Page 64 of The Last House Guest
Here, I believed, was the scene of the crime. Not the Lomans’ house, or the bluffs, or the beach, as the police had declared last year. But here, on the other side of town.
After I told the police, they would have to search this place, rope it off, close it to civilians. And I needed proof to back up the story I believed.
I used the light from my phone to illuminate the path in front of me as I walked from the driveway to the front door. Up here, with all the undeveloped land, every gust of wind turned threatening, and I kept casting the beam of light into the trees, down the empty road, until I was safely alone inside the house. And I didn’t turn on the lights. In case someone was watching. I could feel them each in a shadow of my memory: Faith, the police, Parker at the edge of the garage. There were so many people who saw things, who knew things. Now Grant and Bianca were here, too, and I knew, just as Luce did—they would do anything to protect the king.
I moved by memory, my hand trailing the couch, the chair, the kitchen counter, as I walked by. The beam kept low and away from the windows. My mother’s painting on the wall, her voice in my ear:Look again. Tell me what you see.
This was the trick, I understood. Not to change the angle or the story, or to take a step forward or back—but to change yourself. I remembered that night, standing behind my mother while she took the pictures on the Harlows’ boat that would ultimately lead her to this. The piece she tackled over and over, like there was something she was chasing. Now I saw everything out of frame, everything that slipped this painting into context—the boat she was standing on, the fact that Connor and I were playing a game of I Spy behind her. The stark clarity of that moment, while the shadows before us kept fading, disappearing into the night. As if the life she was living and the life she was chasing were one and the same all this time.
I backed away from it now, heading toward the closed door at the end of the hall. Luce and I had tried the handle that night, but it had been locked. I’d slammed my hand on the wood then—hoping it had made whoever was inside jump.
Now the door creaked open, shadows of furniture looming in the darkness. With the curtains pulled closed here, I finally flipped the light switch, illuminating the white bedspread, the dark wooden chest, blankets piled beside it. The lid creaked open and I peered inside—the scent of pine, of old quilts and dusty attics.
This had been open, I remembered, when I came over the day after the party to clean. Had her phone been here even then?
Next the bed, running my hand over the soft material. I walked the wood floors, the hardwood popping, past the closet, to the bathroom.
There was a high window over the toilet to let in light, but it didn’t open. A long mirror trimmed in white. A vanity raised off the tile on boxy wooden feet. We’d cleaned the floor of water, Parker and I, after Ellie Arnold came in here with her friends to warm up. The water had been everywhere, grimy towels left behind in the corners.
I ran my fingers across the granite surface of the vanity now, the swirling marble, gray and white. The hard corners. I dropped to my knees, remembering how wet the floor had been that night—the towels heaped in the corner, that I’d put in a plastic bag.
The next day, I’d run them through the wash with bleach, to get them clean.
I peered under the vanity at the darker, untouched grout—harder to clean and see. I stood again, leaning my weight into the side of the vanity until it scratched against the tile, away from the wall. I kept pushing, inch by inch, until it was wedged against the shower, my breath coming too fast. The space left behind was fully exposed, the dirt and debris, and the darker grout, stained from water left sitting.
I dropped to my knees, ran my fingers over the chalky residue.
A corner stained rust brown. A spot missed. I rocked back on my heels, a chill rising, and scrambled out of the room, seeing everything clearly this time.
A fight behind a locked door; the phone knocked from her hand, the surface fracturing. A struggle taking her farther from the door, from the exit. A push in the bathroom. Falling, hitting her head. The blood pooling. Someone else trying to clean, desperately. Taking the spare towels and wiping up the mess. Needing to move her.
Searching through her purse, finding the keys. Peering out the window above the toilet, pressing the buttons on her key—seeing my car light up across the way.
Grabbing a blanket from the chest to cover her. Losing her phone in the process, in the chaos. Where it fell to the base and remained—waiting to be found.
Wrapping her up. God, she was so small. Peeking out into the hall and flipping the power at the circuit breaker. But who?
Had it all been to cause a scene in the dark? A distraction while someone had carried a dying or unconscious Sadie to the car?
If so, I had covered it up, all of it, when I’d come back the next day. Running the evidence through the washer with bleach, ordering a window replacement, closing the wooden chest—and leaving her phone inside. I had erased her, piece by piece, until she became invisible. And I needed to pull her back into focus.
My hand shaking, I used the camera on my phone to take pictures of everything: the spot behind the vanity with the rust-colored stain of blood, the chest of blankets, the hallway circuit breaker, the distance from there to the front door. Gathering proof of it all before I was barred from this place. The story I could see, that only I bore witness to—the ghost of her moving in the gaps between my memories.
I could see it all playing out. Three steps back, three steps forward. A girl in blue, spinning in my room, to a flash of color in the sea, a pale leg caught on the rocks—hanging on until she was found.
ON THE WAY BACK,I veered away from the harbor—away from the coast. Toward the mountains instead. Found myself winding down a small back road that I hadn’t traversed in years.
It was a long half-paved road, forking off into packed-dirt driveways leading to older homes, surrounded by trees.
I slowed until I was in front of the last house on the street: a ranch home tucked out of sight from the road, the ground covered in pockets of grass and dirt. The Harlows still lived next door, an outside light just visible through the trees. I parked my car at the wide mouth of my old driveway, under the low branches of a knotted tree.
The details weren’t visible in the dark, so I could only imagine the colored pottery on the front porch, the hand-paintedWelcomesign that once hung from the door. The wooden chairs that had been built by my mother, the dull green paint chipping, and a low table between them.
I could picture my mom reading on the front porch. My dad with a drink and her feet in his lap. Both of them peeking up every few moments to check on me.
My own life had forked in the dead of night, right here.
But this—this was the life that should’ve been mine. My dad catching me around the waist as I ran inside—You’re a mess,he’d say, laughing. My mom shrugging,So let her be.
