Page 82 of Tourist Season
My rational mind told me this is what I would find. But my heart hurts just the same.
There’s no bottle of pills on the nightstand. No luggage on the rack. No food in the fridge. When I head to the wardrobe, no clothes are hanging inside. I don’t check anything after that. I just sit on the edge of the bed, feeling like something has been torn from the center of my chest. Maybe it shouldn’t hurt so much. After all, how well do I really know Nolan Rhodes? He came here to destroy me. He just found another way to drive a knife home, that’s all.
But it does hurt. It aches. I feel raw, like all my bloody wounds are exposed. Aside from Arthur, he was the only person I showed my true self to. He saw the very worst in me. And I thought he accepted me the way I am, but at the first opportunity, he left.
Society never accepts every facet of a woman’s true nature— especially their grief and trauma and darkness—though it feasts on those things until it consumes them, leaving only a polished facade behind. The world wants a perfect victim. Not the creature a woman like me might choose to become to survive. The best we can hope for is to find another soul who can stand in our path with open arms to embrace us.
I thought I’d found that in Nolan. He didn’t even need my tragic backstory. He didn’t turn away like I know everyone else would. He accepted the woman I chose to be the day I walked away from the ashes of my former life.
Or so I thought.
I run my finger beneath my lashes, catching tears that only reappear the moment they’re wiped away. It takes a long moment to subdue the loneliness that threatens to choke up my throat. But in time, I do. And I will. I’ve survived worse, and I’ll survive this too.
I rise. Head to the door. With a check through the peephole, I exit the room and head down the corridor.
When I arrive at the lobby, I hesitate. Something compels me to approach the registration desk. Ducking under the hinged countertop, I make my way to Irene’s guest ledger. I flip the pages until I find Nolan’s entry, running a finger across the line of his details. His dates of planned stay. His arrival time. According to the ledger, he hasn’t checked out.
I frown at the book, trying to work out the information, comparing Nolan’s details to the entries for other guests who have come and gone. Nothing in the book indicates that he’s left, even though his room is as neat as a pin. It looked ready for the next guest, like he’d never stayed in it at all. Another ghost of CapeCarnage that’s blown away in a gale that’s swept across the wrecks hiding beneath the waves.
Questions are rolling through my mind when a voice approaches from upstairs. Footsteps pound down the staircase. Someone is in a rush. I duck behind the counter, making myself small in the shadows.
“… you sure about this?” an unfamiliar voice asks. There’s a delay, as though he’s speaking on the phone. “What if Rhodes doesn’t talk?”
My blood freezes. I peek around the space beneath the hinged countertop, where it’s unlikely I’ll be spotted. I see a man traveling quickly down the last few steps. There’s a hint of fear in his eyes. But there’s determination too. He has a bag in one hand, a logo of twoP’s in a circle embroidered on one side.
My quiet gasp is lost beneath his heavy footfalls as I take my wallet from my pocket and pull out the business card I slid inside. The same logo is embossed next to Sam Porter’s name.Porter Productions, the card says.
The alarm that chilled my blood only moments ago transforms. I’m suddenly burning. I’m an incendiary, ready to destroy everyone in my path. Starting with this man, who must be Sam’s drone operator.
“This sounds risky. You sure it’s worth it?” He travels past the front desk, toward the door. “What about the location? The distillery is echoey as shit.”
He heads out the door, his focus taken up by his destination and conversation. He doesn’t look back to see me take the ancient three-hole punch from Irene’s desk and dart beneath the counter to follow.
When I exit the inn, he’s halfway across the parking lot, thephone pressed between his ear and shoulder. He digs his keys from his pocket and unlocks a Honda CR-V parked a few spaces from Nolan’s favorite spot.
“I do trust you, man.” He slows as he nears the vehicle. As soon as the trunk is open, he loads his bag inside, then hurries toward the driver’s door. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he says, and then disconnects the call.
No, you fucking won’t, I think as I rush forward.
He doesn’t hear me coming. Doesn’t even turn around. I hit him with every ounce of strength I have, crashing the hole punch into the side of his head with a satisfyingwhack.
He falls unconscious to the asphalt.
I quickly scan my surroundings. It’s eerily still, only the sound of the ocean rising to meet us. Just a brief breath of calm, and then I’m a frenzied storm of motion. First, I take his phone, running to the nearby cliff edge to toss it and the hole punch into the sea. Next, I take his wallet and keys. Opening the trunk of his vehicle, I grab the bag, along with any other equipment I can find. I have no intention of wasting time I don’t have dragging another limp man here, there, and everywhere. But I can at least make it look like a robbery and take all his expensive gear.
When I’m done, I give the man a quick check. He’s breathing. Blood trickles from his nose. He must have smacked his face hard on the way down. I’m not sure what kind of damage I just caused, and I’m not about to wait around to find out. It could be a while before he awakens, if he ever does. It could be only moments.
I leave him where he is and run to Arthur’s car, pulling away from the Capeside Inn and heading out of town as quickly as I dare with a body in my back seat. The fog grows thicker thefarther I go from the sea. It consumes the headlights as I turn down the road that leads to the Lancaster Distillery.
Nolan Rhodes said he would walk through hell to drag me out if I ever tried to run.
But I don’t hide in hell.
I bring it to life.
SQUALLNolan
SAM’S FOOTSTEPS ECHO ACROSS THEspace that stretches around us, trapped between the beams of the distillery’s vaulted ceiling. Though I strain against the handcuffs, I don’t make any headway. The metal is flush against my skin. I try twisting my ankles, but that’s useless too, the duct tape wound in thick layers to bind my legs to the chair.
