Page 65 of Tourist Season
I do my best to keep my smile consistent, despite the cutting edge that threatens to creep across my face. “Great. Very relaxing.” Sam’s eyes track down to the bruise on my arm and narrow. It’s too late to hide it, so I turn my arm so he can get a better look. “Even got some mountain biking in. Albeit not always successfully.”
Sam’s head tilts. I don’t like this level of scrutiny that he doesn’t even seem eager to hide. “You brought a mountain bike here from Tennessee?”
Shit.
“I rented one,” I reply.
His head tilts the other way. “Oh really? Where from? I used to compete in single track. Wouldn’t mind hitting some trails on the coastline in my spare time.”
Double shit.
I lean back in my chair and take another sip of my tea, letting an untroubled smile drift into my features. “Wallie from Wallie’s Watersports hooked me up. I’m sure he could help you out.”
Sam’s head rights itself, complete with a smile that looks a little too predatory for my liking. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and he won’t call me on my lie. But, somehow, I think he’s too thorough for that.
“Good to know. Well,” he says, placing his Porter Productions ball cap on his head, “I’d better run. See you around.” With alittle salute, Sam pivots and starts walking toward the door. But he only takes a few steps before he turns to face me once more. My stomach drops through my torso at the glint I catch in his eyes. “One more question,” he says, barely able to contain the smile that lights up his face with too much electrified energy. He jerks his chin in my direction, his eyes fused to my elbow. “Does Wallie rent out padding, too? The granite around here is pretty unforgiving. Wouldn’t want to sideline myself with an injury when I have so much work to do, you know …? Say … is that how you got that nasty scar? Mountain biking?”
“No,” I say, that single word hanging in the air as I lay my napkin next to my empty plate. I slide my hand back under the table, clenching my fist in the shadows.
“A story for another time, I guess.” Sam tips the brim of his hat, and when I give him the slightest nod in reply, he turns on his heel and leaves.
I watch the door, barely blinking. When I’m sure he won’t traipse back through it, I stride to my room with singular focus guiding my path. As soon as I have my tools in hand, I head to the opposite side of the hotel, taking the steps to the second floor by twos. When I arrive at Room 202, I cast a quick look over my shoulder and then slide the snap gun and pin into the lock. With just a few clicks, the mechanism inside the lock gives way.
I push the door open just enough to scan the darkened interior, and then I slip into Sam’s hotel room.
Sam has a smaller room than mine, and he doesn’t keep it very organized. His luggage is propped open, clothes strewn haphazardly in its interior and hanging off the lid. Papers are scattered across the desk. A small printer sits on the dresser next to discarded socks and stacks of fresh paper. The scent of stale foodlingers in the stagnant air. There’s a tangle of charging cables and extra camera batteries plugged into the wall sockets. A pizza box sits on the counter of the little kitchenette, dirty dishes piled onto its grease-stained lid.
I crinkle my nose as I survey the space, then head toward the desk.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I just know I needsomething. An indication of what he’s really after. A next move. Something that will tell me how to protect Harper.
The first papers I skim are notes about shots he’s already taken for the documentary, places for cuts and voice-overs. There’s a log of dates and locations, including Lancaster Manor and the Ballantyne River property. A list of names for interview subjects.
I skim paper after paper, but nothing clicks into place.
Not until I find a printout of a tide chart. Low tides and high tides. Times of day. Measurements in feet and meters.
At the next spring tide, Arthur Lancaster’s biggest secret will surface, and even he doesn’t realize just how big it is, Sam’s words from the day I saw him filming Lancaster Manor in the fog hook into my thoughts, refusing to come loose.
I take out my phone and capture a photo of the chart, then move on to the next paper in the stack, this one a grainy, black-and-white photograph that’s been blown up so that it focuses on the background of the shot and not its subjects. The edge of the social media platform frame is still visible on the bottom half of the page, the username partially cut off, but still legible. The focal point in the center of the paper is a slice of the coastline, the cliffs plunging into the sea. The water has peeled back from the stone, leaving a sliver of glistening beach behind. And peeking from theedge of the waves, reaching from the shallows, is something buried in the sand. Something unnatural, made by a human hand. The distinctive top of what looks like a crumpled camper van.
My frown deepens and I flip the page over. There are dates scrawled on the back beneath a header that says,Spring Tides, Extreme Lows. And then a list.
May 11th. May 27th. June 10th. June 25th. July 11th.
The dates extend all the way to the end of August, following the cyclical progression of low spring tides, when the sun, moon, and Earth are in a straight line to exert the most force on ocean waters. But it’s the next upcoming date that concerns me the most. It’s circled, and beneath it:
5:32 AM low tide, 44.6692° N, 67.2594° W
I take a picture of both sides of the page, then I flip through the next papers. A few are old photos of a younger Arthur. A couple are newspaper articles from when Arthur’s daughter was murdered. And then I find something that chills my blood into jagged crystals of ice.
Photographs of Harper.
Harper walking down the street in her plaid shirt. Harper hanging baskets of flowers on Main Street. Harper buying supplies at Craft-A-Corpse, a fake torso tucked under her arm, mannequin limbs jutting from the bag in her other hand. Harper in the skirt she wore last night, waiting in line outside the theater. The pages have been printed out from digital images, the back of each one labeled with notes. Dates. Times. Locations. Observations abouther mood or behavior.Looks upset, maybe crying, walking fast, leaving Maya’s Magical Mixtures, the note says on the back of the photo of her in the plaid shirt. Even notes about her mannerisms.Biting her bottom lip.Anxious? Check against older videos.
My hands shake with the effort of not tearing the paper to shreds.
Sam Porter shouldn’t know these intimate details. What she looks like when she’s upset. How her eyes seem to glow when she’s angry. That she was in tears when she left our conversation at Maya’s shop. That she bites her lip when she’s worried. He has no right to know these things. To follow her. Watch her. Hoard these little details. He hasn’t earned them. Not her ephemeral trust, not her fierce loyalty. She didn’t give those to him. Not like she has to me.
