Page 23 of Tourist Season
I don’t owe Nolan Rhodes, or anyone else, an explanation. Not anymore. I have a town to protect from shitty tourists and an elderly serial killer with memory loss to look after, for fucksakes. I can’t put my whole life on hold for some ridiculously hot psychopath who wants to kill me.
“This is not the best use of my time. So fuck that guy and his murder dimples,” I say to Jake’s severed hand, trying to rid myself of the memory of Nolan’s smile in the coffee shop and the way it ignited a dormant, long-neglected flame in me. I fold Jake’s fingers down, leaving only the middle finger upright in afuck yougesture, then I toss it into Cookie Monster’s hopper. He’s one person to wind up in my woodchipper that I actually do feel a bit bad for, and I’m not even the one who killed him. I mean, he was Creepy Jakey, maybe creepier than I even realized, but he’s from town, and Arthur’s instructions have been explicitly clear.I will keep your secrets, Harper, but you must promise me. Promise me that you’ll always protect this town, no matter what it takes.
I heave a deep, regretful sigh as I watch the machine chewthrough the last of his flesh and bone, spitting it across the tarp. I’m bending to pick up Jake’s head by the hair when it suddenly turns off in an abrupt cessation of sound.
My heart lurches to a halt as I unholster my gun. I drop the head and pick up the bottle of Piss-Off! spray instead as I straighten, both nozzles pointed at the cab of my tractor.
Nolan Rhodes saunters into view, a dark smile coaxing out his deep-set dimples.
“Hello, Harper,” he says, pushing the hood of his sweater down from his damp hair. “I believe you have something of mine that I would like back.”
Morpheus caws a much-delayed warning as I stare down the barrel of the gun, keeping Nolan’s face trained within the sights while I release the safety on the side of the weapon. “I see you got my note. I thought my communication was pretty clear, but if you’re here, I guess it was missing something. So how about this?” I clear my throat, giving him a dramatic pause. “Fuck. Off.Get the fuck out of Cape Carnage and never come back, and I’ll ensure that your book stays safely hidden. Is that clear enough for you this time?”
Nolan’s smile brightens. Something flashes in the dim light at his side. It’s the blade I left behind in his tire, his fist tight around the handle, its deadly edge ready to kill. “I’m not going anywhere just yet. Not until you give me my book.”
“You think I’m just going to hand over my leverage? I’m not giving you shit,” I declare, firming my grip on the gun. “You need to leave, before you get everything even more ass-backwards than you already have. You’re making a mistake. I’m not who you think I am.”
“You’re right. I thought you were acoward, just running fromyour past. Turns out you’re actually a soulless monster.” Nolan scoffs, his eyes slowly dropping to my feet and back up again, a look of disgust surfacing in his expression. For some reason, that hits harder than any of the vitriolic comments he’s made to me in the brief time I’ve known him.
Stalemate.
The word comes out of nowhere and crashes into me with enough force that I nearly lose sight of the present. The voice that delivers it is still so clear in my mind despite the years that have passed, a memory that has no right infiltrating such a fraught moment.
I shake my head only slightly, barely a perceptible motion as I try to rid myself of the echo. I don’t expect Nolan to notice, but I think he does, a crease settling between his brows. It’s not concern, even though it might seem that way on the surface. It’s just confusion—I know that. But even if it was some kind of fleeting wisp of empathy, I don’t want it. Not from him.
I suck in a breath to resume the argument about his trophy scrapbook when another voice interrupts my thoughts.
“Pretty murder bird,” Morpheus says from the garden wall. Our gazes cut toward him as he pecks the last of the morsels off the stone. “Nom, nom.Cis forcookie.”
Morpheus gives three knocking clucks and then mimics the sound of the diesel tractor engine.
Nolan’s eyes slide to the woodchipper and then back to mine, disbelief now mixing with the revulsion that still simmers in his face. “Did you name your woodchipper after the beloved Sesame Street character Cookie Monster and then teach a raven to beg for human snacks made from the people you murdered?”
A thick swallow slides down my throat. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“No,” Nolan says as all the light leaves his eyes. “It’s worse.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Morpheus recites in a painfully accurate replica of my own impersonation of Cookie Monster.
I’m desperate to drag a hand down my face, but I’m unwilling to let go of the gun or the bottle of Piss-Off! Neither feels like enough of a weapon when Nolan stares at me with such unforgiving malice. There’s enough heat in his glare to ignite a violent eruption in a dormant volcano.
“You’re a terrible human being,” he says, as though he’s affirming it to himself as much as he is to me.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I whisper.
“Oh, really? I think I know plenty.” He takes a step closer, and though everything in my body screams at me to run, I stay right where I am with the gun aimed at his face. “I know you kill people and drive away. I know you dispose of dead bodies with a woodchipper.”
“You kill people and make them into a scrapbook, so that’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”
“At least I dispose of them properly. You do realize bone chips don’t just magically disintegrate in the soil, right? I guess I know how you get all those gardening awards now. Maybe the police would like to know too.” Nolan frowns down at the tarp and then over to the beds of freshly planted flowers before he settles his ire back on me. He takes another step closer, his grip tightening on the handle of the knife. “Tell me, do you hunt with the old man? Or is it just his messes that you clean up? Is that why he lets you live in this cottage? Maybe you’re the daughter he always wished he had.”
Bile churns beneath my sternum. I don’t know if he understands what he’s saying, or if it’s just a cruel coincidence. Either way, his words crawl beneath my skin, heating my palm in theglove as I firm my grip on the gun. “Get the fuck off my property and maybe I’ll let you live,” I snarl as he takes another small step closer. I should back away. Or I should shoot him, just accept the risk that the bang will draw the attention of neighbors and tourists staying nearby. I can tear my name out of his book and hand it over as evidence. Work quickly to try to clean up the mess of what’s left of Jake Hornell and hope to fuck Cape Carnage’s inept Sheriff Yates won’t look too closely at anything other than Nolan, the man who was trespassing on Arthur Lancaster’s estate and threatening my life.
I’m still weighing the risks and benefits of shooting Nolan Rhodes in the face when he says something that slices through every thought spiraling through the confines of my skull.
“Since the police can’t seem to solve shit around here, maybe I should just let that amateur investigator Sleuthseekers group know, seeing as how the old man’s already got their attention.”
All the fire that was just coursing through my veins suddenly turns to ice. “What did you say?”
