Page 1 of The Last House Guest
CHAPTER 1
There was a stormoffshore at dusk. I could see it coming in the shelf of darker clouds looming near the horizon. Feel it in the wind blowing in from the north, colder than the evening air. I hadn’t heard anything in the forecast, but that meant nothing for a summer night in Littleport.
I stepped back from the bluffs, imagined Sadie standing here instead, as I often did. Her blue dress trailing behind her in the wind, her blond hair blowing across her face, her eyes drifting shut. Her toes curled on the edge, a slow shift in weight. The moment—the fulcrum on which her life balanced.
I often imagined the last thing she was writing to me, standing on the edge:There are things even you don’t know.
I can’t do this anymore.
Remember me.
But in the end, the silence was perfectly, tragically Sadie Loman, leaving everyone wanting more.
THE LOMANS’ SPRAWLING ESTATEhad once felt like home, warm and comforting—the stone base, the blue-gray clapboard siding, doors and glass panes trimmed in white, and every window lit up on summer nights, like the house was alive. Reduced now to a dark and hollow shell.
In the winter, it had been easier to pretend: handling the maintenance of the properties around town, coordinating the future bookings, overseeing the new construction. I was accustomed to the stillness of the off-season, the lingering quiet. But the summer bustle, the visitors, the way I was always on call, smile in place, voice accommodating—the house was a stark contrast. An absence you could feel; ghosts in the corner of your vision.
Now each evening I’d walk by on my way to the guest cottage and catch sight of something that made me look twice—a blur of movement. Thinking for an awful, beautiful moment:Sadie.But the only thing I ever saw in the darkened windows was my distorted reflection watching back. My own personal haunting.
IN THE DAYS AFTERSadie’s death, I remained on the outskirts, coming only when summoned, speaking only when called upon. Everything mattered, and nothing did.
I gave my stilted statement about that night to the two men who knocked on my door the next morning. The detective in charge was the same man who’d found me on the cliffs the night before. His name was Detective Collins, and every pointed question came from him. He wanted to know when I’d last seen Sadie (here in the guesthouse, around noon), whether she’d told me her plans for that night (she hadn’t), how she’d been acting that day (like Sadie).
But my answers lagged unnaturally behind, as if some connection had been severed. I could hear myself from a remove as the interview was happening.
You, Luciana, and Parker each arrived at the party separately. How did that go again?
I was there first. Luciana arrived next. Parker arrived last.
Here, a pause.And Connor Harlow? We heard he was at the party.
A nod. A gap.Connor was there, too.
I told them about the message, showed them my phone, promised she’d been writing to me when all of us were already at the party together.How many drinks had you had by then?Detective Collins had asked. And I’d said two, meaning three.
He tore a sheet of lined paper off his notepad, wrote out a list of our names, asked me to fill in the arrival times as well as I could. I estimated Luce’s arrival based on the time I’d called Sadie and Parker’s on the time I’d sent the text, asking where she was.
Avery Greer—6:40 p.m.
Luciana Suarez—8 p.m.
Parker Loman—8:30 p.m.
Connor Harlow—?
I hadn’t seen Connor come in, and I’d frowned at the page.Connor got there before Parker. I’m not sure when,I’d said.
Detective Collins had twisted the paper back his way, eyes skimming the list.That’s a big gap between you and the next person.
I told him I was setting up. Told him the first-timers always came early.
The investigation that followed was tight and to the point, which the Lomans must’ve appreciated, all things considered. The house had remained dark, since Grant and Bianca were called back in the middle of the night with word of Sadie’s death. When the cleaning company and the pool van showed up before Memorial Day—dusting out the cobwebs, shining the counters, opening up the pool—I’d watched from behind the curtains of the guesthouse, thinking maybe the Lomans would be back. They were not ones to linger in sentimentality or uncertainty. They were the type who favored commitment and facts, regardless of which way they bent.
So, the facts, then: There were no signs of foul play. No drugs or alcohol in her system. No inconsistencies in the interviews. It seemed no one had motive to hurt Sadie Loman, nor opportunity. Anyone who had a relationship with her was accounted for at the Plus-One party.
It was hard to simultaneously grieve and reconstruct your own alibi. It was tempting to accuse someone else just to give yourself some space. It would have been so easy. But none of us had done it, and I thought that was a testament to Sadie herself. That none of us could imagine wanting her dead.
The official cause of death was drowning, but there would have been no surviving the fall—the rocks and the current, the force and the cold.
