PROPAGATION
Harper
I’M THE WORST ALMOST-GIRLFRIEND IN the world.
I never told Nolan about Bryce Mahoney. Frankly, it just never crossed my mind. It’s not like I figured he needed to know, even though I was holding on to Bryce’s mangled, tinfoil-wrapped tibia the first time we met.
Or is that a lie? Did I maybe think about it and decide not to tell him?
Nolan’s words echo in my head. You’ve got to let me in. Would everything really be easier if I did? Or would I just risk putting Nolan in the crosshairs of a past that’s catching up with me? Or is there still a latent fear lying dormant somewhere inside me that I could be handing him the shovel to bury me with if I share all my secrets? He is the man who came here to kill me, after all.
What could he do with that power?
But I don’t know the answers to those questions.
I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved, and now I’m losing Arthur a little bit every day as he unravels in slow motion. I don’t know if I can bear loving and losing someone else. Not when I know that love will consume me. So I walked out of the tent and away from Nolan when he begged to be let in.
I sigh and stare up at the distillery, the doors cordoned off with police tape and an officer patrolling the perimeter. I can see a team of forensic investigators in hazmat suits through the leaded windows. My heart shudders beneath my sternum. Who knows what they might find, or what Nolan and I might have missed? I don’t feel guilt for killing Sam, only satisfaction, much like the sense of accomplishment I feel when I stand at the door of the manor house and look across the ornate garden. But the fear of being caught still lodges in my thoughts like a thorn.
“I hope they’re done in there soon,” Lukas says as he stops at my side.
When I look up at him, worry is etched so deeply into his features that it’s moved in and started paying rent. “I won’t be ready in time for the Taste of Terror festival if not.”
“On the bright side, in a place like Cape Carnage, that’ll be great for business. Maybe you can get the distillery added to the Carnage Ghost and Gravestones tour. Make up some new drinks. Whiskey Specter. Boozy Banshee. Carnage Corpsemaker—”
“Jesus, Harper. That’s a little morbid. People died in there.”
“Eh. The only thing that sells better than tits is death. At least around
here.”
Lukas’s head tilts. “You think so?”
“I know so. Henry’s raking it in at Craft-A-Corpse. I heard he bought a new boat,” I say.
Lukas hums a thoughtful note. I’m betting there’ll be a whole business plan around this idea by morning. “Maybe you’ve got a point. Not sure what Grumps would think about that, though.”
“You should ask him. I bet he’d love to give his two cents,” I reply, trying not to sound too chipper when I barrel on. “Actually, I’m wondering if the Bsupplements are starting to help with some of his memory symptoms. He12 had a really great morning.”
Lukas shoots me only a brief glance, trying to hide the pity in his eyes.
“His mornings usually are a little better.”
“Yeah, but he was recalling recent events, not just things in the more distant past.”
Lukas turns to face me, this time not shielding his regret behind a mask. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up and have them come crashing down, Harper. We both know what his diagnosis means. Even if the Bis helping—12 and I really hope it is—his symptoms won’t remain stable forever.” Lukas lays a hand on my arm, and my eyes sting. “Look . . . I got an appointment to check out Whispering Pines in August, once things hopefully get back on track with the distillery opening. I’d really like it if you come with me to check it out. I was looking into their memory care program, and when the time comes, when you and I both agree on it, I think it could be a really great
fit for him.”
It feels like knives are sliding down my throat when I say, “Yeah. Of course. I want to be there.”
My focus drops to the grass and lingers there in the silence between us. I taste blood before I realize I’ve bitten my lip raw. When I touch it, my fingers come away painted crimson. “Oh, Harper. Christ, I’m sorry to worry you,”
Lukas says as he reels me into a hug. He smells like sawdust and vanilla, and I close my eyes in the comforting embrace.
“Don’t be sorry, Lukas. I know you’re doing the right thing. It’s just . . . ”
I clear my throat before my voice breaks. It’s not a future that either one of us wants to face, and I know he doesn’t want to be in this position any more than I do. “It’s just fucking hard. And sad. And unfair.”
“Yeah. It really fucking is. But we’re going to do it together, every step, okay?” Lukas says, tightening his hold. I squeeze him back. “You know you’re like a sister to me, and I love you, right?”
I nod against his chest. “I love you too.” We stay for a long moment like that, swaying like seagrass, and I feel some of the tension not only easing in my own body, but within Lukas too. With a final squeeze, I let him go.
“Come on,” I say, forcing a smile as I lift my backpack from the ground and slide it on. “Let’s get this search going before people start thinking we’re about to head off to Nightfog for a date.”
“Gross.”
“So gross.”
We grin at each other, then head to the small group of volunteers and spread a map on the dilapidated picnic table behind the distillery, agreeing on the best route through the terrain. We plan to fan out across the sprawling property, covering the grassy areas and sparser forest first before venturing into rougher ground tomorrow when we’ll have more hours of daylight.
We start methodically picking our way across the clearing in a small group, our eyes on the ground, searching for evidence of McMillan or Hornell that I know we won’t find. I wander closer to the distillery outbuildings, keeping my steps measured and the group’s presence in my periphery. But as much as I seem to be with them, I’m not. I’m beckoned by the groaning bones of a dilapidated building. I’m summoned by the cracked
glass that hides secrets of a nameless legend. I’m set on my own objective.
The grain shed.
I’ve never been inside before, but Arthur has told me about it. His first burial ground. Arthur hid his first victim here when he was just sixteen, before he even inherited the wealth and properties and businesses of the Lancaster legacy. I know there will be nothing of McMillan or the others to find here, of course. This secret graveyard was abandoned long before Arthur closed the distillery, a business he could no longer bear to run when Poppy died. But somehow it feels right to check in on it now, and to bury something special with it.
I slip unnoticed around the side of the building and head to the single door, bolted shut with a steel bar and a thick padlock. But I hold the master to all of Arthur’s secret locks. I pull my keys from my pocket, select the nondescript Abloy key, and slide it into the grooves. With a final glance at my surroundings, I pull the lock free and enter the grain shed.
The air is thick with the scent of must and mold and rye dust. Spiderwebs flutter among the rafters. Empty grain bags are scattered across the space, their woven polyethylene fibers gnawed by rodents that have long since died beneath the floorboards. I toe my boot over one of the decaying sacks, scraping the dust off the letters. It’s the same as the ones we dug up at the Ballantyne River that were filled with bones. Though I feel a measure of relief knowing we successfully moved the bodies before the property sale was completed, it would be foolish to think we’re in the clear. Not when sixteen more bodies are buried beneath my feet.
“Oh, Arthur,” I say on the heels of a sigh. “You’re certainly getting me back for all those Christina Ricci jokes, aren’t you?”
There’s nothing I can do about these bodies now, other than hope that they’re so deep and old and decomposed that no one will find them. But at least nothing seems disturbed.
I head to a desk beneath one of the windows and scan the yellowing paper strewn across its surface. Receipts with curled edges. A ledger of grain shipments, the leather covered in velvety mold. I pick up a Farmer’s Almanac and sweep the dust from the cover. “Weather forecasts for all regions,” it claims, along with fishing guides, zodiac secrets, planting tables,
and even “mysteries of the universe.” I snort but thumb through it all the same until I stop at a bookmarked page. On page sixty-eight is an article titled “A Tale of Two Ships,” a story about a single-masted sailboat called Thursday’s Child that broke the 135-year race record of the much larger clipper ship, the Flying Cloud. But it’s page sixty-nine that interests me. The bottom half of the page is missing, and at the top, a note has been scrawled across the typeface:
How you shine, soaked landscape, Set alight by the rays that pierce the cloudy sky!
It’s not Arthur’s handwriting. I don’t know what that means, or who would have written it, or why. There’s something oddly eerie about it, like it was meant to disintegrate here, not to be uncovered. It feels like I’m trespassing in a private moment. A correspondence left to history, where Arthur clearly meant for it to stay, along with everything else he couldn’t bear to keep alive once Poppy died.
I set the almanac back down. Then I turn to the center of the room, letting my backpack slide from my shoulders before setting it down gently on the floor. I look over my shoulder as though someone could be watching. But I’m alone.
I open the zipper and pull Arthur’s murder bag free.
“I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore, old man,” I whisper as I run my fingers across the robins embossed on the side of the black leather bag.
My fingers linger on the zipper before I tug it open. Emotion swirls in my chest when I look at Arthur’s beloved “grim-noire,” his leatherbound book of poisons and gravesites and the names of everyone he’s killed. There are pages and pages of theories about what happened to La Plume after he killed Poppy, decades of time spent chasing a ghost. There’s heartache that I couldn’t bear to read. It seems wrong to feel comfort as I hold this record of both crimes and unresolved grief in my hands. But I do.
I flip the book open to the last blank page and glance at the plastic bag in my open backpack, the one filled with Peter Evanston’s clothes. Maybe I should write his name here for Arthur. A final kill. But it hasn’t felt the same
as his others. It hasn’t felt like . . . Arthur. This book is his life’s work, more than any of the businesses he’s run, more than his beloved garden. Keeping Cape Carnage safe was his mission, and I know when he lost his daughter, he felt like he’d failed. And in all the years that have passed, he’s been trying to make up for that moment. Peter Evanston doesn’t feel like a piece of his legacy.
With a sigh, I close the book to rummage through Arthur’s bag for a few vials of poison and slip them into my backpack. Then I climb the old ladder nailed against the wall and hide Arthur’s bag and Mr. Evanston’s clothes in the loft, stuffing them into a hollow between the rafters and the boards that line the roof. With a final glance at the hiding place, I descend the ladder and grab my backpack.
I’m about to head to the door when I hear two people talking beyond the window. But what really catches my attention isn’t the fact that there are people so close to where I’m snooping. It’s the tension laced through a
familiar voice.
“What are you doing here?” Lukas asks.
“They said you needed help searching for a couple of missing guys,” a woman replies. There are worried notes in her tone, an unvoiced apology hanging in the air.
“I mean . . . not here here. Cape Carnage here.”
“Umm . . . I got this opportunity to—”
“How long are you staying?”
Fucksakes, Lukas. It’s not like him to cut someone off, unless that someone is me when I’m about to throw him under Arthur’s judgy bus. But I can hear a thousand thoughts behind his clipped words: dread and embarrassment, longing and pain. And Oh. My. God. I don’t even need to swipe the grime from the window to know exactly who he’s talking to.
The unrequited love of Lukas’s life. The girl he’s been smitten with since childhood. The reason for his self-imposed virginity. I think. I still haven’t
decided on that one.
Maxine Yates.
I tiptoe to the entrance and hastily lock up before jogging around the side of the building so I can wingman the shit out of Lukas Lancaster . . .
. . . After I give him a hard time first, of course.
As I round the corner, Lukas and Maxine both go rigid as though they’ve been caught making out, even though they’re standing a few feet apart. And I get it now, his self-imposed maybe-celibacy. Maxine is gorgeous. Long red waves pulled back from her face cascade down her back. A waifish frame beneath a silk tank top and jeans that look far too expensive for gallivanting around the rundown property. High cheekbones and freckled skin and a perfect little nose. Everything about her seems delicate. But her polar-blue eyes show the truth. This woman has an edge. She might look polished and proper on the outside, but that’s just the sheath of a sharpened blade.
I like her already.
I’m pretty sure my eyes are shooting devious sparks as I close in on Maxine and a very uncomfortable-looking Lukas.
“Hi,” I say, striding toward her. “Come to join our little party?”
“I guess so,” she says with a sheepish smile at the same time Lukas says, “I wouldn’t call it a party, exactly.” After darting a critical look at Lukas, she gives me an assertive handshake. “I’m Maxine.”
“Oh, Maxine. Hello. I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m Harper,” I reply.
Lukas’s eyes burn holes in the side of my face, but my smile only widens.
“You’re the sheriff’s daughter, right? I’ve heard so much about you.”
A blush rises beneath her freckles. I can almost feel how badly she wants to look over at Lukas to assess his level of discomfort, but she stops herself.
“All of it good, I hope.”
“Oh, definitely. Except about the time you and Lukas toilet-papered Sarah Winkle’s house.” And the time you left Cape Carnage in the dead of night and broke Lukas Lancaster’s fragile heart. “But other than that, yes. All great things.”
Maxine’s face brightens with a beaming grin. “I forgot about that. My dad made me take it all down and pressure-wash her siding. Is she still a crusty bitch?”
“Yeah, she is. So I think that little prank makes you a town hero, personally.” I shift my attention to Lukas, who looks like he wants to melt into the ground and disappear. It might be even better than tossing him under Arthur’s judgy bus. “It’s Maxine!” I exclaim, complete with jazz hands.
Lukas clears his throat, the caged hurt and longing and desire warring beneath his nonchalant mask. “Yep. Thank you for that observation.”
“This is great,” I barrel on, gesturing toward the path that leads deeper into the property. Maxine starts walking with me, Lukas trailing behind like a morose shadow. “So, Maxine, what brings you back to Cape Carnage?
Visiting your folks?”
“Call me Max. And work, though it’s always nice to catch up with family and friends.”
Lukas coughs as though he’s just choked on air. When we turn to give him a look, he waves us off.
“Swallowed a bug,” he sputters, still coughing. “Caught in my throat.”
“Gross.” Lukas shoots me an absolutely lethal glare. I grin in reply before turning back to our companion. “So, you were saying you’re here for work?
What do you do?”
“I’m in the hotel business, actually,” she says. Her crystalline eyes take on a determined shine. Something makes me think she’s a woman with something to prove, and I like it. “I’m working with Viceroy Properties on a new boutique resort on the Ballantyne River.”
My attention slides back to Lukas, but he looks as surprised as I feel. “The property that Arthur used to own?” I ask when I refocus on Max.
“Yeah, apparently it is. I just started last week, so only found that out when I was traveling here.” Max’s delicate features soften as she turns to look at Lukas. “How is Arthur? Is he doing okay? He must be what, eighty- seven now?”
“Eighty-eight, actually,” Lukas says. “He’s doing okay-ish. He has Alzheimer’s disease. But he’s still living at home, for now. Still intent on taking down Sarah Winkle in the annual gardening competition.”
Max’s steps falter. Her hand rests over her heart. It’s not just a simple gesture of empathy. She seems genuinely shaken by the news, her brows furrowing, a shine gathering at her lash line. “Alzheimer’s disease? Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Arthur is such a sweet, wonderful man.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone describe Arthur as a “sweet, wonderful man” before. Not even Lukas. Not even me. Christ, I can guarantee Arthur would never describe himself that way. If anything, he’d
probably be a little pissed off to hear it. But Max seems intent on her perception of Arthur, repeating the sentiment as she runs a perfectly manicured finger beneath her lashes.
“He’s doing well, mostly,” Lukas says, reaching out a tentative hand to touch her arm. The flame in his eyes burns brighter, but he smothers it when he lifts his fingertips away. “Harper’s living at the cottage, and she’s been helping him out a lot.”
Max turns a bittersweet smile in my direction. “That’s great. I’m sure he appreciates it so much.”
“Except for when I give him shit for his shoes,” I say, earning a tinkling laugh from her. We resume our trek down the path, other volunteers scouring the overgrown lawns and the forest borders on either side of us. We fan out in silence, our eyes on the ground, but I doubt Lukas and Max are focusing on the search any more than I am. And I’m not helping much if I’m stuck between them.
I drop to my knee and fiddle with my laces, moving to Lukas’s other side to put him in the middle when I catch up.
“Arthur has been pretty happy about this place coming back to life. Did you know Lukas has been single-handedly overhauling the main distillery building?” I ask when we step back into a rhythm.
“I wouldn’t say—”
“Yes, I did actually,” she interjects when Lukas tries to shoot his own foot off.
He sounds genuinely surprised and maybe a little hopeful when he says, “You did?”
“I’ve been keeping up on a few things, yeah.” Her cheeks blush so vividly that she looks away. “I think it’s great that you’re bringing it back. Still got a few bottles of that old Lancaster Reserve chocolate-malted whiskey?”
Lukas blows out a long breath and runs a hand through his short black hair. “I might. I’ve been so busy getting everything up and running that I haven’t had time to check all the barrels in the old rickhouse.”
“Remember that sleepover when we were nine and we snuck into Arthur’s study to try some?”
“And I took one sip and spat it all over the fucking notes on his desk?
Yeah, I remember.” Lukas’s bright grin dulls to something bittersweet.
“Didn’t taste like chocolate.”
“Nope,” Maxine says, her voice like an echo of Lukas’s smile.
Though I hold a brief hope that the shared memory will kick off more conversation between them, it doesn’t. A heavy silence descends on our little group before I finally try again. “You know, Lukas and I were just talking about some new business ideas when the distillery gets up and running, like maybe adding it as a stop on the ghost tour route. Maybe that’s something you two should pair up on, developing a cocktail menu using Lancaster whiskeys, or Lukas can name one of the new batches for your hotel.”
Lukas mouths the word no as Maxine absolutely beams, unable to see his reaction. “Oh my god, yes. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m interested in.
I want to make the hotel really fit with Cape Carnage, you know? Lean into the history and the vibes, and any kind of partnership with Lancaster Distillery would be perfect for that.”
“Oh, amazing,” I say, giving a little clap of my hands as Lukas’s eyes nearly eject themselves from his face. “I know Lukas is always looking for novel business ideas. What great timing, right, Lukas?”
“Um—”
I whip my phone from my pocket. “Oh, sorry, I’m getting a call.” That’s a lie. “I’d better take it. It’s Nolan.” Another lie. “Can’t wait to hear what ideas you two come up with. Great meeting you, Max—I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”
That’s actually the truth.
With a wave, I pretend to swipe the screen and accept the call, then I turn around and walk away. I say a few fake lines and interject some pauses until I stop beneath the boughs of an oak tree, then I start scrolling through my notifications. A Cape Carnage Instagram post highlighting Sarah Winkle’s garden. That conniving, ass-kissing bitch. Another update on the Discord server, and my heart climbs into my throat as I open the app. Thankfully, there’s only speculative, inaccurate chatter about La Plume, and no one has brought up my name. Yet. And then a text from Lukas:
You are the worst liar in the history of liars. You weren’t on a fucking call.
I smirk down at my screen and tap out a reply.
I’m an EXCELLENT liar, when I want to be. And I’m also a great wingman. So put down the fucking phone and talk to the woman so you can fall in love, get laid, and live happily ever after, for the love of Christ. You’re insufferable.
I hate you more and more every day.
That’s the spirit.
I pocket my phone and purposely stay away from the pair, keeping tabs on their interactions without getting close enough to pressure them. Not that it would matter. Despite my great matchmaking skills, the two separate not even ten minutes after my fake phone call, wandering farther and farther apart. I leave the search just long enough to check on Arthur and make him a quick dinner, and by the time I get back to the distillery, Maxine has dropped from our search party. I can’t blame her either.
It’s dusk when our remaining crew admits defeat to the swarms of mosquitoes and black flies. I wait as the volunteers all depart and I’m left with only Lukas.
When I turn to face him, I’m pretty sure he knows what’s coming before I even open my mouth. “I love you like a brother, Lukas Lancaster. But you’re a dumbass,” I say. And then I leave him at the distillery to lick his unhealed wounds in the dark.
It’s nearly nine o’clock by the time I make it through the door of my cottage. A message comes through from Nolan as I head to the kitchen with exhausted steps. I’ll be at your place in ten minutes, his text says, and I give it a thumbs-up as I pull a beer from the fridge door. I don’t even bother with food just yet, or changing my overalls, which are dotted with dried mud and brambles. I just smooth a blanket over my clean couch and plunk down, turning on Surviving Love for some mindless trash.
I sense it, before I even see it. My flesh freezes beneath my skin.
On the chessboard, the black knight sits in c6.
