Page 67 of The Last House Guest
I froze, my hands hovering over the desk. I didn’t even breathe. Footsteps on the stairs, and I looked frantically for somewhere to hide. The only place hidden from view was the closet, and all of the paperwork was already out. If the footsteps veered the other way down the hall, I could make a run for it—
“Avery?” The voice was so close. A man. Not Parker. Not Grant. There was no point in hiding. Whoever it was, he was already looking for me.
And then Detective Ben Collins stood in the open office doorway, his forehead knotted in confusion. His eyes scanned the desk, my hands hovering over the top. He took a step into the room. “What are you doing in this house?”
I swallowed nothing, my throat parched. “Did you get my text?”
“Yes,” he said, moving closer to the desk. “And I saw you heading this way earlier. You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing in here?”
I was breaking and entering, and he’d found me. He knew what I’d been looking through and where to find me. Cornered me and caught me red-handed.
“Wait,” I begged, hands held out in front of me. “Just wait, please.” I had to show him right then, before he could change his mind, bring me in, call the Lomans, and I’d never stand a chance. The Lomans could ruin anyone. “I have to show you something.” I rifled through my bag, pulled out everything I’d brought with me. Trying to clear some space on the desk. “Here’s what I sent you,” I said, holding out the medical form for Parker. “See?”
His forehead was scrunched in concentration as he read the document. “I don’t know what I’m looking at here.”
“This is evidence that Parker was hurt the same time my parents died in a car accident.”
He stared at me, green eyes catching the light from the window. I couldn’t read his expression, whether he believed me, whether he was putting things together himself.
“Sadie,” I said, handing him the flash drive, my throat scratching on her name. “She found evidence that her family paid off my grandmother after my parents’ accident. One hundred thousand dollars. It’s here.”
He took it from me, frowning. Turning it over in his hand.
“I have more,” I said. I had everything. I tallied the evidence, pushed the folder I’d brought across the desk in his direction. The matching account number from my grandmother’s checkbook. It had to be enough. “There’s proof that my grandmother paid down her mortgage with this money right after they died. And,” I said, taking out my phone, my hand shaking, “proof that Sadie was hurt at the party last year. Detective, she wasthere.” I pulled up the photos I’d just taken, handed him my phone, the words tumbling out too fast. Trying to walk him through the course of events—the bloodstain from the bathroom, my belief that someone had taken her from the house, wrapped her in a blanket, lost her phone in the process.
“They used my car. My trunk,” I said, a sob caught in my throat. “The crime scene wasthere.Not here. She didn’t jump.”
The corners of his mouth tipped down, and he shook his head. “Avery, you have to slow down.”
But that wasn’t right. I had to speed up. Sadie didn’t want a fucking bell, a sad quote. She wantedthis. To be seen. To be avenged. And he wasn’t paying attention. What did I need to do to get him to see?
He stared at the photos on my phone, his hand faintly shaking as well, like I’d transferred my fear straight to him. His eyes drifted to the window behind me, and I knew what he was thinking—the Lomans would be back soon.
He had to believe me before they arrived.
“There have to be people in the department who remember the accident,” I said. “Who know something. It was a long time ago, but people remember.” It was horrific, that was what the first officer on the scene said. I had the article with me in that folder on the desk. “Maybe we can talk to the person who was first on-scene. Maybe there’s some evidence that didn’t make sense.” Another piece of proof to link the cases together.
I opened the folder, pulled out the article—so he would remember. Detective Collins had once told me that he knew who I was, what I’d been through—that it was a shitty hand to draw. He was older than me. He must’ve remembered this.
“Can I...” He cleared his throat, holding up my phone. “Can I hang on to this?”
I nodded, and he tucked my phone into his pocket, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes, sliding one out, a lighter in the other hand. “Bad habit, I know,” he said. His hand shook as he flicked the lighter twice before it caught. A slow exhale of smoke, eyes closed. “Sometimes it helps, though.”
I imagined the smoke soaking into the Lomans’ walls, the ornate carpet beneath our feet. How they’d hate it. I almost spoke, on instinct, and then stopped. Who cared?
In the article, there was a black-and-white picture of the road—how had I not seen it before, the same image Sadie had taken on her phone? The arc of trees, so different in the daylight—but it matched.
The article also had a picture of the wreckage left behind. The metal heap of a car crumpled against a tree. My heart squeezed, and I had to close my eyes, even after all these years.
I skimmed over sentences, paragraphs, until the part I remembered—that had been seared into my mind years earlier.
“The first officer on the scene gave a statement to the reporter,” I said. Reading the words that I’d wanted to forget for so long. “Here it is. ‘There was nothing I could do. It was just terrible. Horrific. I thought we had lost them all, but when the EMTs arrived, they discovered the woman in the backseat was still alive. Just unconscious.’ The loss will be felt by everyone in the community, including the young officer—”
I stopped reading, the room hollowing out. Couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say the words. Watched, instead, as everything shifted.
He raised his eyebrows, flicked the lighter again. Held it to the base of Parker’s medical paper, letting it catch fire and fall into the stainless-steel trash can.
I stared once more down at the article in my hand. The truth, always inches away, just waiting for me to look again.
