DREDGE
Harper
THE SUN GLARES DOWN MERCILESSLY on Main Street, the heat warping the air above the blacktop. I take a sip from my water bottle as I look down at the road and count the hanging baskets I still have left to go.
Twelve.
A groan rumbles in my throat. My forehead itches beneath my Taste of Terror ball cap. Sweat dampens the collar of my cropped T-shirt.
And as I shift my weight from one foot to the other, I become acutely aware of the butt plug lodged in my ass.
There’s a lot of other shit I should be focused on, like maybe that Tylor guy who I spot leaving A Shipwrecked Bean across the street with Emma, to- go cups clutched in their hands. They’re heading in the direction of the library, probably to rejoin the search after a lunch break. I spent a morning trailing them, hoping they would leave after Charlie’s death.
But no.
Instead, their ranks have swelled like a fungus, and I pull my cap down lower as I think about the other Sleuthseekers now staying not just at the Capeside Inn, but at the Lionshead Motel and the B&B on Ortolon Drive.
Tylor’s been summoning them on Discord like a fucking pied piper, getting them to dig into Sam’s and Vinny’s deaths and the disappearances while he and Emma try to mine for intel at the search.
The vial of poison I took from Arthur’s murder bag seems to sing to me from the confines of my backpack. It would be so fucking satisfying to dump it into Tylor’s coffee and watch him writhe into the afterlife, even though the sensible thing to do is stick with Nolan’s “no more murder” edict. The one he
couldn’t stick to himself, which is yet another thing that plagues my thoughts.
My encounter with Yates at the cottage a few days ago is still weighing on me too, especially his disconcerting quip about Nolan’s attitude toward Arthur. But the thing is, he’s not wrong. I noticed the flash of irritation in his eyes when Arthur interrupted us at the cottage. I’ve seen the tension in his hands when they fold into fists every time he asks me to leave town and I tell him I can’t—that Arthur needs me.
But right now, I feel powerless to change any of it.
The best I can do is focus on the things I can control, like spraying Cookie Monster down daily with Piss-Off! and then running actual wood through it for a change, just in case Yates unexpectedly pops by to pick up the woodchipper. Or finishing this prep for the Taste of Terror festival next month, and then going back to lurking like a caged animal that’s craving a visceral release. At the very least, an anal toy is a great distraction from the squall that seems to swirl around us.
I’m going to ravage every inch of you until you’re mine, including that tight little ass.
I clear my throat to wrestle my fantasies under control before Nolan’s promise blossoms into an ache in my clit. It takes more effort than it should to focus on the endless arguing of the three Roberts—Bob, Bobby, and Bert.
At least, it does until I realize they’re debating Jake Hornell’s disappearance.
“It was Sharkimedes,” Bert says, running a hand over the beads of sweat that shimmer in his buzzed gray hair. He jerks a nod toward Tylor and Emma before they round the corner toward the command center. “That’s what I told those two snoopfuckers yesterday when they started quizzin’ me about Jake.
Shark got him. I’d bet my fishing license on it.”
Bob snorts as he rolls his eyes. “I’ll take that bet.”
“Nah, I think Bert’s on to something there. Jake used to surf out at the ’Murb,” Bobby replies, flicking a hand in the general direction of Melmurby Beach, which lies just south of the Cape Carnage promontory. He unfurls a Taste of Terror banner heralding next month’s food festival and passes it to Bert, who takes it up the ladder to replace the Carnival of Carnage flag that hangs limply in the humid, breezeless air. “What’s to say Jake didn’t head out there and get snapped up by Sharkimedes?”
“Dick shriveling, that’s what,” Bob retorts, leaning against the water truck.
“He went missing in early June. It might be hot as the devil’s nutsack today, but you know as well as anyone that the water ain’t gonna warm up until August. But June? His balls woulda climbed so far up his throat he woulda
choked.”
“There’s a lady present,” Bert objects.
“I’m not a lady.” I scoff, gesturing to my legs, my skin covered in streaks of dirt and a mist of sweat. I try to brush off the worst mark with my gardening glove, but it only ends up dirtier. “Please continue, Bob. I believe we were talking about dicks?”
“That’s right. Dick-shriveling cold. Too cold for surfing.”
Bert trudges back down the ladder, rolling his eyes when he turns to face Bob. “He probably had a winter wetsuit, dumbass. Julio Flores surfs there in March.”
“Pfft,” Bob snarks. “You’re conveniently forgetting that Julio Flores also survived a skydiving accident when the chute didn’t fucking open, and then went on the following week to set the Taste of Terror chili-eating contest record when he still had two broken legs, for god’s sake. He’d punch that shark in the fuckin’ face and surf its corpse back to shore. He can’t be used as a benchmark for the shit that normal people do.”
“Well, I still think it was Sharkimedes. But you have a point about Julio.
That kid would single-handedly kick Thanos’s ass.”
Bobby’s head tilts. “Who’s Thanos? Is he the new bartender guy at the Buoy and Beacon?”
“No, you dumbass. He’s from The Avengers.”
“What’s The Avengers?”
“The comic series? And the movies?”
“We went to that movie, Bobby,” Bert interjects. “We were literally sitting
together in the theater—”
“He fell asleep—”
“I don’t remember a fuckin’ thing about it—”
“Look,” Bert says, his palms up and facing his two best friends in a bid to shut them up. “The point is, Jake Hornell was eaten by a great white shark, and Julio Flores would punch Sharkimedes in the fuckin’ face in a real-life
version of Sharknado, and Harper should therefore start dating Julio.”
The water I was just about to swallow comes shooting out my nose. The Bobs are already starting to veer into a new argument before I finally cough out the words, “Excuse me?”
“Gotta admit, Harper and Julio has a ring to it,” Bob continues. “But she’s into that topiary fella.”
“What topiary fella?” Bert asks, scratching his stubble.
A long-suffering sigh heaves past Bob’s lips. “The tourist guy, dumbass.
The one with the fancy trees you trucked over to Arthur’s.”
“Yeah, dumbass,” Bobby snipes, elated to finally not be the sole target of Bob’s good-natured jabs. “His name’s Riddick.”
“Riddick . . . ?” Bob snorts, shaking his head as he pivots to face Bobby.
“From The Chronicles of Riddick. Are you fucking serious?”
No one notices the blush that flames my cheeks to shades of crimson. All eyes are on Bobby as his head tilts like a confused dog. “What’s The Chronicles of Riddick?”
Bob lets out an exasperated sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose before he turns to a confused-looking Bert. “She’s hooking up with the Search and Rescue tourist guy who pulled her from the water. And his name’s not
Riddick, for Chrissakes. It’s Rhodes.”
Bert scratches his head. “Says who?”
“Says anyone who was at Nightfog the other night, for one—”
“Ooh, Nightfog, that’s serious.”
“—And Rhodes, probably. And Harper too if she could get a word in edgewise between you two dumbasses.”
The moment “dumbasses” exits Bob’s mouth, three pairs of eyes turn to me expectantly. My focus shifts from one Bob to the next, my cheeks heating. “What . . . ?”
“You hooking up with that Rhodes tree guy or not?” Bert says.
I shift my weight and goddammit, that anal plug virtually screams Nolan’s name. “I’m . . . he’s . . . it’s like . . . complicated.”
Bob snorts a laugh. “That sounds like the kind of bullshit someone says when they’re trying to convince themselves it’s more casual than it really is.”
Fuck. That arrow hit a little close to home. I brush off my arm as though I
can scrape those words from my skin. “Or maybe it’s just complicated, Bob.”
“You could always try something uncomplicated,” Bert declares. “Maybe a town boy like Julio. He’d punch a shark in the face for you, guaranteed.”
“Nolan could punch a shark,” I say, tipping my chin up.
“What about Lukas? He’s a nice boy.”
“No. No way.” I shake my head, dropping my gardening gloves to count the reasons off my fingers. “For one, he’s like my brother. Secondly, he’s still pining for Maxine. Third, it’s Lukas.”
Bob grins like he’s caught me in a trap, a smile that’s echoed on Bobby and Bert’s faces. I’m starting to think this whole conversation was a ploy from the jump. “So, what we’re hearing is that maybe things with this Rhodes fella aren’t so complicated after all.”
A little tang of blood hits my tongue as I free my lip from my teeth.
Maybe he’s right, though he doesn’t realize that in this case “complicated” comes with a lot more challenges than your typical situationship. Murder.
Secrets. An occasional interest in killing each other.
But maybe things aren’t so complicated, despite the reasons that brought Nolan to my doorstep. With every day that passes, it’s harder to remember the terror I felt that day Nolan stalked around the side of my cottage with Jake’s severed hands clutched tight in his grip. At least, it’s hard to remember that fear without the desire that’s become stitched into it. And now he’s living in that same cottage. Making my coffee. Leaving me notes. Cooking dinner with me. At least . . . he is for now . . .
Tennessee whispers across my thoughts like a threat, bringing with it the comments Yates made when he visited the cottage, something I still haven’t brought myself to tell Nolan about out of the fear he might go on a blood- soaked rampage.
“Look,” I say, shaking the sudden burst of anxiety off as I lift the heavy hanging basket to shove it at Bert, “I’m not getting into my love life with you three weirdos. One of you doesn’t even know who Thanos is. You can’t be trusted.”
Bob grins when I turn toward him. “‘Love’ life, huh?”
“Shut the fuck up and water my flowers, you nosy old gossip.” The three men laugh as I turn away and stalk toward my backpack, which I left in the
shade of the Starlight Boutique’s striped overhang. “And it was definitely Sharkimedes who killed Jake,” I toss over my shoulder. “I can feel it in my bones.”
That’s all it takes to set off another argument among the three men, deflecting their interest from my romantic escapades. I dig out a granola bar from my bag and chew each bite with more force than is probably necessary as I watch them hang the new flower basket that I’ve created to match this year’s Taste of Terror theme: Love & Other Killers: Celebrating Romance in Cape Carnage. Blood-red begonias and black cherry petunias and bleeding hearts cascade from the planter.
If I’m being honest with myself, which is maybe not my favorite pastime, Nolan was my first thought when they unveiled the theme a few weeks ago when we were still digging up bodies, barely talking to each other. Nolan was there in my mind when I picked out each flower. He consumed my thoughts more and more, until somehow, he became a presence in every moment that passes. Even when he’s absent, he’s still there. And maybe the most complicated thing about it is how much harder it should be. It shouldn’t be this easy to fall for the man who came here to destroy me. But I can’t seem to stop it from happening.
A deep sigh escapes from my lungs, doing little to clear my thoughts as I watch the three Bobs pack up and start moving to the next pole. I’m about to grab my backpack and follow them when I’m shocked into rigid stillness.
The anal plug vibrates in my ass.
A tourist couple walks by and I give them a weak smile and salute. I don’t have time to wonder if they can hear the quiet buzz of the toy before it turns up a notch. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I hiss, planting a hand on the brick wall of the Starlight Boutique’s storefront to steady myself.
“You all right, Harper?” Bobby calls from down the street as the two other Bobs start setting up for the next hanging basket.
“All good,” I say with a wave.
“You coming?”
I choke on a laugh. “Yep. In a minute.” The vibration turns up another level and I clamp my lips together to trap a whimper. When I’m reasonably sure I’ll be able to keep my voice steady, I say, “Why don’t you get started
without me and then we can take a break at the Bean?”
Bobby’s face lights up at the prospect of a coffee break and he gives me a double thumbs-up before turning to join his friends. The moment his back is turned, I whip my phone from the pocket of my jean shorts. I’m about to unlock the screen to text Nolan when his contact appears as an incoming call.
“Riddick?” he scoffs through the line. “Come the fuck on.”
“‘You keep what you kill,’” I reply, forcing my voice an octave lower than it typically goes.
“Please don’t compare me to Vin Diesel.”
“You give me more Karl Urban Vaako vibes, honestly.”
“Thank fuck.”
“So,” I say, pivoting a slow turn as I let my gaze pan across the shops and parked cars lining Main Street. Though I search every face, I don’t see Nolan anywhere. “You’re stalking me.”
“I’m hunting you. And maybe I like toying with my prey.” The vibration turns up and my hand clenches into a fist against the rough brick. “Tell me about this Sharkimedes and maybe I’ll turn on the other one.”
My thighs squeeze together as though that could possibly alleviate the ache between them. A remote control panty vibrator presses against my clit hard enough to make itself known, but not enough to give me any relief for the building need.
“You know you’re desperate for a little”—the vibration turns up again —“release. So, Sharkimedes . . . ?”
The sensation is foreign but fills me with need. My breathing turns ragged.
My panties dampen. I search for Nolan again, my face probably filled with undisguised want, with the torturous desire twisting low in my belly. “It’s a g-great white,” I stammer. “He’s eaten a couple of tourists over the years.”
A low chuckle rumbles through the line and my clit throbs in response.
“Really? Sounds to me like a story Arthur would make up to cover his tracks.”
“Maybe.” A pause settles between us as I scan my surroundings again. I give another weak smile to a couple who walks by. My gaze follows them until they make it to the three Bobs, who’ve set our equipment in a neat pile next to the pole and are about to cross the road toward A Shipwrecked Bean.
A frustrated whine catches in my throat as the silence stretches on. I turn again. Nolan must have been close enough to hear every word of our conversation, but I still see no trace of him. “Nolan . . . ”
“Yes?”
“You said you were going to turn on the other one.”
Silence.
I roll my eyes. That fucking anal toy buzzes mercilessly, indifferent to my suffering. I try to walk it off, pacing from one end of the Starlight Boutique storefront to the other. And I’m 99 percent positive it only makes my predicament worse.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Nolan Rhodes. I swear to god, I’m going to take my garden shears and—”
A hand clamps across my mouth. An iron band of muscle wraps around my waist. And then I’m dragged into the cool shadows of the narrow alleyway between the boutique and the store next door.
“And what, Harper? Not ‘I’ll chop your balls off,’ I hope,” Nolan breathes against my neck, my pulse surging toward his exhalations. I stumble, but his arm is there to catch me as he drags us deeper into the alley. “I don’t believe most people’s threats, but you’re not ‘most people.’” Nolan releases me behind a stack of pallets leaning against the wall. He spins me around, pushing my back up against the brick, his palm anchored to my lips once more. A devious glint sparks in his eyes as they make a slow pass over my features. “You look so pretty when you suffer for me.”
I growl into Nolan’s skin and he smirks. When I try to rip his phone from his hand, he laughs. It’s infuriating how much I love that sound.
“Now, now,” he says, holding the phone just beyond my reach. He turns the screen toward me. It’s open on an app, a pink line traveling across the top of the screen. Nolan stares straight into my eyes as he slowly drags the level upward. The vibration in the anal toy increases. My eyes flutter closed as I moan, and then, just as suddenly, the vibration goes down to almost nothing.
“You wouldn’t want me to leave it on low, would you?”
I unsuccessfully try to bite the hand that covers my mouth, and that seems to delight him. Nolan’s leg slips between mine and he uses his weight to keep me caged to the wall as he focuses on his phone screen. A breath later, the
vibration increases. And then the panty vibrator finally starts. My whimper is met by the heat and the scent of Nolan’s cologne, spice and bergamot. His thigh presses harder to my center, trapping the vibration against my clit.
“You don’t think I’d really leave you unsatisfied, do you?” Nolan purrs against the shell of my ear. I’m so desperate for relief that I grind against his leg, slowly at first, but still enough for him to notice. His hand drags away from my mouth, cradling my jaw.
“I don’t know.” My breath shudders as he tilts my head, exposing my neck to kisses. One long, slow lick passes through the sweat on my skin. “You can be a bit of a dick sometimes.”
Nolan’s laugh is a whisper on my flesh before he sinks a bite into the juncture between my neck and shoulder. I gasp, sinking my weight down harder on his thigh.
“Yeah, but you like it.” He turns the vibration a little higher on both toys, and I fight the urge to writhe against him. “It’s not just these toys that have you soaking wet.”
Nolan sets the phone on the edge of a nearby shipping pallet, then he’s unfastening the button of my shorts and slipping his hand into my panties.
His finger slides through the moisture gathered at my folds, and then his touch is gone. He leans back to show me the arousal glistening on his skin, then opens his mouth and licks it off. His eyes flutter closed. If he were to tell me he needed my taste to live, I would believe him. The way he groans. The way he stills. The way his pupils consume the color of his irises when his hard stare finds me again. His desire for me devours us both.
“Christ, Harper,” he hisses as his fingers slide back into my shorts again, this time pulling the vibe from the magnet that holds it to my panties so he can use it on my clit himself. “I want to fuck you so badly.”
“Then do it.”
“Later.”
“Or now and also later.”
I slip into the sensations he lavishes on my body as he presses a kiss to my lips, sharing the taste of my arousal. The slow slide of his tongue over mine.
The warmth of his palm as it cups my breast. The steady hum of the toy in my ass. The swirl of the vibe in his other hand, the pulse pushing me closer to
the cliff edge of climax. I come closer to unraveling with every second that passes.
“I’m saving it for when I take that tight ass of yours,” Nolan whispers when we part. “But right now, I want to watch you fall apart. I want to hear my name tumble past those pretty lips like a prayer.”
Nolan’s thumb drags over my bottom lip. Voices pass the mouth of the alley, and my gaze darts toward a group of tourists who take no notice of us as they head in the direction of the Buoy and Beacon Pub. “Someone could see us.”
“Yeah. They could. And something makes me think you don’t really care.”
“Pretty much.” I grab the back of Nolan’s neck and crush his lips to mine, sinking back into a kiss that’s all heat, all want. And he’s right. Someone could walk down this alley and I wouldn’t fucking care. Not when he touches me the way no one else has, gripping my waist like he knows just how many bruises to leave in my skin for me to feel truly satisfied. Not when he swirls that toy over my clit with just the right amount of force to detonate every cell in my body.
He breaks the kiss to stare down at me. Not just at my eyes or my lips or my flushed skin, but right into the depths of me. He sinks beneath my layers to inhabit the shadows I hide from the rest of the world. He’s the only man who could find sanctuary there.
And I’m afraid I can’t live without his presence in my darkest corners.
“You’d better soak my hand and chant my name,” Nolan whispers. “Every time I catch your scent on my skin, I want your voice in my mind.”
He commands. My body obeys. Dampness soaks my panties. I hear his name on my lips as though I don’t even need to think it. It just happens. And then my muscles coil. My core tenses. My nails dig into Nolan’s skin. His eyes never leave mine as I unravel in his grip, my heart thundering and my legs trembling. Nolan is the only thing anchoring me in this dimension, the only thing holding me up when all the world seems to crash right through me.
He doesn’t stop chasing my pleasure until every ounce is spent.
“So you can obey me,” Nolan says with a smirk as he snaps the magnet of the vibe back into place with one hand and turns off the toys on the app with
the other. “When you want to.”
“Don’t get used to it, Rhodes.”
“We’ll see.” When Nolan withdraws his fingers from my shorts, he runs their glistening tips over the ouroboros tattoo on his arm. He makes a point of raising it to his nose and taking a deep inhale. “Smells like heaven. And obedience.” I roll my eyes and slap his shoulder, and he laughs as I squirm out of his hold. “I’d better get back to the search before Tylor and Emma cause too much trouble. Three more days and then they should be gone.
Hopefully when they go, we’ll officially move from ‘rescue’ to ‘recovery,’ and the rest of those assholes will get bored and leave too.”
“Speaking of which,” I say as I whip out my phone from my pocket, opening a new web browser, “I think we have an opportunity here with Sharkimedes, as long as we can get to it fast. Has anyone mentioned Jake surfing? Yates maybe? Anyone at all?”
“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “Bert’s comment is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Excellent.” I bring up the surf report from the month of June, finding the information for the sixth and seventh. “What time was Jake’s shift at the gym
supposed to start on the seventh?”
“Noon. Why?”
“There were hardly any waves on the afternoon of the sixth,” I say as I show him the details on the screen. “The conditions weren’t great the next morning—but still good enough that he could have surfed.”
Nolan hums a thoughtful note. “What about his board and wetsuit?
Wouldn’t Yates have seen his equipment already if he checked his home?”
“Jake didn’t keep it at home. He kept it in a locker at Wallie’s Watersports. So if Yates isn’t thinking about surfing as a possibility, then maybe this gives us a plausible story. But we’ll have to act fast before the rumor reaches him too,” I say. Nolan nods, his brow furrowed. “The lockers are at the back of the building. No cameras on them, nothing but padlocks.”
“Do you know which one?”
I shake my head. “No, but I’m sure there are records in the shop office. I
made a key—”
“You made a key?”
“Yes, Nolan. I made a key. Some of us are pro-level murderers, not amateurs who get handcuffed by loser frat boys—”
“For fucksakes—”
“It’s in the cottage, so it won’t be a problem for us to get into Wallie’s.” I turn to face Nolan fully, my snide grin turning conspiratorial. “Jake didn’t go surfing often—maybe a handful of times a summer. But when he did, he walked. His license was still suspended following his DUI. It’s only a fifteen- minute hike from Wallie’s on the shortcut path across the cape promontory to Melmurby. No one would have seen him, except maybe Julio, but he’s been away traveling for the last few months. I’m sure Jake would have had the beach to himself that early in the season.”
“How sure?”
“Sure enough that if we snap the fin off his board and you find it on the shore tomorrow, people will draw the conclusions we want them to.”
“I can do one better. I still have part of his leg from the night that I killed him.”
I blink at Nolan. “You still have Jake’s leg? Why?”
“Maybe some of us aren’t as amateur-level as you think,” he says with a smirk. “Honestly, at first I thought I might leave more Creepy Jakey presents in your bird feeder to fuck with you.”
My cheeks heat as I narrow my eyes at him. “Fabulous.”
“But then I reburied it in a safer place. The new grave is still on the Ballantyne River, but farther from town where it’s more remote,” Nolan says, his expression softening. “I’ll dig up the leg and deflesh it. Shatter a piece of bone off and put it somewhere on the shore where it’ll be found.”
Our gazes lock. For a breath of time, I can feel the tether that stitches us together. It pulls on my chest. I used to think we were different beasts entirely, but now I know I was wrong. We’re the same kind of animal, two predators who climbed out of hell and brought a piece of it with them. I can feel his gruesome thoughts and twisted machinations as though they’re my own.
“This could blow up in our fucking faces,” Nolan says.
“Or it could be the simplest explanation for one of the disappearances, at least. And that’s bait that I’m sure Yates must be desperate to take by now.
This has all gotta be weighing on him between the public pressure and the town council and the Sleuthseekers.”
Nolan’s gaze drifts toward Main Street as though Yates could be hovering at the mouth of the alley. I have a momentary urge to tell him about Yates’s unplanned visit and how unsettling it was, but I don’t. Not when it looks like he’s already worried about him too. “He actually seems to be holding up okay, surprisingly.” When his eyes return to mine, an echo of worry remains that he tries to mask but fails. “But I’m sure he needs the win.”
“So do we,” I say, and Nolan’s expression softens. He takes my jaw in a gentle grip, tilting my head to lay a lingering kiss on my lips. When we part, a slow smile blooms across Nolan’s face.
“I already did win—”
“That’s so cheesy.”
“—when I got the brat in you to obey.”
“Fuck you, Ballmeat.”
Nolan laughs, kissing my cheek a final time before he takes a step back.
“I’ve gotta run. Take that toy out for a while. But put it back in before you come home. I’ll see you around dusk.”
“Yeah,” I reply, though a little pang of longing hits my chest like a dart.
“See you later. Keep me posted if anything comes up, I guess.”
He nods, and then with a final weighted glance between us, we part, headed in opposite directions. I’m nearly at the mouth of the alley when Nolan calls out, “Oh, and Harper . . . ?”
I turn, a silent question in my raised brows.
“This . . . ?” he says, gesturing at the shadows between us. A pause lingers in that empty chasm, as though there’s so much more he wants to say but won’t. And I realize in this moment how breakable I still am. How dangerous he still is. Because it would be so easy for him to shatter my heart, if he wanted to. “It’s not fucking complicated.”
A sting burns at the back of my throat. “But Tennessee—”
“It’s not. Fucking. Complicated. I’m your boyfriend,” Nolan says, his intensity drilling into me. “And I love you.”
I swallow a thick knot and nod.
It used to be easy to say those words back to someone without worrying
about how the universe might punish me for unleashing something so simple but so precious. And maybe that’s the problem. I don’t just love Nolan. I’m afraid that I could love him so much that I’ll never be allowed to keep it if I let it out. The force that’s always waiting in the shadows will take it away.
And if it does, it will destroy us both.
“I know,” I say. But only once he’s gone.
