TRANSPLANT
Harper
ARTHUR AND I STAND IN front of the grand piping plover topiary, our heads tilted as we scrutinize the pinnacle of his elaborate garden display, a gentle rain tapping on our jacket hoods. When Arthur took over my failed moose, I didn’t expect this to be the result. And judging by his weak “Behold!” a moment ago when we halted before the pair of manicured green birds, neither did he.
I wait until Arthur has a mouthful of coffee before I declare, “It looks like two penises.”
Arthur sputters a sip of his latte across the grass and glares at me. He’s likely more offended about the loss of a mouthful of espresso than the penis comment, since he’s only allowed one true coffee per day before being forced to switch to chai as a compromise. “It does not.”
“I’m not necessarily complaining. It’s hot. I mean, I’m all for the phallic imagery. But I don’t know if Mayor Patel will endorse penis topiaries for the ten-year anniversary of the gardening competition, ya know?”
A deep, long-suffering sigh empties from the old man. “It really does look like a pair of penises.”
“How are we going to fix it?” I ask as we start toward the manor house.
“I’m not sure yet,” he replies, stabbing his cane into the damp lawn. “But we need to find a solution quickly. I received notice this morning that the first round of judging will start next week. The voting council will visit on July
7th.”
“Fuck.”
“Indeed.”
“Why the hell did you assign me to making topiaries in the first place?”
“Because I thought you had some artistic talent given your former career making videos and such.” He waves a wrinkled hand in my direction.
“Clearly, I was mistaken.”
I snort, darting a teasing grin at him. “Making videos is a lot different than manipulating foliage into animal shapes, Arthur.”
I receive a grumble in reply.
We fall into silence as we enter the house and head to the kitchen. Arthur sits in the breakfast nook and opens his newspaper while I start making his breakfast. The front-page headlines hit me like a dread-laced dart when I sit across from him. Homicide Investigation Continues at Lancaster Distillery reads one, and Arthur mumbles something about murder being good for business in Cape Carnage, which I’m inclined to agree with, though it’s been rather frightening lately to be on the production end of said business. Search for Missing Tourists Enters Second Day, the second headline proclaims above Evanston’s smiling photograph, and thoughts of Nolan at the command center creep through my mind. Yates might be lazy as fuck and is probably ready to call off the search so he can go back to fishing and barbecues, but it’s still unsettling to imagine Nolan spending so much time with the town sheriff.
“Our inept sheriff was attacked at my distillery?” Arthur says, his eyes sharpening at me over the edge of the paper.
“You mean Lukas’s distillery?” My quip earns me a sharp glare, and I suppress a fleeting grin. “Apparently so.”
“Hmm.” He taps along the edge of the paper, his eyes not shifting from mine. “Seems strange for amateur investigators to attack each other and then a sheriff, does it not?”
I shrug and try to will the heat from rising in my cheeks. “Such are the mysteries of life.”
Arthur snorts. “And what about that obtuse gremlin of a man with the ghastly excuse of a canine? Is he still in the freezer?” he asks, skimming the continuation of the article on the following page.
“No. Let’s just say the dahlias will flourish this year.”
“Good.”
Arthur flips to the next page with flair, clearly done with any thoughts of homicide investigations or missing persons. I should be prodding him to see what else he remembers about that night, just to be sure we haven’t missed something that could rise to the surface like a bloated body.
Or maybe I should be telling him about the Sleuthseekers and how I can feel the cage closing around me with every moment that passes. I should be sharing the fear that creeps beneath my skin, to see if he can lance what feels like a festering wound. But instead, I ask him something I’ve never asked Arthur Lancaster: “When did you know you were in love with Vivian?”
Arthur’s eyes snap to mine and stick. For a moment, I wonder if he’s already forgotten his wife. It’s been so many years since she passed away— even before Arthur lost Poppy to La Plume and took on the job of raising Lukas on his own. His eyes drift to the corners of the room, and I wonder if he’s searching for her in his memory. Trying to recall her laugh. The color of her eyes. He lays the newspaper down as he fidgets with the edges, then swallows and says, “Since the day she showed up in Cape Carnage.”
I didn’t expect such a clear answer, and as I bring over his bowl of yogurt and sliced strawberries, I make a mental note to tell Lukas about Arthur’s lucidity later. When I sit across the table from him, he doesn’t acknowledge me or the food. “You knew from day one?”
“From moment one,” he says, his focus lowering to the table. “I never thought it could be possible. How could someone like me fall in love? And with someone I didn’t even know.”
“Did you . . . ” I start, but I trail off. Arthur’s attention settles on me with a question in his knit brows. “Did you worry that you would fuck it up?”
Arthur barks a laugh, a rare and precious sound. “Of course. Constantly.”
“And you still let it happen?”
“I tried to stop it,” Arthur says, and my brows rise, encouraging him to continue. “I discovered it was impossible. As much as I needed Vivian, she needed me too. As it turns out, I couldn’t deny her anything she wanted, no matter how hard I tried.”
I nod, a knot building in the back of my throat as I replay my conversation with Nolan this morning. If he was disappointed when I told him I was afraid, he didn’t show it. But it must have stung. And how many cuts can someone
take before they give up? Even Nolan Rhodes must have a limit, surely. What if I’m not as brave as Arthur—what if I can’t let go of my fear and love Nolan the way he needs?
I’m so lost in these questions that I don’t notice Arthur’s hand move until it lands on top of mine. “What do you really want to ask me?” he says.
I blink back the well of tears that blur my vision. “Would you do it again, after everything you’ve lost?”
The echo of a smile settles in Arthur’s features. He squeezes my hand. “I cannot escape the despair of watching Vivian’s health decline. Nor the grief for how Poppy was torn from me. I will always carry with me the anger and frustration of searching for her killer for years and finding no trace, as though he never existed. But the moments of happiness we shared and the memories I still carry were worth the suffering. A thousand times over, I would do it again.”
He pats my hand, and then lets go. I nod my thanks, not ready to trust my voice with words of gratitude. But Arthur knows just what I need. He lifts his newspaper from the table, creating a curtain between us so I can capture the tears before they fall.
“I know you didn’t have parents you could ask these questions to,” he says from the other side. The paper lowers just enough that he gives me one of his eyes. “So you can always ask me these things, Harper. If you want to.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Who is this man you’re not in love with, by the way . . . ?”
I stare at the headline of the newspaper, choking down a painful knot. “His name is Nolan. You met him briefly at the theater. Nolan Rhodes.”
“Yes, of course. Mr. Rhodes.” Arthur turns a page on his newspaper. “If you decide you really don’t love him, I have some poison in my murder bag that you refuse to give back to me. You can use some, if you like.”
Arthur doesn’t see my bittersweet smile, nor the tear that escapes my lashes to slide down my cheek. “I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you, Arthur.”
He slides his yogurt closer. A quiet grumble is his only reply.
When Arthur is settled into his morning routine, I head into town for supplies from Maya’s, my canvas shopping bag slung over one shoulder and
my hood pulled up against the drizzling rain.
The streets are quiet. My boots slap through the shallow puddles in a soothing beat. The cold drizzle is oddly comforting, though worries about Nolan creep into my thoughts. I wonder what he’s doing. Likely looming over the search, the picture of authority despite secretly usurping it. Desire twists low in my belly when I think of him at the command center, leaning over maps, giving orders into his walkie-talkie. Maybe he’s striding through the forest paths with his high-vis vest on. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, because that’s fucking hot. It’s all mayhem and safety wrapped together in a highly visible, murdery sex package. With dimples. It’s disgustingly sexy.
I pull my phone from my back pocket and open my messages.
Are you wearing high vis?
Nolan’s reply is immediate.
Uhh, yes.
And your walkie-talkie?
Yes . . . is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Apparently, it’s a good thing. But before I can tell him that, he starts typing a new message, so I leave him hanging until his reply comes through.
Are we going to do some SAR role-play where I hunt you down and fuck you in the woods while wearing my vest?
. . . No . . .
That “no” was definitely a yes.
Our conversation slips into the beautifully mundane. What we should have for dinner, whether we should watch a movie or the next episode of Surviving Love. And after a while, I realize I’m smiling down at my phone. I’m not the kind of girl who does that—at least, I didn’t think I was anymore. One who sends flirty texts, or falls asleep in the dark, or laughs in a man’s arms. One
who falls in love. A thousand times over, I would do it again, Arthur’s voice replays in my head.
I could lose Nolan one day. Grief and loss haunt love like a shadow. But the warmth, the need, the smallest words to the biggest declarations—these simple breaths of time make a life more than just existence. Maybe the risk of being clipped short is still worth blossoming for even a brief moment in the sun.
And it doesn’t matter that I might go from penis topiaries to fears of discovery to talking about love with my aging serial killer mentor. Nolan’s presence somehow threads through it all, anchoring every piece of me in place.
By the time I get to Main Street, Nolan is forced back into his work, and I pocket my phone to focus on my destination. There are few people on the streets with this weather. Though I consider stopping for a coffee, A Shipwrecked Bean looks packed with mostly unfamiliar faces. And the thought of Sleuthseekers slinking into town stings like a thorn beneath my skin. They could be right there, waiting to put Sam’s broken puzzle together.
I stay on the opposite side of the street, despite the lure of caffeine, and continue on my path to Maya’s Magical Mixtures. Jake Hornell’s face stares back at me as I draw closer, his poster still taped to the telephone pole near the shop’s entrance, the image warped around the edges where water has seeped between the cellophane.
When I enter the shop, Maya is behind the counter, staring thoughtfully at the chemistry equations spread before her. A moody indie song is playing in the background, lyrics about a ruinous love swirling on jasmine-scented incense. Maya nudges her gold-rimmed glasses up her nose, assessing me with obsidian eyes. “Oh hey, Harper.”
“Hey.” I push my hood down and stop at the counter, trying to decipher the equations scribbled across the paper as though I could understand them any better upside down. Honestly, that would probably give me a better shot.
“What are you working on?”
“Bugfucker 2.0.” Maya rests her chin in her palm with a defeated sigh, her long black braids tumbling onto the page. “The original formula is great for mosquitoes, but not the horseflies. I want to make something that can repel
both, but without melting people’s skin off,” she says as she circles a compound and makes it into a skull with two crossed-out eyes.
“That’s a shame. Melting people’s skin off sounds both fun and useful.”
Maya snickers. “You could use it on that Nolan guy.”
“I get that a lot. You know about him, huh?”
“Half the town knows. Nightfog, baby.” Maya’s smile broadens when I roll my eyes. “Auntie Irene says it’s serious.”
I grab a basket from beneath the counter, even though I don’t need one, just to hide the blush that rages in my cheeks. “He’s a tourist.”
“There are these amazing devices called ‘phones.’ See also ‘planes.’”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I reply, moving toward the home and garden section of the small store. The bell above the door dings behind me. I cast a brief glance over my shoulder just before I move down the aisle and see two unfamiliar men and a woman enter the store, their attention focused on Maya as she chimes the chipper “hello” she reserves for tourists.
“ . . . but he’s totally useless, so I’m guessing by the time I’m back to work, everything will be a hot pile of trash,” one of the men says.
“I’m just planning to delete all my emails,” the woman replies. I hear one of them pick up a basket, and then the rustle of a jacket in the aisle next to mine. “Start fresh, you know? If someone really needs something, they’ll follow up.”
“At least Sam and Vinny had the decency to die close to Independence Day,” the other man says. An immediate burst of adrenaline at the presence of Sleuthseekers dulls my reaction to his callous yet logical declaration. “I
was running low on holiday time.”
“Charlie. What the fuck—”
“You’d better not say that shit around the others if they show up. Can you imagine if Willow heard you?”
“Of course I wouldn’t. My EQ is low, but it’s not that low.”
“Do you ever not talk in consultant speak? ‘EQ.’” The woman scoffs.
“‘We need to disrupt the marketplace, get into more granularity about the low-hanging fruit,’” she says, mimicking his voice as the other man snickers.
“That was disturbingly accurate. Now come on,” the man who isn’t Charlie says. “Let’s get a move on. I want to get outside before the rain really
starts pissing down.”
The image of the photo of me on Discord flashes through my mind, panic settling in my guts.
Silence descends in the shop as I tuck wayward strands of my long hair behind my ears and tug my hood up. I pull a bottle of You’re Not So Fun-gus fungicide from the shelf and start making my way back toward the top of the aisle in the hope that I can toss some cash down on the counter for Maya and make a quick exit. But just as I’m near the end, the squeak of damp shoes on tile has me spinning in the other direction.
“Hey, guys,” Charlie says from another aisle. “Corpse Reviver Hangover Juice. We’ll need that if we’re gonna survive Emma’s rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ for karaoke night at the pub.”
“Shut up,” the woman snipes back as Charlie laughs.
“You do realize we’re not here to party, right?” the other man says.
“Yeah, and you never know what you might uncover with a few beers and Celine Dion, Tylor,” Charlie replies.
“Let’s just get through the next few days first, yeah?” Tylor replies. I don’t need to look up to know that he’s the one who’s now starting down my aisle.
I keep my head lowered. Blood thunders in my ears, dampening the sound of the music. I pretend to read the label of the bottle clutched in my hand, but really I’m stealing sidelong glances at the man from beneath my hood. All I can see are damp Blundstones. Jeans with water marks from the rain. I refuse to look higher and risk catching his eyes. My hand is trembling as I reach out for a bottle. I’m not even paying attention to what I grab. It takes every ounce of restraint to stand my ground and not succumb to the urge to run.
Especially when he stops right behind me.
“Piss-Off!” he says quietly to himself. Even though I know he must be reading the label of Maya’s concoction, my adrenaline still surges as though he could be speaking to me. I take a slow step toward the far end of the aisle but stop when I hear the other two chatting from that direction.
I’m caught in the narrow space, too afraid to move yet too scared to stay still. I’m contemplating making a break for the staff-only storage room along the back wall when the woman’s voice rises from the direction of Maya’s
counter.
“You wouldn’t happen to know who this person is, would you?” Emma asks.
The pause that follows might only last for a heartbeat, but it feels like a lifetime. I don’t need to see what she’s showing Maya to know it’s the photo of me, the same one that was on the Sleuthseekers Discord. Or maybe worse.
For all I know, KnightofTruth could have found an even better shot, one that shows my face.
The alarm blaring through my mind cannot be ignored. I squeeze my eyes shut. Hold my breath.
“Based off the back of their head? Uhh, no. I don’t,” Maya replies.
Suspicion is woven into her voice. “Why do you ask, are you police or
something?”
“No.” Charlie scoffs. “We’re better.”
I can almost hear Emma’s eyes roll. “We’re from an investigative group called the Sleuthseekers.”
“Oh, right.” Maya’s fingers snap. “That group with the guy that killed the other guy and tried to kill the sheriff, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“So . . . a different group?”
The man behind me sighs and turns away, his footsteps departing toward his companions at the counter. “We investigate the cold cases that the police in towns like this one can’t seem to solve on their own,” Tylor says, his voice a blanket over the palpable tension in the store. “We’re not sure what really happened with Sam and Vinny, but we’d like to find out, and we think the woman in the photo might know more about what they were looking for. Are you sure you don’t recognize her?”
Maya’s tone is final when she says, “Sorry, man. No clue who that is.”
“All right. But if something clicks,” he says with a brief pause, “this is how you can reach us.”
I listen to the group’s clipped chatter while they unload their purchases on the counter. A few endless moments later, the bell dings above the door, and the only sound left is the music gently flowing from the speakers.
“They’re gone,” Maya says. “You can come out now.”
Sweat itches beneath my collar, the heat of fear trapped beneath my hood.
The urge to run out the back door is nearly overpowering, but I make my way toward Maya. Slowly. Painfully slowly.
“Thank you,” I say, setting my basket on the counter. I can’t even look at Maya. For some reason, the burn of tears erupts in the back of my throat.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did.” Her delicate hand touches my arm, and I finally meet her eyes. “You’re one of us. A Carnagean . . . Carnagite . . . Carnelean . . . ”
I give her a weak smile, and Maya’s dark eyes sparkle. “A Carnivore . . . ?” I venture.
“Yeah. I like that. A Carnivore.” The amusement in her face fades to something more serious as she leans a little closer. “People like them have been coming here since I was a kid. Looking to solve something better left in the past. They want to get famous, and they don’t care if they fuck up our town to do it. But we look after our own. Sarah Winkle aside, that fucking
cunt—”
I snort.
“—everybody knows that Arthur isn’t La Plume. He might be a grumpy old bastard, but he’s our grumpy old bastard. Folks from here know how much he loved his family. How much he suffered when Poppy died. How hard he tried for years to find La Plume while raising Lukas all on his own.
And everybody sees how much you do for him. People like those assholes that just left? They just see a brilliant, eccentric, reclusive grump and they decide to tie up some loose threads and pin the murders on him. They don’t want to understand. They only come because they think they’ll get famous on our town’s pain and suffering. So I’ll be damned if they get anything from me.”
There’s so much she doesn’t know. About me. About Arthur. About this town. But I know her heart is right where mine is. In Cape Carnage.
“I appreciate it, truly. Thank you, Maya.”
Maya’s expression brightens a little as she unloads the two bottles from my basket and rings up the total. “Sounds like those fuckwits will be gone soon. Maybe it’s best if you lie low, if you can.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “You’re probably right.”
“Any chance you can stay somewhere else? Your pad is kind of a heat score, ya know?”
I’ll admit, the same thought has rolled around in my head, but coming and going from somewhere beyond the property to look after Arthur seems just as bad as staying on the estate. Maybe worse. Places like the Capeside Inn or the Lionshead Motel would only increase the chances of having a Sleuthseeker for a next-door neighbor. “It’ll be okay,” I say, handing her my cash.
“If you need anything from the shop, just send me a text and I’ll bring it over. I can take Auntie Irene with me. She’d love to see Arthur. Maybe we could all do lunch at the manor house.”
I grin as I take my change. “He’d love that. And if he claims he doesn’t, he’s fucking lying.”
“Would a certain Nolan person be joining us . . . ?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Auntie Irene says he spends all his free time at the cottage when he’s not
running the search.”
“I’m leaving now.”
I slide my bag from the counter and head toward the door, scanning the road through the windows as I go. The sidewalks are empty, the rain pelting the streets with heavy drops. I’m just about to open the door when Maya calls out my name. Her tone is so quiet, so unsure, that I turn enough to look at her over my shoulder.
“You know . . . I once caught Jake Hornell looking through my window,” she says. A faint smile flares and dies on her face, as though she’s embarrassed for something that was never her fault to begin with. “At first, I wasn’t sure I heard what I heard, you know? Sound seems to travel differently at night. It’s as though the darkness plays tricks on you.”
I swallow, breaking my gaze away, my grip tightening on the door handle.
I stare down at my blanched knuckles. “Yeah. It does.”
“I heard him before I saw him. He was masturbating outside in the bushes as I was cooking. Not that it should matter what I was doing, you know? But still.” She shrugs. “I ran out there with a knife and scared him off. Called the police, but you know how that goes. Anyway . . . it really frightened me. I felt . . . violated. I spent a few nights at the inn, until the worst of the fear
passed. But it never left. Not until the day I came to get strawberries from your cottage.”
The details of that moment return with perfect clarity. Nolan, with Jake’s severed hands clutched in his grip. Jake’s eyeless, severed head pressed to my chest. Maya’s unplanned interruption. When she’d asked if I was entering the gravity races, I’d made a dumbass joke about throwing my hat in the ring.
Played it off like I’d already gotten the silicone parts for a corpse copilot from Craft-A-Corpse for the annual race.
I made Corpsie the Copilot a female corpse for my soapbox racer a few days later, complete with long pigtails. But the head in my grasp that day was very obviously not the same. Did she see me at the race? Could Maya have figured out my error? Did she hear about it and start to wonder? Or was it the smell, or the way I was acting that day when she’d first walked in on that fraught moment with Nolan? Was it the fear in my eyes— “Every day I look at that missing persons picture on the pole outside, and I think, ‘I’m glad he’s gone,’” Maya says, snapping me out of my spiral.
“Maybe it’s not good, or right. But it’s true.” When I meet her eyes, Maya smiles. “Thanks for stopping in, Harper. I’ll see you later?”
Maybe she suspects more than what she’s willing to voice out loud. But judging by the way she smiles at me now, I’m positive our conversation will never go further than this moment. And that’s not just true for her, but for me too—I’ll never mention it to Arthur, who might now not even remember, or to Nolan, who could see her as a threat to our safety. This moment will just be a fleeting breath of time, and one I’m grateful for. Because I don’t feel like an outsider in this macabre little town. I feel like a Carnivore.
I give her a single, shaky nod. “Yeah. I’ll see you later.”
With my hood tugged higher, I step out into the rain and suck in a tremulous breath. I start heading in the direction of home, but I stop as I near the telephone pole. Jake’s smiling fucking face stares back at me. He looked like any other gym bro meathead that people would mourn and call “a really great guy” if they knew he was dead, even though I know he had more than one DUI charge that resulted in a suspended license, and he was obviously creeping on multiple women around town. A certain kind of fury sparks to life in my blood. The kind that’s insatiable for justice that can only be seized.
I might not have been the one to kill him, but I feel just like Maya. I’m glad he’s fucking gone.
I scan the street. No one is on the sidewalk, or watching from the shops.
I tear the poster free of the staples, ball it up in my fist, then throw it in the trash and stride home.
