DECLINATION
Nolan
I MARCH FROM THE DOOR to the dresser. The dresser to the door. The door to the windows that face the sea. Back again.
But no matter how many times I pace across the room, it doesn’t change the ball of unease that burns in my guts. I don’t know what it is that bothers me most. Is it that interaction we had before the barista said her name? The shade of blush in her cheeks when she messed up the name of the sandwich in her hand? Was it the way she smiled at me with light in her eyes? The shyness in her expression when she dropped her gaze and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear?
Or does it bother me that I let myself become so completely spellbound that I didn’t even realize who I was facing?
Or is it something more sinister that’s burning me up to the point of physical pain? Is it the need to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until a desperate confession tumbles past her lips? I must get it out of her. That admission. The final missing piece. I need to hear exactly how she saw it all unfold. She must have seen the fear in my face that second before we collided in the dark. Her speeding car. My brother’s terrified yell.
My unsuspecting body. A single, indelible moment that stained our lives forever.
And then she left me there. Alone. In the dark.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t recognize her at all. I’ve been planning that first meeting with Harper Starling for four years. I’ve imagined every moment of how it would go.
And that wasn’t the way I saw it playing out at all.
I sit down on the edge of my bed and pull my laptop from the nightstand, settling it on my thighs. When I log in, I open the folder for Harper Starling.
I click on the first picture. It’s one that was pulled from social media when the local news back in Calvert County, Maryland, was reporting on her culpability in the hit-and-run collision and her presumed death. It was a story I believed too—at first. Just like everyone else. It was only logical that she’d died, her body dragged away from the car by the tides and currents of the Chesapeake Bay. But in my quest to learn more about the woman who had hit my brother and me and left us for dead, a critical piece of information floated my way.
Harper Starling’s bank account was drained of its savings hours after her vehicle had landed at the bottom of the sea.
I squint at my screen. She didn’t post many photos of herself online, and the few she did were either taken from a distance or heavily edited with filters, like this one. But the dark hair and light skin tone seem similar. Was it the bangs that threw me off? The gentle wave to her chocolate strands?
Because other details still seem mostly the same. The face shape. The body type, at least what’s visible. It’s all consistent with the next photo too, though the angle and lighting make it even harder to pinpoint any distinctive qualities to her features. But in person, there’s something about Harper that seems so different from a static image—something charming but mysterious that sucked me right in.
I stare at those photos for far too long. I don’t understand how I could have misinterpreted the familiarity I felt when I met her in line at the café. I had hunted for every scrap of information I could find on Harper. And there hadn’t been many. A mention for a gardening competition win in the Cape Carnage Chronicle here. A grainy photograph there. But I consumed those details as though they’d sustain me. And in the darkest hours, they did.
When suffering and grief threatened to finally destroy me, hunting Harper Starling was the only thing that kept me alive.
So how the fuck could I have gotten it so wrong when I looked at her?
I slam the laptop closed and toss it on the bed before I stalk to the hotel lobby, every step I take spent trying to wrangle this unease beneath the
pleasant, unthreatening mask.
When I stop at the reception desk, Irene’s snore is rumbling from the side room. I sigh and ding the little bell, and a moment later, she comes
shuffling toward me. “Mr. Rhodes.”
“Nolan is fine, ma’am.”
She nods once. “Nolan. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to get your recommendation, actually. I was looking for a place for lunch and stopped in at A Shipwrecked Bean. I got to talking to a woman named Harper. Do you know her?”
“Yes, Harper Starling. Got magic in those green thumbs of hers.”
“Gardening?” I ask, pretending that I don’t already know.
“Harper does most of the landscaping around town. Her garden at Lancaster Manor has won the town’s best garden award for the last two years running. You should be here long enough to see it really start blooming. Everyone always oohs and aahs over the main garden of the estate, but the one in front of her cottage on the south side is also truly lovely.”
Bingo. The one detail I hadn’t been able to discover is where she lives.
Irene’s cataract haze seems to lift just a little, her eyes dancing in a way that I do not like. At all. “She’s a sweet girl, that Harper.”
“I’m sure.”
“What would you like to know?” she asks, and the lobby door opens just as I’m about to launch into some fake and meaningless answer now that she’s given me exactly what I’d hoped for with so little difficulty. We both turn our attention to a man who struggles through the door with an oversized roller bag and a backpack. It’s a third bag that’s slung across his body that catches my eye, the Canon logo embroidered across its surface.
“Ah, Mr. Porter,” Irene says as the man wheels his luggage into the inn.
He’s about my age, probably early thirties, his short blond hair mostly covered by a baseball hat with a circular logo in silver stitching. Porter Productions, it says, and it summons an alarm deep in the recesses of my darkest thoughts. “How are you making out?”
“Not bad, thank you, Irene,” he says, giving me a polite nod before his attention returns to the Capeside Inn’s elderly proprietor. “Would be a little
better if my drone operator had been able to make it. You have no idea how long it took to get all the permits and approvals in place.”
Ideas ignite. “A drone operator?” I ask.
A reserved flicker of wariness passes across the stranger’s face, and he takes a breath as though he’s about to launch into an explanation, but Irene beats him to it. “Mr. Porter is filming a documentary,” she declares. “He’s staying for the next few weeks, and his drone operator took sick so he couldn’t come.” Irene gives a solemn shake of her head and clicks her tongue. “Shame to miss out on such a lovely day. You know what they say, ‘If you don’t like the weather in Carnage, all you have to do is wait an hour or two and it’ll change.’”
I wonder if this guy is thinking the same thing I am, that the reviews for Capeside Inn are pretty on the nose about Irene knowing everything about her patrons. “Bet you didn’t know Carnage has its own retired CIA analyst,”
I say, testing him out with an extended hand. “I’m Nolan.”
The man takes my offered greeting, shaking my hand with strength in his grip. “Sam Porter. I may or may not be on the Cape Carnage CIA watch list.”
Though I give him an easygoing grin, I can tell he’s not convinced by me just yet. Maybe it was my overly eager question about the drone. Or perhaps it’s the excitement I battle to keep off my face. It’s a struggle to keep it from bleeding into my voice when I say, “I know a thing or two about flying a drone. Maybe I could lend you a hand if you’re stuck.”
I can almost see the reservation dissolving from Sam’s expression. “Oh, really?”
“I’m in Search and Rescue. We use them frequently on the job.” I shrug, trying to seem undaunted, though I can feel the giddy anticipation climbing beneath my skin. “If you’re looking to do some filming today and want a hand, I’ve got nothin’ but time. Just let me know. I’m in Room one- seventeen.”
I give him a nod and force myself to turn away, my expression a neutral mask. I keep my hands in my pockets. My steps unhurried.
I don’t take more than three before Sam calls after me. “Hey … you know, I’d love to take you up on the offer, if you mean it? If you’re not
busy, of course.”
The smile I cast to the shadows of the corridor ahead is not the same as the one I give Sam by the time I’ve turned to face him. “I’d be happy to.”
I wait for Sam in the lobby as he takes his belongings to his room, returning fifteen minutes later with a hard plastic case and a backpack. Just as we reach the door, Irene’s voice pipes up from behind the counter, her tone too cheerful and teasing when she says, “What did you want to ask me, Mr. Rhodes? Something about Harper Starling …?”
“Nothing, ma’am.” I tip my head to her in a grateful nod, keeping my expression warm and reassuring despite the excitement that bubbles beneath my surface. “Thanks for your help.”
With little more than a nod between us, we say goodbye to Irene and set off in the direction of the lighthouse. Though it’s in the opposite direction of the town center and Harper’s probable location, I know it’s still a high point on the topography, and if I’m lucky, I might be able to fly close enough to Lancaster Manor to catch a glimpse of her.
“So, you’re an SAR specialist?” Sam asks as we turn down Beacon Road. I nod. “Don’t meet one of those every day. What brought you to that job?”
As if on cue, the pain in my elbow spikes, reminding me that I can never truly forget the injuries that haunt me, even when I’m able to push them to the back of my consciousness. “I was a firefighter. I had an accident. Just couldn’t do it after I got out of the hospital.” I shrug, laying my palm over the scar where the pins and plates are embedded in bone. “Search and Rescue was a good option. Went to work in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and never looked back. I do a lot of drone work,” I say with a nod to his black case. “Not just the searches, but mapping the trail hazards, incident prevention, that kind of thing.”
Sam gives me a breath of a laugh as he shifts the brim of his cap down farther against the sun. “You’re probably more experienced with this thing than the guy I meant to bring. Serendipity, I guess.”
“Irene said you’re making a documentary?” I ask, and though he doesn’t look my way, a tight-lipped smile creeps across his face. “About what?”
Crystalline blue eyes dart my way. He’s nearly chewing his grin into submission to keep from spilling every one of his secrets to a stranger.
“Kind of like a true crime thing.” He looks at me once more, gauging my reaction. When he seems to surmise I’m the appropriate amount of both concerned and intrigued, his smile stretches. “This might come off as a quaint little town that’s found a way to profit off its name, but let’s just say not all the macabre vibes are for show.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever heard of the serial killer called La Plume?” The name vaguely rings a bell, but I shake my head, and it seems to excite Sam that he’ll be the one to educate me. He pulls his phone from his pocket, bringing up a web page and searching for La Plume, holding the device toward me to display the composite sketch of a man.
His short hair is swept to one side, black-rimmed glasses framing soulless eyes. “He had a very particular method,” Sam says as he pockets the phone. He nods toward a path that departs from the sidewalk we’re on, a sign for WIDOW’S POINT painted on a plank of weather-beaten wood. “He’d immobilize his victims and inscribe text into their skin with a quill. The entire body would be covered in text. Then, once he was finished, he’d kill them. He murdered a young woman here nearly thirty years ago and then he suddenly just … disappeared. But I don’t think the killing in Cape Carnage ever stopped. Since then, every so often, people who have passed through have gone missing. Sometimes, they disappear from one of the nearby towns after stopping in Carnage. Sometimes, they seem to go missing from the town itself.”
I look around as though a clue might surface from the barren brown rock that lies before us. “And, what … they just haven’t been found?”
Sam shakes his head. “Nope. They’ve simply vanished. No evidence. No sign of them ever again. And it’s not like police want to dig too deep, you know? One murder and a serial killer who disappeared while visiting aren’t really great for the tourist industry. They might like the morbid vibes that come with the name, but they don’t want anyone to think it’s actually real.”
Our attention is diverted from the path ahead as a tour bus lumbers up the road next to us, heading for the lighthouse and nearby museum. Despite the
fact that it’s only the start of the tourist season, the vehicle still looks packed, silhouettes taking up most of the seats behind the tinted glass.
“Urban legends are good for business, as long as they’re just that.
Legends.”
We stop at a rocky outcrop partway along the path that leads to the cliff.
I can hear the rhythmic crash of the sea against the stone in the distance, the percussion of an endless battle between water and land. “But legend is what’s led me here,” Sam says as he sets his case down. The dark and determined look he darts in my direction reminds me of the one I sometimes see in the mirror. “I believe someone very special went missing in Cape Carnage. I think La Plume killed her here too. And that’s how I’m going to blow this place wide open.”
I don’t ask him what he means. I already know he won’t tell me, not with the tight smile he shoots my way, like he’s given me just enough crumbs to pique my interest so he can deny me a full meal. If I want to know his secrets, I’m going to have to wait. He strikes me as the kind of person who needs to be pushed by disinterest. If he thinks I’m too eager, I’ll spook him and he’ll shut down. So I keep my mouth shut as he sets up the drone and moves on to the technical specs and the kinds of shots he wants. I take over piloting the drone above the quaint downtown.
I can barely contain the spike of triumph that hits my veins when the camera spots Harper Starling walking down a side street not far from the coffee shop where we met. She has a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, a pair of headphones over her ears, and an oversized hoodie that nearly reaches to the hem of her black biker shorts. She seems to be headed for the gym, and just as she turns down the walkway that leads to its entrance, a man exits the building. Some douchey-looking gym bro asshole who struts straight for her. As soon as she sees him, she pulls her headphones off, a smile stretching across her face as she draws to a halt. The moment he envelops her in a hug, the triumph I just felt turns to dust in my blood.
“Let’s get some shots of the south end, there’s a huge manor just on the outskirts of town,” Sam says, though his words barely register in my mind.
My heart is climbing up my throat, trying to choke every breath as I watch Harper and the man separate from their embrace. He still has his hands on
her arms. I want to fucking rip them off one bone at a time and feed them into his bright fucking smile as he grins down at her. I want to— “Nolan …? South end?”
“Yeah, sorry. Got lost in thought, I guess,” I say with a hint of sheepishness in my voice. Sam gives a nod and then launches into some vague references to an amateur investigative group he’s part of, as though he wants to tell me more but isn’t ready to. With one last look at Harper and her companion, one final burn of fury through my flesh, I pilot the drone away.
We get shots of the rest of the town. Some of the extensive gardens and the austere stone mansion of Lancaster Manor, a historic estate that looms over the town like a foreboding castle. Some of the little cottage on its southern border, much of it obscured by oaks and elms. Some of the cliffs that drop into the sea. And as the battery in the drone starts to deplete, I bring it back to our rocky outcrop to be packed away. Though I make an effort to engage in conversation with Sam, it feels like just that. Effort. By the time we’re back at the hotel, I’m both exhausted and enraged, and I spend the rest of the day trying to force my anger to cool.
But it never does.
There’s only one thing that will alleviate this relentless torment: finding my prey.
And thanks to Irene’s intel about Harper’s garden at Lancaster Manor, I figure that’s probably the best place to start.
It’s dark and there’s a chill in the air when I set out on foot from the Capeside Inn with my backpack of tools and weapons, heading south, sticking to the dimly lit side streets rather than the main road through the downtown. I’ve memorized enough of the map to know exactly where I’m headed, and the aerial views of the property from the drone were certainly helpful. I tug my hood up when I draw close to the stone wall that follows the perimeter of the extensive grounds, slowing as I walk past the main entrance, a wrought-iron gate closing off the driveway leading up to the manor house. I keep walking, rounding the corner at the end of the block as I head for the secondary entrance to the southwest. The driveway gate is closed off with a chain and lock, but before that is a small walkway that
leads to the quaint stone cottage. The little gate is open. And the lights are on.
My fists tighten around the straps of my backpack.
I enter the property. Slowly. Methodically. With my eyes on the door of the cottage, I slip into the shadows at the left of a wide garden that leads to the house, following a decorative path toward a row of bushes and trees.
There’s a low stone wall and I hop over it, keeping my head down, staying close to the darkness. And then I creep closer to the house.
The wall follows the cottage, gardens and lawns sprawling on both sides.
At the back of the little house are mature oak trees and more gardens, a mix of ornamental in some sections and vegetable in others, this side more a work in progress with a woodchipper and a small tractor parked close to a pile of stones. There’s another small gate in the wall that leads to the backyard, most of it obscured from my view by the boughs of the trees. I imagine Harper working here in the summer, the sun beating down on her exposed back. The beads of sweat on her skin. The strength in her arms from toiling outdoors. The sound of her voice as she talks to herself. Or maybe she’s talking to me.
I imagine reaching down to fold my hands around her neck, to choke that confession out of her. Those words I’ve been waiting for four years to hear.
Words like— “Yeah, baby. Just come a little closer.”
My breath catches in my chest. I don’t even blink. Fight and flight war in my limbs.
“Fuck, yes, show me those beautiful tits,” a man’s voice whispers from the shadows beneath a sprawling oak. “Move a little bit to the left. That’s it.”
Harper must be outside in the backyard with someone. Maybe that meathead from outside the gym. Maybe they’re fucking beneath the stars.
She could be on her knees for him. The image is branded into my brain as soon as the thought appears. It leaves a burn behind. The taste of ash. The
scent of rage.
My hands curl into fists.
Part of me wants to leave. I should save my vengeance for another day.
But something about the thought of Harper with this utter douchebag, whoever the fuck he is, makes me so irate that I know I can’t trust myself to handle anything cleanly. She shouldn’t get to make catastrophic mistakes with no consequences, enjoying pleasures as sacred as love and intimacy when she ruins lives. But as much as I want to do us all a favor and wipe her from the face of the earth, I don’t want it to end in my own demise. And there’s a much higher risk of that happening if both of them are outside together.
I take a step back. My leather gloves creak as my fists tense.
“Now get that toy from the bag. Such a good fucking girl.”
My spine locks.
She’s not outside with him at all. She’s in her cottage. She might not even know he’s here.
I creep forward, keeping each footfall slow and methodical. I can just make out the silhouette of a man hunched beneath the oak tree on the other side of the garden wall. Lights are on in the cabin, and though I can’t see what he’s seeing, I can take a guess.
I sneak a step closer. Another. Blood roars in my ears. The ever-present aches in my body fade with the burst of adrenaline that courses through my veins. I stop and lift my backpack from my shoulder, setting it at my feet.
My movement is careful. Methodical. Every tooth of the zipper is a quiet tick as I open the bag just enough to reach inside. I grasp the first weapon I touch and can’t help but smile when I pull it free. The garrote.
I leave my bag behind in the dark.
“Yeah, baby. Just like that,” the shadow whispers beneath the tree.
My grip tightens around the handles.
He doesn’t notice me as I close in on him. There’s a low stone wall separating us, but I can still tell what he’s doing. His arm is moving rhythmically. His breath fogs in the dim light that reaches us from the cottage. He lets out a grunt as he pumps his erection. When I glance toward the house, I catch a glimpse of Harper, naked on a couch, a TV bleeding light across her spread legs and a vibrator clutched in her hand.
“Fuck yes,” the man hisses, returning my attention to where it belongs.
My heart rate spikes. A mix of fury and satisfaction floods my veins when I get close enough to realize it is him, that gym bro douchebag I saw on the drone’s camera. I separate the two handles of the garrote, pulling the wire
taut. “Put it in that pussy for me.”
Fury erupts in my cells.
I rush forward. Moonlight flashes across the thin wire as I whip it over the man’s head. A shocked breath empties from his lungs as the garrote slips beneath his jaw. His hands scrabble at the wire. He submits as I pull him back against the wall that separates us. It takes every last shred of restraint to stop myself from pulling it tighter and tighter until the metal slides through his flesh—until it strikes bone.
“Shut the fuck up,” I hiss as he tries to beg for mercy. His boots scrape against the stone wall. It’s a happy accident to have it between us, otherwise I’m sure he’d have a good shot at kicking me in the balls. But there’s still no way he could fight me off completely. I know it. He knows it. And so he begs. His plea resonates against the wire, and all I want to do is pull those handles tighter. A low growl rumbles from my chest when he tries to reach back and scratch at my face. “Settle the fuck down and I’ll let you go.”
Though he tries to dig his fingers between the wire and his neck, he still gives me a shaky nod. I ease the pressure just enough that he can take a
breath.
“W-what do you want?” he stammers.
“Your name.”
His swallow is a vibration through the handles of my weapon. “J-Jake.
Jake H-Hornell.”
I roll my eyes. He’s pissed himself. I can smell it lingering in the air, mixing with the crisp, crushed grass beneath my feet and his cheap cologne and the sweetness of an energy drink that must have spilled somewhere in the dark. “What are you doing here?” I demand.
“W-what do you think?” He thrashes, another attempt to twist free of my grasp. I pull the wire tighter and the struggling stops. “Just w-watching, okay? Watching.”
My focus slides toward the cottage. I can’t see Harper now from this angle, only the light from her window.
“Does she know you’re here? Is this some kind of little game?”
“N-no. She d-doesn’t know. I’ll stay away, I p-promise.”
Rage infects my veins. My molars protest the force of my clenched jaw.
His panicked plea hums into my palms, my smile a caress against his ear.
“Well, then,” I whisper as I jerk my body downward, taking him over the wall. I feel the tension of his skin finally give way as I drag him from his hiding place and away from the cottage. Steam rises from the torrent of blood that spills into the night. “I’d better make sure that’s a promise you’ll keep.”
