Page 83 of Tourist Season
“There’s a great synergy to recording in this place,” Sam says as he brings a long, thin bag over from the mouth of the corridor and pulls a tripod from its interior. He takes a deep, dramatic sigh, inhaling the scent of fresh paint and freshly cut lumber. “Considering it was once the heart of Arthur Lancaster’s empire, interviewing another murderer here in the distillery that Lukas Lancaster is trying to bring back to life is a perfect way to tie all the pieces together. Don’t you think?”
I don’t answer. I have no intention of telling this man shit. Especially not on camera.
Sam smiles. It’s as though he can divine my thoughts right out of my head when he says, “We are going to talk, you and me. Oreverything I know about Harper Starling will be thrown into this documentary, and trust me when I say, her life will be blown apart.”
“How do I know you won’t do that anyway, even if I do talk to you?”
“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.” He shrugs, adjusting the tripod and then bending to retrieve his camera bag off a drop cloth. His eyes don’t leave mine any longer than they have to, as though he doesn’t fully trust how thoroughly he’s incapacitated me. “Give me what I want, and I promise I’ll leave her out of it.”
“And what do you want, exactly?”
His smile stretches. “The story of a lifetime, of course. And the recognition I deserve.”
I scoff, and Sam’s eyes narrow to slits of malice. “Recognition? Or do you mean ‘fame’?”
“I mean,acknowledgment. That my group has done what no one else could.” Sam presses a button on one of the black cords that surround him, and two portable studio lights flicker on. I squint against their blinding white glare. “We’ve solved cold cases when the authorities couldn’t. We’ve exposed criminals—”
“And now you’ve become one.” I jostle my wrists behind me, my arms hooked beneath the metal armrests of my chair. “Or did you conveniently forget that there are laws about abducting people at gunpoint and holding them against their will, to name a few?”
Sam approaches me with a wireless lapel microphone clutched in his fingers. He attaches it to my shirt, avoiding my unyielding glare. When he’s done, he returns to the mounted camera, putting his own microphone on before settling a pair of headphones over his ears. “You know, since before I even started the Sleuthseekers, I believed some rules needed to be bent for justice to be fairlyserved. But of all people in this fucked-up town, I thought thatyouwould agree with that.”
Sam adjusts the lens and buttons on his camera until he seems satisfied with what he’s seeing on the viewfinder, and then he grabs the film slate from the floor. He positions himself between me and the camera, the clapperboard clutched in his hands.
“Action,” he declares, whacking the black-and-white striped arm down onto the body of the slate before he rushes behind the camera, exchanging the clapperboard for his notebook. I wait until he’s looking at the viewfinder before I roll my eyes. “Is your name Nolan Caius Rhodes?”
“You already know my name.”
Sam glares at me from behind the camera. “We can skip right to Harper Starling, if you prefer.”
My blood boils. I strain against the handcuffs. I’m desperate to tear his fucking throat out. To dig my fingers into his flesh and feel it split apart in my grip.
“Yes,” I grit out. “My name is Nolan Caius Rhodes.”
“Where do you live?”
“Gatlinburg, Tennessee.”
“Tell me about what brought you to Cape Carnage?”
I release a heavy sigh, as though this is the most ridiculous fucking thing I’ve ever been forced to endure. “Bird-watching.”
“Bird-watching,” Sam echoes, failing to keep his triumphant smirk from bleeding into his voice. He’s hardly the impartial interviewer, not that I expected any level of professionalism here. “That’s right, Irene mentioned something about that to me. I guess that makes a lot more sense now. Tell me, do you ever observe starlings?”
I cut him with a vicious glare.
“Did you know that a starling can mimic the songs of up to twenty different bird species?” he continues. “They can even impersonate human speech.”
There’s something else behind the slow smile he gives me. Like he holds all the cards. Even the ones I don’t know about.
A suffocating blanket of unease seems to descend around me. “Ask me a relevant question,” I snarl.
“Sure thing.” The false brightness in his tone sets me even more on edge. Sam flips a page in his notebook, tapping a pen to his chin. “Ah, yes. I have a relevant question.Why did you murder Trevor Fisher?”
My lips seal tight.
“What about Dylan Jacobs? Or Marc Beaumont?”
I say nothing.
