Chapter 1 #2
Arthur’s frown subsides, the creases between his brows softening, their deep lines still etched into his skin from decades of scowling at all the intractable boors of Cape Carnage. He places a sun-spotted hand over mine and gently squeezes. “No one else saw us, Harper.”
We stand locked in an unwavering, unblinking stare.
He’s trying to convince me. And I’m trying to be convinced.
Arthur has never lied to me before, even when it hurt to hear the honest truth.
Like when he’d first told me the outcome of his initial appointment with a neurologist. “I’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease,” he’d said flatly over breakfast. He gave me a single heartbeat to process those words before he went on to talk about some asshole tourist he planned to murder with a new brodifacoum concoction he was tinkering with. Cold, unambiguous, unpolished facts.
Why should this be any different?
But a thought sprouts in my mind—that even though he’s probably telling the truth, the secrets we share are like bindweed: They wrap around us and squeeze.
Nolan and I could spend every day tearing bodies from the ground or planting false evidence to lead the search away from Lancaster Manor, but there will always be more secrets ready to grow in their place.
I swallow, as though I can feel those tendrils close around my throat. “Okay,” I finally say.
We head to the kitchen, where I make Arthur a soy chai latte, which he declares is nearly as good as A Shipwrecked Bean’s.
Nearly. He tells me stories about a hard winter twenty years ago, when the pipes froze in the manor house and the new handyman in town came to fix them.
The guy spent his time talking about all the women he wanted to fuck and then tried to scam Arthur into installing new pipes in the mansion.
He’s been buried beneath the water heater ever since.
Then Arthur recounts some of the Beauty and the Beast performance we saw the other night, which is a good sign.
The newer memories are always harder for him to recall.
He even assures me that he already took his medication.
I verify it, just to be sure, because I always count his pills.
And when I help him to the sitting room, he doesn’t need that much help at all.
My smile is a little brighter when we play the score from La forza del destino by Verdi in the background as we plan refinements to the garden.
My shoulders feel a little lighter when we decide how we’re going to “take down that wretched banshee Sarah Winkle,” as Arthur declares.
Maybe I shouldn’t let Arthur’s lucidity buoy me in these dark waters. But it does.
Eventually, Arthur shifts our sketches aside and navigates to his favorite recliner for his midmorning nap.
I lay a blanket over his lap, and when I’m sure he’s comfortable, I head back to my cottage, thoughts still swirling of what the near future might be like if Arthur’s symptoms are under control. If we have more time.
I contemplate texting Nolan, even going so far as pulling my phone out to see if he sent me something first. I’m just starting a message when I enter the open back door of my cottage, realizing I must not have closed it when I rushed toward the topiaries.
“Murder,” my own voice says from the living room.
I clutch my chest, my knees buckling with surprise. “Fucking Christ on a bike, Morpheus.” The bird caws from the coffee table, eyeing me with his inky gaze before he tears off a piece of my mangled croissant. “That was mine. And if you shit on the furniture, I’m going to pluck you bald.”
“Pretty murder bird,” he says, hopping to my mug to take a sip of the abandoned coffee.
“For the love of god, not the caffeine.”
“Murder.”
“Fine, I won’t pluck you. Just get the fuck out, and take your stolen food with you.
” I make my way over to him slowly to start ushering him back toward the door.
But Morpheus has other plans. He tips over the coffee mug before bounding to the chessboard where he struts between the white and black pieces.
By the time I’ve rushed to the kitchen for a tea towel to throw on the spilled coffee, he’s knocked over half the pieces with his tail, chattering about murder and cookies as he goes.
It’s not until I have the croissant remnants in my hand that he finally lands on my wrist and I’m able to take him outside with his prize.
With a deep sigh, I head back to the living room and clean up the coffee and crumbs, and then I reset the board for a new game.
Pawns. A rook. The same black knight from earlier today.
I don’t move the white pawn two spaces like I do when I think I can stand up to traumas of my past that trail after me like a wraith. I’m no longer ready to play.
I’m about to head to the shower when my phone buzzes from my pocket. But it’s not Nolan, like I thought it would be. It’s a Discord notification.
The Sleuthseekers.
I swallow, the blood draining from my limbs.
I open the app and start scrolling through the new messages I couldn’t make myself read last night in the general chat.
My blood thunders in my ears as I go to the page about Sam’s recent death.
I grip my phone tighter, unsure of what I might find as I skim the posts, gradually climbing my way to the most recent entries.
But all I see is speculation. Questions about what might have happened to Sam and Vinny.
Theories about whether the police are covering up something sinister.
A volley of thoughts about what happened at the Lancaster Distillery.
Nothing seems concrete, however. Nothing overly terrifying.
At least, not until I get to the message sent to the group by the user KnightofTruth only a moment ago.
It’s an image of a printed photo on a piece of paper, a picture of the back of a woman walking down the sidewalk.
I know exactly where the photo was taken—on Main Street, here in Cape Carnage, half a block south of Maya’s Magical Mixtures.
I know exactly when it was captured—fourteen days ago.
There’s a handwritten note at the top of the paper:
Looks upset, maybe crying, walking fast, leaving Maya’s Magical Mixtures.
KnightofTruth sends another message to the group as I stare down at my screen, my heart rioting. I just found out Sam had this picture in his possession before he died. That’s definitely his handwriting. She must have been important to his investigation. Anyone know who this is?
No, a few others chime in.
But I do.
It’s me.