Page 63 of The Last House Guest
I sucked in air, thought I was going to cry. Then I stopped trying to fight it, because what was the goddamn point? “They killed my parents. They were responsible somehow.”
Connor looked over his shoulder at the closed door, and I wondered if someone was walking past. “Who? How?”
I saw it then, back to the start, every moment with them—until it slipped, slowly and horribly, into focus:
The picture of Parker in the living room—his face youthful and unmarked. The way Sadie was teasing him about the scar last summer, not letting it go. The dark look he would give her that Luce had noticed. Shaking and shaking until something broke free.
The double take when Parker saw me sitting in Sadie’s room the day we met—he knew who I was. Of course he did.Avery Greer, survivor.
“Parker,” I said quietly into the night. “It was Parker.”
The scar through his eyebrow, his own reminder. Not a fight but an accident—Sadie had just figured it out for herself. An accident that he had caused. But Parker Loman was untouchable. Somehow he had gotten away with it. One hundred thousand dollars—the price of my parents’ lives. Given for our continued silence. One of two payments that Sadie had uncovered. I wasn’t sure whether the other payment was related—someone else who knew the truth—or whether the Lomans had covered up more than one horrible action.
Parker can get away with literally everything.
They will sacrifice anything for the king.
That was what we were worth to them. Two lives. Everything lost. The entire future of who I was supposed to be—just gone.
I was wrong. This place, it wasn’t the thing taking from me. It wasn’t the mountain road, the lack of streetlights, the brutal extremes. It was the people up on the bluffs, looking out over everything. Covering up for their own. How old must he have been—fourteen? Fifteen? Too young to be driving. Something he wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of, no matter what the excuse. Some laws could not be bent or skirted.
His question that night, as he stood over me at the party in the bathroom—did I think he was a good person. Needing me to absolve him in his own mind. No.No,there was nothing good about him. Nothing at his core but the belief that he was worth every little thing he had been given.
Instead of the simple truth, the only thing that mattered: Parker Loman had killed my parents.
“I’m supposed to meet up with Detective Collins tomorrow,” I said. “If I tell him, I can’t control where the investigation goes from there.” I said it like a warning. I said it to see what Connor would do or say. I wouldn’t be able to stop the police from looking at Connor or me.
Connor looked at the front door again, and I started to wonder whether there was someone else here with him. Or maybe I was just seeing the danger inside everyone suddenly—all the things we were capable of. “Parker hurt Sadie?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. I thought back to what Luce had said about the darkness between Sadie and Parker. Sadie had believed I was a secret, and I was. The reason they took me in, the reason it wasthe right thing to do—the reason Parker did the double take the first time he saw me. He knew exactly who I was. And she finally saw him for the truth.
I didn’t know who had hurt Sadie or why. Only that she had uncovered the secret at the heart of both of our families, and now she was dead. Taken from the party back to her home in my car.
All of us were there that night. It could’ve been anyone.
Suddenly, I needed Connor to leave. I needed to sort out my thoughts, to protect myself. I crossed my arms.
He shifted on his feet. “Are you going to the dedication tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes. You?”
“Everyone’s going,” he said, holding my gaze.
I shook my head, looked away. “I’ll talk to you then.” A set of headlights cut through the front curtains before continuing on. “You need to go,” I said.
“You can come with me. It’s a one-bedroom apartment, but I can sleep on the couch—”
But I knew exactly what I needed to do. I couldn’t take down the Lomans on words alone. You couldn’t fight that sort of power with nothing but belief. You needed proof.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the dedication, Connor,” I said, opening the front door. Holding my breath. With Connor, I realized, I was always waiting to see what he would do.
He turned at the entrance to say something. Then thought better of it. He peered down the dark road, eyes narrowed. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you.”
I didn’t answer, closing the door slowly as he backed away. Through the gap in the curtains, I watched him walk to his truck, a shadow in the night. And then I watched the brake lights fading into the distance until I was sure he was gone.
WITH MY NEW UNDERSTANDINGof my past, Littleport in the dead of night became something else. No longer were these the winding roads of single-car accidents, of a lack of streetlights, of drifting off the road while you slept. But a town where the guilty roamed, unapologetic. It was a place that made killers of men.
I was on edge, continually checking my rearview mirror, trying to remain unseen as I drove back to the Blue Robin.
