Harvest Season (The Seasons of Carnage Trilogy #2)

Chapter 1

THRESH

Harper

HAVING A SERIAL KILLER FOR a boyfriend comes with many benefits.

Nolan provides great support when getting rid of enemies, for one.

He doesn’t mind trampling over a few laws for my benefit.

He’s not put off by blood or guts. Keeps calm under pressure.

Has steady hands—that one was particularly useful when he pierced my nipples.

Sure, he might have taken his time with the needle, but I like the pain, so it was a win-win.

But do you know when it’s not so great?

When you’re the one in danger of being serial killed.

Maybe I should go back to the “boyfriend” part and amend that to “frenemies with benefits.”

The raven watching me from the branches of the oak tree caws a warning just before the back door of my cottage slams shut with more force than is necessary to close it.

As I work among the rhododendrons and irises on the grounds of Lancaster Manor, I look over the stone wall and catch a glimpse of Nolan stalking through the garden.

I glance toward the imposing Victorian mansion on the hill, hoping Arthur, my aging mentor, is deep in a nap and not about to roll down the slope in a golf cart he shouldn’t be driving so he can star in my next drama.

Tugging off my gloves, I pull my phone from the front pocket of my overalls and open my most recent text exchange with Nolan from this morning.

We need to talk. Now.

Sensing something brewing, I’d tried to lighten the mood.

About how good the nipple piercings look?

No.

Obviously, my attempt was not very successful. That stamp of a single word remains his last text, which he sent over an hour ago. If not even the reminder of our super-hot shibari and nipple-piercing night is enough to tempt him, I’m pretty sure he’s here to murder me.

I sigh and pick up my ax.

The hinges of the garden gate squeak as Nolan enters the grounds of Lancaster Manor.

He rounds the corner, ferocity carved into his features.

His height seems more imposing than usual, his muscles coiled with tension.

His defined jaw is clenched, his full lips set in a grim line.

He’s even more beautiful when he’s enraged.

As soon as he sees me, he lurches to a halt. We stare at each other for a beat of silence as he takes in the scene before him. The raven drops to the garden wall, his head tilting from one side to the other. He’s assessing us and is ready to bet on a winner.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Nolan finally asks.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I retort.

“Murder,” the raven says in his perfect impersonation of my voice as he walks across the stone wall toward the flower beds, staring down at the bloody tarp at my feet. “Pretty murder bird.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Thank you, Morpheus. Great timing, as always. You’re a credit to corvids everywhere.” I gesture to the dismembered body parts lying on the tarp, ready for the woodchipper. “I’m disposing of Arthur’s little mistake. The tourist guy from the cemetery.”

“‘Little mistake,’” Nolan echoes.

I shrug. “We couldn’t leave him in the shed forever. Arthur doesn’t like it when bodies stay in the freezer for too long. It’s kind of a high-risk storage place, you know?”

“Right. Sure.” Nolan nods sagely, the motion steeped in sarcasm.

“As high-risk as, let’s say, putting a body through the woodchipper in broad fucking daylight?

” He takes a step closer, though there’s still so much space left between us.

And for some reason, it feels like it grows bigger with every second that passes, a chasm of unease that threatens to consume me.

“Would a woodchipper running at night cause more suspicion, or less?”

“Perhaps you could consider not fucking running it at all.” He drags a hand down his face, the strain of controlling his anger radiating from him, as though he wants to pace in agitation but checks himself. “Aren’t you worried about the drone operator coming around and seeing you?”

“I figured he’d be busy with other stuff since he probably knows Sam is dead by now.”

“Well, you’d be right about that. He is indeed busy with ‘other stuff.’ Like the fucking afterlife. Because Vinny Meschino is also fucking dead.”

I figured it wouldn’t be long before the news about Sam Porter’s death worked its way around town—a documentarian-slash-amateur investigator was always going to be a gossip heat score, and nothing is more titillating to a town like Cape Carnage than an “accidental” death.

But his drone operator, Vinny? That’s truly unexpected.

Especially as I was the one who hit him in the head, and though it’d been hard enough to knock him out, I didn’t think it would kill him.

The last I saw Vinny, he was unconscious in the parking lot of the Capeside Inn as I drove off to rescue Nolan from Sam.

Though I’m as shocked by this revelation as Nolan must have been when the news reached him, I do my best not to let it show. Sometimes, it’s better not to let another predator catch you off guard, even if they are on your side. Theoretically. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

Nolan’s eyes darken.

“It’s not good . . . ?”

He shakes his head, and I let the ax drop to the lawn with a thunk. “Okay, so why don’t you tell me what it is, since you seem to know so much more about this than me?”

Nolan moves closer, each of his steps slow and purposeful.

His eyes never leave mine, not even when he tears the ax from my grasp and tosses it behind him.

I stare into their mossy-green depths and the brown wedge that slices through the bottom of his left iris.

He stops so close to me that my chest could brush his with every breath if the air weren’t trapped in my lungs.

“All I know is that he’s dead too, and now there’s a murder investigation. ”

“Oh . . . kay. That’s . . . something.”

Morpheus croaks in the silence that blooms between us, settling on the tarp in a rustle of feathers.

Though I glance over to watch the bird peck at the man’s severed thigh, I know Nolan still doesn’t take his eyes off me.

His gaze heats the pulse jumping in my neck.

It feels like a noose is tightening across my skin.

“Was it me?” I ask. “Did I kill him when I hit him in the parking lot?”

Nolan’s expression doesn’t soften, a crease etched between his lowered brows. “I don’t know. All I’ve heard is that he’s dead too. So maybe it was you. But which you?”

My heart crashes against my ribs. “What do you mean?”

“Would they find Harper Starling if they were to lift one of your fingerprints or collect your DNA?” Nolan looms over me, taking up all the space in my field of vision. I know what he’s about to say before the question slips free of his lips. “Or would they find Autumn Bower?”

Even though I knew it was coming, those two words still strike me like a slap. Autumn Bower.

Memories bombard me of the night I left that woman behind.

The bodies on the road. The scent of burnt rubber.

Nolan’s desolate cries in the night. The fear that flooded me when I realized my fragile freedom would vanish if I stayed at the site of the crash.

And panic now that my mask is being torn away.

“How . . . ?” is all I manage on a thick swallow.

“I found your van when the tide was low this morning,” he says.

“The identification number is still there. It didn’t take me long to put the pieces together on the Sleuthseekers Discord server.

They made plenty of posts about that van four years ago, when you first dropped off the radar.

Complete with lots of links to your old YouTube channel too.

Autumn and Adam’s Vanventures . . . it’s certainly catchy.

” I press my eyes closed, a flood of guilt and shame washing through me.

When my focus returns to Nolan, his hard stare is still drilling right into me. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispers.

Fear slides down my throat. I’m not sure what I should say.

I don’t want to lie to him—at least, not any more than I’ve already been lying by omission—but I’ve spent the last four years trying to forget that name and all the horror and heartache attached to it.

And I’ve done everything in my power to keep my promise to Arthur—to not unveil my past to anyone.

But it’s just so fucking lonely living as a ghost. Sometimes, I feel like my memories could drown me.

Like I’m always trying to keep my head above the past: the loss of my parents and the grief that followed.

The terror of being trapped in serial killer Harvey Mead’s house.

The guilt of escaping the cellar when my boyfriend Adam did not.

Nolan watches me, waiting, and I think he would stand here for an eternity if that’s how long it took for me to let down my defenses.

There’s no more running from my past, at least not when it comes to him.

He’s cornered me in the refuge of shadows.

And maybe it would be nice to let in just a sliver of light.

“I couldn’t,” I finally whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” he says, but the inflection isn’t what I expected for the fury that seems to be eating him alive. “You’re sorry.”

“Y . . . yes?”

His hands are on my face in an instant, framing me in warmth.

There’s a glint in his eyes, a glassy shimmer at his lash line.

My brow furrows. When Nolan gathers the composure to grit out his next words, he pauses between each one, as though he needs to imprint them into my very soul. “I. Almost. Killed. You.”

I feel like I’ve been shoved off my axis, and nothing quite makes sense at this angle.

I knew he wanted to murder me when we first met, but it’s different to hear him admit it with anguish in his face.

Of course he did. He thought I was Harper Starling, the woman who killed his brother, and I let him believe the lie.