Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shae
Harper’s voice cracks like dry kindling, but she doesn’t stop talking.
She’s curled up at the end of my linen couch, blanket pulled over her knees like a trembling ingénue in a therapy session.
My mother studied my mind for years under the guise of devoted therapist, but apparently not enough to notice I had one. And I was taking notes.
The wineglass trembles in Harper’s hand. Candlelight throws soft shadows across her face, making her look younger, more fragile—like a woman still clinging to innocence even after she sold it.
By the second glass of wine, she finally confesses the thing she’s only ever told James.
A crime. A sibling. A cover-up.
“My sister did something a long time ago,” she whispers. “Something that could’ve ruined her life. I made a bad decision that I’ve regretted every day since.”
“Life is decisions,” I say, soft and steady. “No good or bad ones—just consequences. I would never judge you. You know that, right?” I pat her knee with my palm, sympathy by muscle memory.
Her eyes flick to mine, searching for judgment. Pity. Redemption.
She finds only a smile.
“I’ve never said it out loud to anyone,” she whispers, and I swear the words leave her like a release. “Not even to myself. Not really.”
“Oh, honey.” My voice goes warm, slow. I swirl my wine lazily, glass catching the light. “Secrets always feel heavier when we carry them alone.”
“When I was nineteen,” she starts, “my sister—Renee—was dating this guy. Total loser. I didn’t like him. Nobody did. One night she calls me crying, says he hit her. I drive over, ready to drag her out, but when I get there…” She swallows. “…he’s on the floor. Not moving. Not breathing.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Go on.”
“She was hysterical. Said he fell, hit his head. But I could tell she was lying.” Harper stares into her glass. “I didn’t ask questions. I just helped her load him into the trunk.”
I smile, small and private. “How sisterly.”
Her throat works. “We drove out past the old quarry. Dumped him in. Never saw him again.”
“And no one came asking?” I keep my tone casual, like we’re discussing weather.
She shakes her head. “No one cared enough to. He didn’t have family. He just… disappeared.”
“And James?” I prompt.
She hesitates. “James was there. He followed us in his car. Helped me keep my story straight when the cops asked where I’d been that night. He’s the only one who knows.”
“Until now.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “You can’t—”
“Relax.” I lean back. “I’m not the cops. And even if I were, your secret is boring compared to mine.”
A shaky laugh escapes her, but the terror stays, floating under it like sediment.
I take my first sip. “You know what I love about people, Harper? They think predators look like monsters.” I tilt my head. “But not always. Sometimes they look like friends.”
She blinks, confused.
I don’t elaborate.
Because behind the pillow on the armchair next to me, a little black device winks red. Blake’s handiwork. Crisp audio. Perfect clarity. Her confession, preserved.
I stand and take her empty glass. “You should stay the night. It’s late.”
“I can’t,” she says too fast. “James is waiting back at the AirBnB. He flew in for the weekend.”
If she notices the satisfaction that flickers through me, she doesn’t name it.
But I notice everything.
The way her pupils dilated when she said regret. The pause before she admitted James knew, too. That pause matters. It means there’s more.
I’ll find it.
For now, I set my glass down with a soft clink and press a hand to my chest. “You’re so brave,” I say, warm and reverent, like I’m praising a soldier returning from war. “Protecting your family… that’s loyalty. That’s love.”
She cries then—not a mess, just delicate tears rolling quiet down her cheeks, like she’s bleeding from the eyes.
The recorder is working overtime. Every hitch in her breath. Every whispered sin. All of it captured.
Later, I’ll catalog it. Edit it. Archive it.
Harper has the kind of face people want to save, the kind of soul they build campaigns around. Give it time and she’ll become the moral center—the brave little heartbeat everyone rallies behind—while I fade into the background like an old headline.
That’s the real panic. Not death. Obsolescence.
The thought curls in, dry and sharp: if there’s only room for one woman the world decides to keep, I refuse to be the one they quietly replace. The scary part isn’t that I’ve imagined it. It’s how calm everything feels when I do.
She leaves after midnight, hugging me too tightly like I’m her emotional support animal. I pad into the kitchen barefoot, tile warm from the furnace that never quite turns off in this cursed old house.
Blake’s leaning against the doorframe, hair a mess, face half-shadowed, that familiar smirk playing at his mouth.
“You always know exactly where to stick the knife,” he says.
“It’s a gift,” I purr.
He swirls his whiskey. “If she knew who you really are, she’d never sleep again.”
“Soon,” I say lightly, “she won’t.”
He lifts his glass. “To never sleeping.”
“To always watching,” I return.
We drink in silence—the kind you share with someone who knows where the bodies are buried. Who maybe helped dig the holes.
There’s something about Blake. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t ask too many questions. He films the ugliest parts of me with the admiration of a man watching art being born.
“You’ve already won,” he says finally, leaning on the counter. “She trusts you. The world does. The docuseries is fire. Everyone’s ready to anoint you Saint Shae of Second Chances.”
I step closer and run a nail along the rim of his glass. “You don’t just win the game, Blake. You rewrite the rules. You set the board. You make sure every player is yours.”
“You want her under your thumb.”
“I want her in the palm of my hand.” I hold mine out, curl my fingers slowly. “I want to feel the tremble when she realizes she gave me everything I need to ruin her.”
Blake grins. “And then?”
“Then,” I whisper, brushing past him, “we go to Costa Rica.”