Page 40 of The Last House Guest
Connor anchored the boat offshore now, turning off the engine. Both of us looking at the mix of tree and rock and pebbled shore before us instead of at each other.
I pictured Sadie standing here, in her wide-brimmed hat, deciding to strip herself down and wade out to the island. The goose-bump prickle over her skin. The red-pink tone where the cold touched her flesh. The softness of her feet on the crude shore. The determination that had brought her to this moment.
I pulled my shirt over my head, and Connor narrowed his eyes.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
“The tide is up. You’ll have to swim,” he said.
But I continued undressing, and he looked away, opening the bench seat and pulling out one of the orange flotation devices. We’d stripped down to our underwear in front of each other a hundred times since we were kids, whenever we were out on the water. I’d never felt self-conscious about it until he looked away. Never used to think of myself in comparison to Sadie until I saw us both through Connor’s eyes.
I grabbed the orange flotation device hastily and jumped straight in, the shock of cold seizing everything up to my rib cage as my toes brushed the rocky shore.
“Okay?” Connor called from above. I must’ve let out a gasp.
I had to slow my breath, just to relax the muscles around my lungs. “Fine,” I said, using the flotation device as a kickboard, letting the current push me the rest of the way to shore.
IT HAD BEEN SEVENyears since I’d stepped foot on the island, though I could always see it in the distance on a clear day: a copse of dark trees. The terrain was rough in person. A rocky beach giving way to the hard-packed dirt and the green of the trees. The horseshoe shape created a small protected cove, so kayaks would often stop here to rest. But there were no other boats here now.
There was evidence of people who had been here, though—glass bottles half buried in the rocks that lined the dirt and roots. A log that had been dragged over and fashioned into a bench at the edge of the brush. There was an overgrown trail from back when the island had a dock.
I shivered as I walked the path that I imagined Sadie taking. My steps in her steps. The thorny roots, the sharp edges of rocks, the branches reaching for her legs.
I felt a prick on my shin, saw a bead of blood rolling toward my ankle, nicked from a loose vine. Connor said Sadie had been in her bathing suit. Would she have kept going, barefoot and bare-legged? Her unmarred skin, the fact that she couldn’t even stand walking barefoot on hot pavement—I couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t imagine what would have driven her here in the first place.
She had a backpack, a camera—did she think there was something here worth finding? A secret worth holding? Did she see something she shouldn’t have while she was here?
The terrain was too unyielding. She wouldn’t have kept going, not if she didn’t have to—but Connor said she’d been gone a while. In her bathing suit, with a backpack.
I stopped walking. Or was it something she was bringing?Lots of hidden places,she’d told Connor. That’s what she was looking for.
A safe place to hide something of her own.
I traced my steps back to the clearing, spun around, my eyes catching on the makeshift bench once more.
The log had been partially hollowed out, and I dropped to my hands and knees beside it, peering inside. There was moss growing on the underside, insects and things I didn’t want to think too hard about. But I reached my hand into the dark and felt the slickness and rustle of plastic. I shuddered, imagining what might be inside.
It scraped against the base as I pulled it out. There was a layer of sludge and grime covering the surface, but it was a plastic freezer bag, airtight and watertight. Maybe someone’s trash but maybe not.
I wiped off the mud with my bare hands, opened the top, and saw a brown wooden box inside, like something that would hold a necklace. It remained dry. I dragged my hands against the edge of the log, trying to clean them. Then I opened the top of the box. Set in the midst of the maroon lining was a silver flash drive, cold to the touch.
The trees rustled in the wind, and I looked over my shoulder, feeling the chill rise up my neck.
Sadie had been here. I could feel her, in this same spot, opening her backpack, pulling out this bag. I could see her reaching an arm into the hollowed log, nose scrunched, eyes pinched shut, holding her breath.
Why, Sadie?
Why here? Why across the expanse of a sea, inside a log? What sort of fear could’ve driven her here—to this level of secrecy? Where the walls of her home were not enough? A place, I had once thought, with no locks, no secrets.
I wished I had something to hide this inside now. Pockets, clothes, a way to keep it for myself. But there was no way to swim back to the boat, no way to keep it hidden without Connor seeing. He’d told me the truth, at least—maybe not all of it, but enough to get me here. To her.
He wouldn’t have brought me here if he truly had something to hide, right?
CONNOR WAS WATCHING ASI waded out toward him, holding the freezer bag on top of the flotation device.
“What’s that?” he asked, reaching a hand down for me.
“Not sure.” I dripped water onto the boat, shivering, and looked for a towel, but Connor already had one out on the bench for me.
