Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Harper
Iplug in the microphone cord and tap it twice to make sure it’s live.
Shae’s scheduled for her final podcast interview in an hour, and just the thought of seeing her makes my stomach twist. I’m not sure I can look her in the face knowing what I know now.
I’m still wrestling with how much to reveal—if anything.
At least I have a safety net. I just have to get through the next two hours without incident.
Then I can sign off on the podcast and commit to the Costa Rican retreat full-time.
And then the file arrives like a dare.
Subject line: LAST LIGHT. No sender name—just a string of numbers that looks like a motel room off a highway you don’t stop on. The attachment is a single audio file, timestamped twenty minutes ago. Thirty-seven minutes long. My hands sweat so much I almost drop the mouse.
James’s ring glints on the desk beside my keys. I think of the last time he kissed my forehead, and said, “Don’t spiral while I’m gone.” I promised I wouldn’t—and then immediately dove headfirst, arms raised.
I double-click.
The track opens on dead room tone—hollow, breathy, like air inside a paper bag. Then The Watcher’s distorted voice, low and unhurried.
“If you’re hearing this, it means they didn’t get to all of it.”
Click. A chair scrapes. A distant door thumps shut. My pulse syncs to the hum in my speakers.
“We built a story that made people feel righteous,” The Watcher says. “But here’s the story that makes no one feel good.”
A splice. Suddenly another room, another acoustic—fluorescents, TVs murmuring through concrete. A jail? A break room?
And then Shae’s laugh. Bright. Careless.
“—I told you they’d buy it,” she says, amusement buzzing. “They always do. You give them a woman in white, a catchphrase they can embroider on tea towels, and something to hate that isn’t themselves.”
A man answers, voice pitched into that low, confident register men use when they want you to feel safe. Declan.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Halston,” he says. “They don’t buy you. They buy their reflection. You’re their shadow painted with a little lipstick.”
She snorts. “Philosophy from a guy who can’t spell it.”
“Watch it.”
“Or what? You’ll file a report?”
He laughs too. It lands in my gut like a coin in a well.
The clip keeps rolling: the two of them talking strategy, timing, the “riot,” the “injury.” Her coaching him on the angle of a phone. His note about who to text first.
“Harper?” Declan asks at one point, and I jolt like he’s said my name in my kitchen. “The podcaster? You sure she’s not going to sniff it out?”
“You’re adorable,” Shae says. “She wants to save me. She won’t let anyone take her miracle away.”
I pause the audio because my throat goes tight and I hate that there’s a sound in it. I catch my reflection in the dark window: mouth set in two sharp lines, the face of a woman who stayed at the party five minutes too long.
I press play.
“—and if they ask about it,” The Watcher narrates over their laughter, “this is where the tape was supposed to end.”
“When will I see you again?” Vulnerability slips into Declan’s voice.
“I try not to think too far into the future,” Shae replies, clipped.
Declan grunts. “So that’s it? You just cut out of here and forget about me?”
A rustle of clothing, then Shae: “Once things calm down, we’ll meet up. I promise. We’ll always be friends.”
“Just friends?”
“Declan, I can’t picture my life without you in it.” She purrs, and I recognize the lie by its perfect packaging. “It’s just—I’m building something here. An empire.”
He says something I can’t make out. Then their laughter again. That’s the part that sticks: how easy it is. How easy.
And then it hits me—maybe Declan was the one sending Shae the threatening texts. A wild card. A useful tool. A man discarded the moment she didn’t need him anymore.
By the time the file ends, there’s a ringing in my ears that doesn’t belong to the track. I stare at the waveform like it owes me an apology.
The Watcher’s final sign-off is only four words: You’re not crazy, Harper. Trust your instincts on this.
My hand trembles. I set the mouse down like it weighs a hundred pounds.
A new text bubbles up from James.
JAMES: How’s my famous fiancée? No spiraling.
I type, erase, type again.
ME: I’m good. Hydrating. Working. You?
Three dots. Then:
JAMES: Meeting in 20. Dinner with Pete after. Call you late?
ME: Yes.
I leave my phone facedown so I don’t have to watch it breathe.
The room shrinks. Tonight it’s a box with me in it and a recording that breaks my career, my reputation, my… what. Belief? I don’t do belief. I do proof—with a good edit. But this is proof. The kind that doesn’t trend. The kind that gets ignored because it’s ugly.
“They want a survivor,” I tell the empty room. “They don’t want a villain who smiles for the camera.”
My voice startles me. I sound like the women I interview right before they stop replying to my emails.
I copy the file to a thumb drive. Another to my cloud. I slide the drive into a lipstick tube and snap it shut, because the movies taught me something useful for once.
Then I sit on the floor and laugh once—sharp. Like it belongs to someone else.
“I thought I knew the truth,” I tell the room. “But I don’t know anything.”
I close the laptop so I don’t have to see my reflection in the screen.
On the coffee table, the ring box sits where James left it the morning he left for New York—silly and hopeful. The morning after the gala. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but it’s only been a little over a week.
I press the cold lipstick tube to my throat where my pulse jerks. I can feel the backup drive rattle inside. The Watcher’s voice. Shae’s laugh. Declan’s joke. The wolf in white.
“You’re not crazy, Harper,” The Watcher said.
Good. I’m not crazy.
I’m awake.
And the monster is about to meet her reckoning.