An Unwanted Guest

by Shari Lapena

  Just in case, she removed the remaining earring when no one was watching, and slipped it onto the end table beside her.

  Now she’s glad she thought ahead. If they do have her earring—if they found it near Bradley—she will insist that she took both of them out before Riley ran outside, and put them down on the little end table. The killer must have seen her do it. The killer must have taken one, and deliberately planted it near Bradley’s body.

  It’s perfectly plausible. Especially as they won’t have any other evidence against her. It should be enough for reasonable doubt.

  They won’t get anything out of her.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sunday, 6:00 p.m.

  The road crews are out in force, plowing, sanding, and salting the roads. They will soon be able to let the survivors drive to the station in town to give their statements. Sergeant Sorensen has been advised by telephone that a detective will be arriving any minute. They’ve done pretty well so far, she thinks, without one.

  A technician approaches her holding up a laptop. “I was able to get past Candice White’s password. I pulled up what she was working on.”

  Sorensen raises her eyebrows. “And?”

  “It looks like a romance novel. About two women who fall in love and adopt a baby.”

  “Really?” Sorensen says, surprised.

  He nods. “Yup. Have a look.”

  Sunday, 6:30 p.m.

  Ian has been outside for the last half hour, running the cars, warming them up, and trying to scrape the ice off the windows. It’s already dark out, but the hotel is brightly lit.

  Gwen stops on the front porch, looking out. Her car has just been pulled out of the ditch and brought back to Mitchell’s Inn.

  It seems wrong to get back in the car without Riley. So horrible, to leave without her, to abandon her here. She’s still in the forest, with various people photographing her, examining her, under floodlights. Gwen is sure she’ll never forgive herself.

  She becomes aware of David coming up to stand beside her. She doesn’t know what to say to him. Is there any future for the two of them? Immediately, she feels disloyal to Riley, to her memory. How resentful she would be.

  “Gwen,” David says. It’s just the two of them on the porch. “Are you okay?” His genuine concern almost makes her break down. She wants to press her face into his chest, but she doesn’t. Instead she just nods quickly, blinking back tears.

  She turns to him suddenly. “Did you suspect it was Lauren?”

  “Yes,” he admits. “She touched Dana, and she touched Candice, too, in front of everyone. It’s a smart thing to do if you’re worried about the possibility of having left trace evidence. It’s very difficult to not leave forensic evidence. And she tried to get to Bradley, too, but I stopped her. Physically stopped her. That’s when I suspected her. But I didn’t know, not for sure.”

  “I had no idea it was Lauren,” Gwen says. She’d been shocked by Lauren’s arrest. Ian whispered to her and David afterward that they’d found Lauren’s earring outside, and that he figured it had to have been near the murder scene, because they’d quickly arrested her.

  David says, “She didn’t get near Bradley after we found him. So if they found her earring near him—”

  “I liked her. I trusted her,” Gwen says. She looks up at him in disbelief. “Why would she do it?”

  “What her reasons were, I have no idea. I imagine it will come out in the investigation. I suspect Bradley knew what was going on, and that he was killed for it.” He looks down at her, his face serious. “I think Lauren is probably a psychopath—and very good at pretending that she isn’t.” He hesitates. “They’re different you know—not like you and me.”

  She looks at him more closely. He seems different than he did the first night they arrived. More weary, less sure of himself. They’re all different. She wonders how she seems to him now, how she’s changed. She knows that when she gets into her car, Riley will be in the passenger seat beside her, saying, He killed his wife. Stay away from him.

  * * *

  • • •

  Beverly walks slowly and sadly out the front door of the hotel past David and Gwen and down the steps. But Henry is still in the hotel, in his chair by the fire, as if he will never leave. It feels strange to leave without him, to leave him stuck there. But of course the coroner will have him taken away for an autopsy. There must be an autopsy. There will be arrangements to make, a funeral to see to. She thinks about how to tell the kids that their father is dead. It will come as a shock. You don’t expect your parents to go away together for a weekend and only one of them to come back.

  But first she must stop at the police station and give her statement. Then, they’ve been told, they will all be allowed to go home. All except Lauren.

  Matthew is getting into his car. His grief weighs him down. David and Gwen are still talking on the front porch. Beverly gets into her car, backs up, and then turns slowly down the drive, toward town and the police station.

  What a difference a weekend can make. She’d come up here in hopes of reconnecting with her husband. Now she is going home a widow.

  She checks her rearview mirror to see if anyone is watching her. There’s no one behind her, and no one can see her in the dark. Even so, she waits until she is around the first curve of the drive before she smiles.

  She feels so light it’s like she’s floating.

  She thinks back to when they were searching the hotel, when she helped search the others’ bags. She saw the drugs that Lauren had, the sleeping pills. An entire vial of them. Full. After holding it up for all to see, no one had noticed her spill part of the bottle into her hand inside the overnight bag and then slip the pills into her pocket. It was dark, and no one was paying much attention.

  She hadn’t known for sure that she would do it, not until Bradley had been killed too. And she hadn’t known for sure if it would be enough, but she snuck the pills into her husband’s scotch in the dark and hoped for the best. Perhaps, combined with all the scotch he’d been drinking, it would be enough. It was. She knows that the autopsy will show the sleeping pills, that he was murdered. But he will be one of four people murdered at Mitchell’s Inn this weekend. And Lauren, the murderer of the other three, can’t exactly say anything without implicating herself. She can’t say, But I didn’t kill Henry!

  She can’t say a thing.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Shari Lapena worked as a lawyer and as an English teacher before turning to writing fiction. A Stranger in the House, as well as Lapena's suspense debut, The Couple Next Door, were both New York Times and international bestsellers.