Page 60 of The Last House Guest
I pulled up the flashlight of my phone and shone it into the back corners of the trunk—but it was completely empty. There was a darker spot in the corner, closer to the front, on the right. Just a slight discoloration—I ran my fingers across it but couldn’t be sure of what it was. Vodka, beer—half-empty bottles that could’ve spilled the night of the party. Or a leaking grocery bag in the months that followed. The car was old. It could’ve been anything.
I set the phone down so I could get a closer look, and the light shone up at the surface, catching on a groove on the underside of the metal roof. At the opposite end, on the left. I ducked my head underneath, ran my fingers over it. A dent, some scratches. Another dent beside it. My knuckle fit in the groove. I ran my hands against the cool underside of the trunk. A web of scratches near the seam.
It could be anything. It could be nothing. My mind, like Sadie’s, picturing all the ways death could be so close. My fingers smoothed back the felt peeling away from the corner, and a glint of metal caught in the beam of the flashlight at the corner. I leaned closer, body half tilting into the trunk as I picked it up.
It was a small piece of metal. Probably lost from a bag. Gold, and spiraled, and—
I dropped the metal. Stepped back. Looked again.
Her gold shoes that had been in the box of evidence—missing a piece of the buckle. I’d thought because they’d been worn down, the holes of the strap pulling, the stitching showing, the bottoms scuffed. But the missing piece of her buckle—here,in the trunk of my car.
I looked at the indentations and scratches again.
Like she’d kicked her shoes against the roof of the trunk. Over and over again.
Oh God. Oh God oh God. I dropped the light, dropped my hands to the bumper to steady myself.
Sadie had been in this trunk, alive. Sadie had been here, trying to fight. Trying to live.
I slid to the ground. The cool pavement beneath my knees, my hands braced on the bumper, the bile rising in my throat. The only light on the dark road was from the trunk, a sickly yellow, and I couldn’t get a full breath. Sadie. Sadie had been there. Inches away at the party. And she had beenhere. In my car, waiting for me to find her. To save her.
The scratches on the trunk—she had wanted to live. All those years courting death, joking about it, and she had fought it. Given it everything she had. Sadie, who I once believed could overcome anything.
I couldn’t breathe. Just a wheeze as I struggled for air.
The headlights from another car shone down the road, and I pulled myself up on the bumper to steady myself. The wheels came to a stop behind me, and the car door opened, but the engine continued running, the lights illuminating the empty road.
“You okay there?” A man’s voice.
I turned to face him, but I had to raise a hand to shield my face from the blinding light, and my eyes watered, picturing Sadie. Sadie alive and then dead. Somewhere between here and there.
I blinked to focus the image before me, and the tears escaped.
“Whoa, whoa.” The shadow in front of the lights grew larger. Broad shoulders, hands held out in front of him. Detective Ben Collins stood in front of me. He placed a hand on my elbow, another on my shoulder, and guided me away from the car to the curb.
The trunk gaped open in front of me, and my stomach heaved again, so I had to rest my head on my arms, folded across my knees. He crouched down so his gaze was level with mine, and I shook my head, trying to focus.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked gently. Close enough to smell the mint on his own breath.
“What? No, no.” I took a deep breath, slowly raised my head.
He looked back at the car, then at me. I finally understood how Sadie had gotten from the party to the bluffs that night. The absolute horror of the thing.
Finally, I had a piece of evidence that proved what I had believed, that everyone would take seriously—a place to point the investigation. My car, with the trunk open, where Sadie had been—except everything circled back to me.
I couldn’t say anything without implicating myself.
He couldn’t search that car without a reason—unless he thought I was drunk or high. I had to get ahold of myself.
“Carsick,” I said, hand to my stomach. “And...” I waved my hand around uselessly, searching—
“I know, I know,” he said, patting my knee. “The dedication tomorrow. Everything coming back. I know you two were close.” He let me sit there in silence, looking over his shoulder. “Did you need something from the trunk?” He gestured to the car, the sickly dim light beckoning.
“No. I thought I had some water, something to drink, in there. I don’t, though.” I didn’t want him to look. Didn’t want him to see what I had seen, discover what I had just discovered. I sucked in a breath, and it sounded like a sob.
“Sit tight,” he said, and I was powerless to stop him. Powerless to prevent him from looking if he wanted to. That piece of metal still in view—how obvious would it be?
But he headed for his own car, parked behind mine. It wasn’t his police vehicle, I realized now, but a sedan, blue or gray, hard to tell in the dark. He turned off the engine, so it was just me and him and the crickets and the night.
