HARPOON
Nolan
THE LIGHT STREAMING THROUGH THE gap between the curtains lands on my
face like a slap.
“Fucking hell, I feel like shit.”
I stretch, my body already protesting a crappy sleep on a couch that’s too short for my six-foot-three height. My elbow aches. My knee throbs. My neck protests when I try to turn to the left to look at my watch. It’s nearly ten-thirty in the morning. I’m the kind of person who’s usually awake by six. But then I guess that’s what happens when someone drugs you with mushrooms and you don’t come down from your high until four in the morning.
With a groan, I sit up and take in my surroundings. “Harper?”
There’s no answer.
I look toward the kitchen. The window is open, but no sound comes from outside to signal that she might be around. I don’t smell any coffee either, but from here I can see a to-go cup sitting next to a red kettle, a box of Earl Grey tea, and my car keys resting beside it.
“Harper …” I call again, louder this time in case it reaches outside to where she might be able to hear me. At first, I’m met with silence. And then the rustle of feathers.
The raven lands on the windowsill, something shiny dangling from his beak. He sets it down next to his foot, the sound of his caw drowning the metallic clink when it tumbles off the narrow ledge to fall into the sink.
“Murder bird,” he says in an imitation of Harper’s voice as he sidesteps toward a glass container on a shelf within his reach. He eyes me and then pecks the lid of the jar. “Nom nom.”
“I haven’t even had caffeine,” I protest.
“Murder.”
“Fine.” I roll off the couch, fixing the robe around my body, memories of last night fleeting through my mind as I knot the terry cloth belt around my waist. My dick aches at the thought of plunging into Harper’s pussy again.
Christ. I cannot believe we did that. That was a wildly horrible, impulsive, ridiculous idea. I should be using my time in her cottage to tear it apart and search for my scrapbook and weapons, not fantasize about all the many, many ways I’d love to fuck her again. “Maybe you should murder me,” I say to the bird as I approach the window. He flaps away to land on the patio table in the garden, watching me with interest. “Because I did something monumentally stupid last night, and, at this rate, I fucking deserve it.”
I grab a handful of what I hope is beef jerky from the jar and toss it onto the patio stones to the sound of the raven’s delighted caws. Setting the kettle to boil, I pick up the gift he dropped, a silver bracelet with thick links and an engraved panel in its center. A²BC, it says in a simple script. I’m not sure where he could have found it, or who it might belong to, so I keep it in my hand as I wait for the water to boil then pour my tea, leaving it to brew on the counter before grabbing my clothes and heading to the bathroom to change.
I’ve just finished getting dressed when I hear the staccato trill of an impact driver in the distance, coming from the direction of the hill where the manor house sits. When I stand in the claw-foot tub and open the frosted window, I can just make out Harper’s form bent over what must be the soapbox racer through a tangle of rhododendron branches. She sets the tool down and then pushes the car back and forth a few times. Seemingly satisfied, she tosses a cover over the vehicle, then stares down at it, unmoving.
I can’t make out her expression at this distance. There’s no way to see if she’s gnawing her bottom lip like she does when she’s anxious, or if her brow is crinkled in anger, or if her stormy eyes suddenly brighten like when
she’s trying to suppress a smile. But I can still see a conflict warring within her. She turns, marching a few steps in the direction of the cottage. Then she stops abruptly. She pivots and strides a few steps in the direction of the manor house. Stops again. Spins to face the cottage and stomps once, and I nearly smile at her frustration. She shakes her head and, with a final turn toward the mansion, she strides away, disappearing from view.
My guts twist with the ache of disappointment.
If I’m being honest with myself—which I truly hate having to do these last few days—I was hoping that she would return to the cottage. Every time she faced my direction, longing and anticipation soared in my chest.
Every time she turned away, my hope plummeted as though its waxen wings had melted in the sun.
I drag my hands down my face as the distant sound of a door closing rolls down the hill, a stamp of finality on the idea that Harper might actually want to see me. As though the to-go mug wasn’t enough of a “get the fuck out of my house” message.
“You should be looking for the fucking book, dumbass,” I say as I start to turn the handle to close the window. “You should be getting back on track with your fucking plans, not worrying about why she doesn’t want to see you.”
The window is almost sealed shut when I hear a buzzing sound. One that blankets my vision with thoughts of red mist.
I know that fucking sound.
I race from the bathroom, grabbing my keys but leaving my tea untouched as I dart through the back door. A drone soars over the garden in a smooth arc toward the manor. She’s in the main house, thank God. But it could have been watching when she was still outside without her knowledge. And it shouldn’t be anywhere fucking near her.
“Fucking Sam,” I hiss, taking off at a sprint through the back gate, keeping my eye on the drone in the distance as it continues toward the mansion. I head to the left and stay out of its view, running across the lawn to where I can pass through a gap in the thick shrubbery and jump over the stone wall. When I land on the sidewalk, I brush myself down, take a calming breath, and then backtrack toward the cottage gates.
A man I don’t recognize is standing on the opposite side of the quiet street next to what looks like a rental vehicle, his attention consumed by the screen and remote control in his hands. My SUV sits between us, parked close to the entrance of Harper’s house.
I’m watching him, weighing my options as a caw caw sounds from the direction of the cottage. When I look up, the raven is in the branches of the tree that leans over the stone wall, watching me. Great. All I need is for that fucking bird to start screaming “pretty murder bird” at this drone operator who is clearly here for Sam’s search for anything that will tie Arthur Lancaster to La Plume. And it’s a search that’s endangering Harper the longer it goes on.
I swallow a swell of darkness that chokes up my throat as I cross the road, stuffing my hands in my pockets to keep them from tearing the device free of his grasp and ramming it down his fucking throat.
“Hey, man,” I say, laying my easygoing Southern drawl on a little thicker. He gives me a brief flicker of a smile. With only a single nod in reply, I know he means to dismiss me. “Cool house, huh?”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Is it going up for sale or something? You taking shots for a real estate agent?”
“Nope.” His lips press tight in a silent fuck off.
Irritation churns through my blood as the drone buzzes in the distance.
The mere sound of it stokes the fury coursing through the chambers of my heart. “Okay … cool … Well, if you’re looking for buildings with history, you should try the old Victorian B&B on Ortolan Drive. An old guy at the coffee shop downtown told me some famous serial killer stayed there back thirty-ish years ago. La Flume? La Gloom? La Something …”
“La Plume?” the guy says, his eyes sharp with interest as they finally settle on me for more than two consecutive seconds.
“Yeah, that’s it. La Plume. Buddy said the La Plume guy stayed there before he killed a girl and disappeared. Said he was an odd dude, I dunno.
Had some weird story about pancakes or some shit.” I shrug and clutch the bracelet tighter in my pocket, inviting the pain of the metal links as they dig into my palm. “Anyway, good luck with … whatever this is.”
With a single nod, I keep walking. I don’t know shit about the B&B on Ortolan Drive, I just know it’s old and on the other side of town. Far away from Harper.
It takes every shred of restraint to keep my head down and not turn back to split the guy’s throat open with my bare hands. When I get to the end of the block, I allow myself a glance over my shoulder. A dark smile kicks up one corner of my lips as I see the drone returning from over Harper’s house.
I know he’s taken the bait.
As soon as I’m out of view, I dart behind the wide trunk of an elm tree, hiding there until I hear his engine start and his car drive past. When I’m sure I won’t be seen, I return to my vehicle and start it up, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ache. The more Sam closes in around Arthur, the more Harper could be threatened by the fallout.
If she’s been covering for his crimes, which seems to be the case given the exhumations she’s wrangled me into, it’s only a matter of time until she’s caught in the web too.
Whether I want to kill her one moment or kiss her the next, I cannot let that happen.
With a furious growl, I hit the steering wheel with my fist. It’s not nearly as satisfying as crushing Sam’s cheekbones would be, but it will have to do.
I inhale a steadying breath that fills to the bottom of my lungs, then pull away from the curb, heading for the outskirts of town.
Ten minutes later, I’m parking at the one place I never thought I’d voluntarily show my face. Particularly not on Harper Starling’s behalf.
I give myself a final check in the mirror. Eyes a little bloodshot, haunted by dark circles. Hair a bit disheveled. I need caffeine and a shower, but this will have to suffice. This is a batshit, reckless idea. Not the kind of thing I would normally do. But I need to put some heat on Sam. Something official. Something that will eat up his time and make him think twice about infringing on Harper’s privacy.
I practice my best guiltless, “I’m a good citizen and absolutely not a murderer” smile, and then leave my car to stride toward the entrance of the Cape Carnage Sheriff’s Office.
A man in his early forties looks up from the reception desk as I enter, pushing a pair of black-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Can I help you?”
“Maybe,” I say, giving him a smile that I hope has the right mix of concern and helpfulness. “I saw something that’s maybe a little suspicious, and I thought I should probably let you know.”
“Okay.” The guy taps his mouse and brings up something on his computer, flicking a bland, disinterested look my way. “What’s your name —”
“I’m not busy, Tom,” a man interjects. He saunters out of an office behind the desk, a set of beige plastic blinds obscuring the interior behind him. He’s tall, even more imposing in his full uniform, likely in his late fifties, though it’s hard to pin down a specific age. His hair and close-cut stubble are silver, only a few dark hairs clinging to their youthful shade, but he’s putting in effort to stay in shape, the muscles in his arms and legs obvious despite the formal attire. He smiles at me, his eyes a colorless kind of blue that takes on the traits of its surroundings. “Come on back, son. I’ve got time.”
I return his smile and pass the reception desk, entering the office of Sheriff Yates.
Sheriff Yates stands at the door, his hand stretched toward the vinyl- covered chairs in a gesture for me to take a seat. I give him my thanks and do so without delay, doing my best to stay in my concerned-citizen-non- murderer character as I lace my fingers and wait with rigid posture. He shuts the door and sits on the other side of the desk with a long, contented sigh. The office is decorated with photos of what must be his wife and two daughters, fishing and hunting photos interspersed among the happy family pictures. Yates with a fish. Yates with a dead deer. Yates with a perfect small-town life.
Light streams through the blinds behind him and it sets off the start of a pulsing headache that I do my best to ignore.
“I’m glad you came in,” Yates says, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Despite the wrinkles that say he’s spent his life giving easygoing, welcoming smiles, unease still creeps across my spine. “It’s a welcome
delay to reviewing the Carnival of Carnage plans. I think I’ve gone over them with the town council no less than sixty times already.”
“Glad I could be of service,” I reply with a deferential nod. “I’m sure it’ll be worth it. I hear it’s quite the event.”
“It is. A little chaotic, but so is Cape Carnage during tourist season.”
Yates folds his hands on his desk and leans back, his smile dimming to something more serious as he scrutinizes me. “So, what can I do for you,
Mister …?”
“Rhodes,” I say.
“Mr. Rhodes. Did I hear you tell Tom that you saw something suspicious? Why don’t you tell me about it.”
I clear my throat, expecting Yates to take up a pen and paper or fire up his computer, but he doesn’t. He just raises his eyebrows, giving me a faint but encouraging nod.
“Well, it might be nothing, but there’s this man who’s staying in the same hotel as me, the Capeside Inn. He’s here filming a documentary, something about some kind of amateur investigation group he’s part of. The Sleuthseekers.”
“Ah, yes,” Yates says, a bemused smirk lifting one corner of his lips. “I know the type. They show up here from time to time.”
“Yeah, well, he seems a bit … obsessive. And I’m not sure he’s playing by the rules.” I jerk my head in the general direction of the town, arranging my features into a look of earnest concern, a departure from the simmering rage that still boils in the depths of my chest when the image of the drone operator resurfaces in my thoughts. “Last night, I saw him snooping around some place by the Ballantyne River that has No Trespassing signs.”
“The Ballantyne River?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“You’ve got a fishing permit?”
“Umm …” My brain seems to flip over, trying to process his question with insufficient caffeination. “I wasn’t fishing, sir …?”
Yates’s head tilts like a curious dog. “That’s the usual reason people find themselves out at the river. You’re not hunting off-season, are you?”
“No, sir.” Unless we count human game, an unhelpful voice in my head declares. “Absolutely not.”
“You’re sure? I’ll let you off with a warning, but you need to be honest with me. Deputy Collins is a vegan and he takes poaching very seriously. If he gets wind of it—”
“I swear, sir. I wasn’t hunting at the river,” I say, trying to think my way free of the whirlpool I seem to have dropped into. Yates visibly relaxes at my assertion, his shoulders dropping, the softness returning between his eyes. “But this Sam guy, I don’t know why he’d be out there, walking all over private property. And just a little while ago, I saw his drone flying all over the big estate on the hill, the old Victorian place. There was a woman outside a stone cottage on the property who looked pretty upset about it.”
Yates’s expression turns grim. Lightless. He leans a little closer to his desk, his eyes pinned to me, unwavering and shadowed beneath his drawn brows. “He was flying over Lancaster Manor?”
I give a single nod. “Yes, sir.”
“And you weren’t the pilot?”
Blood drains from my limbs, leaving crystals of ice behind. My heart rages, carving alarmed beats into my ribs.
“Sir …?”
“You were piloting the drone recently for Mr. Porter—six days ago, correct? The day that Jake Hornell was last seen.”
The bitter taste of fear lingers on my tongue as the moisture evaporates from my mouth. I never gave him Sam’s last name.
This isn’t how I operate, recklessly putting myself in the searchlight. I stay in the shadows. I know I’m good at charming people when I want to, at manipulating them into moving their pieces on the board, placing them right where I want them to be. But I also know I’m not indestructible. I don’t swan into a police station figuring that I hold all the power.
But that’s exactly what I’ve just done. And not only is it a consuming, obsessive need to protect Harper that’s driven me to this moment, but now I might have put not only myself in danger, but her too. Because she’s on that drone footage that I shot. She might be one of the last people who saw Jake Hornell alive. Pieces of him are in her fucking garden. And the rest of him
is buried along the Ballantyne River, on Arthur’s land, not far from where we exhume his victims every night. In the grave I dug. The one I intended for her.
These thoughts cascade through my mind in mere seconds, some other part of my brain slipping into self-protection mode as I say, “I piloted the drone for him a few days ago, yes. But only that one time. He was a little … weird … about things he wanted me to focus on. Insistent. He wanted me to film certain people. It just didn’t seem right. It felt … invasive.” I shake my head and shrug, masking the partial lie with nonchalance. “Anyway, I guess his drone guy must have shown up.”
“So you weren’t the person flying the drone over Lancaster Manor?”
“No.”
“Then why were you there?”
“I was just walking by.”
“You were just walking by,” he repeats. He taps a long index finger on the desk, the ghost of a smile lingering on his lips. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Look,” he finally says, leaning back in his chair with a deep sigh. “Cape Carnage is a small town with an unusual history. Guys like Porter show up every few years, searching for something they think they’re going to find.
Some truth behind the urban legends, maybe. But they don’t uncover anything, because there’s no old, hidden secret to find here. Every small town has something dark in its past if you look back far enough, just like Cape Carnage. That doesn’t mean there’s a murderer lurking around every corner. And, more often than not, their meddling messes up things for the likes of Deputy Collins and me when we have actual work to do. Like figuring out what the hell happened to Jake. It’s possible he just skipped town, all things considered.” He taps on a manila folder on his desk, which I assume has something to do with Jake. But his eyes don’t leave mine as they narrow. “However, I guess I could be wrong. You wouldn’t know anything about Mr. Hornell’s whereabouts, would you?”
I shake my head, conscious of every micro expression I make as I hold his gaze. “No, sir.”
“Hmm.” I’m not sure if that’s a good hmm or a bad hmm, but I just wait, my expression bland and guiltless despite the bead of sweat that rolls down
my spine. “Well,” Yates finally says, rolling his chair backward and rising to his feet, “I appreciate you raising a concern. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
He extends a hand across the desk and I take it, wondering what he thinks of the temperature of my palm as I say, “Anytime, sir. Happy to help.”
With a nod and a brighter smile, Sheriff Yates lets go and walks around the desk to open the door to his office, stepping aside for me to walk through. Just as I pass the threshold, he lays a hand on my shoulder. “Oh,
and son …”
“Yes …?”
“If you run into Mr. Porter, tell him to pop by the station. I’ve been trying to get that drone footage from him in case Mr. Hornell was on it, but for some reason, he seems to be avoiding me. Best to cross every T, and I’d rather not have to issue a warrant. Not a good look during tourist season, especially not when the Sleuthseekers will descend on this place if they think I’m antagonizing their queen bee.”
“Sure thing, sir.”
With a fatherly pat to my shoulder, Sheriff Yates lets me go, and I keep my steps measured as I get the fuck out of the station. It takes everything in me not to speed from the parking lot in a squeal of tires.
It isn’t until I’m sitting on the edge of my bed at the inn that I feel like I can finally take a breath.
Since the first day I arrived in Cape Carnage, nothing has gone the way I thought it would. The imagined future I came here with has been split through a prism, fracturing into shards that are unrecognizable from the simple, colorless beam of light I started with. It began the very moment I met Harper in a coffee shop. And now, I feel like I’m crashing through every one of those meticulous plans I made, desperate to get closer to her no matter how hard I try to fight my way back on course.
What would happen if I stopped trying to hate her?
More and more, it’s an effort to hold on to my anger toward Harper. I see how fiercely loyal she is to Arthur. She puts herself in danger to keep him safe. I see how much she cares about Cape Carnage, from her refusal to leave despite the threat of my presence to her efforts in making the town
more beautiful, even though she must be exhausted. I think I even see how much she cares about me. It’s in the long glances in the lantern light. It’s in the guilt that glazes her eyes. It was there last night, even when she tried to hide it. And she’s right to be wary of me. Just like she’s said, I’ve threatened her. Intimidated her. Spied on her. I’ve never given her a safe space. I’ve never even allowed that concept to thrive in me, constantly battling to crush it into submission.
So what would happen if I just … stopped fighting it? What would she do if I let myself care? Really care?
I look toward the wardrobe where I once stored my backpack of weapons. The one Harper stole after I stuffed a head in her bird feeder and left her with a threat. When I promised that no matter where she hid or how far she ran, I would still find her. Somehow, even that vow has changed color in the prism of time.
With a sharp inhale, I rise from the bed and stride to the shower. Within fifteen minutes, I’m leaving my room, headed for the general store to replace everything that she tossed into the Ballantyne River. Maybe I even pick up a few more things. When I get back to my room, I text her.
I’ll swing by at nine to pick you up?
I stare at the screen for a long time. But her response never comes, even after the last shades of indigo have bled from the sky. Despite the lack of reply, I still drive past her cottage on my way to the river, slowing as I near the gate in the stone wall. There are no lights on in her house.
I park on the lane near the river where my vehicle will be hidden from view. With my new stove and lantern and tarp shoved into my damp backpack and an unused shovel over my shoulder, I head to the boulders that overlook Arthur’s burial ground. I set out two mugs. I make hot chocolate. But Harper doesn’t show.
It’s nearly eleven-thirty by the time I finally take the leftovers in the pot down to the river to wash the cooled chocolate away. When I’m done, I turn toward the silt floodplain, my focus panning over the expanse of secrets.
Without Harper, I don’t know the measurements. I wouldn’t know where to start to look for the next of Arthur’s victims.
But that’s not why I’m here.
I head back to the boulder and pack my belongings, then walk along the shore, wading into the water until the bank narrows and disappears and granite creeps into the water. Within a few moments, I arrive at a smaller silt plain. One that’s familiar. I don’t need a map. I know where to dig.
I plunge my shovel into the soil.
In the dim light cast by a crescent moon, I open the grave I dug for Harper Starling.
