feet. She set me up with this job in the meantime.”
“You should see the view from the main house,” I said.
“I have,” she said, then turned to face me, hands on her hips. “You really don’t remember, do you.”
I shook my head, eyes wide, desperately trying to fit her face into a memory of the Lomans.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. I worked that party with you here. Right after you graduated high school?”
“Oh.” My hand to my mouth. I did remember. Not her specifically, but I remembered Evelyn assigning each of us a role. Erica, patio. Avery, kitchen. But those moments had gotten overshadowed by the parts that had shone so brightly: the blood, the bathroom, Sadie. “Sorry. It was a long time ago.”
“It’s okay, my aunt told me what happened back then. She warned me to keep my distance, no offense.” Erica cleared her throat, her gaze drifting off to the side. “But looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself here.”
I nodded. What did one say when faced with an embarrassing past? I wanted to brush it away, tell her it was a long time ago, that I barely remembered it myself. That it was a matter of her aunt being overprotective, blowing everything out of proportion.
Instead, I leaned in to it, like I’d learned from Sadie, because as she’d taught me, there was no use hiding from myself. Especially not here. “It was a bad time,” I said.
She blinked once, then nodded. “Well, we all grew up, I guess.”
“Your aunt was good to me when I didn’t deserve it. I can’t imagine most people would’ve hired me for something like this around then.”
She cracked a smile, like there was a joke she was remembering. “Don’t give her too much credit. She would’ve done anything the Lomans asked. Probably still would.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
Erica jutted her thumb toward the main house. “Sadie Loman, your friend, right? She called before the party, asked for you by name. I thought you knew?”
“No,” I said. That was wrong. Erica had it backward. “I met her that day. At the party.”
Erica tilted her head as if trying to read something in my words. “No, I remember. I remember because my aunt was not happy about it. Said I’d have to keep an eye on you, make sure you were keeping up.” She shrugged. “Like you said, it was a long time ago.” As if forgiving me for my lapse in memory.
But no. That moment had sharpened and heightened over the years. Erica was wrong. Sadie did not know me then. It had been an accident. Sadie had caught me in the bathroom, when I’d been hiding, trying to stop the blood.
A chance encounter, and my world changed for the better because of it.
“Well, I’d better be going.” Erica patted her bag with the photo. “Thanks for this, Avery.”
She walked down the path toward her car, and I stood in the doorway, watching her drive off. She had to be mistaken. Confused. Swapping one memory for another, her visits to Littleport blurring.
I started to close the door, but something caught my eye. Parker, standing at the edge of the garage, watching me.
I jumped. Hand to heart. Uneasy smile. “This is getting to be a habit,” I called, going for levity. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there.
But he didn’t smile in return. “Were you in the house?”
My heart rate picked up again, and I felt the flush of my cheeks, glad for the distance between us. “What?” I asked, trying to buy some time, come up with the right excuse. Had I left something out of place? Or had they added a security system? Did the camera of his laptop capture me in the office as I searched the desk drawers?
“The back door,” he said, coming closer. “To the patio. It was open.”
I shook my head. That hadn’t been me. I hadn’t touched it. “Maybe you forgot to lock it,” I said.
He pressed his lips together. “I mean, it wasn’t even closed.”
A chill ran through me. When I had searched the downstairs, everything had appeared exactly as it should’ve been. “If you don’t lock it, sometimes it’s not really latched all the way. The wind can do that,” I said. But there was a waver in my voice, and I was sure he heard it, too.
He shook his head as if clearing a thought. “I know that. I thought I locked it. I just—I don’t remember the last