AVAST
Harper
THERE IS NOT ENOUGH COFFEE in the world for me to survive today, let alone another seventeen days of this shit. I can barely even think straight long enough to make coffee, for godsakes. Yesterday, I even forgot to turn the fucking stove on. For a full ten minutes.
It’s day four. But I swear it feels like day four hundred and eighty-five.
These late nights are killing me. It’s not just staying up until two or three in the morning, or the additional physical work of digging up bodies after an already demanding day of preparing Arthur’s extensive gardens for another season of decimating Sarah Winkle’s hopes and dreams. It’s not just trying to fix the rusted old Pocket Rocket or worrying about Sam Porter suddenly showing up at my doorstep with triumphant jazz hands.
No. It’s the stress of being in a secluded place with a man who wants to kill me, and the only thing stopping him is a bit of evidence currently in the possession of the endearingly naive and perpetually distracted Lukas Lancaster.
And the other part that makes this whole corpse relocation program so
completely unbearable?
Nolan Rhodes is hot as fuck.
Those dimples. They’d be my undoing if he smiled at me with anything more than contempt. His skin. A man’s skin has never rendered me close to speechless until Nolan. The moonlight settles on him every night as though it’s determined to illuminate the planes of muscle in his ridiculous body as he undresses to swim across the river. Sometimes, the shimmer slithers
across the scars that cross his elbow. His shoulder. His back. His lower abdomen. Christ, that one is the worst. It follows the diagonal ridge of muscle that leads to the waistband of his briefs. They always hang low on his hips, like a purposeful taunt, daring me to look down when he strips his clothes off so he can walk to that dark water and slip beneath its treacherous embrace. I’ve never been jealous of fucking water before. But here we are.
But it’s not just the way he looks. It’s his presence. Even though I know he’d probably rather clock me in the face with his shovel, there’s something oddly comforting about his menacing silence at my side every night. The most dangerous monster is the one right next to me. When he’s there, I’m not afraid of the dark.
This is like some super-fucked-up Stockholm-syndrome-adjacent thing I’ve got going on. Rationally, I know that in his mind, I belong to him.
Nothing and no one will stand between Nolan Rhodes and the life he’s come to claim. But to my not-so-rational mind, that is so fucking hot. It’s wildly intoxicating to be such an object of someone’s obsession that they would decimate anyone who threatens you. I realize that sounds pretty messed up. And I know with every fiber of my being that I need to kill this man before I wind up as a souvenir in his skinbook. Though I should be running in the other direction and testing out his theory that he’d find me no matter the distance, the idea of him traveling to the ends of the earth to chase me down somehow makes him even hotter.
My self-imposed, years-long dry spell isn’t doing me any favors right now. It’s tempting to picture an alternative ending to our acrimonious story, maybe even a happy one, but the reality is he would kill me, that’s what he would do. One hundred percent chance of death.
I sigh and roll my eyes, my hands braced on either side of the stove.
“Get your shit together,” I whisper as I finally realize I haven’t turned the burner on to boil the water in my stovetop coffee maker. Again. “He’s just a guy. A completely psycho serial killer guy with a decent skin suit and muscles for days and some cute dimples.” I squeeze my eyes shut and turn to lean against the counter. “You should just feed him to Cookie Monster and be done with it.”
Even though I say those words out loud, I know it won’t transform the way I really feel into an opposite reality.
My enemy is right where I can see him. I don’t just need his help. I want it. Maybe part of me even wants him.
“No, you absolutely do not want him,” I say to myself as the water starts to boil in my coffee maker. “You just need caffeine.”
I turn off the gas, still chastising myself for the treacherous, intrusive thoughts that refuse to leave me alone. I’m finally pouring my coffee and trying to make a mental list of parts for the Pocket Rocket when a sudden crash comes from the grounds beyond the cottage garden. The shock of sound makes my hand jerk, and half the pot of boiling hot coffee spills onto my other hand and across the counter. “Goddamnit,” I hiss as pain erupts across the back of my hand. There’s no time to run it under cold water to soothe the burn. I grab a tea towel and dab it dry as I rush toward the door.
“Nolan Rhodes, if this is your fault I am going to fuck you up.”
I head outside and through the back gate in the stone wall to find Arthur climbing out of his golf cart, the front of the vehicle wedged against a tree stump.
“Jesus Christ, Arthur,” I say, taking his arm to steady him. “Are you all
right?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Crashing this piece of junk,” he says, whacking the crumpled hood with
his cane. “What does it look like?”
“On purpose?”
“Of course not.” He stabs his cane into the turf and starts hobbling in the direction of my cottage as though nothing happened. “The accelerator was stuck.”
“Under your foot? Because you were pressing it instead of the brake?”
Arthur grumbles an inaudible reply.
“Where’s your walker?” I ask, surveying the dented fender of his golf cart before trailing after him. A quiet rustle of feathers pulls my attention away to the wall where Morpheus has just landed, shaking out his wings as
he watches us with interest. I manage to subdue a groan, but only barely.
“Did you leave it in the house?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t need it. It will slow me down.” This is never a good sign. When determination to kill makes its way into his bones and roots itself there, Arthur tends to forgo the more cumbersome walker in favor of one of his handmade canes. Especially the one he has now, made of rich red oak with a bronze wolf’s head on the handle. I can see that dark energy coursing through him as he grips the cane and makes his way toward the garden gate with purpose. I know exactly what he’s going to say before the question even leaves his mouth. “Where is my black bag?”
I swallow and train my face into an innocent mask as he shoots me a glare over his shoulder. “I don’t know, Arthur. Where did you put it?”
“I know you took it. I saw you on the security camera when I looked back through the footage to identify the thief of my Pasotti umbrella.”
“Someone stole your umbrella?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Did you find it?”
“That’s beside the point, Harper,” he says as I chew my lip under his
sharp scrutiny. “I want my bag.”
“Why?”
“None of your business.”
“Murder,” Morpheus pipes up from the wall. A look of distaste creases Arthur’s features as his foreboding stare slices to the source of the sound.
“Pretty murder.”
“Pretty murder bird,” I correct.
Morpheus flies to the peak of the bird feeder, tracking Arthur with his onyx eyes. “Nom nom cookie.”
“Harper. Why do you insist on feeding that vermin?”
“He’s not vermin. He’s a highly intelligent corvid.”
“A highly intelligent corvid who would gladly poke out your eyes if given the chance.” Arthur waves a hand in the bird’s direction, but Morpheus only caws a defiant refusal to be subdued, followed closely by a
string of “nom-nom-cookie” requests as we pass the feeder. “I need my bag.
I know it’s here.”
Arthur slows as we step onto the flagstones of the patio, halting when he reaches the table. He stares at the cottage. His grip loosens and firms around the handle of his cane, his fingers flexing as though he could squeeze the images from his thoughts. He shuffles his feet but doesn’t move closer to the door, his determination slowly ebbing away.
Pain surfaces in his features. Grief is a phantom that never gives up. It never grows tired of haunting our hearts. It clings on, somehow surviving even when other memories drift away. It’s so imprinted on his soul that I think everything else about him could change as his disease pulls his identity apart, and yet it will persist. Maybe it will be the same for me one day. The grief that still clings to me like a cloak might linger on when everything else fades into darkness. The fear too. Terrors that seem carved into my bones.
I hate everything about this moment. I hate the loss Arthur was forced to endure all those years ago. I hate having to hide and not give back the tools with which he copes. I hate losing the friend and mentor I love to such a cruel decline.
I slip my hand into Arthur’s. He startles, but he doesn’t take his eyes from the cottage. His lips press into a firm line as he squeezes back.
“I’m sure you must want that bag for an important reason. But why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a tea. We can talk about it.” I pull a patio chair back from the table for him, gesturing to the padded seat. “Please?”
There’s a pause, and I think for a moment he might argue, but instead he nods and I let a breath pass through my pursed lips. I help lower him onto the chair and then leave him with the raven while I head inside to make tea and another pot of coffee, slapping a large gauze pad over the back of my blistered hand with a wince as I wait for the water to boil. When I take the drinks out on a tray with a couple of pastries and a treat for Morpheus, Arthur is staring at his folded hands, fidgeting with the tension in his fingers. In one way, I’m relieved he’s still sitting there. In another, I wish he’d taken off, because then at least I’d know he’s still determined to do what he wants.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask as I set the tea in front of him before delivering a piece of fish to the bird feeder for Morpheus. When I take the seat next to Arthur, he’s still looking at his hands. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“No,” he says, unlacing his fingers just long enough to wave me off.
“What do you want that bag for, Arthur?”
I expect he’ll tell me he wants to kill that man who’s staying in Maria Flores’s Airbnb, the one with the ugly dog who shit in the rose garden. Or maybe he’s found another candidate, someone who’s actually worthy of being murdered by a prolific elderly serial killer who has deemed himself protector of Cape Carnage for the last sixty years, long before he lost the daughter who died in the cottage standing before us. It’s the kind of place that’s always needed protection in one way or another, and who better to offer it than a brilliant and principled man with deep roots in the community who just so happens to also enjoy a bit of calculated killing when the need arises? So I’m sure he’ll tell me about someone’s misdeeds. Maybe a more egregious sin than shit in the garden or tire marks on the grass.
Arthur doesn’t meet my eyes when he finally says, “So that I remember who I am.”
I feel as though I’ve been punched in the chest. The wind is sucked clean from my lungs, leaving my lips in a whoosh. A sudden sting climbs up my throat and pricks at my eyes. “You’re Arthur Lancaster,” I whisper.
“I know my name,” he replies with a frown. The creases in his brow soften far too quickly, their sharp lines dulled by distress. “But I feel like I am disappearing. I am losing who I truly am.”
My hand covers Arthur’s as I swallow a ball of blades. “You don’t need that bag to remind you. I can do that.” Arthur meets my eyes, a glassy sheen coating their cloudy surface. “You like Hitchcock movies. You love classical music. You have great taste in shoes. The Christina Riccis are truly impeccable.”
He gives me a lethal scowl. “Stefano Riccis, you obdurate philistine.”
“Of course. Stefano. My bad,” I say through a grin that feels too fragile beneath the weight of these heavier emotions. It fades as I squeeze his hand, and he grips my fingers in reply. His eyes search my face, and I level him with a serious stare as though I might be able to imprint his identity back
onto him. “You’re the most formidable man I know. You’re sharp, but you’re caring. You’re tough, but you’re kind. You’re my best friend.”
An ember of surprise ignites in Arthur’s eyes. He swallows. His lips press closed in a tight line. He gives me a single nod before he squeezes my fingers a final time and then slides his hand free to grip his teacup. “Well.
You’re …” He clears his throat and nods again, taking a sip of his tea.
“You’re …”
“An obdurate philistine?”
“Yes.” He chuckles, a rare and precious sound. “But you’re a good girl when you’re not being purposefully obdurate. And I am … I am grateful that you’re here.”
I can’t help the smile I beam at him, even if he’s unwilling to keep his eyes on me for longer than a moment. Morpheus caws from the bird feeder —three sharp, loud squawks.
“I still think you should give me my bag back, however. And you should get rid of that vermin.”
Morpheus barks three more caws. The smile that was just on my face disappears. “I don’t think so,” I say as a hum buzzes from the direction of
the road on the other side of my house.
“He’s irritating.”
“He’s also warning us.”
A chill races down my spine as I stand and look toward the cottage. It’s the same sound I heard the other day, when I was going to the gym and stopped to talk to Jake Hornell.
Nolan’s words come back to me from the morning he stood in my garden as I gripped his bloody gift in my hands. They slid into my brain and branded themselves in my memory, but in the turmoil of the moment, they didn’t make sense to me. They just lodged there, a thorn beneath my skin.
Perhaps because I just killed Jake, the man you have a crush on … “Warning us?” Arthur says, his voice dampened beneath the veil of furious heartbeats that roar in my ears. “Why …?”
A drone rises above the roof to hover over us. The same one I saw at the gym the other day and didn’t think much of at the time. The one that must have been piloted by a certain enemy who stood in my garden with Jake’s
severed hands just a few days ago. The one who’s clearly back to spy on me again. “Because someone has come to spy on Lancaster Manor.”
The want I’ve been feeling for Nolan? That inexplicable desire? It seems to shred apart in the spinning white blades of the device that hovers above my home. It’s a venomous sting that hurts more than it should. But pain can be a cleansing fire. One that leaves only one truth behind.
Nolan Rhodes needs to die.
