Chapter 12
The fire crackled and spat an ember that landed near my boot. I nudged it back toward the ring with my toe and drew on my pipe. The tobacco was the same vanilla Cavendish that Grace liked.
The early evening was cool but not cold, the kind of Olympic Peninsula dusk where the air settles in and the trees stand black against a sky that holds its last blue light for a long time before letting go.
Grace sat cross-legged in the camp chair she'd brought from the porch, her hoodie zipped to her chin, a mug of tea cupped in both hands. She'd been telling me about her life before Port Chasten. Not the hard parts. The other parts, the ones that still made her laugh.
"So okay, there's this new club on Capitol Hill, right? Like brand new, just opened, everyone's talking about it. And my friends are all going and I'm running late because I was doing my makeup in the car, which, first mistake."
"In the car?"
"In the car. Parked, at least. I wasn't like doing eyeliner at sixty on the freeway. Give me some credit."
"Some credit given."
"Thank you. So I'm rushing, I do my whole face in like eight minutes in the dark, which honestly is impressive, and I run in and find my friends at the bar.
And they all turn and look at me and their faces just...
" Grace contorted her expression into something between horror and deep concern.
"Like someone told them I had a terminal disease.
And Maya grabs my arm and she's like, 'Grace, oh my God, are you okay?
Do you need to sit down?' And I'm like, what the fuck? I feel great. I just got here."
I pulled the pipe from my mouth. "What was wrong?"
"Nothing was wrong! I felt amazing. But they're all staring at me like I crawled out of the ocean.
So I pull out my phone and flip the camera around to selfie mode.
" Grace paused, her eyes wide with the memory.
"Dude, my lips were completely white. Like dead white.
Like pale, no-color, recently drowned corpse white.
I looked like a ghost that was trying to party. "
"What happened?"
"I accidentally used concealer instead of lipstick. They were the same size tube, same brand, and I was doing my makeup in the dark in my car like a dumbass. So I basically erased my lips. Just smooth, pale, featureless skin from my nose to my chin. I looked like a low-budget horror movie."
I laughed. The image was perfect. Grace's animated face, her wide eyes and expressive mouth, made the story land even harder. I could picture her standing in a club under colored lights, surrounded by concerned friends, her lips the exact color of her foundation.
"I can absolutely see it."
"Oh, it gets worse." Grace held up a finger. "Because then--"
The sound of tires on gravel cut her off. We both turned toward the south as headlights swept through the trees. A vehicle was coming up the drive, moving slowly.
A dark green Range Rover emerged from the shadows and rolled into the clearing.
I felt my jaw tighten. The pipe suddenly tasted bitter in my mouth.
"What the fuckity-fuck?" Grace muttered. "Is that who I think it is?"
"Unfortunately."
The Range Rover came to a stop beside Grace's RAV4. The engine cut off. Harlan Foster stepped out.
He was dressed casually in pressed khakis and a cashmere sweater vest that probably cost six hundred dollars. His silver hair was immaculate. His smile was already in place as he surveyed the clearing.
Harlan's gaze found Grace's RAV4. He studied it. The Washington plates, the sleeping bag visible through the rear window, the milk crate of supplies tucked behind the passenger seat. He took his time with it, cataloging it, before he turned toward the fire pit with a wide smile.
"Evening, Thomas." He walked toward us with the ambling confidence of a man who never had to hurry for others. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything."
I stood. Grace stayed where she was.
"Harlan." I kept my voice flat. "Wasn't expecting you."
"Just happened to be in the area."
He stopped a few feet from the fire pit, hands in his pockets, still smiling that pleasant smile that never quite reached his eyes. His attention shifted to Grace.
"And who might this be? I don't believe we've met. I'm Harlan Foster."
Grace looked at him the way she might look at a spider that had crawled too close to her sleeping bag.
"Grace Kim."
Harlan came over and extended his hand.
"A pleasure to meet you, Grace. What a beautiful name. I'm a neighbor of Thomas's. Own the property that borders his to the northeast."
Grace hesitated, then shook briefly. Her wariness was clear in the set of her shoulders, the way she pulled her hand back quickly.
"Nice to meet you," she said, not meaning it.
"Those solar panels are very impressive, Thomas. Quite an investment."
"They do the job."
"I imagine they do." He nodded slowly, appreciatively, like a man admiring a car he was thinking of buying.
"You know, when we last spoke, you told me you were planning to stay for the long term.
I have to admit, I wasn't sure you were serious.
But this?" He gestured at the panels. "This tells me you meant what you said. "
"I meant it."
Harlan's smile widened. "So I see."
The fire crackled between us. Somewhere in the treeline, my resident owl hooted.
"What are you doing here, Harlan?"
He tilted his head, affecting surprise at my directness.
"Can't a neighbor stop by to check on a neighbor? I heard you've been having some trouble with the county. Power got cut off, from what I understand. That's a hard thing to deal with, especially out here. I thought maybe I could help."
"Help how?"
"I know people in the county office. Have for years." He shrugged, all casual helpfulness. "A word in the right ear, a phone call or two. These bureaucratic tangles have a way of working themselves out when the right people get involved."
I took a long pull on my pipe and let the smoke out slowly.
"I know you have connections, Harlan. That's exactly why my power got cut off. Because of you."
"Now, Thomas, let's not get hasty."
"Just like you did to Abner, years ago. Same county office. Same convenient electrical code problems."
Harlan's hand went to his chest in a gesture of wounded innocence.
"That is a baseless accusation. I've done nothing to you. And I certainly haven't done anything to Abner Flint. The man has been operating outside the law for years. If the county finally decided to enforce its regulations, that's hardly my fault."
"Abner told me otherwise."
"Thomas, I say this with genuine respect for the man's service to this country, but Abner Flint is a crazy hermit living in the woods with his goats. He sees conspiracies in his breakfast cereal."
"He seems pretty clear-headed to me."
"Does he?" Harlan's smile turned sly. "Though I suppose I can understand why you might want to stay on his good side.
That daughter of his is quite pretty, isn't she?
Liberty, I think her name is? Lovely name for a lovely girl.
Maybe that's why you've been spending so much time with good old Abner? "
Heat rose in my chest. I felt my hands clench at my sides.
"You're interrupting our evening uninvited." I kept my voice level through sheer force of will. "Say what you came to say."
Harlan studied me for a long moment. The false pleasantness drained from his face like water running out of a sink. What remained was something harder, colder. His eyes narrowed.
"Fine." He clasped his hands behind his back. "I'll be direct. I'm prepared to increase my offer for your property. Six hundred thousand dollars, even. That's a hundred and fifty thousand more than you paid for it. Fifty thousand more than I offered last time."
"That's why you came? To tell me that?"
"My last, best offer." He nodded. "Take it, Thomas. Take the money and leave your troubles behind. Go back to Tacoma, or Seattle, or wherever you came from. Buy yourself a nice condo with a view of the water. Let someone else deal with the headaches of owning land out here."
The fire popped. A shower of sparks rose into the darkness.
"I'm not selling."
Harlan didn't react. He just stood there, watching me with those cold eyes.
"Sure?"
"I'm very sure."
"Well, the offer stands," he said quietly. "If anything should happen to change your mind."
"That sounds like a threat."
He laughed, a short bark that held no humor.
"Don't be dramatic, Thomas. This is an old property.
Old properties have problems. Things go wrong.
Pipes freeze, roofs leak, wells dry up. Sometimes the county finds code violations that have been there for decades.
Sometimes insurance gets complicated." He spread his hands.
"I'm just saying that life out here can be difficult.
And if it gets too difficult, you know where to find me. "
I said nothing. Grace was watching the exchange with wide eyes, her body tense in her chair.
Harlan smiled again, that pleasant mask sliding back into place.
"Well. I'll let you think it over." He turned to Grace. "It was nice meeting you, Miss Kim. I hope you both enjoy your evening."
He took a few steps back toward his Range Rover, then stopped. Turned. His posture was casual, his voice light, as if he had just remembered something unimportant.
"Oh, one more thing. I heard there's been some young kid snooping around the county records office lately. Asking questions. Pulling files." He paused. "Asking about me by name. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Thomas?"
I kept my face neutral. "Can't say that I do."
Harlan held my gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"Port Chasten is a small town. People talk. And when outsiders start stirring up trouble, asking questions about things that don't concern them..." He let the sentence trail off. "Well. It has a way of getting back to the people they're asking about."
"Is that some kind of warning?"