Page 59 of Tourist Season
My mouth suddenly goes dry. I somehow manage to scrape a word together, though it sounds like a rasp. “Ballmeat.”
Nolan laughs. I forgot what it sounded like. It’s so infrequent that I hear it. At least, not a real, genuine laugh like this. It’s resonant and warm. His face lights up, and those murder dimples come out, andoh my God, he’s so fucking beautiful it hurts my eyes. “Not sure they have ballmeat on the menu.”
“Eyeballs will have to do.” I give him a weak smile when he quirks a brow in an unvoiced question. “They have a cocktail that has eyeball candies. I’ll take one of those too, please.”
With a nod, he checks in with Arthur, who’s now finished his chocolate and is nearly done with my former popcorn, then heads off to the concession. I can’t help but watch him go. His cool authority, his predatory grace. He moves as though lethality is coded into his DNA. Why does he always have to look so fucking perfect? Whether it’s the work clothes he wears to our nightly adventures, or this charcoal dress shirt rolled to his elbows and black pants that expertly show off his ass, there’s never a time he’s unattractive to me. And it’s not just the way he looks. It’s something about the man beneath the shell. The way he notices the most minute details. His calm and calculating authority that swims just below the surface of a charismatic mask, one he only wears when he wants to. I’m the only person in the world who knows exactly who he really is. And that’s intoxicating.
I know I should be careful when it comes to Nolan Rhodes. But I can’t shake the way Nolan looked at me that day I killed McMillan. It was as though desperation and distress had chewed their way to his surface, and he couldn’t hold them back.
Because you’re determined to believe what you want to, he’d said.No matter what contrary evidence is staring you in the fucking face.
“You were holding hands with that man,” Arthur says, scaring the shit out of me even though he’s been next to me the whole time. I’d been too immersed in the details of Nolan’s hot ass and enigmatic serial killer appeal to think about my surroundings.
God. I really need that fucking drink.
“More accurately, he was holding hands with me,” I reply, as though I’m some teenager trying to downplay her first crush to her dad. It’s hard not to feel that way when Arthur gives me an unblinking stare.
“Do you want me to cut his hands off?”
I snort, trying to calm the blush that burns in my cheeks. “Jesus, Arthur. No.”
“I didn’t think so,” he says in his most curmudgeonly grumble. I shake my head and survey the seats behind me again for Sam. Satisfied there’s no sign of him lurking nearby, I close my arms around my middle and I settle deeper into my chair. “So. Who is he, this man whose hand you were holding as equally as he was holding yours?”
That blush just refuses to go away. “His name is Nolan,” I reply, in case he’s forgotten again. “He’s a tourist.”
Arthur rumbles a low, disgruntled note. He’s not a fan of tourists, though like all Cape Carnage residents, he understands how necessary they are for the town’s flourishing economy. But with tourists comes trouble, and for a man who has spent his entireadult life looking after our odd little home, there’s a built-in level of suspicion toward visitors that he’ll never get over.
“Is he good to you?” he finally asks.
That simple question seems to dismantle my thoughts. It should be so easy to answer.No, I want to say.He came here to murder me, slowly and painfully. To slice pieces from my body and glue them into his fucked-up trophy case. But alsoyes. I know that he’s helping me to help himself, but it feels like more than that. The shovel, the bear spray, the hot chocolate—though he tries to make them seem like practical things that benefit himself, he watches me as though he hopes I’ll be happy when he gives them to me. The way he looks at me feels real, despite how hard I try to convince myself it’s all part of his game. The hurt in his eyes the other day. I don’t think that could be manufactured. Even holding my hand tonight. If he truly wanted me to suffer, if he really hated me so much, would he offer such a simple but meaningful comfort?
“I don’t know,” I say, though I’m not sure if it’s an answer to Arthur’s question or a continuation of my thoughts. “I’d like to hope so.”
“That’s not an encouraging answer.”
“It’s the best one I’ve got.”
“Sensible,” Arthur mutters before his attention wanders away. “It’s difficult to judge character these days.”
I don’t know if he’s referring to his own deteriorating health, or the general state of the world, or both. “A guidebook would be helpful. Some criteria.”
“Perhaps you could ask him if he would allow his hideous little dog to relieve itself among my award-winning roses and not clean it up,” he says, his eyes fixed to a bald man in his sixties who’s sidestepping down the aisle three rows ahead. A woman withfluffy blonde hair follows close behind him, chunky gold chains layered around her neck. The couple looks like snowbirds, with their golf club clothes and their over-bleached smiles and their sunglasses tans. Arthur despises tourists like this. Garish. Entitled. When I first arrived in Cape Carnage, crimes such as indiscriminate dog shitting wouldn’t qualify as a murderable offense—these people would have to do something legitimately heinous for Arthur to consider that. But lately …? I’m not sure his barometer for what qualifies as a “murderable offense” is very accurate.
“I don’t think he would allow that, no,” I say.
Arthur doesn’t pay me any attention. His focus is entirely homed in on this couple as they take their seats to talk and laugh just a decibel too loudly for Arthur’s taste. He’s still watching them intently when he suddenly says, “You can’t tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
Arthur turns his attention my way, his eyes clearer than they’ve been all night. “Who you are.”
“I had no plans to. I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I’m not going to break my word,” I say, laying a hand on his arm and squeezing gently. “I’ll look after the town, don’t worry—”
“It’s not for the town, Harper. It’s foryou.”
My brows knit. “What do you mean?”
“The wrong man discovered my true nature, my identity, and it made me a prized target. And look at what that cost me,” Arthur says. His eyes shine as he raises a hand to my face. “Keep your past safe. Or the whole world will descend upon you, and you don’t know what kind of creatures will be coaxed out of hiding. I cannot bear to lose another daughter.”
