WINNOW
Nolan
IT’S NOT THE COMMAND CENTER that I go to first when I leave the Cape Carnage Sheriff’s Office following the informal questioning about Charlie’s death, even though I know Yates might check with someone to see if I’ve arrived. And it’s not the cottage or the distillery either, despite the pull in my chest that begs me to find the woman who is on the other end of the invisible
line.
It’s the cemetery.
I slow as I reach the gates, which are open wide for visitors, though there are none I can see at first glance. When I roll my windows down, panning my focus up and down the empty road, there’s no sound either. It’s just still and quiet in the early-summer sun. No one suspects the cemetery is the true scene of Peter Evanston’s final moments. It seems like a fever dream to me, even though I was there. What happened here only a few nights ago could be merely an illusion.
I take a deep breath and turn through the gates, driving on the lane that leads up the hill and toward the Lancaster family plot.
The plot is serene, offering a view of the rest of the sprawling cemetery and some of the nearby homes. There’s evidence here, if you’re observant enough to see it: Trampled grass. Marks in the ditch, as though someone was dragged through it. But the cemetery isn’t on the search list, and I intend to keep it that way. And Harper says that Arthur is adamant no one saw him.
The problem is, I don’t have the same trust in him that she does.
With a final glance at my surroundings, I walk into the Lancaster family plot, bordered by a low wrought-iron fence. Some of the graves likely date
back to the founding of Cape Carnage. But there are two, side by side, that I’m particularly interested in.
The newest is topped with a weeping angel, her face hidden by her hands in despair. It’s Poppy’s headstone, grief immortalized in marble. But it’s the grave next to hers that I’m interested in: Vivian Sophia Lancaster. The angel on her headstone reaches for the sky with an outstretched hand. It’s pristine, no moss or discoloration on its surface even though more than thirty years have passed.
There are flowers—not cut, but growing—framing the marble stone. Le mie colpe travolgerà l’oblio, ma l’amor mio . . . non muor, the inscription reads beneath her name. She died not even two years before her daughter, at only fifty-three years old.
I slide my backpack from my shoulder, take out my scrapbook, and note the details from the headstone. I’m about to replace it and go back to the car when something glints in the sun to my left.
A silver bracelet.
Scrapbook in hand, I head to a neighboring memorial. It’s unusual, made of jade marble and carved like a crescent moon. Nondescript bracelets dangle from a series of brass hooks on the underside of the curve. One of them is familiar, A²BC etched into its silver panel.
Adam Cunningham, the script on the stone reads, curving down the side of the crescent moon. No dates, no note. Nothing more.
I hang my head and let out a long breath.
Harper must have brought the bracelet back here after I returned it to her. I wonder how often she comes here to grieve. If she speaks to Adam out loud, like I do when I visit Billy’s grave. If she cries, or if she looks wistful when she remembers his smile.
I’m not jealous. I know what Harper went through with Adam carved an indelible wound through her very soul. It fractured her existence, and its jagged edges might never heal. I feel a helpless kind of sorrow for her. But if I’m being honest, I feel sorrow for myself too. Because she might never be able to love me the way I love her. That might have been cut right out of her, resting somewhere in the ash back in Texas. Maybe not all of Autumn Bower walked out of that house alive.
I reach out a finger and touch the silver panel of the bracelet, watching as it swings in the light. I still remember the grief in her eyes when I set it in her palm. It’s hard not to imagine the swell of emotion she must have felt when she came here to replace it.
With a pang of anguish blooming in my chest, I take up my pen and roughly sketch what I see—the curve of stone, the name in block letters. The memories that hang in the summer sun.
As I finish my sketch and place the scrapbook in my backpack, the sound of ruffling feathers draws my attention to the top of a granite cross just beyond the confines of the Lancaster family plot. A raven preens its wing feathers before pausing to stare at me.
“Morpheus?” I ask, glancing toward the gravestone before I return my attention to the bird. “Come to take more gifts back to Harper?”
The bird watches me. But it says nothing.
I linger for only a moment, watching the raven as he resumes the task of setting his iridescent feathers back into place. And then with the heavy presence of Sheriff Yates looming in the back of my mind, I leave the cemetery.
I fight the urge to find Harper, forcing myself to the command center in the library parking lot instead. Many of the volunteers are breaking for a late lunch. I scan the crowd for her, unable to help myself or stop the sensation of disappointment when I don’t see her, even though I would have been pissed off if I did. Or rather, more pissed off. I’m still reeling from my encounter with Yates and a day that’s gone so far sideways that it’s upside-down.
And I’m sure I look about as menacing as I feel.
I stride through the crowd, nodding and forcing smiles toward the people I recognize—Bert, who’s stuffing a hot dog into his face. Bobby, whom I talk to briefly about picking up something from his place that I’ve been working on for Harper. Selma, who’s been leading the search at the distillery. Maya is handing out free samples of Bugfucker spray to volunteers, and I ask her to send a text to Harper on my behalf to let her know that I’m at the command center before swiftly moving on. I avoid the gaze of Mrs. Evanston and the reporter she’s giving a tearful interview to near the registration tent, her demonic fluff ball clutched in her arms. I change course to avoid her gaze and
make my way toward my destination.
The library.
The rush of cool air and the scent of books greet me as I enter the quiet space, a balm to the heat of this morning’s stress still coursing beneath my skin. I head straight to the reception desk and ask for a guest pass for the computers, then take a seat at one of the empty stations and log in.
I navigate to the archives of the local paper, the Cape Carnage Chronicle, and go back to the week of Vivian Lancaster’s death. There’s a lengthy obituary listing her many achievements through life, headed by her photo.
She’s beautiful, with delicate features and a wide, effortless smile, the sea shimmering in the background. No cause of death is listed, nor is there anything enlightening in the request for donations to a local wildlife sanctuary in lieu of flowers. I check article after article in the weeks that followed, but nothing indicates an investigation by Yates or questions about the manner of Vivian’s death. After broadening my search, the only detail of any relevance that I find is an anonymous letter in the opinions section after Arthur was declared the winner of the inaugural gardening competition ten years ago. I’m willing to bet the author is Sarah Winkle, given the title.
“Poison Garden: A Competition of Preferential Treatment.”
“Christ,” I hiss after skimming the vitriolic letter that alleges the town council was covering its ass when it awarded the trophy to a known wife killer, though she never names Arthur outright. “She’s such a fucking cunt.”
“Shhh.”
I lock eyes with a woman sitting across from me—the same woman I encountered in the general store a few weeks ago when I was deliberating about buying a bug repellent device for the nightly exhumations with Harper.
With a blush, I whisper, “Sorry. Sarah Winkle.”
The woman snorts, returning her attention to the screen. “Oof. Yeah, she really is a fucking cunt.”
Figuring I’ve embarrassed myself enough and probably won’t find anything helpful here, I leave the library and head back to the command center with the determination that I’ll get to the bottom of it tonight. The thought of broaching the topic later with Harper twists my guts into an anxious ball. I’m relatively sure it won’t go well, and that worry haunts me as
I enter the tent. As soon as I’m within its white canvas walls, I press my fists to the plastic table and let out a long breath.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I hiss. A headache scratches across my skull as though trying to unzip it. “This day is fucked.”
“Gotta say, I’m afraid I agree,” an unfamiliar voice says. A paper cup of tea slides into my field of vision. I look up, meeting eyes with a man in his mid-thirties. His fair skin is ruddy with the heat, a sheen of sweat shining through his wisps of thinning brown hair. “They said you’re a tea drinker.
Thought you might need some.”
The pain in my head screams at me to take a sip. Whoever this guy is, he’s just won that small brownie point he was so clearly after. “Thanks.
Appreciate it.”
“You’re Nolan Rhodes, right?”
“I am.” I extend a hand out to the man.
“Thanks for letting me join the search,” the guy, his palm clammy against mine as we shake. “I’m Tylor.”
Alarms ricochet through my mind. “I’m so sorry to hear about your friend.”
“Thank you,” he says, letting go of my hand with a weak and fleeting smile. “You heard about that, huh?”
I shrug, raising my tea to my lips and blowing across the steam as I decide just how much information to keep to myself and how much to give away.
“It’s a small town. Everybody knows everything in no time,” I reply after a sip that burns my palate. “Are you sure you want to join today? I can guarantee that it’ll be going on for a while yet. No need to rush into things.”
Tylor shakes his head, the motion final. Resolved. “No, I’ll go crazy just sitting around the hotel room, thinking about what the hell just happened.
And this is what Charlie would have wanted.” His liquid brown eyes scan the space behind me as though cataloging every detail before settling on me once more. “To get to the bottom of this place.”
“‘The bottom of this place,’ huh?” I let out a low whistle that reminds me a little too much of something Yates would do. “Well, that might take a while. Cape Carnage isn’t the most straightforward town.”
“Yeah. That I know. Speaking of which,” he says, slipping a hand into the
interior pocket of his jacket. He withdraws a folded piece of paper. I already know what’s going to be on it before he slides it across the table toward me.
“Do you happen to know who this woman is?”
I take the photo, giving him a suspicious glance. “You a cop or something?”
“An investigator with the Sleuthseekers.” Tylor gives me a wary smile, catching my questioning look. “It’s a collective of online investigators. We specialize in solving cold cases. We think she might know something about why my friends Sam and Vinny were here.”
I stare down at the image of Harper striding away from the camera, the same one that was on the Discord server. Every second that passes is a struggle to keep my hands from warping the paper in my iron grip. “Can’t say that I know her, no. Where’d it come from?”
“It belonged to Sam,” he says flatly, as though he’s unwilling to share more about his fallen leader’s unorthodox methods. I want to ask Tylor how it came into his possession—whether Sam sent it to him before he died, or if it was another source, but I don’t, not wanting to arouse suspicion with prying questions. “Did you show it to the sheriff?”
Tylor’s eyes darken. “No. I . . . ” He glances around before returning his attention to me. “I’m not sure that what happened between Sam and Vinny went down the way he said. And I’m not sure he can be trusted.”
“Why not?”
“I knew those guys for years,” Tylor says, his gaze sticking to mine like an emphatic plea. “I solved a case with them last year. I know how they worked together. I just can’t see a world in which they’d turn on each other like Yates claims they did. I dunno . . . ” He trails off. Shakes his head. “Maybe he wants to sweep it under the rug, so tourism doesn’t dry up. But something doesn’t seem right.”
I glance one last time at the image of Harper, then pass the paper back to Tylor. I battle every instinct in my body not to tear it up and shove the pieces down this fucker’s throat until he chokes in my grasp. He’s right that Sam didn’t die the way that Yates seems to believe he did, of course. And I can’t deny that it’s always felt a bit strange that Vinny would attack a sheriff so brutally. Something about that continues to feel a little off. Even though Sam
had me handcuffed and kept at gunpoint, I didn’t get the sense he wanted to kill me—only find fame with my demise.
“Well,” I say, nodding toward the paper Tylor slides into his pocket, “can’t help you with that woman, I’m afraid. But I can get you set up for a volunteer rotation. Follow me.”
I lead the way toward the registration desk, stopping in front of Maddison, the young barista from the coffee shop who’s been managing the list of volunteers. “I’ve got a new one for you, Maddison,” I say, gesturing toward the man at my side. “This is Tylor . . . ”
“Knightsbridge,” he offers, and for a breath of time, I go completely still.
KnightofTruth, a beacon flares at me from the black recesses of my spiraling mind.
“Tylor Knightsbridge.” I plaster on what I hope is a charming smile when Maddison looks between us, trying to determine what it is that feels strange about this moment.
Even though I’m desperate to dig my fingers into Tylor’s neck and pull out his fucking spine, I need to be the dependable leader. So I soften my smile and lay my accent on just a little thicker when I say, “Why don’t you put him with the Simmons Loop crew? They could use a hand.”
“Sure thing, Nolan,” Maddison says, a blush rising in her cheeks.
I turn to Tylor. “I’ve gotta get back to it. You’re in good hands here.
Thanks again for joining the search, especially under these circumstances.”
I don’t wait long enough to process whatever it is that Tylor says in reply.
I just clap a hand on his arm and walk away to lose myself in the chaos of the crowd.
The volunteers and their questions. The reporters hovering like vultures.
The scent of hot dogs and bitter coffee. For once, I’m even grateful for Mrs.
Evanston’s relentless dog. I want the distractions from Vivian, and Tylor, and all the rest of the shit that seems to be piling up around me. Maybe I’d like to find some reprieve from worrying about how I’ll bring up Arthur’s possible
uxoricide with Harper.
But it doesn’t work.
In the time that I spend agonizing about how I’m going to broach this topic with Harper, I realize that I never expected to fall in love with someone
so complex, so shrouded in secrecy. Her own secrets. Her town’s. Her mentor’s. Even mine. For some dumbass, naive reason, I thought love would be easy—a quiet river that snakes through life. Not a storm in the night that pulls you apart. Most days, I don’t know if I’m on course or navigating to my doom.
That’s my last thought as I grip the door handle and enter the cottage.
I’m greeted by music and the scent of cooking food mingling with the incense that burns next to the chessboard. Harper is singing in the kitchen.
Christ, she’s a terrible singer, but she goes for it anyway. I love that about her. Morpheus is croaking along at the open window and she’s laying a piece of suspicious jerky down for him as he eyes me and caws.
“Oh Jesus,” Harper says when she whirls around and her eyes land on me.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” I reply, setting my bag down and taking off my boots. I head to the kitchen to greet her with a kiss before pulling a Blackstone beer from the fridge. I swallow a swell of nerves with the first sip. “How was the rest of your day?”
Harper shrugs, tearing pieces of basil apart to sprinkle them on the homemade pizza she’s pulled from the oven. “I tried my best to fix the topiaries. Took me all afternoon. The first round of judging is tomorrow.”
“I’m sure they look great.” I lean against the counter next to her and she shoots me a doubtful glare. “Great-er than they were before.”
“That’s very generous of you. Also, categorically wrong.” Harper takes the pizza to the table, and I drift in her wake, every heartbeat an ominous thud in my chest. “How about you? How’d it go with Yates? I was worried about you. It sucked that I couldn’t call,” she says, nodding to the unopened box of my new phone that must have arrived while I was at the search.
“Thanks for getting Maya to text me, by the way.”
“Sure” is all I can manage. Harper spares me a worried glance before focusing on slicing the pizza. I take a sip of beer and set one of the pieces on my plate, but my appetite has suddenly vanished in a swirl of nausea. “I’m pretty sure that Tylor guy is KnightofTruth, considering his last name is Knightsbridge. You have to promise me you won’t come down to the command center until he’s gone, because he’s volunteering with the search.”
Harper’s eyes widen, her brows climbing her forehead. “Seriously . . . ?” she says, and I nod. “Fuck. I got lucky in Maya’s.”
“Yeah. You did. And he showed me that picture of you, the same one from the Discord server.”
Harper huffs around a mouthful of pizza before washing it down with a long sip of her beer. “If you ratted me out, I’ll knife you in the balls.”
I only manage a weak smile at her joke, but she doesn’t seem to notice, her focus shifting to the middle distance of the room as she chews through her thoughts in silence. “Yates was okay,” I continue. “He asked me if I saw or heard anything at the Capeside Inn. Apparently, Daryl Winkle said he saw me driving away from the inn with wet hair. I managed to make some excuse that your water heater is acting up and I took a shower at the inn instead. I’ve gotta buy you a new one, by the way.”
“Fucking Winkle,” Harper growls, setting her beer bottle down with more force than necessary. “If I could chop him and his bitchass wife into tiny pieces and chuck them into Cookie Monster, I’d be doing this whole damn town a favor.”
Harper scowls down at her plate with murderously adorable rage. Sarah Winkle’s letter in the Chronicle flashes through my mind as I pick at the crust of my pizza. “Yeah. I don’t think anybody would be upset about that.” I take in a deep breath, like I’m about to tear gauze free of the wound that’s absorbed it, then venture, “Yates said something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
Harper gives me a sidelong stare of suspicion, her chewing slowing down until she finally swallows. “Sounds like I’m about to be in for a good time.”
“Yeah . . . ” A final sip of beer slides down my throat as Morpheus croaks from the windowsill like a portent of doom. I force myself to look at Harper, even though I fear the pain I might see in her eyes. “Yates said something unsettling about Arthur. That he suspected Arthur had something to do with the death of his wife but couldn’t prove it.”
The silent moment that follows is like a knife pushing into my flesh.
Harper doesn’t look away, doesn’t balk. Barely blinks. “What did Yates say, specifically?”
“Only that he was worried about you with Arthur. He didn’t give any
specifics about what happened, just alluded to it. And I found nothing of consequence when I looked it up.”
“You looked it up?” she asks, and I nod. Her eyes narrow to suspicious slits. “How, when you didn’t have your phone?”
I resist the urge to pull away from her gaze. I’m not sure why it feels like I’ve done something gravely wrong, but it does. “I went to the library.”
Harper sits back in her chair and regards me for a long, torturous moment.
The only motion she makes is to slowly spin her beer bottle on the place mat, the condensation smearing beneath her fingertips. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I didn’t have my phone, remember?” I counter, struggling to keep any sarcasm from bleeding into the dark notes of my voice. But I think she still hunts it out. Fury blazes to life in her sharp steel eyes. I reach for her wrist before it can slice, and I’m a little surprised when she lets me hold on. “I’m asking you now, Harper. What happened?”
My breath seems caught in my lungs. There’s a lingering beat before she says, “Arthur killed his wife. Because she begged him to.”
Harper slides her arm free of my hand to raise her beer to her lips, taking a long sip. My fingers tense in the absence of her touch. I knew there must be something behind Yates’s words, but this isn’t what I expected. When Harper finally meets my eyes, they’re haunted, as though they’re able to reflect Arthur’s pain.
“Vivian had breast cancer. But it had already metastasized to her bones.
He said she was in so much pain that she couldn’t even get out of bed. She begged him for weeks before he finally gave in.” It seems like another layer of her armor has been stripped away when she says, “He gave her midazolam. Traces showed up on the autopsy report, but it was never connected to Arthur. To my knowledge, Yates never even tried. If he had suspicions, this is the first I’ve heard of it. At least, Arthur told me nobody asked.”
Maybe it’s a fiction Arthur spun to keep Harper in his web. Or maybe it’s the truth. But if it is, does that mean she’s in any less danger? What if he’s confused and tries to hurt Harper while trapped in an echo of memory? Or what if he demands something of her that she’s unable to bear? “Why would
Yates mention it to me if he hadn’t tried to link Arthur to Vivian’s death?”
“I don’t know,” she says simply.
“Maybe it’s exactly as he said, that there wasn’t enough evidence to even pursue it. And that he’s worried about you. Because I am too.” I rest my palm on her hand, and this time, even if she tries to pull free, I won’t let her slip away. “Arthur is a brilliant, capable man. And he is a dangerous man.”
Harper squares her shoulders. “Not to me.”
“No?” I ask, and she shakes her head. “Never?”
This time, she remains still, and I know there must be something she’s unwilling to share.
“He was dangerous to you when he manipulated me into grabbing his murder bag. The same one that you’d stored for safekeeping because you knew he might do something rash. And then he went out and did exactly what you were trying to prevent him from doing.” I lean closer when Harper’s eyes drop. “That’s why we’re in this whole Search and Rescue mess, remember?
He put you in the middle of everything you’ve been trying to escape.”
Harper shakes her head. “It’s not like that,” she whispers, meeting my eyes for only a moment. The defiance in them is covered by a tormented shimmer. “What he did to Evanston was a mistake. I get that. I know the risk it’s put us all in. But he needs me, and I won’t abandon him.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I say, and she bites down on her lip as though forcing herself to withhold a sharp retort. “But what happens if he confuses you with Vivian one day? Or someone else?” I let go of her hand only long enough to sweep the hair back from her face with the lightest touch, and her eyes flutter closed for a heartbeat of time. “He knows he’s losing his memories. His identity. He knows he cannot be cured. What if he asks the same thing of you that Vivian asked of him? What would that do to you?”
Harper is crumbling before my eyes, her brow furrowed and her features pinched as she stares down at our hands. She’s trying hard not to cry. And I feel so fucking guilty about it. She probably thought we’d have some pizza and beer and watch that goddamn addictive TV show she loves so much. Not that she’d have to hear me lay out all the things she surely worries about in such a harsh and unforgiving light. But I just can’t bear the thought of her becoming trapped by promises she made to a man who might be
manipulating her at every turn.
I get up from my chair, never breaking my touch as I bend down to wrap her in an embrace. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, relieved when she folds an arm across my back. “I know how much you care about Arthur. But he has the capacity to hurt you in so many ways. And I struggle with that, Harper. I really do.”
Harper says nothing. She doesn’t nod, doesn’t move. But she doesn’t let me go either. Not until long moments pass, and the pizza is cold and the beer has warmed in the humid summer air that flows in from the open windows.
When I finally sit back down, I feel like I’ve made another wound in a woman who already carries so many scars.
We pick at our dinner but don’t finish it. We put on Surviving Love, but don’t watch it. We go to bed, but we don’t fall asleep, not for a long and silent stretch of time.
When Harper’s breathing finally deepens beside me and she slides into her dreams, I take her hand off my chest and move it to the bed where my body should be.
I stand next to her sleeping form, watching her for just a breath of time, and then I leave.
