An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
For the rest of the evening, her mind was in turmoil. She let Ian fuck her in the back staircase, but her mind was on other things. Would Dana tell?
She told herself that Dana also had a lot to lose. She was about to marry, and obviously into money. Lauren was certain Matthew didn’t know about Dana’s past. Dana would keep that from him, surely. She wouldn’t want a man like Matthew to know what she’d come from. But Dana knew something about Lauren that Lauren couldn’t allow to get out.
Of all the shitty luck.
How easily it all came back to her that night. That horrible time in her life. She was full of rage. She’d been removed from her family’s house and sent to that wretched group home on the other side of the city. Her parents had found her unmanageable and she thought they wanted to teach her a lesson. She hated them for it. Her father had had enough of her, but her mother—her mother thought Lauren was just unhappy. Her poor, long-suffering mother. She never really understood who Lauren was.
The group home was awful. She didn’t even have her own bedroom, but had to share with two other girls. One of them was Dani, tall and skinny and vicious. She never knew what Dani’s deal was—they never talked about home, and how they ended up in that shithole. The bathroom was shared among six of them. No one ever seemed to clean it. The food was barely edible. But she ate it anyway, and hated herself for shoveling it in, looking for comfort wherever she could find it.
They would go up onto the roof. It seems unlikely now, unbelievable, that when they were in care, they would climb up the TV antenna tower in the backyard and get onto the roof. The house was at the end of the street, and if they stayed on the back of the roof, no one saw them. They would hang out up there, smoking cigarettes that Dani stole from Mrs. Purcell, the woman who was supposed to be looking after them. One afternoon, one of the kids, Lucas—he was thirteen, but seemed younger—climbed up after them and asked Dani for a smoke.
Dani told him to fuck off.
He stayed. He kept pestering them until Dani told him his parents were drug addicts and they were never coming back for him because she’d heard the social worker telling Mrs. Purcell that they’d overdosed and he was an orphan now. She really could be a coldhearted bitch.
“You’re lying!” he shouted, furious tears streaming down his face. “I’m going to tell on you!”
“Go ahead,” Dani said, flicking her cigarette ash. Then she added, “God, you’re such a baby.”
Getting nowhere with Dani and stinging with hurt and the need to hurt someone else, Lucas turned on Lauren and said, with a contempt beyond his years, “You’re fat and ugly!”
And Lauren stood up suddenly and pushed him off the roof, just like that.
Dani turned to her in shock. “Jesus! Do you know what you just did?”
They looked down at the boy on the patio stones below. He wasn’t moving; his head was split open and leaking. They lit out for the mall and didn’t come back until suppertime.
It was assumed he’d fallen, or jumped. He was a troubled boy, the child of drug addicts, with probable fetal alcohol syndrome and poor impulse control. No one even questioned where they were. But Dani knew what Lauren had done, and for a few days she held it over her, threatening to tell whenever she felt like it.
Dani left, no more than a week after Lauren pushed the boy off the roof. She stuffed her things in a garbage bag and said, “See ya, loser.” And then she was out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Lauren didn’t know if she’d gone back to her parents or to another foster home.
Lauren wanted to go home. She hadn’t thought she would be there long. But it dragged on, week after week, until she wondered if her parents would ever ask to get her back, and no one told her anything. Lauren’s rage grew and grew.
When Lauren was finally reclaimed, her mother came for her alone. Her father was gone; she never saw him again. Her mother took her home and things went back to normal, with Lauren doing whatever she wanted. A couple of years later, her mother remarried. Her stepfather adopted her and she changed her name to his.
And then Dani showed up at Mitchell’s Inn.
That night, Lauren didn’t actually take her sleeping pills. She waited until Ian was asleep, and then, when all was quiet except for the bluster and rattle of the wind, she slipped out of her own room and padded quietly down to the second floor and knocked lightly on Dana’s door. She was all alone in the hall; everyone was asleep, the storm crashing outside their windows. She didn’t have to knock twice.
Dana answered the door, looking guardedly at her. Lauren said that they should talk. Dana glanced back at the sleeping form of her fiancé, slipped the room key into the pocket of her dressing gown, and stepped into the hall without a word. She followed Lauren down the stairs to the landing and then stopped. “Wait,” she said, her voice low. “We can talk here.” And she stopped as if she wouldn’t go any farther. So, at the top of the stairs, Lauren looked Dana in the eye and said, “We need to clarify a couple of things.”
Dana stared, her eyes wide, the same way she’d stared at Lauren in the dining room when she made the crack about someone falling off the roof. They had a fraught, shared history. The only question was, What happened now?
A cool, blank expression settled over Dana’s face. “What is it, exactly, that you want to clarify?” she asked. And then she simpered and said, “Oh, wait! I know. You want to be sure I’m not going to tell anybody that you’re a murderer.”
“Shut up, Dani,” Lauren snapped, her voice low. “Don’t think you can push me around anymore. Things have changed.”
Dana snorted. “Oh, I don’t think they’ve changed that much. I think I’ve still got the upper hand here, given what I know about you.”
“But I don’t think you want Matthew to find out about your past either, am I right?”
“Oh, I don’t know. My past may be sad, but it’s not criminal,” Dana said.
Lauren reached out and grabbed Dana’s robe and yanked at it. There, over Dana’s left breast, was the small, telltale tattoo. A viper. “You didn’t get rid of this?” Lauren almost laughed. “You can get those removed, you know.”
Dana looked at her and spat, her voice low, familiar, “You always were a little sociopath. What are you going to do—are you going to push me too?”
And with one sudden, violent thrust, Lauren pushed Dana down the stairs. Dana fell clumsily to the bottom, her descent muffled by the thick carpet. She let out one short scream that panicked Lauren. She froze. But she was committed now.
Dana lay completely still at the bottom of the stairs. Lauren had only moments before others might come running. She ran lightly down the staircase. At the bottom, she felt Dana’s pulse still beating in the soft curve of her throat. She grabbed a fistful of Dana’s shiny hair and pulled up her head and smashed it—as hard as she could, with all her rage—against the edge of the stair. Lauren’s heart was pounding violently. She looked up toward the top of the staircase, expecting someone to come at any moment; someone must have heard the scream. She was getting her story ready. But still no one came. She felt again for a pulse. Dana was dead. Glancing around, certain that no one had seen her, but not wanting to run into anyone who might have heard something, Lauren ran quietly along the back hall and made her way up the back staircase to the third floor and let herself back into her room. Ian was sound asleep.
She’d killed her. She’d killed Dani, the one person who knew what she’d done all those years ago, and all she felt was relief. And to know that she killed her before she could marry a rich man and have everything she ever wanted was especially satisfying.
They would think Dana fell down the stairs.
Lauren crawled back into bed and lay awake all night thinking about what she’d done. She felt no remorse.
But as the long night wore on, she started to worry. It had all happened so fast. She worried that Dana might hav
Finally, she rose very early in the morning—having not slept at all—and crept downstairs before anyone else. She went quietly, careful to wake no one. Her heart was pounding as if it had grown to fill her entire chest. She stood on the landing at the top of the stairs and looked with cold relief down at Dana, so clearly dead. She swept down the stairs and bent over her, and confirmed that she was dead as a stone. She was so relieved she almost laughed.
And then she let out her unholy scream. People came running then, and she made sure they found her feeling for a pulse, in case the police found traces of her touch. She hoped it looked like an accident. And if anyone thought it didn’t, there was Matthew—the obvious suspect. She thought she was in the clear.
But then David, the attorney, had suggested that it wasn’t an accident at all, that it was murder. Still, she thought she might be all right. She thought they might think Matthew did it. And even if they didn’t, there was nothing to pin it on her. She was certain they wouldn’t find the connection between her and Dani.
But then after lunch she found the note in her book. The book she’d left in the lobby after breakfast. She took the book back upstairs with her after lunch and opened it and saw the small slip of paper inside, not folded, with her bookmark. And written on it, in big block capitals, in an obvious attempt to disguise the handwriting, was: I saw what you did to Dana.
She felt her heart jump in her chest like someone had jolted it with electricity. Someone had seen her! The note was unsigned. But she’d seen Candice in the lobby with the book in her hand, and she’d put it back down in a hurry. It had to be her. Was she going to try to blackmail her? Lauren thought uneasily about the hotel, how someone could have been hidden, behind a chair, in an alcove, how she might have been seen, or heard, after all. How rash she had been, how cocky, to take a quick glance around and assume that no one had been there! But Candice had been watching. She must have been. And now Candice was going to try to blackmail her. The bitch. But Lauren was not the kind of person to be blackmailed.
She knew what she had to do. It didn’t bother her to kill. Not if it was necessary. She’s always been able to do whatever is necessary. She’s different from other people. She’s always known this, ever since she was a little girl.
She has also known the importance of hiding such a fact. And she’s been clever enough not to have been discovered. It gives her a certain freedom that other people seem to lack. She can do things that they can’t. But she’s learned how to hide it by watching what other people do and pretending to be like them.
After finding the note, she told Ian she wanted a bit of time to herself and went to the small sitting room on the third floor with her book. She knew she couldn’t confront Candice in the library—it was too risky. Candice would probably come up to her room at some point. She’d already noticed that Candice had been wearing a silk scarf around her neck that morning.
After a while, she heard a sound in the hall. She got up from her seat by the window where the light was good enough to read, and moved quietly to the door and looked out. It was Candice, unlocking the door to her room across the hall. Candice opened the door and went inside, leaving the door open. Lauren crept down the corridor toward the open door. She looked quickly up and down the hall; no one was there. Candice was standing at the desk, her back turned to her. Lauren wasn’t going to negotiate. There was only one way to deal with a blackmailer. It was easy to sneak up behind Candice, her feet sinking noiselessly into the carpet. She quickly grabbed both ends of the scarf around Candice’s neck and pulled with all her strength. She didn’t let go until she was sure. She let Candice slump to the floor. Once Lauren was absolutely certain she was dead, she left, using her sleeve to close the door behind her. And then she retraced her steps to the sitting room, where she took up her book again.
Problem solved.
And then she had another idea. Checking that no one was coming, she slipped across the corridor and, picking the lock—a skill she’d learned as a troubled teenager—slipped quietly into the empty room at the end of the hall across from Gwen and Riley’s room. She had to be very quiet, so that they didn’t hear her. She messed up the bed a bit, made it look like it had been slept in. She went into the bathroom, and taking a towel, turned on the faucet and sprinkled some water on the sink. Then she slipped carefully out of the room and returned to the sitting room feeling rather clever. She was sure no one had seen her this time.
She thought it would end there.
When Candice’s body was discovered, she found it easy to dissimulate, to pretend a horror, a fear, she did not feel. She behaved like the others, mirroring their emotions like a chameleon. She’s been doing this all her life. It was easy.
They’d all crowded around Candice’s room, messing up the murder scene. She deliberately bent down over Candice and made a show of touching her in front of everyone, trying to loosen the scarf, just in case. So she wouldn’t have to worry about trace evidence.
But by then she’d already realized that she’d made a terrible mistake.
It was when they’d returned from the icehouse, before Candice’s body had even been discovered. Bradley had gone off to the library to look for her. Lauren had stood in front of the reception desk and reached across, using her iPhone to search for a pen. She wanted to do a crossword by the light of the oil lamp. Her eyes fell on a small white notepad with paper the same size as the disturbing note in her book. She held the light closer. She could see the faint imprint of block letters. Even upside down, she could make out the words saw and Dana, clearly enough.
It was Bradley’s desk. She’d never seen his father—or anyone else—behind the desk. Bradley might have written the note and put it in her book. Maybe Candice had nothing to do with it. It might have been Bradley who’d seen her kill Dana. She quickly grabbed a pen and turned away from the desk, her heart pounding in her chest.
Still, she thought, settling down and pretending to work on a crossword, Candice may have seen the note—I saw what you did to Dana—inside the book, which was in her hand. And Lauren told her the book was hers. It was probably just as well that Candice was dead. Snoopy bitch. But Bradley . . . He must be the one who’d seen her.
Later, after Candice was found, she realized that Bradley must be afraid that she had also killed Candice. She thought that maybe he’d lost his nerve, was too afraid now to approach her and ask for money. He knew what she’d done. She knew she had to kill him.
When Riley ran outside into the dark, and Bradley followed, she saw her opportunity. She grabbed her coat. Her leather gloves were inside the pockets. Ian was with her but she urged him to go after Riley quickly, pretending to struggle with her boots. Alone on the porch in the dark, she picked up the boot scraper and slipped quietly in the direction she’d seen Bradley take. When she finally came upon him she let her rage take over—she struck him with everything she had.
Then she froze in the night, listening, worried that someone had heard him fall. But it was too windy to hear much of anything. No one came. She could just hear, faintly, Gwen calling for Riley, panic in her voice. Lauren stayed in a crouch and moved away from Bradley, abandoning the boot scraper by his body. She headed for the other side of the hotel, far away from the body. Soon after, she saw the light appear at the front door and saw David and Matthew coming outside to join them.
When she heard the shouting, she made her way over to where she’d left Bradley dead. But then things didn’t go the way they were supposed to. David was there, holding the fading flashlight, Gwen beside him. She saw James hovering over Bradley, and she tried to go to him, to offer help, to check Bradley’s pulse, to see if he was really dead. But David wouldn’t let her near him. He stopped her. He wouldn’t let her go to Bradley, even when she pummeled his chest and sobbed. She thought she
She wondered then if David was onto her.
It was unfortunate that she’d had to reveal the truth about her and Ian. That they hadn’t been together that afternoon, after all. She’d undermined him, suggested he was the killer without looking like she was doing it. It was lucky, that lie about his brother. She loved Ian as much as it was possible for her to love anyone, but ultimately, he was disposable. It was necessary. She would find someone else.
Of course, they have no motive. She’s not worried they will be able to find the connection between her and Dana. They’d been in the same group home for only a couple of weeks. People came and went there in a constant, sad procession, with their pitiful plastic garbage bags holding all their worldly possessions. They were in foster care, not in the criminal system. And it was in another state. Lauren’s life since has been a clean slate. She’s never been caught for anything she’s done.
She’s been so careful. She touched Dana in front of everyone—that’s why her DNA will probably be on her. Candice too. If they find trace evidence of her it will be meaningless. And Bradley—she’d been wearing gloves, and there were so many of them around him, and they’d moved him. The evidence must be hopelessly contaminated.
But they must have something on her, she thinks anxiously, something definitive. Maybe they found her earring. That must be why they brought Ian in again, to identify it. She feels little prickles of moisture rise on her skin.
She’d noticed, in the dark, early hours of the morning, that she was missing an earring. She could have lost it anywhere, long before she went outside after Bradley. There had been no struggle. She’d lifted the boot scraper and brought it down on his head and he’d dropped without a sound. But she was worried: What if she had lost the earring when she killed Bradley?
Just in case, she removed the remaining earring when no one was watching, and slipped it onto the end table beside her.