene upstairs—Luce spilling out of the room, tinged with the remnants of anger. Of violence.

  Parker never played the game, I realized. Never had his secrets exposed for all to hear. Not in all the years I’d known him. Always too busy hopping from person to person.

  Or maybe the rest of us were scared of him. What he would do. There were enough rumors about his past, his reckless teenage years. How he had gotten into fights—that’s what Sadie said. He had the scar, and the gleam in his eye, to prove that he used to have a wild streak. Which, unlike mine, only added to his appeal now that it was gone. But there was an understanding that it had existed, and therefore still existed, somewhere at his core.

  Parker finally rounded the corner from the front foyer, alone. He saw me watching and paused. Then he redirected his path, coming to stand beside me at the entrance of the kitchen, his hands restless without a drink to hold. He cracked his knuckles one by one. I imagined them in the shape of a fist.

  “What happened up there?” I asked, nodding toward the front foyer, where the staircase was tucked just out of sight.

  He scanned the room instead, ignoring the question. “Where is she?” This was not the type of place where you could call a cab or an Uber and get home. Luce was stuck here.

  Parker stepped away from me, into the crowd.

  “Parker,” I said, loud enough to get his attention—on the cusp of making a scene. “What the hell happened? I heard something. I heard you guys.”

  He looked at me curiously, his eyes shimmering, the scar through his eyebrow reflecting the light overhead. “She’s drunk. She’ll cool off.”

  Like there was a hot, simmering rage in all of us. I laughed. “You want me to believe that Luce—Luce—is the one to blame?”

  I tried to picture it. Luce, in her heels, throwing something against the wall. Or barreling into him, knocking him backward. Luce, uncontained.

  He inhaled slowly. “Believe what you want. I don’t care.” Like my thoughts were inconsequential. Because his was the story that would matter, that would count.

  I spotted her through the patio doors, sitting in a chair beside the pool, the glow from the underwater lights turning her skin a sickly pale. Her shoes were kicked off and her legs tucked up underneath her. Parker seemed to spot her at the same time. He started walking, but I reached for his elbow. “Did she see?” I asked. Meaning us. In the bathroom.

  Parker flinched. “Did she see what?” he asked, like I was not permitted to mention things that had happened in the past. That it was up to him to decide whether
something existed or not; that the narrative of his life was no one’s business but his own, and he could erase it at will.

  “Nothing.” Because it was nothing. With Luce in town, with Sadie here, that moment with Parker could never happen.

  Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe all I needed to say to Sadie about Connor was Don’t. But who could say that to her?

  To be Sadie Loman was to do exactly what you wanted. If it had been Sadie who had pushed Faith, watched as she fell to the ground, her arm held out awkwardly to break the impact—all would be forgiven. If I had been the one to steal money from the Loman company, I would’ve been kicked out of their world immediately. But not her. She was just given a different job. A better one. And what had happened to the money? Who knew. She’d probably spent it.

  She took what she wanted and did what she wanted—they all did. Parker, Grant, Bianca, Sadie. Living up at the Breakers, looking out over everything. Deciding what would be theirs for the taking.

  The crowd moved on around me, a blur of faces, sweat and heat, the prickle on the back of my neck—this feeling that I had to get out of here. But I had no idea where to go.

  How long had I been standing perfectly still, watching the lives of others play out around me? Leaning against a wall, drinking what was left of the Lomans’ whiskey?

  The Lomans’ house, the Lomans’ rules, the Lomans’ world.

  Like sitting in Connor’s boat, watching from the outside in. No matter how close I got, I was always the one watching.

  There was Parker, whispering into Luce’s ear, crouched beside her while she sat in a low chair near the edge of the pool. Her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

  There were Ellie Arnold and her friends sitting on the floor together in the corner of the den, cross-legged, like a memory of a time long past—girls at a sleepover like Faith and I used to have, the rest of the world fallen away.