I hadn’t been to the Fold in nearly a year. It used to be my very favorite place to go with Sadie. It was part of her world, one of those places that operated only in the summer months, like the ice cream shop.
Now the bars I visited were mostly the local ones. My closest acquaintances were the people I worked with in one capacity or another. The property inspector, Jillian. The general contractor, Wes, though I was a representative of the Lomans, so I was never sure where I stood with him. Only that any time I texted him to meet up, he’d arrive. And the one time I’d asked if he wanted to hang out at his place after, he’d said yes. I didn’t initiate again, and neither did he.
Then there were my contacts from the various vendors around town, who were always friendly when they saw me out, but always from a remove.
Other friendships had not survived over the years. I’d never reconciled with Connor and Faith. And I’d drifted from the group I met when I started business courses at the community college, made excuses, turned down an offer for a shared apartment lease in a different town. I was set up to work in Littleport. And nowhere else would’ve had this view. This perspective, looking out over everything I’d ever known. Nowhere else would’ve had Sadie.
IT WAS AFTER SIX P.M. when I got the call from a woman who introduced herself as Katherine Appleton, staying at the Sea Rose—a small cabin down by Breaker Beach, not too far from here. She said it was her dad who’d rented the place, but she was the one staying. I hated when people did this—rented in the name of someone else. As long as nothing went wrong, I let it slide. As long as it wasn’t a group of college kids with no respect for others’ property, who would leave the venue with more damage than it was worth. The Lomans had an express rule against homes being rented in someone else’s name, but I only partially enforced it. I was more interested in keeping the weeks booked: my bottom line, I supposed. The rest was up to me to handle. I was always on call, regardless of the fact it was a Friday night during the last week of August.
“I found your number in the paperwork,” she said. Her words were unnaturally stilted.
“Yes, I’m the property manager. What can I do for you, Katherine?” Fingers to my temples, hoping this could wait.
“Someone lit our candles,” she replied.
“What?”
“Someone. Lit. Our. Candles,” she repeated, each word its own sentence. “And no one here did it. So they say.” I heard laughter in the background.
They were drunk. Wasting my time. Calling me up when no one would fess up, on a dare—tell me or I’m calling the owners. But then I remembered the candle left burning at the Blue Robin, the scent of sea salt and lavender.
“Okay, Katherine, hold on. Were there any signs of forced entry?”
“Oh, I don’t remember if we locked up. Sorry.” More talking in the background. Someone asking for the phone, Katherine ignoring the request.
“Was anything taken?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Everything looks the same. Just spooky, with the candles.”
I couldn’t figure out what they wanted from me. Why they were calling on a Friday night; why they were still on the line.
“We were just—we were wondering,” she continued. Another laugh in the background. “If there were any ghost stories about this place?”
I blinked slowly, trying to catch up. “You’re calling for a ghost story?” It wasn’t the most ridiculous call I had received on a Friday night, but it was close. What was wrong with people, that they would imagine a ghost first and not something real? Either way, I figured I should be grateful they weren’t threatening to leave, demanding a refund or my immediate attention.
The laughter in the background made me think it was probably one of them. That I’d swing by and find too many people in the space, evidence of air mattresses, an overflowing recycling bin.
“I’ll be by in the morning,” I said. “To check the locks.”
AFTER HANGING UP, I pulled out the stack of current rental agreements. Tomorrow I’d have to check all the properties, just to see. There were two definite break-ins that I knew of, and now this.
Saturday was when most of the turnovers happened anyway, unless a family was staying for longer than one week. Anyone leaving tomorrow should be out by ten. I lined up the cleaning companies to hit the properties first that had visitors expected the following week. Saturday was chaos: We had six hours to turn a place over, make sure it was ready for the next batch.
I checked the list of homes, making a schedule for myself. There were twenty-two units I oversaw in Littleport, and eighteen were currently occupied. Sixteen would be taken the following week.
I flipped through the list again, wondering if I’d misplaced something. I didn’t have a listing for Sunset Retreat. Not for last week or the coming one.
Sunset Retreat, across from the Blue Robin, where I’d seen a curtain fall, seen someone watching after I found the phone.
No one was supposed to be there.
My stomach twisted. Someone had been watching. Not just the Loman house. Not just the rentals. But me.
CHAPTER 13
A sharp thrill ran through me as Parker and I walked from the parking lot into the Fold. It was the dark, the promise, the man beside me. It was my place, restored. It was the Friday night, the crowd. The anticipation of what I hoped to uncover and could feel hovering just inches away.
The bar had the feel of a local joint—the distressed wooden beams, the thick wood high-top tables, the laminated plastic menus. But it was all for show. The prices, the bartenders, the view, this was a place geared for the visitors. The owners knew what they were doing. A hidden gem, tucked away up a rickety flight of wooden steps, behind a weatherworn sign. An exposed balcony overlooking the rocky coast, a promise that this was the true Littleport, uncovered just for them.
It had been marketed exactly this way. The owners accrued enough income on four months alone, boarding up the windows and the balcony come October, and moving their operation back to their main headquarters—a burger-and-beer place two miles inland.
The room was loud and boisterous, but the volume dropped as soon as the door shut behind us. It was a reaction to Parker. They hadn’t seen him here all summer, and now they came to pay their respects, one by one. Girls in jeans and fitted tops. Guys in khaki shorts and polos. Each of them blending in with the next. Hands on his shoulder, fingers curled around his upper arm. A sympathetic smile. A caress.
I’m all right.
Thanks for thinking of us.
Yeah, I’m here for the memorial.
In the silence that followed, one of the men raised a shot glass and said, “To Sadie.”
Parker was pulled into a group at the corner table. He peered over his shoulder at me, raised two fingers, and I made my way to the bar.
The bartender raised his eyes briefly to meet mine, then went back to wiping down the countertop. “What’ll it be,” he said absently, as if he knew I didn’t belong.
A man took the seat beside me as I ordered—a bourbon on the rocks for Parker, a light beer on tap for me—and I could feel him staring at the side of my face. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, but he knocked on the bar top to get my attention. “Knock knock,” he said, just in case I hadn’t noticed, and then he added, “Hi there,” when I finally faced him. Greg Randolph, who had taken such delight in telling me about Sadie and Connor at the party last year. “Remember me?”
I nodded hello, smiling tightly.
He asked it as if he hadn’t seen me around for the last seven years. As if he hadn’t met me beside the Lomans’ pool many summers ago, at a fund-raising party hosted by Bianca when I’d been dressed up in Sadie’s clothes, tugging at the bottom of the dress, which suddenly had felt two inches too short, when Greg Randolph had stepped between the two of us, telling Sadie some trivial gossip that she seemed wholly disint
erested in. He paused to politely address every adult who walked by.
Don’t let the nice-guy act fool you, she’d said when he’d turned away. Underneath, he’s a mean drunk, like his dad.
She had not lowered her voice, and my eyes widened, thinking someone might’ve heard. Greg’s dad, maybe, who was probably one of the adults in the group behind us—if not Greg himself. But Sadie had smiled at my expression. No one listens that hard, Avie. Only you. She’d waved her hand around in that airy way, as if it were all so inconsequential. All this. This nothingness.
I never knew what happened between Sadie and Greg.
The bartender placed the drinks on the counter, and I left my card to keep the tab open.
“That for me?” Greg asked, jutting his chin toward Parker’s glass.
“Nope,” I said, turning away.
He grabbed my arm, liquid spilling over onto my thumb as he did. “Wait, wait. Don’t go so soon. I haven’t seen you around all summer. Not like we used to.”
I could sense the bartender watching, but when I looked over my shoulder, he had moved on, wiping down the far end of the bar.
I stared at Greg’s hand on my arm and placed the drinks back on the counter, so as not to make a scene. “I’m sorry, do you even know my name?”
He laughed then, loud and overconfident. “Of course I do. You’re Sadie’s monster.”
Everything prickled. From the way he used her name, to the leer of his whisper. “What did you just say?”
He grinned, didn’t answer right away. I could tell he was enjoying this. “She created you. A mini-Sadie. A monster in her likeness. And now she’s gone, but here you are. Still out here, living her life.”
Parker was standing just a few feet away. I lowered my voice. “Fuck off,” I said.
But Greg laughed as I picked up the drinks again. “That drink for Parker?” he said as I turned to leave. “Ah, I see how it is. From one Loman to the next, then.”
I kept moving, pretending he’d said nothing at all.
Parker smiled as I set the drinks on the high table where he was standing. “This was a good idea,” he said. “Thank you.”
I sipped and shivered, trying to shake off the conversation at the bar.
Parker had barely raised his glass to his lips when three women approached us from the side. “Parker, so good to see you here.”
Ellie Arnold. Last I’d seen her was the party the year before, shaken from her fall into the pool. Now her long blond hair was both wavy and shiny, her makeup expertly done. Her fingers curled around his lower arm, perfectly manicured nails in a subtle shade of pink. Two of her friends stood between us, offering their condolences while filling him in on all he’d missed.
It was time. I patted my pockets. “Parker,” I said, interrupting them all. “Sorry, I think I left my phone in the car. Can I get the keys for a sec?”
He absently handed me his key ring, and I wove my way through the crowd, pushing out the door. The night was silent as I strode for his car in the packed lot, except for the one time the bar door swung open, a burst of sound and light escaping as someone else went inside.
I unlocked the car, the beep cutting through the night, and opened the passenger door, fishing my phone from the cupholder. I’d left it here just in case he insisted on coming with me.
Then I looked over my shoulder and walked to the back of the car, pressing the button on the key to pop the trunk, unprepared for the light glowing from within.
I looked around quickly, but the lot appeared empty.
I opened the trunk farther, my hands already shaking with anticipation. There was a single crate jammed in the corner. It was covered by a felt blanket, like one that might be stored in the trunk for emergencies. This had to be the box of personal items returned from the police station.
The first things I saw when I removed the blanket were Sadie’s sandals. The same ones I saw that night, so close to the edge of the bluffs.
I ran my fingers over them. They had been her favorite, and they looked it. Gold but scuffed at the tops. Stitching showing where the straps had pulled from the base. The hole stretched from the buckle, the left shoe missing one side of the intricate clasp. A low heel, and the sound of her steps echoing in my memory.
The door to the bar opened behind me again, a burst of sound momentarily flooding the lot. I twisted around to see, but there was no one outside that I could tell. I stared into the darkness, watching for any sign of movement.
Eventually, I turned back to the trunk, pushing the shoes aside—and saw it. A journal. Purple, with black and white ink swirls on the front. A corner of the front cover missing, so the tattered pages rippled below.
My stomach dropped, the edges of my vision gone blurry. And suddenly, everything made sense. Why the note matched her diary. Why the diary gave the police pause. I hadn’t seen this in years. The familiar, angry pen indentations on the cover, the tattered corners, the blackened edges.
I shoved it quickly into my bag, then shut the trunk again, jogging the rest of the way back inside, feeling as unsteady as I had that night.
The note matched the journal perfectly, yes. Because they were both mine.
CHAPTER 14
Parker was waiting for me when I returned. Ellie and her friends had left him alone. “Find it?” he asked.
I handed him his keys, showed him my phone. “Got it. Thanks.”
Greg arrived at our table, balancing three shot glasses between his fingers. “Here we go,” he said, like they’d both been waiting for me.
“No, I shouldn’t,” I said. “I’ll drive us back.”
But Parker wasn’t out to relax or reminisce, and apparently, neither was I. “Just the one,” he said, sliding it my way, his eyes on mine.
I raised it in the air, just as they did. “Hear, hear,” Parker said, staring right into my eyes as the glasses clinked together.
The shot glass collided with my teeth. As the liquor slid down my throat, goose bumps formed on my arms, even though the room was warm.
I stared back into his eyes, wondering what he knew. “There, there,” I answered.
THREE HOURS LATER, WE were finally on the road back home. Though I hadn’t had any more to drink, I felt parched, dehydrated by the talking, the mindless laughter.
“What was that about back there?” Parker asked, his head resting against the passenger seat as I drove.
“With what?” I asked, holding my breath. My bag was in the backseat, and the journal was inside, and I was scared that he knew everything.
“I don’t know, you’ve been acting weird ever since we got there.”
“That guy,” I said, scrambling. “Greg.”
“What about him?”
“He was an asshole,” I said, my teeth clenching.
Parker let out a single laugh. “Greg Randolph is an asshole. So what?”
“Sadie couldn’t stand him.”
“Sadie couldn’t stand a lot of people,” he mumbled.
Sadie’s monster. I twisted in my seat. “He always had a thing for her,” I said, and Parker frowned. I could see him thinking it over. All these people who loved her, yes. But these were all people who couldn’t have her, too.
THE PORCH LIGHT WAS off when I pulled into the drive. The bluffs were nothing but shadows in the darkness. I left the headlights on while Parker slid open the garage door. He may have been intoxicated, but he had the frame of mind to lock up his car inside.
After parking his car in the garage, I waited outside while he locked the sliding door back up, the night nothing but shadows.
“Good night, Parker.”
“Are you coming in?” he asked, restless on his feet.
“It’s late,” I said. “And believe it or not, even though it’s the weekend for you, I have work in the morning.”
But th
at wasn’t what he was asking, and we both knew it. “Sadie’s gone, Avery.” He knew then, too, the edict from Sadie, keeping me back. Maybe she said the same to him. When Sadie told me Don’t, he became all I could think about. Whenever I passed his room, whenever I saw his shadow behind the glass windows.
An active restraint was something to do, a practice, something to focus on. It was a new sort of game, so different from yielding to impulse, as I had grown accustomed. I was forged of resilience, and I let the tension stretch me tight as a wire.
But now Sadie was gone, and Luce was gone, and Parker was here, and what was there left to ruin, really? Without the others here, there was something simmering and unfulfilled, and nothing to stop me. Something, suddenly, within my reach.
He was wavering in the pathway, his eyes darting off to the side, tentative and unsure, and that was what did it for me. That was what always did it. The way an insecurity stripped them back, revealing something that put me in temporary power.
I stepped closer, and he ran his fingers through my hair. I raised my hand to his face, my thumb brushing the scar through his eyebrow.
He grabbed my wrist, fast. The imperfection made you believe he had fought his way through something on his way to this life.
His eyes looked so dark in the shadows. When he kissed me, his hand trailed down my neck, so his thumb rested at the base of my throat. My neck, in his grip.
I couldn’t tell whether it was subconscious or not. With him, it was hard to tell. But I couldn’t shake the vision of three steps from now—pressed up against the side of the garage, his hands tightening, the memory of Sadie’s voice: It can happen, you know. You can’t swallow, you can’t breathe. It’s not a quick way to die, is what I’m saying.
I gasped for air, pulling back. My hand to my throat, and Parker looking at me curiously. I wondered what else I had missed in this house—if Parker was capable of harming me. If Parker was capable of harming her.
The Last House Guest (ARC) Page 12