Chapter Seven #2
“It’s a small place,” Mary said. “Small enough that the same people keep ending up in the middle of everything. Same faces. Same uniforms. Same shrugs.”
Maybe it was just that when a person lost as much as Mary, they saw patterns everywhere. Harmony couldn’t fault her for that.
A stool down, Sue was talking to a couple.
She wore a short platinum wig today—it changed every few days.
No one seemed to know her real hair color, or how many of the stories were real.
Some said she’d been an actress. Others whispered she’d come to the island to disappear.
A few swore she was a witch. She loved every rumor.
Her laughter was light, but her gaze kept flicking to Leo, the tattooed pool shark who sometimes called her his. Matt walked up and joined them, his easy gait hiding the weight of a hundred tasks he needed to finish before sunset. Avalon might be shaken, but people still had work to do.
Mary went quiet. Harmony rubbed her back once in silent acknowledgement, then moved away with Cass.
“How are you doing today?” Sue asked when they reached her.
“I’ve been better,” Harmony admitted.
“I’m doing terrible,” Cass said.
“I’m sorry,” Matt said, giving them a concerned look.
“Being a writer means I don’t handle it well when I’m not controlling the outcome,” Harmony said. “This isn’t something I get to have a say in.”
Matt gave a small smile. “There’s only one person controlling anything in this situation.” Instinctively, he glanced toward the street, where a patrol car eased past Maria’s before rolling on. Harmony couldn’t tell if he meant the killer, the cops, or the island itself.
Sue nodded. “They’ll figure out who it is. We need to have patience.”
“I guess so,” Harmony replied.
They said their goodbyes and left the restaurant.
“I’ve always liked Sue,” Harmony said as they walked. “She’s everything people pretend not to be. She doesn’t try to control the ending.”
“Do you think that means she could be dangerous?” Cass asked.
“No,” Harmony said. She mostly believed it. Still, she knew Sue could be dangerous if pushed too far. A lot of people on the island were like that. They were one word away from snapping. That edge was what kept Harmony coming back. She waited for the snap with a little too much anticipation.
The day slipped into night. The island tried on normal again as music spilled from Luau Larry’s, mixing with salt air and gossip. Ceiling fans spun lazily above the haze of laughter, every chuckle a little too forced.
Tosh held court at the bar, tourists laughing loud enough to sound like denial.
Torie sat beside him with Janet on her other side.
Janet was demure, but her eyes were tired, as if she’d seen this show too many times.
Her fiancé, Jim, sat farther down, talking to Ziad about airplanes, safely removed from the emotional fallout.
Torie looked like she’d been drinking for hours. With her, that was a warning sign. She could go from charming to explosive in a single drink. Janet’s hand rested near Torie’s wrist like she was ready to steady her if she toppled.
Janet sighed when someone leaned down and whispered in Torie’s ear. Torie looked up just in time to see Tosh lay his hand on another woman’s thigh. He hadn’t grieved long.
“Why does she let him do that?” Cass whispered.
“Because she’s in love with him,” Harmony answered.
“With Tosh?”
“With the idea of him,” Harmony said. “Different addictions. Same ending.”
Tosh’s gaze drifted across the bar and found Harmony’s.
For one brief moment, she saw sorrow there, raw and unguarded.
He blinked, and it vanished, leaving something else in its place.
Guilt, maybe. But guilt for what? Before she could decide, the blonde beside him tugged his attention back, and the moment broke.
Mario leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, watching the room with a gentle smile that reached his eyes. You never knew what he was thinking. That was part of his charm.
“You ladies good?” he asked.
“Always,” Cass said brightly. She was faking it. Cass refused to live inside sadness for long; if it got too close, she outran it with glitter and jokes.
Mario chuckled. “Good. Stay that way. The island’s restless tonight.”
As he spoke, Harmony caught a flash of tan and green near Serpentine Wall, a deputy pausing just long enough to scan the bar before moving away. She couldn’t tell which one it was. Lately, the uniforms seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once.
Candy was singing again, barefoot, swaying like she could outdance her own heartbeat. Her voice cracked beautifully on the high notes. When she finished, Tosh applauded first, smiling too brightly.
Torie didn’t clap at all. Janet murmured something, trying to soothe her, but Torie’s eyes stayed locked on Candy, betrayal and exhaustion written all over her features. Janet’s expression held sympathy and resignation; there was only so much she could do for a friend determined to break herself.
Torie turned at last, her gaze catching Harmony’s.
“Why are you always studying us like microbes on a slide?” she asked while swirling her drink. Her eyeliner was smudged like she’d been crying most of the day.
Harmony offered a small, empathetic smile and didn’t bother denying it. “Someone needs to capture the chaos.”
“Do you capture it,” Torie asked, “or control it?”
“I don’t want to control anyone,” Harmony said. “I just write what I see and hope I can make the moment last.”
Torie shook her head and turned away.
After a while, the noise became too much. Harmony slipped out of Luau Larry’s without anyone noticing. They were too wrapped up in their own storms. Before the murder, a person could disappear in Avalon without fear. Now, every shadow felt like a choice.
She passed a couple near the alley, faces close, their voices low and urgent. Harmony paused, waiting for the argument to erupt. Instead, the woman laughed and threw her arms around the man, her new engagement ring flashing in the light.
Harmony blinked, shaken by how wrong she’d read the situation. It wasn’t often she misjudged people. Being unsettled enough to doubt her instincts scared her more than she wanted to admit. She’d already lost too much; she couldn’t lose the way she saw the world, too.
She walked a long stretch of quiet streets in The Flats before she found Zach working on a deck by lantern light. Dirt and sweat clung to him like part of his uniform. His movements were slow and deliberate.
“You’re working late,” she said.
He didn’t look up right away. “It’s calmer at night,” he said. “Most people are asleep.” A beat. “Or they pretend to be.”
His gaze flicked past her shoulder into the darkness beyond the lantern’s reach, like he was making sure they were truly alone.
“Do you ever tire of fixing things?” she asked.
He smiled faintly. “Things break. It’s what I do.”
Her eyes dropped to his hands—rough, strong, scarred—with fresh scratches near the knuckles. The skin was reddened in a way that said recent. A tool? A fall? Or something else? When he flexed his fingers, the tendons jumped as if he’d strained them.
“That looks painful.”
He glanced at his hands like he hadn’t realized they’d been noticed. “Tools bite back sometimes.”
His words were light; his tone wasn’t. Harmony heard the lie and filed it away. She didn’t push. Not yet.
“People bite, too,” Harmony said.
He held her gaze for a long moment. The air between them stilled. He spoke in short sentences, but his eyes told entire stories. Harmony wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to read them all. She wasn’t sure she should.
He went back to work, releasing her from his attention as easily as he’d captured it.
She sat for a while, watching his muscles flex in the lantern glow as he set each board. There was something mesmerizing about construction. With the right tools in the correct hands, anything could be made whole again.
She left without saying goodbye. In Avalon, there was rarely a need. The island was a loop. People circled back whether they meant to or not. If she was going to get lost anywhere, this was the place for it.
***
Days blurred.
Everyone acted slightly wrong.
Mary drank before noon. Candy’s songs sounded like goodbyes. Torie followed Tosh when she thought no one was watching. Zach vanished with a tool belt and excuse. Cass smiled without letting it touch her eyes. And Harmony moved among them, collecting stories.
The investigation became entertainment. Theories were traded over cocktails. A stranger. A jealous lover. Someone local. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had something to hide.
One night, Cass caught Harmony scribbling in her notebook, and frowned.
“What are you writing?” she asked.
Harmony smiled without looking up. “Nothing and everything. I’m trying to understand the change in the air.”
“Maybe you should stop trying,” Cass said. “Whatever this place is doing to people, it’s catching.”
Harmony’s eyes lifted slowly, pen still poised. “Then I guess I’ve already got it,” she said lightly.
Outside, a car door shut somewhere down the hill, followed by the low murmur of a voice she couldn’t quite make out. For a second, it felt like someone else was narrating her night from just beyond the glass.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” Cass said.
“I don’t think anyone has an answer,” Harmony replied.
Outside the windows, the island glowed under the moon—beautiful, fragile, unforgiving. From somewhere near the cliffs, waves slammed into rock, a steady pulse beneath the quiet. Avalon kept moving, as if pretending made it normal.
Ink pooled at the edge of the last word Harmony had written. She felt eyes behind her, though the room was empty. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it was emptiness. Maybe it was simply that she felt alone even when surrounded.
Harmony closed her notebook and stared through the glass, imagining the people she’d begun to catalog:
Mary — Vengeful and sad
Candy — Held together with glue
Torie — Unraveling
Zach — Hiding
Tosh — Guilty of everything and nothing
Janie — Manipulative
Harmony — Always listening.
Deputy Ciscel — Watching.
That last one gave her chills. She hadn’t yet decided if that made her safer . . . or the opposite.
Every story had a narrator. But who, she wondered, was telling the truth? And when the truth finally surfaced, how would the people handle it? How would the story be told?
That was the answer she was searching for—and the one she feared she might never get.