Chapter Thirty-One
The Parts We Play
Harmony walked through the restless streets of Avalon like it was a funeral too many people had tried to organize—too many hands on the casket, making it all chaotic. She smiled at shopkeepers, nodded at tourists, and offered easy hellos to strangers. On the surface, she was the same familiar face.
She scanned, studied, remembered. Everyone believed the killer lived in the shadows. Harmony knew better. Danger liked the spotlight; it was simply patient enough to wait for its cue.
She turned a corner and nearly collided with Tosh.
“Dammit, Harmony,” he muttered, jerking back, coffee sloshing. “You just don’t get it. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Harmony lifted a brow. “But it’s fine for you?”
“Funny.” His mouth twisted. “I’m not in danger. They’ve only targeted women so far.”
“There’s always a first,” she said.
He glared.
“You’re running out of friends and lovers. That should scare you,” she told him.
She held his gaze, unflinching.
Tosh’s jaw hardened. “You say whatever foul thing you want like nothing can touch you. But someday, you’re going to learn that people keep lists, Harmony. You’re on theirs. They see you.”
“Let them see me,” she replied. “They can talk all they want. They’re still scared and doing nothing about it.”
He looked at her like he didn’t recognize the woman he’d once been close to. “Are you really this twisted, or is it an act?”
“You want tears? Should I fake heartbreak for people I barely spoke to?” she shot back. “Fear makes people show who they really are. I’m not scared, and I don’t believe in lying. I am who I am, and I’m done pretending.”
“Fear is killing people,” he snapped.
He then turned and stalked away, shoulders tense.
Maybe it should worry her how easily she could compartmentalize fragile emotions. She paused, sensing how detached she’d become. Maybe the impact would eventually hit her, but right now, numbness wrapped around her like armor.
If Tosh was right, though, and people were noticing, then maybe the problem, in their eyes, could be her.
Maybe she needed to step in front of the story before it turned on her. Decide whether she would be perceived as the monster—or the one who survived the monsters.
She didn’t have the answers yet. She only knew that she didn’t want anyone else writing her ending.
***
Mary’s home smelled like coffee and cinnamon. Zach stood near the window, his arms crossed, watching her pace. Turbulence rolled off her in waves. It hummed in her voice, lived in the tremor of her hand. When it broke, no one would be safe.
“Are you saying you heard someone?” he asked.
“I didn’t hear,” she told him. “I felt someone. There’s a big difference.”
Zach rubbed his jaw. “Mary, you’ve been through hell and crawled out the other side. That scars even the strongest person. You need to rest.”
She stopped pacing and drilled him with a glare.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m fragile, Zach.
You saw what this place did to my daughter.
You watched them sweep it under the rug.
Now it’s the same routine with these murders.
” She leaned forward, voice sharpening. “Everyone’s hands are bloody. Time to snap out of denial.”
Zach said nothing.
“Exactly!” Mary continued. “You know this isn’t me losing it. There’s a sickness on this island. It’s simply wearing a new mask now. It’s always been here, and every so often it rises to the surface.” She took a long breath. “This time, it isn’t being buried. Now it wants to be seen.”
She rubbed her temple as if trying to ease out a thought that didn’t belong to her. “It keeps pushing,” she said under her breath. “Like it wants me to look where no one is willing to.”
He hesitated. “What do you want me to do?”
Mary poured another cup of coffee—black and bitter, exactly how she felt. “I want you to help me find out who’s lying.”
Zach gave a short, humorless laugh. “All of them are lying.” He paused. “For that matter, we’re lying. Everyone is.”
Mary wondered if he was including himself or trying very hard not to. “Then we start with the worst of them,” Mary said. A satisfied smile curved. “We start with Harmony.”
He frowned. “Harmony? You think she’s involved?” He clearly didn’t think so.
“I think she’s controlling it,” Mary said. “Everything escalated after she arrived. She’s always watching, always writing, always judging. She knows everything that happens, but somehow knows nothing about the deaths?” Mary rolled her eyes. “I’m not buying it.”
Zach shook his head. “I don’t know, Mary. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“You like her, so you’re blind,” she shot back. “You’ve always trusted me. Do it now.”
“I do trust you,” he said. “But I think you’re chasing the wrong shadow and letting the real killer slip by.”
“Then we’ll move on to the next person,” Mary said.
Zach looked defeated. He didn’t argue.
“Are you coming with me or not?” she asked while grabbing her coat.
He sighed. “I’ll come. I still think it’s a foolish mission, though.”
“Well then, here’s to fools and beggars.”
They left her home.
***
The patio at the Bellanca Hotel bar on the end of Crescent Avenue was warm, the late-afternoon air heavy with the scent of gin, sunscreen, and gossip. Harmony and Cass sat with drinks in hand. Day drinking had stopped needing excuses.
“Damn, I’m tired,” Cass muttered. “Every time I close my eyes, I see Candy’s face.”
“Choose not to,” Harmony said. “The dead love an audience. If you stop watching, they need to find another stage.”
Cass shuddered. “You say things like that and then expect me to sleep. That only makes it worse.”
“Sleep will come when the body gives up,” Harmony replied. “Don’t turn Candy into something she wasn’t. The dead always become martyrs, but most don’t deserve it.”
“She wasn’t perfect, but no one deserves to go out the way she did,” Cass argued.
Harmony sat back. “Why? What makes her so special?”
“That’s awful, Harm. Don’t you remember my mom always said we shouldn’t speak badly of the dead?”
“She was also realistic and knew that most didn’t deserve hero worship,” Harmony argued.
“She doesn’t deserve to have her name smeared either,” Cass argued.
Harmony shrugged. “She had a lot of demons. Now she’s gone. People die every day—natural causes, murder, accidents. It doesn’t make them special. It just means they’re remembered for a while before they’re eventually forgotten.”
Cass’s eyes filled. The glitter wasn’t from sunlight. “So you think your dad and my mom should be forgotten?”
Harmony’s expression softened, the blow landing where it hurt most. Regret flickered across her face as she recognized Cass’s pain, feeling her own defenses falter. “Good point.”
She looked down as sadness gripped her, sharp and familiar. A sudden ache rose in her chest. When she met Cass’s eyes again, the anger between them had dissolved into something quieter, the tension replaced by shared understanding.
Cass reached for her hand. “Sorry, I’m on edge.”
“I deserved that,” Harmony said. She sighed. “I go cold sometimes. Otherwise, I feel too much. It’s easier to feel nothing.”
“I know. We’re all jumpy right now,” Cass said.
They sat in silence, trying to sort through fear, grief, and exhaustion. Nothing was settled.
“Who do you think did it?” Cass asked.
“It could be anyone,” Harmony said.
“Do you think Torie’s capable?”
Harmony smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I think we’re all capable. The real question is who’s willing.”
Cass swallowed. “I don’t know.”
They leaned back, both turning to watch the calm waves gently lapping at the shore. Avalon looked deceptively normal, like the island hadn’t been cracked open.
They both knew that could change in a heartbeat.
***
“You never change!” Torie yelled.
She and Tosh stood near the small stage in the middle of town, the ocean lapping behind them, the air humming with the buzz of nearby voices and music.
“You can’t charm your way out of it this time. I’m done, Tosh.”
“You’re drunk again,” he said tightly. “You need to sober up.” He looked like he wanted to be any other place than where he was.
“You’re always drunk. You just fake sober better than me,” Torie spat, jabbing a finger hard against his chest. “We’re all marionettes, and you don’t even fight the strings.” Her voice sliced through the air, loud enough that nearby tables fell silent, ears straining for more.
Tosh rolled his eyes. “If you were paying attention—or capable of seeing anything beyond your own reflection—you’d have noticed that I haven’t touched alcohol in two weeks. I’m not an idiot, Torie. I do see what’s happening. The difference is that I give a shit about someone other than myself.”
Harmony and Cass stood off to the side, watching. Harmony was calm as ever, her composure nearly unsettling, while Cass wrung her hands, anxious. Every word was another spark on a fire that was growing by the hour.
“They’re going to kill each other,” Cass whispered.
“They might. I don’t see how they both survive this.”
“Should we step in?” Cass asked.
“We’ve tried. It only delays the inevitable. The only thing that will stop them is never seeing each other again—and we both know that’s never going to happen,” Harmony said.
“You’re right. It never does any good talking to either of them,” Cass said with a sigh.
“I love that you care so much, Cass.”
“I love people. I hate drama. You love people, too. But, you absolutely relish drama.”
Harmony laughed. “As long as I’m not in the center of it. Drama eventually forces balance. It’s when we never let the pressure out that things explode.”
Tosh spun away, jaw clenched, storm boiling in every step. Torie chased after, her words snapping like lit matches. She was playing with fire—and it was only a matter of which one burned first.
***
Late that night, Zach and Mary stood outside Harmony’s cottage, the fog thick as smoke, helping to hide them. Zach looked deeply uncomfortable. Mary was practically giddy as they continued their mission.
“Do you really think we should be doing this?” he asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
Mary nodded. “I know she’s hiding something. I want to see what it is.”
“We’re all hiding something,” he muttered. “The question is who breaks first.”
They slipped through the side gate, moving like ghosts across the narrow yard. Through the window, Harmony sat in an oversized armchair, a mug of tea beside her, a blanket over her lap, computer balanced on her thighs. She was typing furiously, eyes locked on the screen.
It was as if someone were whispering in her ear, and she was racing to catch every word before it dissolved.
“What’s she typing?” Zach whispered.
Mary shifted angles, trying to see. No luck. Harmony had chosen the room well—no reflective glass behind her, no convenient mirror.
“I can’t see,” Mary muttered in frustration.
They continued to watch. Mary hoped Harmony might get restless and leave the room, leave the computer. She didn’t. She kept typing, pausing only to sip her tea, to stare at the screen, to smile once—just barely.
Mid-sentence, she stopped typing and looked up.
Mary and Zach froze.
For a suspended moment, it felt like Harmony was staring directly into Mary’s eyes. Then she glanced past the window, expression unreadable, and then looked back down at her laptop.
“Do you think she saw us?” Zach asked.
He was even more uncomfortable now.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Mary said. “We need to go. This is getting us nowhere.”
“I’m more than ready to leave,” Zach said, his voice filled with relief.
He was starting to turn when Mary grabbed his arm.
“Wait!” she whispered harshly.
Zach froze as he squinted into the dim room. A board hung there—white, crowded with ink.
“What is that?” he asked.
Mary’s voice dropped. “It looks like a storyboard. It has all our names on it. Words beneath them. Lines connecting us.”
“What do you think it means?” Zach asked, curiosity edging out his unease.
“I think she’s marking us,” Mary said.
Zach stared at the whiteboard. He saw Candy’s name with the word, flighty beside it, her name and the word circled in red. He saw his own name with the word, hidden beside it. He smiled.
“If she were really marking us, wouldn’t Candy and Lisa’s names be crossed out?” Mary hesitated. She hated that he had a point.
“I still don’t like it,” Mary said. “I don’t like being nothing more than characters on her wall.”
Harmony had always warned them that everything was material. Maybe this was just another way of keeping track—or maybe it was how she chose who to keep close.
“We’ve known that since we met her,” Zach reminded her. “She’s never pretended otherwise.”
“Why do we accept it?”
“Because I think we like being characters,” he admitted.
“Maybe you do,” she hissed.
“If you don’t trust her, why talk to her?” he asked.
She exhaled, then started walking away. He followed. “Because focusing on her means I don’t have to focus on me,” Mary said. “I guess I like focusing on something other than my pain. I do when she’s around,” Mary said.
“Then it’s not the worst thing in the world, being a part of her fictional universe,” Zach said gently.
They walked up the hill, putting distance between themselves and the tourists drifting between bars.
“Maybe there’s a part of me that wants to be that character she writes me as,” Mary admitted quietly. “Strong and fierce. Not stuck in my grief all the time.”
“You don’t need her to make you that,” Zach said. “You just have to believe you already are.”
Mary shook her head and looked up at the stars. The wind pulled at her hair.
“I still don’t like that she’s always watching,” Mary said. “What if that means she really is deciding our futures?”
“What do you think she gets to decide?” Zach asked.
Mary shook her head and looked at the stars. “Who makes it to the end?”
Zach shivered. “You sound more like her than you realize.”
Mary’s lips twitched into something like a smile. “Maybe we’re all more alike than we think. Maybe none of us are being watched. Maybe all of us are the watchers.”
Zach didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure he wanted to live in the version of the story Mary was describing. One thing, though, was clear . . . the killer was smiling somewhere. The group was doing exactly what they were supposed to—fracturing, suspecting, performing.
What none of them noticed was the patrol car sitting half a block away, engine off, lights dark, someone inside watching the cottage windows instead of the ocean.
A pen tapped against the steering wheel, keeping time.
The story was writing itself now.
And it didn’t seem to need an author.