SWATHING
Harper
DAYS HAVE TURNED TO WEEKS in the humid heat of summer. July has bled away into August, and now that’s almost gone too. The search for the missing trudges onward, though it’s diminishing day by day. Even the press hasn’t bothered coming around much lately since the discovery of Creepy Jakey’s bone and his broken surfboard fin. Though McMillan’s planted shirt never turned up, no one seems to care that much about finding him, maybe because he was a known piece of shit during his short stay. Even interest in Evanston has started to taper off among the townsfolk.
But the Sleuthseekers? They linger, coming and going like garbage on a tide.
Their presence has been an unpredictable cloud over the town, but their questions are always the same: What’s really going on in Cape Carnage?
They’ve asked about the woman in the photo from their Discord, about their friend Charlie and the missing men, about La Plume and what kind of trail Sam might have been following. They press about Yates, and just how much he can be trusted about his version of events with Sam and Vinny. And the locals have rankled against the intrusion, at least according to the Bobs and Maya on the days when I’ve ventured into town to keep up my end of the contract to tend to the public gardens.
It’s the first time that life in my little sanctuary has felt like a cage I can’t escape from. The only real reprieve has been Nolan’s presence, even though the thought of him going back to Tennessee after this search ends is a constant drumbeat in my thoughts. I’ve come to depend on that moment when he walks through the door as a relief from tinkering around the property
and looking after Arthur. I worry about how brutally it will break me when he leaves. So I should be excited for a change in this oppressive new routine of sticking around Lancaster Manor and avoiding the rest of the town. I should be enjoying my first day doing something different in a while.
But I’m not. Instead, I’m forcing myself not to scowl.
And I’m pretty sure I’m failing.
The Whispering Pines Care Home administrator, Ingrid, leads us down the corridor, stopping at an open door. “And this is our activity room.” She gestures with a fluid sweep of her hand as though it’s a showroom of luxury cars. To be fair, the space looks objectively good. Light floods the room through tall windows that look out across the sea. There are musical instruments on one side, art supplies on the other, and tables set up for games and puzzles. The few elderly residents in the space look content and well cared for. Everything is clean and organized and welcoming. I should be
happy about that.
But I also fucking hate it.
I hate the clinical smell of industrial cleaners. I hate the pastel rooms that feel like dioramas. I hate the locks on the doors to go outside, the alarm systems, the impersonal schedules. I fucking despise the half-assed, hideous garden. I loathe that this is how Arthur might come to spend his days like some fucking torturous procession through the dismantling of his
personhood.
I hate it.
I hate it.
I. Fucking. Hate. It.
“It’s really great,” Lukas says as he pans his gaze across the room. “What do you think, Harper?”
“Yeah. Great.” I turn my focus to Ingrid and try my best to keep my expression blank. But I think I fail, judging by the tension between her graying brows. “Do you have a gardening activity program?”
“We do.”
“Would Arthur be able to have his own section?”
“I’m sure we can arrange something.”
“He has expensive shoes. How will you keep someone from stealing
them?”
“Each room is monitored by security cameras and contains lockable storage.”
“What about pastrami sandwiches? And soy chai lattes with cinnamon?
Do you serve those?”
Ingrid’s serious expression cracks into a knowing smile. “The kitchen has all sorts of menu options. We can handle both.” She gestures back out of the room, following us into the corridor before leading us toward the exit. “Look, I know this is a lot to process. It’s a difficult decision, and you can take your time to reflect on it. I recommend looking at a few different care homes to help you determine the right one that suits Mr. Lancaster’s needs.
Nonetheless, we’re happy to put Mr. Lancaster on the waitlist while you consider your options.”
I can feel Lukas’s scrutiny crackling across my skin, begging me to look in his direction so that he can ask a silent question that I’m not ready to answer. “We’ll talk it over and then give you a shout,” he finally says, breaking his attention away as he extends a hand toward Ingrid. “Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.”
“Absolutely. If you have any questions at all, please just reach out.” Ingrid lets go of his hand to shake mine next. “I know how much you both care about him,” she says as I force myself to accept her parting gesture. “It’s a difficult transition to make. You’re doing the right thing by thinking it over.”
I’m sure she’s being nice. Professional. Saying all the things she should say. But it leaves me feeling cold all the same.
“Thank you” is all I manage, and then I let go of her hand and stride for the door.
We’re buzzed out of the building and it feels like the first time I’ve taken a breath since we got here. We walk to Lukas’s car in silence. Tension rolls around us on the air-conditioned currents as he navigates out of the parking lot to start the twenty-minute drive back to the estate.
Another strike, in my opinion.
“It was clean,” he ventures, as though it’s a strong selling point and not a must-have. “And I liked Ingrid and all the nurses we met.”
I look out the passenger window at the pines and granite boulders. It’s not
like I disagree. It was clean. The staff was nice. The programs were good.
“But I’m not ready,” I say quietly, following my trail of thoughts to their
end.
“I know.”
“You are?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Lukas sighs, rubbing a hand over his dark stubble.
“I know Grumps will never be ready.”
We exchange brief, bittersweet smiles. “You’ll never get out from under
the judgy bus,” I say.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“I kind of would.” My fingers lock and unlock in my lap. I spot a moose in the shadows of the forest as we pass, and I think of that fucking topiary that Nolan thankfully replaced. My lips curve as I hear Arthur’s voice in my head from the night of the Beauty and the Beast performance, ordering a majestic moose like it was a plausible feat. “He’s just got so much spark in him still. I understand it’s not the easiest thing to manage sometimes, but I just can’t imagine him in a place like that, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” Lukas taps on the steering wheel. I know this isn’t easy for him either, and it’s not like I’m family, but he still treats me like I am. “I don’t like the thought of letting him down, or compromising his safety,” he admits. His eyes shift toward the sea to our left, and I catch a glassiness in them when he refocuses on the road. “I don’t think he’s ready either, but at the same time, nobody is. And what if we wait too long and something terrible happens? It already has.”
Though I assess his features, I find no hidden meaning in his words. I’m sure he just means Arthur’s fall and his hospital stay. He’s right about that, of course. But there’s also the risk that rises with every day that passes—that Arthur might find a new target, a new tourist to take down. Another person like Evanston, annoying yet unworthy of Arthur’s once-discerning taste.
And what happens when his memory erodes to the point that it exposes all his secrets? What if he tells the staff about the man buried beneath the boiler, or the bodies at the silver mine, or the souls hidden beneath the floorboards of the grain shed? What if someone understands that his words aren’t the delusions of his deteriorating condition, but they’re real? What then?
“I get it,” I say. “He seems to be doing a little better since the fall, but I know there’s never going to be a right time. I think maybe after the final round of the gardening competition is over, we should talk to him about it.
See what he thinks.”
Lukas shifts a flat, side-eye glare in my direction. “He’ll think the idea is fucking awful.”
“Yeah. Probably. But maybe we can all go together for his next doctor’s appointment and collectively agree on some milestones. Once he passes them, then we’ll know it’s time.”
Lukas’s expression softens. A sorrowful smile lifts one corner of his lips.
“You’re kinda smart, you know that?”
I shrug. “Maybe a little. And by a little, I mean a lot.” I whack him in the arm as he chuckles. “You know what else I am?”
“What?”
“A totally fantastic wingman.”
“Oh dear fucking god.”
“So, have you asked Max to the dance?” I ask. He rolls his eyes, and I hit him again. “It’s three days away. You don’t have much time. I bet she’s been
asked, like, fifty times already.”
“Good for her.”
“Oh shit, what if she’s going with Julio Flores? I hear he’s back from his travels. Dude would totally punch a shark for Max.”
“The fuck?”
“That’s what I’m going to do,” I say, whipping out my phone. There are a couple of text messages from Nolan asking how the visit went, and I start texting him back, keeping my screen tilted away from Lukas’s view. “I’m going to text Julio and see if he’s asked her, and if not, I’m gonna set them up.”
“The hell you are.” Just after I send my reply to Nolan, Lukas rips the phone from my hand and throws it onto the back seat.
“Rude.”
“You’re supposed to be my wingman.”
“I tried, but you made it impossible. Why is that?” I ask. But Lukas doesn’t answer. He chews on his words, his jaw clenching, his grip tightening
around the wheel. “She broke your heart. I get it. But maybe she broke hers too in the process. And now you’re spending all this time still loving her and pretending that you don’t. You can’t bear the thought of anyone else stepping in. But you can’t bear to forgive Max and shoot your shot either. Sounds to me like you’ve gotten yourself into a real stalemate situation.”
Lukas is silent for a long moment until he finally says, “I really fucking hate you.”
“Because I’m smarter than you. And you know I’m right.”
“Yep,” he finally says. A long silence stretches between us as Cape Carnage comes into view down the distant shoreline. “You didn’t really text Julio, did you?”
“Guess you should ask Max to the dance and find out,” I reply.
Lukas stews about this as we pass familiar landmarks. The cliffs where we pushed my van into the sea four years ago. The bend in the road with the lookout where you can sometimes spot whales out in the water. The lighthouse with its one hundred and fifty-two steps. Widow’s Point, where I sailed over the granite crest and nearly drowned. And the town of Cape Carnage, with its hanging baskets and antique gas lamps and colorful Victorian houses. And today, it’s packed with unfamiliar faces for one of the
busiest events of the summer.
The Taste of Terror festival.
We head toward the park on Randall Road, where tents and food trucks and bouncy castles have transformed the open space. It’s day one, barely noon, and it’s already packed despite opening only an hour ago. There’s a stage at the far end of the park, and music from the folk band reaches us before we even make it to the parking lot. Parking attendants wave us into the vendors-only area, and I grab my phone and bag off the back seat before following Lukas into the crowd.
Scents of food waft toward us on the August breeze as we make our way to the Lancaster Distillery booth. There’s everything from gourmet hot dogs to elaborate dishes from countries all over the world. There are desserts and cocktails and performers who weave through the festival dressed as ghosts of the shipwreck victims offshore. But in true Cape Carnage style, everything is a little bit . . . macabre. There are gummy eyeballs in drinks and cured meats
laid out like flesh across skulls. Craft-A-Corpse creations are often staged across booths. Some of the vendor displays are maybe a little too creepy for the tourist kids, who point to them with sticky fingers, their eyes wide and fearful, though the children from Carnage never seem to mind. It feels good to be among the people of my town again, even though I pull the brim of my cap a little lower and keep a watchful eye out for anyone who might look at me with too much interest. Sure, it fills me with a little fear. But an even greater sense of pride.
Especially when Lukas smiles at me over his shoulder when the Lancaster Distillery stand comes into view.
The booth front is made of reclaimed wood from the original distillery, the sign overhead painted in black and gold. Two of Lukas’s employees are busy running the line of tourists and townsfolk who have come to sample the selection of whiskeys, many walking away with bottles in branded bags.
Lukas’s vision of revitalizing Lancaster Distillery is finally bearing fruit.
“This is amazing, Lukas,” I say as we head to the back of the stand, where a large tent made of old-fashioned green canvas is appended to the wooden structure. We pass a generator that’s keeping two ice machines powered up through a series of sketchy-looking extension cords. Crates of whiskey bottles and packs of plastic cups and decorative bags are stacked along the walls. We enter the space behind the counter, the staff members giving us relieved smiles as they pass us a pair of Lancaster Distillery–branded aprons.
“Arthur would be so proud.”
“Damn straight he would,” Bob slurs from the other side of the counter.
Next to him is Yates, wearing his staple civilian outfit of a plaid shirt and Wrangler jeans, who raises his plastic cup in a toast to Lukas.
“Though maybe Arthur would give his old friend Bob a discount on a bottle of the Reserve.”
“Nice try,” I say before Lukas is forced into an awkward reply. “Maybe if you didn’t sink so much money into that rickety old boat of yours, you wouldn’t have to barter for a discount on Lukas’s hard work. And on opening week too. For shame.”
I give him a wink as I pour a glass of the Reserve from the tasting bottle and slide it in his direction. “Since when did you get so sassy?” he grumbles.
“Since always.”
“True.” Bob takes a sip of the sample, his eyes closing as though he’s savoring the taste, but I think he might be a little too drunk to truly appreciate it. “Maybe you’re right about the boat though, Harper. Wouldn’t wanna sink out there and get eaten by Sharkimedes like poor Jake. God rest him,” he says, crossing himself with the whiskey as I struggle to keep a triumphant smile from igniting on my lips.
Yates’s eyes slide toward Bob and narrow. “You know better than to start speculation like that around here.”
Bob gives a derisive snort, and the muscle in Yates’s jaw tenses with the sound. “Yeah, but the search crew found his surfboard fin and a bone fragment on the beach last month, didn’t they? And the bone was his, so . . . ”
Bob’s brows rise as he shrugs, then he downs the rest of his whiskey. I immediately top it up, because Brazen Bob is my favorite version of this particular Robert.
“Now, now. That’s still not conclusive proof that he was attacked by a shark, Bob,” Yates says, “the last thing we need is for someone like old Mr.
Talbot to try blasting a vulnerable species out of the sea with sticks of dynamite because of some half-baked rumor. I don’t need a bunch of wildlife activists in town on top of all the amateur investigator wackos.”
“I saw a fin off the ’Murb yesterday. Sometimes, you gotta call a fish a fish, Yatesy,” Bob snipes back before downing his shot. I top him up again, and Yates’s focus slides to me. There’s a tic of the muscle in his cheek, a tiny vein pulsing with his heartbeat at his temple. He does not like this conversation, and for some reason, that brings me joy. “Besides,” Bob pipes up with a slur, “I thought you’d be happy to have one case closed, at least.”
Exactly my thoughts, Brazen Bob, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut.
“I am,” Yates mumbles, and it takes him a beat of delay before he tacks on an afterthought. “I’m happy to bring closure to Jake’s family. But I do still find it odd that it took so long for the bone and the fin to show up on shore after he went missing. That’s one thing I just haven’t been able to reconcile.
And the rest of the board, or pieces of his wetsuit—why didn’t any of that show up?” Yates’s head tilts as he regards me. “Don’t you find that odd, Harper?”
A prickle of unease slips down my spine. I pour Yates a shot of Lancaster Reserve and slide it to him across the black tablecloth. “The sea works in mysterious ways, I suppose, Sheriff.”
“Guess you’d know that as well as anyone,” he says, toasting me before downing his liquor and examining the empty cup. “Arthur really did make
something special, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Lukas says.
The sheriff smiles, his concern about Jake seemingly gone. “I’ll take a bottle.”
“Yeah, Yatesy.” Bob whacks Yates in the chest before slamming his empty cup down. A lethal glare flickers across Yates’s face before it disappears. “Count me in too.”
Lukas and I exchange a quick nod, Lukas beaming with pride. “I’ll get the bottles wrapped up,” I say, then head to the back of the tent where the stock of Reserve is kept.
The conversation with Yates weighs on me, but not for long. Not when a line builds on the other side of the counter. We fall into a rhythm. Pouring tasters, talking flavors, selling drinks and bottles. Music flows from a succession of live performers on the stage, buoying our mood. Sometimes we even dance behind the counter, making the most of the atmosphere and the warmth of the waning days of summer.
But that vibe is instantly cut short when I spot someone familiar
approaching from the distance.
Tylor Knightsbridge.
He’s just the same as when I first saw him leaving the Bean last month, even down to the same clothes. Thinning hair. Pale skin. Blue T-shirt.
Furrowed brow, his attention on something in his hand as he draws closer. A piece of folded paper.
I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing here. When he got back. Who he’s with. But I do know that it looks like he’s on the hunt, and I cannot let him see me.
“I’ll be back,” I say to Lukas, keeping my voice breezy. “Just need to grab a quick bite—I didn’t get a chance to eat this morning.”
Lukas is still moving with the beat of a song, totally unaware that danger
is on a direct path toward our booth. “No problem, we’ve got this.”
I give him a flash of a weak smile and disappear into the tent before Tylor can spot me. It’s a few agonizing minutes before I hear his voice, one I recognize from the day he stood right behind me in Maya’s Magical Mixtures. “I’d like to sample the Bloody Butcher Bourbon, please,” he says, and I resist the urge to peer around the edge of the tarp.
“No problem,” I hear Lukas say, and then the clink of a bottle as he pulls it off the metal rack to pour a mouthful of liquor. “This is from one of the last batches before the distillery closed down almost thirty years ago. It has notes
of apple, crème brûlée, and—”
“Have you seen this woman?”
My breath hitches in my chest. When I close my eyes, I can see that photo so clearly. At least, I hope that’s still the only one of me that he’s got. I didn’t even know he was coming back to town. There wasn’t a whisper of it on the Discord server, and a sudden fear strikes me that maybe they’ve realized someone was lurking among them who shouldn’t be there. What if they’ve been talking somewhere more secure? What if Tylor isn’t the only one here?
What if his friend Emma has come back too? Or people I would never have a hope of recognizing in the crowd of unfamiliar faces that outnumber the townsfolk?
And what if Lukas Lancaster—sweet, naive, debatably virginal Lukas—is my undoing?
“From the back of a head?” Lukas says. “Can’t say that I do. Sorry.”
I let out a breath, but the air is sucked out of my lungs again when Tylor
says, “Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“Because the lady at the bakery stand over there seems to think this might be a woman named Harper Starling who lives in the cottage on the Lancaster estate. The same estate that belongs to your grandfather.”
Lukas lets out a hollow chuckle that has a dark edge in its notes. “Sarah Winkle, huh? Yeah, she’s usually wrong about a lot of shit.”
“So this ‘Harper’ doesn’t live in your grandfather’s cottage?”
“She does. But that’s not Harper. I don’t know who that is.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.” Lukas’s tone brooks no argument and invites no further conversation on the matter. “Want to try something else?”
There’s a delay that feels like it takes a little too long to pass before Tylor says, “The Reserve, please.”
Lukas explains the flavor profile over another clink of a bottle. This time, Tylor stays quiet through the explanation. There’s a brief moment of silence in which he must be trying the amber liquid, but I don’t dare check around the edge of the tarp. I hold a fleeting hope that their tense conversation has ended, and that Tylor is ready to move on.
But he’s a Sleuthseeker. He doesn’t give up that easily.
“Does it strike you as weird that there are so many unusual disappearances here?” Tylor asks.
“It’s a remote town on a stretch of unforgiving coastline. People get lost.
People die at sea. It’s always been that way here, unfortunately.”
“Sometimes they die at your distillery too. And since the sheriff’s explanation seems a little lacking, I’m wondering if the woman in this picture might be able to answer some questions that he seems unable or unwilling to address.”
A heavy pause lingers in the air. Lukas’s voice is a low rumble of menace when he says, “If you have questions, take them up with the sheriff. Do you want to buy a bottle or not?”
There’s an announcement over the speakers mounted across the grounds, Bert’s voice cutting through the sounds of the festival. “The chili-eating contest will start in one hour. This is your last chance to enter. The winner will receive an epic basket from a number of our vendors, including Clean Your Crack handcrafted soap from Maya’s Magical Mixtures, gift certificates from the Buoy and Beacon Pub and A Shipwrecked Bean coffee shop, and a bottle of Lancaster Distilleries Reserve Rye Whiskey. If you think you can handle the heat, come on up to the booth next to the stage and register now.”
“Well,” Tylor says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “Guess I’ll enter the contest. Thanks for the tasting.”
Lukas says nothing more. And I don’t return to the counter.
No more murder, I think as I stare down at my backpack where it’s shoved against the wall of the tent. It’s Nolan’s voice I hear, and I picture the way he
looked at me when he caged me in against the counter at the grain shed. That feral smile, that gleam of pure promise in his eyes.
“If the chance to keep them away from you is right there in front of me, I’m going to fucking take it, Harper,” he’d said. “I’ll gladly break every rule to do it.”
If Knightsbridge is closing in, it’s not just me he could unearth. It’s Arthur. It’s Nolan.
Maybe it’s time for me to bend a few rules too.
I grab my bag. Open the interior zipper. Pull out a vial from the depths of the pocket.
Red Tide, the label says in Arthur’s handwriting.
I grin at the clear liquid that coats the glass, and then I chase after the KnightofTruth.
