The House Guest by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Author:Hank Phillippi Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

TWENTY-EIGHT

Alyssa stared at the opaque black rectangle of her cell phone, as if it were about to show the video from inside her house. Mickey had moved closer to her, leaning in to listen to Tammy—and maybe Bill—and they perched side by side against the wide wooden desk. Alyssa recognized Mickey’s perfume, grapefruit and lavender, same as she’d worn back in school. The afternoon sun was even more filtered now, gray clouds wisping across it, portending more rain. Three slashes of light sliced through the window and across the law office in front of them, faded, and then disappeared. For a moment, Alyssa worried about what Bill might say to Tammy, and that Mickey would hear it. Too late for that now.

Mickey held up a hand, crossed her fingers. “Here we go,” she said, her voice low. “I’m not sure how we could use anything he says, but it will be interesting, nonetheless. And potentially instructive. At least give us some clues.”

“Yeah,” Alyssa whispered, too, though the phone was still muted.

She heard Tammy walking down the steps; imagined her patting her bulging apron pocket, the unusual heaviness of wearing it, the weighty knowledge that her employer was, invisible, on the other end, able to hear every word. The fear that Bill might get suspicious, confront her, catch her. Alyssa regretted that she’d put Tammy at risk.

Or had she? In the silence, Alyssa imagined Tammy and Bill writing notes to each other, as Mickey had with her moments ago. Alyssa would not be able to tell whether Tammy was communicating with Bill in a private way. But she would have to risk it.

Plus, she was being ridiculously paranoid. For the past eight years, Bill had barely glanced at Tammy, not unless he wanted something, had dealt with her the same way he did others he put in her category. Not to their face, of course. Bill was beloved by waitstaff and housekeepers and drivers and gardeners; the ones his family, and then Bill himself, had paid to provide the structural underpinnings of his life. He never noticed the toilet paper roll in the bathroom was always full, or that there were fresh flowers on every table, or that the napkins were always ironed. That’s simply how the world worked for him, always had. In private, though, he wasn’t such a down-to-earth man of the people.

She’d asked him once, just as an experiment, “How much is a dozen eggs?” Bill had frowned, perplexed. “Why? Do you need some money?” She’d been picking a fight, she had to admit, one of those times, as Bill criticized and complained and the edges of their marriage began to fray, that Alyssa had craved just one moment of power, a single shred of control. But then, as he’d started doing in those perplexing days, he’d waved her off. “Eggs,” he’d repeated, as he turned away. “Whatever you need, Alyssa, call someone and tell them.”

Alyssa had been brought up differently. Had seen the world from the other end of affluence.

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