Chapter Seven
The Social Web
Morning light spilled over the boardwalk like it was trying too hard to be sly while still exposing what no one wanted to see. The harbor gleamed, tourists wandered with forced cheer, and cafés opened their doors as if determined to pretend nothing terrible had happened the night before.
A gentle breeze brushed over Harmony as she sat on the patio of The Brewhouse, fingers wrapped around a warm cup she hadn’t yet tasted.
The world was moving too fast and shining too brightly.
She looked at her friends with a strange, hollow ache.
She was either a writer collecting moments or a friend searching for footing.
She didn’t know which—or if it was something in between.
Cass slid into the seat across from her, dropping her sunglasses onto the table with a tired thud. Her hair was knotted into a rushed, messy bun, strands sticking out like static.
“I hate mornings,” she muttered. “Especially this one.”
Harmony forced a smile. “Some mornings are louder than others.”
“Some are screaming,” Candy said, drifting in with her guitar slung over her shoulder. She perched on the edge of a chair, eyes wide and too soft for the day they were waking up to. “Everyone’s talking. I can’t get away from it. It’s not just the tourists.”
“Of course they’re talking,” Harmony said, shifting in her chair. “Something horrible happened.”
Silence followed, brief but sharp. Torie split it open. Her makeup was flawless; her energy was brittle. She sat like someone had pulled the chair out from under her and forgotten to tell her she hadn’t actually fallen.
“Deputy Evans was watching me,” she said.
Harmony’s stomach tightened.
Being watched had never bothered her until her ex started scrolling through her messages to keep her safe.
Concern had turned into surveillance so gradually that she hadn’t noticed until it was too late.
Now, even worried eyes felt less like protection and more like a spotlight she hadn’t agreed to stand under.
“He was staring like I did something wrong,” Torie whispered, staring at the table. A tear slipped down her cheek.
“No one thinks you did anything,” Cass said automatically, though a flicker of doubt crossed her eyes. “They’re just doing their job. We were all there when Lisa was killed.”
“Right.” Torie’s tone said she didn’t believe it. “Evans and Durante grilled me for an hour. They asked where I was, who I talked to, what I saw. They kept asking the same questions in different ways.” She shook her head. “I was a mess.”
She swallowed. “Evans and Durante did most of the talking. But it was that other one, Ciscel, that got under my skin. He barely said a word. He just watched and wrote, like he was waiting for me to slip.”
Cass’s head came up slowly. “They questioned you for that long?”
“Everyone’s been questioned for that long,” Torie said hoarsely. “That’s the problem.”
Harmony lifted her cup and took a sip. The coffee tasted like sawdust. Her stomach felt hollow, the hum beneath her ribs quiet and steady, like it had no intention of disappearing. A group of tourists walked past, whispering loudly enough to hear the word murder.
Candy flinched. “I don’t want to listen to it anymore.” Her hands shook too much for it to be just a hangover.
“They’re going to keep talking. It’ll get worse,” Torie said, looking more defeated than Harmony had ever seen her.
Cass rubbed her temples. “I’m trying to be positive, but I can’t take much more today.”
Harmony scanned the patio. The place buzzed with life, but the undercurrent had changed. People whispered, but not as quietly as they thought. A woman near the door jumped when a glass dropped and shattered.
Harmony looked down, throat tightening. She’d already taken so many hits this year. The divorce. The stalled career. The best friend. The lingering grief. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take before she shattered, just like the broken glass.
“Are you okay?” The warm voice drifted over her like a calm in the middle of a storm.
Zach.
His presence settled over the table; even Torie straightened a little.
He sat, studying Harmony with those quiet, unsettling eyes of his.
Everyone thought she was the one watching, but Zach saw more than any of them.
If people understood how much he noticed, they’d be far more afraid of him than of her.
Lately, it felt like there were more eyes like that on the island. Zach wasn’t the only one cataloging people. A few faces in town had started to watch the way Harmony did, as if they were taking notes for a story of their own.
Harmony forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
Zach tilted his head, not buying it. “Are you sure?”
She opened her mouth, then froze. For a heartbeat, she was outside herself, watching her own stillness, her own calm. It felt wrong. A tremble flickered under her skin before she shoved the fear down. She smiled again. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’ll be okay when the weariness wears off.” She doubted she sounded convincing, even to herself.
“I don’t like how pale you are.”
“We all look like ghosts,” Torie cut in, cracking the moment.
Harmony tried to laugh. It sounded thin. She stared at her hands instead, pressing her fingertips together until they hurt—just to feel something solid.
Candy’s brow furrowed as if she were listening to something no one else could. Her gaze drifted to the ocean, as if she were trying to answer it. Cass leaned forward.
“We all need to stick together today.” Her voice trembled despite her best effort to sound calm. “I’m scared.”
Harmony nodded, but part of her brain was already rearranging everyone’s reactions into scenes. Grief and story lived too close together inside her now; she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“You’re the one who’s always happy. I can’t imagine you scared,” Torie said. Her eyes flicked over Harmony’s shoulder—fast, nervous—like she expected someone to be standing there.
“Everyone gets scared,” Cass countered. “Some simply hide it better.”
Silence fell again, stretched tight as a rope pulled too hard. Mistrust had settled in the group like fog, but Avalon was small. Either they stayed close, or they’d shatter alone. None of them wanted to believe that one of their own could be a killer.
A police siren wailed somewhere in town, making the moment feel more brittle. Zach’s gaze flicked to the street, then back to Harmony. Something in his expression settled heavy on her skin.
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She pushed her chair back so abruptly that it nearly toppled. Heads turned.
“It’s probably nothing,” Zach said.
“No,” Cass whispered, voice breaking. “Everything is something now.”
A frazzled local hurried past their table, murmuring into her phone.
“Deputy Duong said he believes the killer’s still on the island—of course they are, where else would they go?
He said he and Ciscel were out all night, walking the cliffs like they were trying to feel what the killer felt.
” Her voice dropped. “I don’t know what scares me more, that they’re looking that hard .
. . or that they might know more than they’re telling us. ”
Candy’s breath hitched. “I’m done talking about killers,” she said, her usual sunny tone stripped away.
Her fingers worried the edge of her coffee cup, nails tapping an uneven rhythm.
She refused to look at the water, refused to hold anyone’s gaze for longer than a second.
Harmony wondered if Candy truly didn’t remember anything from that night—or if she remembered too much and couldn’t bear to say it out loud.
Cass reached for Candy’s hand. “We’re safe. We’re together. That’s what matters.”
Harmony slid her hand over Cass’s for a heartbeat, needing the contact more than she wanted to admit.
Torie shook her head, fingers trembling. “Sure. Because staying together worked out great for Lisa.”
Harmony’s stomach twisted. She felt her face tingle; she was certain she’d gone even paler. Zach noticed.
“Harmony, you’re burning yourself out,” he said, reaching for her.
She pulled back before he could touch her, afraid that if someone laid a hand on her, she’d crack apart.
“I know,” she said. She didn’t bother pretending anymore. It was obvious she was anything but okay.
Zach didn’t look away. Heat crawled up her neck. She didn’t want him to see the fractured edges she’d been trying to glue back together for a year.
“I want out of here,” she said quietly. “Please.”
A collective exhale moved through the group.
No one argued. They gathered their things with trembling hands and eyes that refused to connect for more than a heartbeat.
When they stepped outside, the air shifted, just slightly, as if adjusting to their absence.
They walked side by side, but Harmony felt a growing gap between them, like an undertow determined to pull them apart.
By noon, Avalon had already rewritten the story. Maybe Lisa had been sleeping around, and a jealous lover broke. Or maybe, people whispered, it was one of them.
At Maria’s, Mary sat alone at the bar, an untouched glass of white wine in front of her. Harmony slid onto the stool beside her.
“You don’t usually drink this early,” Harmony said.
Mary’s lips curved without humor. “I do now.” The lines around her mouth looked deeper, her beauty carved into something fragile.
“I’m worried about you,” Harmony told her.
Mary didn’t meet her gaze. “She was just a girl,” she murmured. “And they’ll say it was her fault. They always do.”
“You mean Lisa?” Harmony asked.
“I mean all of them,” Mary said. “My daughter, too. They fed her poison and called it a party.” She turned, eyes bright with fury and grief. “They killed her, and now they’ve done it again. The same circle. The same sins.”
Harmony’s pulse thrummed, but her voice stayed soft. “Who’s they?”
Mary looked at her wine. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“You think the murders are connected?”