Chapter Four
Flirting with the Truth
As the sun dipped low, the unlikely group of friends packed up and drove the short stretch to Two Harbors.
The outdoor bar was a patchwork of tables, set beneath string lights, the scent of grilled citrus heavy in the air.
Live music pulsed through the twilight—a man with a steel guitar and a voice full of longing serenaded the large crowd, each note shimmering above the hum of conversation.
Near the edge of the deck, Harmony noticed a familiar tan jacket draped over the back of a barstool.
Deputy Ciscel sat there out of uniform, a baseball cap pulled low, nursing a beer alone.
For a moment, his gaze slid over their group, pausing on her a heartbeat longer than seemed necessary before he turned back to the water as if he’d never been looking at all.
Few could drive here; the only other way in was by boat or helicopter. Yet the place was packed. How did so many discover this hidden jewel, nestled in an already secretive paradise? The thought fascinated Harmony.
“Now this,” Cass said, taking Harmony’s hand, “is therapy.”
She pulled Harmony to the middle of the deck, and they began dancing, spinning, and laughing as rum spilled down their wrists. Even Mary joined in, her hair wild, her laugh startlingly young.
Tosh and Torie moved together, hips close, whispering things no one could hear. For a moment, it looked like love. Then it looked like a dare. They might fight a hell of a lot, but when they came together, they burned so hot that anyone near them might ignite.
Zach caught Harmony by the hand, twirling her once before Cass swept in, stealing him away with a laugh. He dipped Cass low; her long blonde hair sweeping out, catching the attention of several men who watched from the sidelines.
Joe clapped along to the beat, watching Mary dance, the admiration in his eyes as clear as the moonlight. Mary didn’t look back once at the poor man. Her smile belonged to the sea, not the living.
When the song slowed, Mary leaned close to Harmony. “It’s all about balance. Remember that, and you make it another day.”
The way she said balance made it sound less like a coping mechanism and more like an equation she’d already worked out to the very last decimal.
Harmony felt the words slip beneath her skin like a secret. She nodded, understanding. It was a balancing act, and whoever was still standing in the end was the winner.
Zach wrapped his arms around Harmony again as he grinned. “We’re surviving another day on the island.” She let herself lean into him for half a breath before pulling back, not trusting how steady it made her feel.
“Barely,” Harmony said, the buzz of alcohol making her feel too good to stop. It muted the voices in her head and allowed her to live in the moment.
Zach grinned. “You make surviving look easy,” Zach countered, swinging her out before pulling her back in.
“That’s because I’m very good at pretending to be human.”
“Pretending is what makes the world turn, especially on this island,” he said. “The rest is in knowing when to stop.”
“Do you know when?” she countered.
He laughed. “Not yet.”
Cass spun between them, laughing. “Stop philosophizing and dance!” she demanded. They did just that. The song ended, and Harmony made her way back to Mary.
“Thank you for bringing us. It’s been an absolutely perfect day that we all really needed,” Harmony said.
Mary gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. For a moment, the lively mask she wore slipped, revealing the internal struggle she was fighting. She might be free for short stretches, but she couldn’t keep her demons down for long.
“I love that you’re here. It helps. Sometimes, being alone makes it impossible to keep my head from spinning, to stop the thoughts.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Harmony said. She lifted her glass and clinked it against Mary’s. “Maybe it’s better to embrace the demons than to fight them.”
Mary smiled more genuinely this time. “I think you might be right.”
They eventually found a table and settled down.
Candles flickered, casting halos that trembled in the sea breeze.
Salt clung to their skin, and rum sweat glistened on every glass.
Lights blinked above, looking like lazy stars.
The music drifted low, making conversation easier.
A slow guitar strummed a melody that had people unconsciously leaning toward one another.
Torie tipped her head toward Harmony. “Are we all characters in your newest book? Or are we disposable?”
Harmony smiled and took another sip of her drink. Her brain was sufficiently foggy, which made her too honest. “It depends. Do you want to be a heroine or a villain?”
“Can’t I be both?” Torie asked. “Don’t men love a woman they should run from?”
Mary laughed, her eyes flaring. “They do until the woman turns and catches them.”
Tosh grinned. “Don’t listen to her. Some of us love a good chase.”
“Some of us like a good kill,” Mary said.
The table went silent a second too long before she smiled to soften the words.
Harmony’s gaze flicked toward Ciscel’s table. He wasn’t laughing with anyone; he was just watching, eyes hooded, like a man who’d heard the punchline before and was waiting to see who else caught up.
Cass laughed first. “Remind me not to play any games with you people.”
Joe raised his beer. “To the survival of the drunkest.”
They clinked glasses and drank, their laughter easing back. Zach leaned closer to Harmony, his voice a low hum.
“Do you really put everyone you meet in those notebooks?”
“Only the interesting ones.”
“Then I’m certainly in there,” he said with confidence.
“Maybe,” she said. “Depends on how much you’re hiding.”
For a fraction of a second, something flickered in his eyes—gone too fast to name—before the easy grin snapped back into place.
She looked at him with secrets in her eyes. “You’d be surprised where people end up.”
“Promise?”
Cass flicked a peanut at him. “Careful, builder. She’s brutal.”
Zach laughed, not at all intimidated. “Then I’m absolutely perfect material.”
Tosh looked at Zach. “Never trust a writer on vacation. They steal your best sins for plot twists.”
Harmony smiled, but as laughter lingered, she felt something in the twitching of her lips—rehearsed, not real. The outward ease didn’t match the quiet uncertainty building inside her.
Torie’s hand slid onto Tosh’s thigh, nails grazing higher with each pass. “You still haven’t told the Vegas story,” she said. His phone lit up. Torie looked. Her smile wobbled, then steadied like she was forcing it back into place.
He groaned. “You promised to forget about that.”
“I promised to forgive. Forgetting is highly overrated.”
“Then I’m doomed,” he said, kissing her wrist.
“You were doomed the day you met me,” she assured him.
She was right.
Cass sighed. “You two are intoxicating. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
“This isn’t anything,” Mary said, refilling her glass. “Romance is simply pretending or trying to get something from someone.”
Joe smiled. “Do you ever date, Mary? Accept some romance for yourself?”
“Once or twice. Never again.”
Tosh leaned forward. “What secrets are you hiding?”
“I have plenty of them,” she said. “None that you could handle.”
“Try me,” Tosh countered.
Mary’s eyes softened before she turned away. “You couldn’t afford the price.” She paused. “Some debts don’t get paid in money,” she added, so low that Harmony almost missed it. “They get paid on time.”
Zach gave a low whistle. “I’ll drink to that.”
They all did. The candles burned lower, their light painting everyone in shades of gold and shadow.
Torie rested her chin on Tosh’s shoulder, whispering something that made him laugh.
Cass told a story about sneaking into a casino as teenagers, and Harmony caught herself laughing, truly feeling like part of the group, her mind finally shutting down.
She wanted to fully let go, but she didn’t know how.
Maybe one day on the island, she’d learn.
Then Mary spoke again, voice sure. “Do you know what the problem with paradise is?”
Joe looked up. “What?”
“Everything grows too well,” she said. “Even the rot.”
The words silenced the table. The wind lifted the candle flames, stretching them tall before letting them flicker down again.
Cass reached for the bottle. “Then here’s to rot,” she said lightly. “May it make the flowers bloom.”
Everyone laughed again, but their laughter sounded softer this time, touched by an awareness that paradise always exacted a price. The mood at the table shifted subtly as they acknowledged what lingered beneath the evening’s joy.
The drive back to Avalon was subdued. The ocean glowed faintly in the moonlight, silver and secretive. Harmony’s hair smelled of salt and smoke. Her skin hummed with rum and stories she hadn’t yet written.
Headlights appeared in the rearview more than once, then vanished around curves. Once, as Mary checked her mirror, Harmony caught the brief glint of a light bar and the boxy outline of a deputy’s SUV before it backed off and disappeared into the dark.
Mary dropped everyone off in the center of town. Tosh and Torie were the last to leave, still whispering against each other’s lips.
Harmony lingered on the steps of her cottage, the night pressing close.
Through the open window of Tosh’s bungalow, she saw Torie sitting on the edge of his bed, his phone glowing in her hand.
Torie’s face was tight, her breath shallow—emotion gathering in her features as she scrolled, her eyes wide, then frozen.
Harmony didn’t move. She simply watched, feeling the shift from carefree evening to a sudden, private tension.
Her first instinct was to look away, to give Torie privacy. Her second was to memorize the angle of Torie’s jaw, the tremble in her mouth—pain was always easiest to read in profile.
Torie’s lips parted as she let the pain show.
Harmony stepped back into the darkness. She felt a storm brewing. Jealousy could be a cold bitch. Once it started, there was no stopping it. It would be one hell of a show.
Somewhere nearby, a door shut softly, like someone else had decided they’d seen enough.
From up the hill, a car door slammed. Harmony glanced toward the road, but whoever it was stayed out of sight.
Voices carried faintly on the night air, then quieted, as if whoever had arrived chose to listen rather than leave.
She moved away from the cottage, the sea calling to her. The island was once again quiet, with most people inside. The tide rolled against the rocks with the same ancient rhythm, the one that made Harmony’s pulse match its beat.
For a fleeting moment, as she walked along the shore, she almost felt human again.
She was warm from rum, dizzy from laughter, and full of something that might be joy.
But she couldn’t fully relax—not when she could feel something in the air.
There were eyes on her from somewhere high above the cliffs.
It was something cold, still . . . and patient.
The island might rest, but it never slept. Neither did its storyteller. Someone was always watching from high above with eyes as cold as glass.
Harmony couldn’t tell if those eyes belonged to the sea, to a deputy lingering on patrol, or to someone like her, cataloging every move and waiting for the right moment to turn it into a story.