The Hostess

by Courtney Psak

Genres: Female Sleuths; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Don't miss Courtney Psak's next unputdownable thriller, available to pre-order now!

Natalie and her husband decide to escape the city for a much-needed break. After suffering from a terrible accident, Natalie needs some time and space to recover. So when they find a gorgeous rental home on an estate in the Hamptons available at the last minute, it seems too good to be true.

The owner of the estate, Sadie, is beautiful, elegant and wealthy, and Natalie is immediately drawn to her.

But as the women begin to bond, Natalie can't shake the feeling that Sadie is hiding something beneath her polished exterior.

When Natalie discovers that the previous guest disappeared without a trace, dark questions surface: Who exactly is the hostess? What are her secrets? And can Natalie uncover the truth, before it's too late?

Praise for Courtney Psak's unputdownable thrillers:
"Will keep you turning the pages until the final, killer twist" Lisa Unger
"Wow wow wow! The twist at the end blew my mind!" Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Twisting, propulsive, and unsettling" Carter Wilson
"One hell of a ride!" Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Hooked from the start" Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"I loved everything about this book. I could not put it down! Twists, turns and everything I would want in a thriller" Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Was up all night reading it. I loved the characters & the storyline" Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 304

Sample

Chapter One

Natalie

“Well, what do you think?”

I turn toward Luke, his hazel eyes bright with excitement as he anticipates my answer. He pauses at the entrance of the light gravel driveway for effect. The house itself is still another fifty yards away.

I manage a smile on my face and tilt my head. “It’s perfect.”

His hand leaves the steering wheel to find mine and he gives it a gentle squeeze.

“This is going to be fun.”

I rub my thumb over the top of his hand. “For both of us,” I say.

He sucks in his dimpled cheek, before cocking his head at the oversized summer home. “At least I don’t think we’ll suffer.”

I let out a small laugh. He’s right. The house is gorgeous. A proper Southampton estate. I count twenty-four windows all perfectly adorned with black shutters just in the front of the gray cedar-shake house.

“Sadie said the guest house is on the right.” Luke points as he hunches over the wheel, peering out of the front windshield.

I turn and look out my passenger window of our newly purchased black Jeep Grand Cherokee. The perfectly manicured hedges give way to display a smaller, but still sizable, house bookended between its own private swimming pool and tennis courts.

“Whoa,” Luke says, eyes the size of sand dollars.

I gaze up at the two sloping gables of the roof staring down at us like a pair of eyes.

I find myself clenching and unclenching my grip on the door handle. My pulse suddenly quickens and I’m drowning with an overwhelming sense of dread.

Luke seems to notice my breathing becoming shallow.

“You okay?”

I drop my head. “Yeah, I just need a minute.”

He strokes my brown hair, softly pulling down on the strands of my pixie cut until he gets to the base of my skull. He gives my tensing muscles a gentle squeeze. Instinctively knowing how to calm me down.

“I know this has been a lot for you today. Just take your time.”

“Thanks,” I say, slightly embarrassed, even though I shouldn’t be. Not with Luke. He knows how hard it was for me to leave our apartment today. Ever since the accident, I’ve been terrified of cars. I don’t trust being in them and I don’t trust others driving, which is particularly difficult when you live in New York City. It’s made me agoraphobic over the last several months.

I used to be different. I had a bright, bubbly personality, some may say I was a social butterfly, even. I was happy and why wouldn’t I be after everything I had overcome? I have a ­wonderful job as a nurse practitioner, and I’m married to the love of my life.

I turn toward Luke, his clean-shaven face slightly rounded just like when we met in college. Always getting carded at the bars because of his boyish looks. Now he’s settled into his age. His dark hair is tousled and parted on the side, still holding off any signs of gray or thinning. His broad shoulders always give him the appearance of being in shape when he doesn’t have the time to put the effort in. He’s just blessed with naturally good genes. If things ended between us, I know he wouldn’t be single for long.

I, on the other hand, feel uglier by the day. The accident did not help with things. The scars under my hair, raised and still sensitive to the touch. I’m not really meant to have a pixie cut—it’s just my hair growing back. I’m finally in a place where it’s no longer patchy. But I used to have beautiful hair. Long and silky. My favorite part of it was when Luke would pull it behind my ear before kissing me.

My bright blue eyes, which always gave me a striking appeal with my naturally long lashes, have dulled a bit. The signs of tragedy dimming them like a light switch.

I bite my inner cheek and look up at Luke, waiting patiently for me. I inhale deeply and open the door. Luke springs out like a jackrabbit to come over and help me. It’s the most exposed I’ve felt in a while. Being outside in an open space like this, something I haven’t done in so long, feels like I’ve stepped into another dimension. I can smell the salty brine of the air along with freshly cut grass. I close my eyes and find myself pretending to be back in our apartment to give myself a moment of calm.

I feel Luke’s arm gently guiding me.

I can do this, I remind myself.

Right before the accident, Luke had landed this amazing job at a private equity firm. Not only that, his boss, Jim, the founder of the company, took Luke under his wing. In the last six months the opportunities with this position have accelerated faster than Luke could’ve ever hoped, putting us financially in a better situation, which we desperately needed after all the medical expenses.

Earlier this week, he and I discussed—or rather, he claims—that I’m stunted in my recovery because I don’t leave the house.

“I’m better than I was before,” I tried to explain to him.

“I know you are. You have come a long way,” Luke said, his hand scooping crumbs off our linoleum countertop in our small galley kitchen. “But listen, I have this idea.”

I remember stiffening.

“I found this rental in the Hamptons.”

I stared at him confused, not quite believing it. “In the middle of the summer?”

“Yes,” he said, almost not believing it himself. His fingers propped on the counter. “The price is very reasonable, and I know that the city has made you . . .” He trailed off.

“I know,” I admitted, shifting nervously.

“I thought this would be a great opportunity to get you out of the city and give you the space you need to fully heal.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I just think this would be a nice escape.” He paused. “For both of us.”

My chest tightened at the implied statement. It’s not just me who needs to recover. It’s our marriage.

“So, what can you tell me about this place?” I tried to act more enthusiastic.

Luke’s face softened to a smile. “Well, it’s part of this estate in Southampton. The owners decided to rent out the guest house.”

“So, we’re on their property?”

He shook his head. “It’s a big lot, so we won’t be on top of each other. It’s a separate house, not an apartment over a garage or anything. It’s set very far back from the road. You could walk around the estate without a car in sight.” He looked at me directly. “You need the fresh air.”

“Sounds wonderful,” I said, pretending to be excited. “I’m curious as to why it’s only coming on the market now.”

Luke shrugged his shoulders. “Just timing and luck, I guess. Plus, all these hurricanes off the coast recently aren’t shaping up to make a good summer. But the weather is going to be beautiful this weekend and it’s ours for the month if we want it.”

Luke was right. The weather today isn’t anything but pleasant. We step up to the wraparound porch, supported by Corinthian columns, with unobstructed views of the endless ocean ahead of us. White cumulus clouds float like whipped dollops in the sky to complete the picturesque scene.

My eye follows a boardwalk that edges the property and bridges over the thick covered dunes.

Off to the corner, I notice a gas firepit elevated on pavement stones with four white love-seat couches surrounding it, the dunes backdropping it into a picture-perfect scene. I even imagine myself and Luke snuggled up under a blanket on a cool night, the fire dancing in front of us, until my mind wonders what sort of creatures could be hidden beneath the brush.

The backyard, while spacious and well manicured with corduroy lines of freshly cut grass, still doesn’t feel as private as I would’ve initially thought. There is a garden hedge squared off in the middle of the property that seems to act as a privacy wall, but it can’t be more than a hundred feet, which on a property as large as this, doesn’t do that much. Then again, it’s obvious that the garden is meant more as a beautiful feature of the property, rather than to act as a divide.

I think about what Luke and I are paying for this rental and it’s much lower than anything else on the market, despite being ten times nicer than anything else available. I wonder what the reason for that is. Are the pictures online for this property dated and we are in for a surprise? Or did something not work out with a previous renter? Then again, anyone—no matter how wealthy—can run into money troubles. The taxes alone on this place have to be astronomical. Maybe they needed a quick fix.

I follow the porch toward the backyard, descending from a set of stairs, bringing me toward the pool. It’s large and rectangular with an elevated hot tub pouring into it like a miniature waterfall. The white cushioned loungers lining the edge are perfectly even, as if they were brand new and being staged for a photo shoot. I suddenly have the feeling like I’m being watched. I turn toward the main house, but I don’t see anything at first. I still can’t shake the feeling. My eyes flick back up, scanning the windows until I notice the silhouette of a woman on the second floor. My body stiffens. After a moment, the figure steps back, the white curtain falling closed.

The thought of being here, knowing someone might always be spying on us, sends a deep shudder through me, but I have to push the thought away. We need this to work.

“Are you okay if I go get the bags from the car?” Luke asks.

“Of course.”

Luke gives me a quick smile.

I look back up at the now-empty window and suddenly feel vulnerable and exposed. I turn, scurrying back up the steps to check the door to the back porch, praying that it’s open, my hand shaking as I try to grip the handle. I feel a pressure building in my chest as I struggle with the door. I need to be inside right now, but I can’t seem to get my feet to listen. All I have to do is walk around the porch to the front, but I can’t seem to do that. It’s as if I’m frozen in place, the panic in me rendering my body catatonic, unable to move.

I see a dark shadow on the other side of the glass door inside the house. It’s approaching me, the outline I realize much larger than Luke. It comes up on me fast, ripping the door open angrily. My hand, still on the handle, jerks and pulls me inside, causing me to fall into the figure.

I let out a startled gasp, as I feel the strong grip of seemingly large hands on my arms, holding me in a tight lock, unable to escape if I wanted to.

The fear overwhelms me as I look up at the person in front of me. His face is slack with emotion. His dark brown eyes are deadened, as if there is nothing behind them. His thick, black eyebrows furrow angrily at me.

I find my footing, eager to back away, but his grip remains tight on me. I struggle again, about to let out a scream loud enough for Luke to hear, when finally, the man lets go of me and I step back, catching my breath.

I notice then he has got to be a least six and half feet tall. Taller than my five-six frame or Luke’s even six. He appears older, early to mid-forties, but strikingly muscular.

He’s standing there, his squared-off jaw tightly set, and there is the slight hint of a scowl like I’m an intruder in his house. Then it suddenly occurs to me that I might be. Maybe we have the address wrong. I swallow hard.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologize. “We were looking for the Wilson residence. We are supposed to be staying in their guest house.”

He crosses his arms, leaving his expression the same. “This is the Wilson residence.” His voice is deep and scratchy.

“Oh,” I say, confused. “I’m Natalie. My husband Luke and I were told by Sadie Wilson that we could stay in this guest house for the month of—”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says cutting me off.

I blink in surprise. “I’m sorry. Was there some sort of mix-up?”

He appears angry with me for asking the question. “No.”

“Okay,” I try to keep my voice light.

We stare at each other for a long moment.

“Can I help you?” I hear Luke’s voice behind him, as he comes in through the front door with our bags.

He turns back toward Luke, his expression still the same. Then he lets out a long-winded exhalation from his nostrils, as if frustrated.

He turns back to me. “Just get out,” he growls, his breath hot on mine. Then he walks past me, slamming the back door shut.

Chapter Two

Sadie

I peer out the window from the second floor, trying to get a glimpse of the couple that just arrived. A flush of anxiety and anticipation courses through me. She looks so much like my friend Cassie, though Cassie had longer hair and more confidence. The woman I see below has short brown hair and worried eyes. She walks around the backyard curiously, but with an air of hesitancy. I wonder if she’s one of those people with psychic abilities who can read the auras or energy of a place. I can only fathom a guess how much tragedy, death and heartbreak has washed up on this shore over the course of history.

I catch the woman staring up at me and, embarrassed, I shyly close the curtain, taking a step back and sitting on the white couch in my master bedroom. The room feels cold, but I’m always cold lately. Worse than that, it’s like a chill that you feel deep inside your bones. It’s as if the light inside me has been extinguished and with it the warmth of a soul is gone.

My eyes sweep the room around me. It’s a minimalistic design that I picked out. Stark contrasts of white furniture, curtains and bedding against the dark wood of the floors. Jute rugs accent between the two. It just shows my lack of imagination. All this came from a page I found in a magazine and pointed to a designer to recreate.

Not that I have a lot of family pictures that I can display. Happy memories and grinning faces are not something that I’ve seen since I was ten. I’ve lived a life of trepidation, much like the woman lurking outside on my property right now. I recognize that look. I wore it all the time until I taught myself how to successfully hide it. That idea that you can’t allow yourself to be happy, because you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even if you think you’ve done everything you can to put yourself in a position where you can one day smile, you can’t always trust it. Once your heart has been broken, it’s like a crystal glass that has shattered. You can never put it back together. Even if you think you can, it’s forever distorted with jagged edges that no longer fit the way they once did, because tiny fissures have etched away who you once were.

It makes me wonder what sort of person she is. What she’s experienced in her lifetime to make her always look so afraid.

She appears to wear her emotions on her sleeve, right now down to her clothes. Her T-shirt is too big for her tiny, frail body, and her jeans are torn. Her skin is deathly pale, and her shoulders seem to settle in a hunch. I myself do what I can to hide those feelings. I make a point of keeping up appearances. I get my hair highlighted every eight weeks; my nails done every two. I have a personal shopper who dresses me in mainly white and cream colors but occasionally I go for the bright and bold. Everything is tailored to my shape, which I keep up with tennis classes and gym sessions with a personal trainer three days a week.

Despite how different we appear on the outside, I’m hopeful that we will get along well or at least relate to each other somehow. God knows I could use a friend. My gaze falls to the empty bottle of Adderall sitting in the trash can of my bathroom. I flash to myself crushing the tiny pills on my makeup mirror before snorting them, then scrubbing my skin so hard in the shower that it was inflamed with a pinkish hue long after I was done.

The loneliness has been intolerable. During the day, I know I have the busy sounds of our maid, Shar, ­vacuuming; the cook, Marla, clanging pots and pans; and the groundskeeper, Riley, always with his whir of some sort of landscaping machine.

But last night, the house was quiet and that’s when I heard the screams in my head. An inescapable pitch that was deafening to my ears. Sometimes I try to scream over it myself, but it’s no use.

I hear a seagull squawking in the distance and I look out over the ocean and see a beautiful white sailboat gliding past. The water is flat and calm. It’s a picture-perfect day. Still, I eye the beach every morning, waiting for the ocean to betray me and wash up my buried secrets.

The air in here suddenly feels stale and thick. I open the window to let a breeze in when I feel my shoulder seize up. I wince and gently massage it. The bandage is fresh over the stitches underneath. The doctor said I was lucky. It was just a minor flesh wound.

My thoughts slide to my husband, Tom, returning soon, and I’m scared. For him and for myself. I know that I can’t keep this up forever, but I’m not ready to give up on him.

That night washes over me like a wave. I saw myself from above with no power to control what was happening to me. The searing pain of cold steel piercing my flesh, the look of horror at what he had caused. I shake my head. I just hope that Tom knows how much I still love him.

I know they will only hold him for a few days, so I need to figure out what I’m going to do. Guilt consumes me. I know it’s not easy for Tom. I’m just hoping that he’ll soon see the right path so we can move on with our lives. He just needs to find a way to be happy; we all do.

I think about all the sacrifices I’ve made for him. We had both lived in Los Angeles. I was a psychiatrist, and he a billionaire bad boy turned golf instructor. But I knew once Tom started to spiral, that fast and hard life of LA was not a healthy place for him. To get him away from all the bad influences in his life, we moved here from across the ­country two years ago. Giving up my practice so I could focus solely on his recovery. Our recovery.

I grunt and finally get the window open, letting in a cool breeze off the ocean.

It was a quick decision to rent out the guest house. I knew it would go fast. It’s in a desirable location and it’s a beautiful house. But the truth, really, is that I just don’t want to be alone. Especially when Tom does return.

I peer once more through the voile of the curtain, the woman now vanished, and there is nothing but a quiet stillness that lies in her wake. A dead calm that creates an uneasiness in me.

I’ve been close to death my whole life. First my father, followed by my mother. When you go into psychiatry you spend most of your time with people who themselves are teetering on the edge of death.

In my field I’ve worked with an exceptional number of dark individuals, and I’m fascinated by how their minds work. How they rationalize the world around them, how they justify their actions and thoughts. These people work on a different plane of existence. It makes anything else I do feel like child’s play when you can see how much worse a person’s mental state can truly become if you put them in an unhealthy environment without stable and reliable ­people to depend on.

It’s strange the attraction I have to it. Like a homing beacon I can’t help but follow. It was likely what led me to Tom, my ongoing enigma. There was something about him I noticed when I studied him from afar. For some reason, with him I was blind to the darkness lurking beneath his surface. I never saw it coming, despite knowing deep down that it was always there, but refusing to believe it until it was too late. But no matter what, I’m still a hopeless romantic who believes true love and care can save a person. And I want to save Tom. We will find the man he once was. He’s still inside him; I know it. I just have to coax him out. But for now, I look out the window at the guest house. I’m relieved to know that there will be someone else here, and I won’t be left alone with him.

Chapter Three

Natalie

“Who the hell was that?” Luke says, his forehead creased in anger.

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. He was just in the house. I thought maybe there was some sort of mix-up and we were at the wrong address, but he told me we weren’t . . .” I trail off in confusion, trying to make sense of the whole ordeal. “Either way he’s not happy we’re here.”

Luke’s jaw clenches. He puts the two oversized black suitcases he was dragging in off to the side. Then he walks toward me, his steps heavy with determination. He reaches for the door behind me and locks it authoritatively. “Let’s keep the doors locked until we can fi. . .