Rajli Sejger - Home Before Dark: A Novel

ALSO BY RILEY SAGER

Final Girls

The Last Time I Lied

Lock Every Door

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Copyright 2020 by Todd Ritter

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Sixteen Going on Seventeen, from The Sound of Music. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Music by Richard Rodgers. Copyright 1959 Williamson Music Company c/o Concord Music Publishing. Copyright renewed. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Sager, Riley, author.

Title: Home before dark : a novel / Riley Sager.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019059645 | ISBN 9781524745172 (hardback) | ISBN 9781524745189 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Psychological fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Horror fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3618.I79 H66 2020 | DDC 813/.6dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059645

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

For those who tell ghost stories . . . and those who believe them.

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Riley Sager

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

House of Horrors by Ewan Holt

Prologue: July 1

One

May 20: The Tour

Two

June 25: The Closing

Three

June 26: Day 1

Four

June 27: Day 2

Five

June 28: Day 3

Six

June 29: Day 4

Seven

June 30: Day 5

Eight

July 1: Day 6

Nine

July 2: Day 7

Ten

July 3: Day 8

Eleven

July 4: Day 9

Twelve

July 5: Day 10

Thirteen

July 6: Day 11

Fourteen

July 7: Day 12

Fifteen

July 8: Day 13

Sixteen

July 9: Day 14

Seventeen

July 10: Day 15

Eighteen

July 11: Day 16

Nineteen

July 12: Day 17

Twenty

July 13: Day 18

Twenty-One

July 14: Day 19

Twenty-Two

July 15: Day 20Before Dark

Twenty-Three

July 15: Day 20After Dark

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Epilogue

House of Secrets by Maggie Holt

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share.

The dining room wallpaper might hide pencil marks charting the growth of children who lived there decades before. Under that sun-faded linoleum could be wood once trod by soldiers from the Revolutionary War.

Houses are always changing. Coats of paint. Rows of laminate. Rolls of carpet. They cover up a homes stories and secrets, rendering them silent until someone comes along to reveal them.

Thats what I do.

My name is Maggie Holt. Im a designer and, in many ways, a historian. I look for each houses story and attempt to coax it out. Im proud of the work I do. Im good at it.

I listen.

I learn.

I use that knowledge to design an interior that, while fully modern, always speaks to the homes past.

Every house has a story.

Ours is a ghost story.

Its also a lie.

And now that yet another person has died within these walls, its finally time to tell the truth.

HOUSE OF HORRORS

A TRUE STORY

Ewan Holt

MURRAY-HAMILTON, INC.,

NEW YORK, NY

PROLOGUEJULY 1

Daddy, you need to check for ghosts.

I paused in the doorway of my daughters bedroom, startled in that way all parents get when their child says something truly confounding. Since Maggie was five, I suppose I should have been used to it. I wasnt. Especially with a request so unexpectedly odd.

I do?

Yes, Maggie said, insistent. I dont want them in my room.

Until that moment, I had no idea my daughter even knew what a ghost was, let alone feared one was occupying her bedroom. More than one, apparently. I noticed her word choice.

Them.

I blamed this new development on the house. We had been in Baneberry Hall almost a week by thenample time to have noted its eccentricities but not long enough to have gotten used to them. The sudden shifting of the walls. The noises in the night. A ceiling fan that, when it spun at full speed, sounded like the clicking of teeth.

Maggie, as sensitive as any girl her age, was clearly having trouble adjusting to it all. At bedtime the night before, shed asked me when wed be returning to our old home, a sad and dim two-bedroom apartment in Burlington. Now there were ghosts to contend with.

I suppose it cant hurt, I said, humoring her. Where should I look first?

Under the bed.

No surprise there. I had had the same fear when I was Maggies age, certain something awful hid in the darkness inches below where I slept. I dropped to my hands and knees and took a quick glance under the bed. All that lurked there was a thin coat of dust and a single pink sock.

All clear, I announced. Where next?

The closet, Maggie said.

Id assumed as much and was already making my way to the bedroom closet. This section of the housedubbed Maggies wing because it contained not just her bedroom but also an adjoining playroomwas located on the second floor, under the eaves of the sloped roof. Because of the rooms slanted ceiling, one half of the closets old oak door slanted as well. Opening it made me think of a storybook cottage, which was one of the reasons we decided the space should belong to Maggie.

Nothing in the closet, I said, making a show of yanking the chain dangling from the closets single lightbulb and peering between hangers draped with clothes. Anywhere else?

Maggie aimed a trembling index finger at the massive armoire that stood sentinel a few feet from the closet. It was a relic from the houses past. An odd one. Over eight feet tall. Its narrow base gradually widened to a formidable midsection before suddenly tapering off again at the top. Crowning it were carvings of cherubs, birds, and strands of ivy that climbed the corners. I thought that, much like the closet door, it gave Maggies room a touch of literary magic. It brought to mind voyages to Narnia.

But when I cracked open the armoires double doors, Maggie sucked in a breath, steeling herself for whatever terror she thought waited inside.

Are you sure you want me to open it? I asked.

No. Maggie paused, and then changed her mind. Yes.

I pulled the armoire doors wide open, exposing a space occupied by only a few frilly dresses my wife had bought with the hopeful notion that our tomboy daughter might someday wear them.

Its empty, I said. See?

From her spot in bed, Maggie peered into the armoire before letting out a relieved sigh.

You know theres no such thing as ghosts, right? I said.

Youre wrong. Maggie slid deeper under the covers. Ive seen them.

I looked at my daughter, trying not to appear startled, even though I was. I knew she had an active imagination, but I didnt think it was