Chapter 1 #2
Though I force a smile, it feels fragile, ready to crack. “I mean . . . maybe you were planning to, but I probably would have killed you first.” My half-hearted attempt at humor does little to dampen the storm swirling behind his eyes. “I don’t think you tried very hard, if that’s any consolation.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m sensing that.”
“Did you also perhaps sense it might have been a good idea to fucking share that small detail about your true identity with me at some point?” he asks.
“Or were you just never going to say anything? Were you going to let me keep believing you killed my brother and nearly killed me too? I thought you were the woman who drove away—”
“But I did,” I say, my confession hanging in the air.
The moment I left Nolan to die alone on that road four years ago is one of my worst memories. Maybe I didn’t have a choice when it came to losing my parents or Adam—there was no way for me to help them. But with Nolan, I did have a choice. And I didn’t choose him.
My nose stings, a burn flaring in my throat.
Nolan is not the only one whose tears are on the verge of falling.
“I saw you. On the road. I was at my campsite when I heard the crash and then raised voices. I heard a few guys freaking out and a woman arguing with someone. By the time I got there, three men were running toward a trail down the road. The car had driven away. You were . . . ”
I shake my head, but Nolan doesn’t let go like I thought he might.
His steady warmth still blankets my cheeks, and though I try to look down, his gaze pierces me, refusing to let me go.
It feels like he’s trying to resurrect the lost memory.
And the least I can do is give him the pieces to fill in the blanks.
“You were screaming,” I say, starting again as the first tear slides down my face.
“Screaming in this terrifying way I’ve only heard once before.
Like you were being torn apart. Like . .
. like you weren’t going to make it. And I was afraid.
Afraid of what would happen when people found out who I was. ”
A rush of guilt washes through me, burning like the kiss of acid. But somehow, there’s freedom in the raw wound it leaves behind.
“I heard another crash down the road, and I left you. I ran to find it. There was a woman behind the wheel of the car. As soon as I opened the door, I smelled the booze. When I found her wallet in her pocket, I took out her driver’s license, then I realized how much she looked like me.
” I shrug, still trying to evade his scrutiny.
“The car was just teetering there, ready to go over the cliff. I didn’t think anyone would miss another drunk driver.
So I kept her ID and sent her over the edge. ”
Nolan shakes his head in my periphery, though I still can’t meet his eyes. “Why?”
“Everyone wanted a piece of me—journalists, people on social media, true crime junkies, even a fucking clothing company that wanted me as the face of their plaid shirts . . . it was exhausting enough as it was. I figured if I passed myself off as someone else and stuck to cash jobs, maybe I could escape from my past. For a while.”
Nolan’s hands slip from my face as he expels a long breath, his chin dropping toward his chest. He turns away, shaking his head as he looks off into the distance.
Though in some ways, it feels like a weight has been lifted from my chest, another one slips into the hole left behind, growing heavier with every moment that Nolan keeps himself shut off from me.
When he finally turns to face me, his eyes are still haunted. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“No offense, but shoving a guy’s decapitated head into my bird feeder didn’t give me major trust or confidence vibes,” I argue. “You had spent years hunting me down. Would you have believed me if I did?”
“Every day I was fighting the impulse to wrap my hands around your neck and squeeze until you died between my palms. And you know it. You could tell, I could see it in your eyes. So wouldn’t it have been worth it to try?”
“I couldn’t,” I whisper, receiving a vicious, doubtful glare in reply. “I promised Arthur—”
“Jesus fucking Christ—”
“I gave him my word, Nolan. Maybe that doesn’t mean something to everyone. But it means something to me. I promised to never tell anyone who I really was.”
“Even if it killed you?” he asks, but I don’t respond, biting the inner surface of my lower lip until the iron tang of blood snakes across my tongue. “Who else knows?”
“Lukas.”
An exasperated breath leaves Nolan’s lips as he leans back and drags a hand through his hair, the sun-bleached strands among the chocolate brown catching the light.
“He’s the one who helped me get rid of my van. But he doesn’t know anything else about . . . this,” I say gesturing toward the heap of body parts on the ground. “He doesn’t know about his grandfather’s hunting proclivities either. He just thinks he’s . . . quirky.”
“That’s rich,” Nolan says on the heels of a derisive laugh.
For a long moment, there are no words between us, only a long look that grows heavier with every heartbeat.
“So I guess if you’re willing to risk dying for a promise, then you’re going to stay put in this town, even if I tell you that you should leave. Is that right?”
I give Nolan a conciliatory shrug, and he presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, a heavy sigh filling his chest. Part of me wants to rage against him for proposing I break my word to Arthur.
There aren’t many people left in the world who are willing to keep their promises, even when the price is high.
But I’m one of them. “I know the risks, Nolan. Yates could pull his head out of his ass at any moment and figure out that the trail of Sam and Vinny and even this guy leads straight back to us,” I say, gesturing again to the body at my feet.
“But I can’t abandon Arthur. You, though . . . you can leave whenever you want.”
“You honestly think that?”
“You’re not even from here. You’re a tourist.”
A little flash of hurt passes through his expression. My words have sliced deeper than I meant for them to go. He reins it in, but an echo of the sting remains. “You really don’t get it, do you?” he asks. “I’m not fucking going anywhere, Autumn—”
“Harper.” My cheeks grow hot. My skin is burning. A fresh wave of tears floods my eyes.
“If you stay here, you’re going to have to face her,” Nolan says, grasping my shoulders.
He ducks his head to meet my eye level, as if he could force me to see the world the way he does if we’re on the same plane.
“More of the Sleuthseekers are coming. With Sam and Vinny both dead, they will descend on Cape Carnage, and it’s only a matter of time before they know who you are.
If Sheriff Yates doesn’t figure it out first.”
“Is that why you’re so pissed off at me?”
“I’m pissed off at you because you’re making it fucking impossible for me to look after you.”
“Who said I needed you to do that?”
“I did. I said it when we were at the park, after the theater. And I fucking meant it.”
It’s the first time the realization truly sinks beneath my armor that Nolan has made a promise too.
And maybe he is like me—intent on keeping his word.
I had never considered that he might be willing to defend his promises with the same ferocity that I defend mine.
And the distress in his eyes, the anguish and determination, it’s familiar to me too.
It’s the same expression I’ve seen in the mirror when I’ve wiped the blood from my skin and weighed my sins against my past and future.
He looks the same as me, ready to put his life on the line for a vow.
But no matter how hard we try, maybe we aren’t destined to succeed.
Not when a siren wails in the distance.
It’s a sudden shock of sound. Nolan’s fingertips dig into my shoulders.
His eyes widen, and I’m sure mine do the same.
My blood crystallizes, ice dancing beneath my skin.
A thousand questions race through my mind in an instant.
Are they coming here? Should we run? Can we hide?
How could I possibly explain why there’s a body lying at my feet?
And how can I protect the man who’s standing in front of me, or the one who lives on the hill?
“It’s an ambulance,” Nolan says a heartbeat later, breaking a moment that felt years long.
Even though we know it’s not a police siren, a tremble still remains in my flesh, a surge of adrenaline unwilling to subside.
And I don’t think he feels any better about it either, not with the way his pulse thrums in his neck.
“Everything is okay. We’re okay,” I say with an unsteady breath. “Right . . . ?”
Nolan swallows. We break our locked stare to shift our attention to the dismembered body on the tarp. The raven tears a strip of defrosting flesh from a bone. When we look at each other once more, Nolan’s hands drop from my shoulders, leaving an even deeper chill behind.
“We need to cover our tracks. Not make new ones,” he says, and then he pulls my gloves from me before heading to the tractor to start the engine. “So no more murder.”
A beat passes before I nod. It might be a declaration. But in a town like Cape Carnage, I don’t think it’s a promise either of us is willing to make.
He’s still burning with anger. I can almost feel the heat in the void between us. And though I beg him in my thoughts to reach for me, to pull me into an embrace, he puts on the gloves and heads to the tarp instead.
Piece by piece, Nolan loads the body into the woodchipper, the knot of dread in my stomach twisting tighter with every hunk of frozen flesh that’s chewed by the machine. And when it’s finally done, he leaves without another word.