Chapter 5
BULBS
Nolan
“I FEEL LIKE THIS IS information I could have used earlier in the evening,” Harper says as she sinks her shovel into the silt with more force than is probably necessary.
We’ve managed to work quickly at exhuming the last of Arthur’s Ballantyne River murder victims, with two sets of bones already packed away.
Maybe we could have left the remaining two for tomorrow night now that Sam and Vinny aren’t around to potentially spy on us, but with the close of the property sale imminent and the possibility of more Sleuthseekers showing up any day, Harper and I agreed to keep going as late as necessary tonight to get the job done.
“I was busy getting hit in the face with a fucking shovel.” I make a show of wiping my nose with the edge of my finger, though I doubt it’s still bleeding.
Harper throws a scowl in my direction before shifting her focus back down to the hole.
“Didn’t seem like a good time to bring it up when I was eating your pussy either. ”
Harper grumbles something indistinct. If the lantern light were a little brighter, I’m sure I’d be able to catch a blush climbing her neck. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Eating your pussy?”
“Shut the fuck up. You know I mean this Search and Rescue shit that Yates has roped you into. Eating my pussy is always a good idea.”
I grin, moving a shovelful of earth onto the tarp. “Look, I don’t love it either, but maybe taking control of the search for the tourist guy that Arthur killed has some benefits.”
Harper snorts derisively. “I fail to see how being in the center of police and press presence is going to help.”
“Your faith in me is inspiring,” I deadpan, tossing a shovelful of silt onto her boot.
“I can try to misdirect the search, as long as I’m careful.
Keep the volunteers away from places like this.
Maybe find some opportunities to plant some of that tourist’s belongings, if we can.
And I already got some useful intel out of it—I know more about what happened to Vinny Meschino. ”
Harper’s eyes snap to mine. “Really?”
Though I’ll never admit it to her, Harper’s half-hearted text message breakup was actually useful.
I was so pissed off that I dove headfirst into my new leadership role, mining all the details I possibly could from Yates and the other locals.
“Yep. Yates encountered him at the distillery after investigating a call from Mr. Talbot down the road about flashlights in the building. Apparently, he was worried it was copper thieves trying to steal from the construction site,” I say.
“Yates figures they got into a fight at the inn first. He thinks Vinny must have followed Sam to the distillery and pushed him over the railing before trying to kill him too.”
“Yates,” Harper echoes, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe Sheriff Yates killed Vinny.”
“That’s what he said.”
“I didn’t get that kind of ‘I’m gonna attack a sheriff’ vibe from Vinny at all. When I hit him in the head at the inn, he’d just hung up the phone with Sam, and he didn’t seem super enthusiastic about meeting him at the distillery to interview you under duress.”
“Maybe not, but he was still on his way to get that story regardless. He knew Sam had taken me hostage. If he truly gave a shit about the law, he would have called it in to the police.”
Harper chews her bottom lip, her attention drifting toward the river as she leans her weight on her shovel. “So . . . if Vinny attacked the sheriff and Yates believes he probably attacked Sam too, does that mean we’re safe?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Harper. Who knows what he could still find or figure out.
He did spot the bloodstain in the parking lot and sent a crew to test it, so I’m not convinced that he’s totally inept.
” I thrust my shovel into the soil, striking a now-familiar sound—the type of polyethylene rye sack that Arthur used to dispose of each body we’ve found so far.
The bones seem to whisper from the grave: You are not safe at all.
“I’m moving into the cottage,” I declare.
Harper’s eyes dart to the shadows and, for a moment, I expect her to give me a flat no.
Fuck, that would sting. I’ve rolled the possibility around in my mind all day but facing it now sends my heart into a frenzy.
Even if she turns me down, I can’t entertain it, not when her safety is on the line.
She may know that too, because she says, “For how long?”
I rub my chest. I guess that’s better than a no, but it wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic response either.
“Until I know the worst has passed,” I say, dropping my hand to my side.
“I’ll keep my reservation at the Capeside Inn for now, just in case it’s really too much for you.
But I really think it’s safer this way. If the Sleuthseekers turn their attention from Sam’s and Vinny’s deaths to completing their work on La Plume, I want to be with you.
You know Arthur will be their number-one draw if they do. ”
Harper watches me for a long and silent moment before she nods. She might be happy that I’m determined to protect her. Or she might be worried that I’m chipping away at her sanctuary. I can’t tell from her stoic expression. Both possibilities chew at my thoughts, consuming different pieces of me.
“How will you lead Yates and the volunteers on some kind of SAR goose chase, exactly?” she finally asks as we scrape the remaining silt from the bag. Harper grabs the frayed rope that holds the bag closed and tugs it out of the hole. “Maybe a little trail of bones to follow?”
Her words settle into my brain, taking root without blooming, as though they don’t have the light to grow.
I poke around the bottom of the empty hole, just to be sure nothing else is hidden in the damp sand, and then start backfilling it.
“I don’t know, honestly. It was a pretty fucked-up day with Yates showing up at the inn, then the whirlwind tour of the station and briefing the volunteer fire crew and gathering all the equipment.
I barely had time to get my bearings. But this might be advantageous for us if I play it right. ”
“Maybe. But what happens if they figure out you’re the one derailing the search?
” Harper’s question is one I can’t answer.
It would be hard for anyone to come to that conclusion unless I make an obvious mistake.
But I’ve made misjudgments before. I’m looking at one of them.
“Just . . . be careful,” she says when the silence stretches too long.
“I know there are benefits to being on the inside, but there are huge risks too. I don’t like it. ”
“Me neither, I can assure you.”
I catch Harper’s worried, doubtful frown as she turns away, and I realize she might not believe me. She’s smart not to trust me completely. I’ve given her plenty of reasons not to, after all.
I need to change that.
My thoughts slide into darkness as I watch Harper shove the bones into her expedition pack. How can I lead this search away from the tracks we’ve left all over this town? How can I keep her past and secrets safe? How can I protect her without destroying her carefully cultivated life?
The only viable answers I have right now are ones that will hurt her. Force her out of Cape Carnage. Make her break her vows to this town. Kill Arthur, whose growing impulsivity puts her at risk.
I might have no choice but to wound her to save her, but I’m not sure how much more pain she can endure. Or how much we can take when our relationship is growing from the cracks of a fucked-up foundation.
Harper turns to me with the laser measurer and a question in her quirked brows, and I snap free of my worried thoughts. “Last one,” she says, her voice low and quiet as she passes me the device. Her fingertips glide across mine when she lets it go, a touch that feels purposeful.
We complete our final exhumation in near silence. Words are hardly needed now, anyway—we’ve been through the process so many times before. We pull the victim from their grave, nothing more than a sack of nameless bones, and hastily refill the hole.
And then we stand at the edge of the silt plain, casting a final glance over Arthur’s dumping ground.
Sixteen bodies we’ve pulled from the silt.
Secrets once dormant, dug up before they could bloom.
Don’t mistake advanced age for weakness, Harper had once said, after Arthur tricked me into retrieving his murder bag from its hiding place.
Arthur has spent decades refining his craft.
If anything, age has worked to his advantage.
Dismay constricts around my chest like binding weeds.
“So,” I say, scratching the stubble along my jaw, “I’m going to hazard a guess that this isn’t Arthur’s only playground.”
Though Harper tries to keep the cringe from her expression, it still settles in the corner of her eye when she squints across the floodplain. “Um . . . yeah.”
“Where else should I try to keep the search volunteers from nosing around?” I ask, turning to face her, though she doesn’t do the same.
Harper clears her throat. “Probably the old grain shed at the distillery.”
“The same distillery that the police are crawling all over? That’s just great.”
“And also the defunct silver mine off Emerald Lake Road.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah . . . and probably best to keep them away from Lancaster Manor too, obviously.”
“You don’t say?” I deadpan. “That’s where I was planning to set up the Search and Rescue headquarters.”
Harper finally turns to me with a flat glare. I’m not sure when I became addicted to bringing that fierce defiance to life in her eyes. But I am, and I think she knows it. “Let’s get out of here, Ballmeat,” she says, shoving her backpack into my chest. “I’m ready to go home.”