HARVEST
Harper
I STAND ON THE CLIFFS not far from the lighthouse and look out at the sea, the water churning in the storm. My lungs fill with the salty air. It feels like drowning. Choking on something I can’t escape. No matter how hard I try to force it away, the loss of the man I thought Nolan was brings me just as much grief as it does pure, undiluted rage.
I thought we were happy. I thought he loved me. Just like I loved him.
And it had looked so real.
Even at the end, when he was on his knees, the illusion had felt real. Pain.
Panic. Longing. I saw them all in his eyes. But I was looking at a mirage.
He’s nothing more than a mirror, reflecting the things I felt back to me.
There’s only destruction behind the polished glass.
My gaze lowers to the object in my hand, rain dripping across my brow to land on my cheeks like tears. It’s more than just metal and screws and points of bone. It’s a relic, with a history bound to its sharp edges. And it’s a weapon that was wielded against me.
The fact is, Nolan hasn’t killed anyone who was actually responsible for the crash. Harper Starling died that night, because I’m the one who killed her.
The others—Marc, Trevor, Dylan—they were just passengers. Pieces of shit, maybe. But none of them were behind that wheel. They left Nolan and his
brother on the road.
Just like me.
The facts are unyielding. Only Nolan would have taken this bone. He’s the only one who knew where to look, the only one with the motivation to twist it into the garden like a knife into my heart. And he’s the only person with the
opportunity and access to teach Morpheus a name that only two other people in Cape Carnage know.
With one final glance at the bone in my hand, I toss it into the roiling sea.
Just like I should have done the day that we met.
I sigh, wiping my eyes from the flood of tears that creep up on me without warning. For a long while, I just stare at the water, wondering why Nolan would have risked himself to pull me from its depths. Maybe that was just part of his game. I don’t know. Like everything else, his panic and relief, his care when he stayed with me at the hospital—it all felt so real. But that’s the most terrifying part. I promised myself I would never allow another psychopath to slip through my defenses. And I didn’t just let my guard down.
I knew Nolan was dangerous, and that was part of the attraction.
What is wrong with me? It’s as though I saw the blade waiting to cut me,
and yet I ran straight for it.
How could I let this happen?
I ask myself this on a loop that never ends. Only when I finally check my watch and realize it’s nearly nine-thirty do I start walking back to Arthur’s Jaguar to pick up his prescription refill from the pharmacy.
It’s such an unsettling morning with the wind and thunder and the driving rain, like the storm is an external part of me. I didn’t feel safe staying at the cottage last night after the confrontation with Nolan, but I didn’t really have anywhere else to go, so I slept in one of the guest rooms at the manor house with the gun beneath my pillow. Arthur didn’t even know I was there. After I checked on him in the evening, I just slipped into one of the bedrooms he never goes into, and—let’s be real—cried myself to sleep.
Now, I feel hollow. There’s a static haze where my thoughts should be. A constant ache in my chest like my heart is being crushed in a fist. I dip quickly into the pharmacy to pick up the Aricept and Risperdal that Arthur must have somehow misplaced this morning before I came downstairs to make his breakfast. We searched the kitchen together for twenty minutes before I gave up and called the pharmacy for a prescription refill. When I near A Shipwrecked Bean, I consider going in to grab a coffee, but I just can’t do it. Not when it reminds me of the first time I met Nolan.
I should probably head to the Capeside Inn. See if Nolan’s car is there or if
he’s already fled Cape Carnage. There are probably plenty of things I should be doing. But I just can’t bring myself to do any of them at all.
When I get back to the estate, I drive straight through the main gate that leads to the manor house. The garden is being pummeled by the storm, some of the flowers losing petals across the mulch. My focus pulls toward the foxglove, so beautiful but so deadly. Maybe for you and I, hate and love were always two sides of the same blade, Nolan had said.
Maybe the signs were there, and I just never saw them. Just like every time I told Nolan he was wrong about me, he didn’t understand. Maybe we’d both left out the most important parts. Now we’re just like the ouroboros tattooed on his arm, consuming each other without end. And that is the last thing I think as I park the car and run through the rain, lurching to a halt on the front porch of the manor house.
For a moment, all I can do is stare at the open door, opera music drifting from inside.
I glance over my shoulder. Pan my gaze across the drenched garden.
There’s no sign of Arthur. A sudden burst of fear floods my veins that he might have continued our earlier search for his medications and wandered outside in his confusion.
I glance up at the camera beneath the overhang, wanting it to tell me something. But the lens just stares down at me, indifferent to my concern.
I open the door a little wider.
“Arthur?”
The music of Puccini’s Tosca is the only reply.
I follow the melody of Maria Callas’s voice, flowing from the direction of the kitchen. I cross the lobby. My damp shoes squeak across the polished floor.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” I call out as I head down the hallway. “I
lost track of . . . ”
Time.
Time stretches long enough to burn every detail into memory—the crimson slashes of blood, Arthur’s unseeing eyes, the scent of iron in the air.
The echo of my scream clawing up the walls.
I stumble toward him, my hands shaking, heartbeats thundering in my ears
to dampen the sound of the opera swelling around me. I drop to my knees in the blood congealing on the floor.
Arthur lies face down on the stone tile, his eyes fixed on the space behind me. There’s a long slash across his throat. His hand is outstretched toward me, like he was trying to reach for me and I wasn’t there to reach back. His features are slack in death, but there’s an echo of expression haunting the lines that crease his brow. Conviction, perhaps. Maybe defiance. But I’ll never get the chance to know.
“Arthur . . . ” Tears fall into the crimson pool that fans from his neck. My fingers tremble as I graze his cheek where dots of blood have dried on his cooling skin. “No . . . ”
I know he can’t come back. And still I plead with him to wake up. I beg him not to leave me here alone. But his parted lips never answer me back.
I cast my gaze around the horror that surrounds me. Arthur’s cane lies discarded on the floor. There’s no weapon I can see. I glance behind me and my eyes catch on something that doesn’t belong. A message written in blood
on the wall.
Time demands its toll.
The memory strikes like a match that ignites the last cinders of my heart, burning them to ash. I can see the piece of paper in my hand. The familiar script. I’d traced the letters with my fingers before I placed it in the drawer with all of Nolan’s other notes.
I saw this just after I got out of the hospital. It’s the oldest piece of written music—called “The Song of Seikilos.” The words kind of stuck with me, and now they remind me of you:
While you live, shine
Fear no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands its toll ~N
I drop my hands to the floor, something sharp piercing into the heel of my right palm. But I barely notice the pain. Not when I’m being cracked wide
open.
I scream. And scream. And scream. I don’t stop until my throat is raw and I taste blood on my tongue.
A single truth remains. I’ve fallen in love with the enemy.
And Nolan Rhodes must die.
That is the one thought that stays lodged beneath my skin. When I call the police, it’s there. When Sheriff Yates and Deputy Collins and the paramedics show up, it’s there. When I’m sitting at the station with blood on my hands and Lukas rushes in with tears in his eyes, it’s there.
Nolan Rhodes must die. Police. Tears. Questions. Answers. Who could have killed Arthur? I say that I don’t know. Because there’s no justice in the world that will ever be enough for what Nolan has done. Not unless I deliver it with my own two hands.
It’s nearly midnight when I’m standing in the bathroom at Lukas’s house, staring at my reflection. I’m not even sure I know what happened in the last few hours. I hardly recognize myself. My eyes are bloodshot and haunted, my bottom lip bitten raw. I looked so healthy and alive just a few days ago. I remember sitting at my vanity, doing my makeup before the dance, and realizing I looked happy. Now I’m just a shell of that woman. I don’t look like Harper Starling at all. I’m just Autumn Bower with dark hair and fresh grief stitched into her skin.
I lean closer to the mirror, the blond roots of my hair starting to mount their resistance against the rich brown. When I place my hand on the counter, a sharp burst of pain erupts in my palm. I jerk away and turn it over. There’s a splinter of something in my palm, the skin angry and red. I open the drawers of the vanity and find a pair of tweezers. When I work it free, the relief is immediate, a pain I didn’t really realize I was carrying around since I discovered Arthur’s body on the floor. I set the splinter on the counter and look at it more closely. It’s a tiny shard of porcelain, one half of it white, the other side jade green. I close my eyes and try to think back to everything I saw in that room. I don’t recall anything broken or out of place. But maybe I was too devastated to truly see.
I gently pick it up with the tweezers and throw it into the trash, and then I stand in the shower until the water runs cold.
Every dream is of Arthur. Sometimes he’s right there, but he can’t see me.
In others, he turns and walks away. One time, he opens the cellar door and goes down into the dark, where I can’t bear to follow. But I try anyway. And when I do, I’m trapped in Harvey Mead’s house all over again, naked and afraid. I’m not sure if it’s the sound of the chainsaw that wakes me, or my unbroken scream, or Lukas shaking me back to consciousness. But I don’t sleep again after that.
The next few days pass in a daze. I don’t go back to the cottage. I hardly even go outside, rarely venturing farther than the door of Lukas’s house to collect the casseroles and soups and loaves of homemade bread the townsfolk leave on the porch. The only time either of us goes out all week is when we head to the funeral home to make arrangements for Arthur’s ceremony and burial. But we get plenty of social contact from Sheriff Yates. He comes by daily to ask more questions about Arthur’s murder. I think he’s closing in on naming a suspect for the press that haunt the town like wraiths.
“Did Mr. Rhodes ever mention a man named Tylor Knightsbridge to you?” Yates asks during this morning’s visit, leaning forward where he sits across from me in Lukas’s living room.
I wipe my nose with a tissue, my eyes sore from an earlier burst of tears.
I’ve practiced hiding my facial expressions so many times from Yates now that I feel like my mask of weary ambivalence is burnt into my flesh. “No.
Why?”
“Knightsbridge volunteered on the search when it first started. He’s one of those amateur investigator types.” When I scrunch my brow, Yates waves a hand as though brushing his question off, though I don’t know why he would have brought it up if he didn’t want to dig into it. Something about that feels . . . off. “It’s not a big deal, just wondered if you or Rhodes might know why he recently showed up in town again. He’s in the hospital—not sure if you saw his little . . . explosion . . . during the chili-eating contest. I’m sure he’ll be able to answer some questions once he’s recovered a bit more. It’s been a little touch and go.”
I lift one shoulder, my focus falling to the floor. “I can’t help you, Sheriff.
Sorry.”
“Please, call me Damian.” Yates reaches across the space between us,
passing me a fresh tissue. I have no fucking desire to call him Damian, but I give him a weak nod anyway. “What about Sean McMillan, or Jake Hornell, or Peter Evanston? Or maybe Bryce Mahoney? Did he talk much about them?”
My attention rises from the tissue in my hand, and I meet Yates’s piercing gaze. “The men you were looking for?”
“That’s right—did Mr. Rhodes say anything specific about them?”
“I dunno,” I say, shrugging again. “Not Mahoney, no. Everybody knows Hornell must have been caught by Sharkimedes. We were talking about it at
the food festival, remember?”
Yates just lets out a simple “Hmm.”
“As for Evanston, I just know they were looking in the forest. And McMillan—Nolan thought he probably went missing at Loon Lake.”
Yates nods, but I don’t really feel like he’s agreeing. “Nothing turned up at Loon Lake to indicate McMillan was ever there, so I’m not sure. I just wonder if we were ever looking in the right places.”
A chill dances between my shoulder blades. If only I knew where Nolan had planted McMillan’s shirt, I would go out there and look for it myself though I doubt now that he even took it there at all. “Well, you found Jake’s remains, right?” I say, hating myself a little for defending Nolan. But if I want to be the one to kill him, I need to keep him out of Yates’s grasp. And I’m increasingly concerned that it’ll be hard to do. “Nolan was experienced in Search and Rescue, and this is a remote area. So maybe we just didn’t search
long enough.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”
A long silence stretches between us. Yates holds my eyes, something resembling an attempt at fatherly concern taking residence in his features.
Maybe it’s my dire mood, or maybe there’s something lacking in his expression, but whatever it is, I have a sudden urge to claw at his face. “I heard Mr. Rhodes bought an engagement ring at Gibson’s Jewelers.”
I force the image of Yates’s torn skin from my mind and will myself to stay calm. “I wasn’t aware,” I lie.
“So you hadn’t talked about getting married?”
A swallow scrapes down my parched throat. I look down at my hands, my
knuckles red, the skin split from scrubbing at phantom drops of blood. There could have been a ring on that finger, a traitorous little voice whispers in my mind. The image of Nolan down on his knees, begging me not to end us, cracks open another wound in my heart. And I wish more than anything that Yates would stop asking these fucking awful questions and leave me the fuck alone. “No. We hadn’t.”
“Have you heard from him since the day Arthur passed?” Yates asks. He rests a hand on mine, a touch that I desperately want to slip away from, but I don’t. “I just have a few questions for him, Harper. Are you sure you haven’t —”
“I don’t know where he is,” I snap. And I manage to cage anything more on my tongue. I don’t mention that we broke up, or that I pointed a gun at Nolan and forced him to get up off his knees and leave. I don’t tell Yates anything that will give him a motive, even though I know he must already consider Nolan to be the primary suspect if he knows Nolan’s been absent and he’s asking these questions. “I promise you. If I did, I would tell you.”
Yates gives me a weak, pitying smile that does nothing to reassure me. “I believe you, Miss Harper,” he says, placing his hands on his knees before rising. I don’t rise with him, or acknowledge him as he puts on his hat and tips the brim to me. “I’d best be going for a bit. I’m sure you need some rest.”
I nod. But I know this is a game we’ll be playing again soon.
“I know this is probably a bad time to ask, all things considered. But would you mind if we arrange a time when you’re settled for me to pick it up?”
I meet his eyes, tamping down the panic that swirls in my guts. I’ve cleaned Cookie Monster so many times with Maya’s Piss-Off! and run armfuls of branches through it, but still, the thought of it being in Yates’s possession leaves me feeling unmoored. Especially now.
I’m still contemplating how I should answer when Yates waves a hand in my direction. “You know what?” he says. “I’ll just swing by with my truck and grab it. No need to worry yourself. You take care now, Miss Harper.”
With a final wave that I don’t return, Yates leaves. I watch him pass the deputy standing at the entrance of the property. It’s a constant rotation of police presence here, guarding against the press and the unknown. If my head
weren’t swirling with worries and rage and guilt and fear, I’d probably find it funny. Because if Nolan wants to get in, he’ll get in. And he’ll kill anyone who stands in his way.
But I don’t think that’s what he wants. I think this game has only just begun. And that night, I spend hours imagining how I’ll win before I finally fall into a fitful sleep.
The next day, we bury Arthur Lancaster in the family plot.
Fog is a heavy shroud over the cemetery, draping the headstones in white mist. The air smells of the sea and the upturned soil. It’s a simple ceremony at the graveside, just like Arthur would have wanted. We keep the guest list small. The three Bobs. Maya and Irene, who dabs at her tears with a black satin handkerchief. Maxine. She takes Lukas’s hand and doesn’t let go.
Sheriff Yates and his wife, Fiona. Mayor Patel and the garden judging committee. There are only two extravagances—the bouquets of fresh-cut flowers and the quartet with a soprano to sing “Lascia ch’io pianga” from Handel’s Rinaldo as Arthur’s casket is lowered into the grave. We toss flowers onto the polished wood until it’s covered in blooms. And from beginning to end, my tears never cease.
We say weak goodbyes to one another. Give even weaker smiles and embraces. One by one, people say their last condolences and disappear into the mist.
“We wanted to give you this.” Mayor Patel passes me a glass plate. Etched on its surface is Cape Carnage Tenth Annual Gardening Competition and a single rose. Below that, Arthur’s name and mine. “It was a unanimous decision the day of the judging,” she says. “Nothing came close to Lancaster Manor’s garden. It was beautiful.”
I nod and clutch the glass to my chest. “Thank you,” I whisper.
I don’t look up to see the bittersweet smile the mayor gives me. But I feel it all the same. She squeezes my arm, and then she walks away, the judging committee offering their sympathies before trailing after her.
And then, it’s just me and Lukas and Max. “Do you want a ride home?”
Lukas asks, his hand still wrapped around Maxine’s, his cheeks still damp with tears.
“You go ahead,” I say absently as I stare down at the flower-covered
casket. A series of intrusive, panicked thoughts choke up my throat. My best friend is down there. I have to get him out. How can I wake him up? How can I rewind time? What if I hadn’t taken so long to pick up his prescription, would he still be here? If I’d just agreed to put him in Whispering Pines like
Lukas wanted— “Harper . . . ?”
I shake my head a little, hoping to clear the torment that’s seeped into my mind. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
I don’t take my eyes from the grave as Max and Lukas leave.
Their footsteps recede. The cemetery grows silent. I feel like there are eyes watching me everywhere I go, especially now. But I don’t scan my surroundings for the source of my paranoia. I just press my arm to my side and feel the gun hidden beneath my black blazer.
A caw sounds from the mist. I look over to see Morpheus on the wrought- iron fence. He ruffles his feathers before flying to land on Adam’s memorial.
It’s the first time I truly dread what he might say. But he just gives three knocking clucks and eyes me as though he knows I have nothing to offer, but he’s here anyway.
I look down and notice one of the three bracelets is missing from its hanger, the same one Morpheus has taken before and brought back to the cottage. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” I say to the raven, then make my way to the head of Arthur’s resting place.
I crouch at the black-and-gold temporary grave marker. My fingers trace the letters engraved on the plaque. In loving memory of Arthur Lancaster.
“It’s like those loving memories have been stripped from me,” I say, fresh tears sliding down my cheeks. “All I can see is you on the floor. Everything else is gone.”
I set the glass plate down on the grass to lean against the wooden stake. I don’t say out loud how sorry I am that I wasn’t there when he needed me. I don’t tell him that he gave my life purpose and meaning when I felt like I had none. I don’t promise to avenge him for what happened, or that I will hone my grief into a weapon to bring down Nolan Rhodes for what he’s done. I
just tell him that I love him.
And with tears in my eyes, I walk away.
The graveyard is empty as I stroll down the curving lane that leads to the entrance of the cemetery. The fog is so thick that I can’t see more than a few feet ahead. A whir of wings and a croaking call sound overhead as Morpheus passes in the direction of home, another of Adam’s bracelets clutched in his beak. I watch as he fades into the mist, then refocus on the iron gates as they
come into view.
There’s a figure standing between them.
My steps hitch. My breath stalls. For a moment, I think it might be Nolan.
Tall and broad, athletically built. But my heart starts to calm when I realize it’s Sheriff Yates. I guess he hadn’t left with the others after all, and I dread that he might ask more tactless questions at the worst time. Even still, it’s a relief to have him here rather than Nolan, something I never would have thought possible before this week.
“Miss Harper,” he says with a nod as I stop beside him. “I’m sorry again about Mr. Lancaster. He was truly a pillar of Cape Carnage.”
I clear my throat, forcing the sudden knot into submission. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Are you going to be okay walking home? We’re happy to give you a lift.”
My gaze tracks to where his wife waits in her car. She gives me a brief wave, and I give one in reply. There are no other vehicles left on the road except for a heavy truck I can hear in the distance, its diesel engine piercing through the fog as it turns onto Spruce Road at the bottom of the hill. “Thank you for the offer, but I’d rather walk.”
“All right . . . I just want you to be safe.”
“I’ll be fine, I’m sure.” Though I give Yates a weak smile, he doesn’t seem convinced.
The truck draws closer, its engine growling as it climbs the hill. Chains clank against metal. I catch the scent of the sea.
I turn toward the sound. And then my world implodes in a single glance.
A boom tow truck rolls toward us, the crumpled front of my 1985 Chevy G20 van snagged on the hook like a wounded fish. The paint has been corroded by years beneath the sea. Barnacles speckle the surface, water dripping from the interior leaving a trail down the road. The driver honks at
the sheriff and I startle.
“Sorry about that,” Yates says as he gives a salute to the driver before turning toward me. I can feel his eyes on my hand where it covers my heart. I should probably force myself to drop my arm back to my side, but I just can’t seem to peel that thin armor away. “We received an anonymous tip yesterday about a vehicle submerged offshore a few miles north of the lookout. Not sure who it belongs to. But I guess we’ll find out.”
I say nothing. My heart shreds itself raw against my ribs. I’m desperate to run. To fight. To disappear. But I stay right where I am, as though I’m bound in place. I can almost feel Nolan’s noose tighten around my neck.
We watch as the tow truck disappears into the white veil, the sound of the chains and the engine lingering like a phantom long after it’s passed from view.
“Well,” Yates says, “I’ll see you around, Miss Harper.”
And then the sheriff walks away.
