Chapter 2 #2
“Yep, that’d be him.” Yates gives us a wan smile.
“We released him the next morning on a citation. He didn’t show up at the station on the eighteenth like he was supposed to—I figured he was on a bender or lying low to avoid us, seeing as how it’s not his first brush with the law.
But it turns out he should have checked out of the Lionshead Motel three days ago, and his family filed a missing persons report yesterday.
You hear or see anything during that altercation that might tell us where to look, Harper? ”
Harper’s eyes track to the sky, as though she’s searching her memory. She shakes her head and refocuses on the sheriff. “Not that I can recall, sorry. The guy just kept ranting about people telling him to calm down. But nothing more.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” Yates closes his notebook, sliding it back into his pocket.
He gives it a few pats that slow as his graying brows knit with a thought.
My heart thuds in double time. “But, say . . . maybe you remember something about Jake Hornell? After a bit of a debate with the town council, we’ve decided to add him to the search list too.
From what I understand, you’re one of the last people to see Jake before he went missing. Would have been June sixth.”
“Was I?”
“Well, I believe so. Isn’t that right, Mr. Rhodes?
” Yates’s eyes shift to mine, his head tilting like a curious dog’s.
And though he keeps his expression eerily blank, I don’t get the sense he’s the hapless golden retriever that Harper seems to think he is.
The sharpness beneath Yates’s gaze is more like a Malinois that’s calculating how quickly it can sink its teeth into my neck.
Unease trickles down my spine when he says, “I think we talked about you piloting the drone when you came into my office to discuss Sam Porter, actually. The thing about how he was bothering Harper, if I recall correctly.”
Fuck. I never told Harper about that.
I clear my throat, sensing Harper’s surprise and irritation burning into my shoulder. “That’s right, sir.”
“I thought I remembered that right.” Yates smiles, giving his temple a tap.
“Sam was a little hard to pin down, but I managed to get that footage from him the day before he took a tumble at the distillery. Didn’t get a chance to watch it until last night.
Seems like you were having a friendly conversation with our Jake outside of the gym, Harper. ”
A spike of rage hits my veins, blinding me.
Though I catalog the sheriff’s congenial smile and his chameleon eyes that seem greener than usual, as though they’re reflecting my high-vis vest back to me, it’s a moment of the past that I’m truly focused on.
It’s the image of Jake wrapping Harper in an embrace.
It’s the memory of the need that gripped me in a vise. The need to rip him apart.
“Yeah, just the usual,” Harper says, her voice like a nonchalant shrug.
Any attempts I’ve just made to anchor onto her words and pull myself out of this spiral are eradicated when Yates says, “I thought there was something going on between you and Hornell? Didn’t Bert say you went on a couple of dates?”
“I wouldn’t say dates, necessarily—” Harper says as my body temperature spikes, “—more like karaoke at the Buoy and Beacon a couple of times. But everybody goes to the Beacon for karaoke—you know that.”
“But I thought Bert said he saw you with him at Nightfog recently?” Yates presses.
“No. You’re probably thinking of Nolan.” Harper touches my hand, which I realize only now is clenched in a tight fist.
Fuck my life.
My brain has been dumped into a blender, and Yates is pressing buttons at will.
When he refocuses his attention on me, I have no fucking clue what my face is doing.
I probably look like I want to rip his skin off and wear it like a goddamn cloak.
But if he notices, he doesn’t let on. He just gives a little nod and a tight-lipped smile.
“Bah, you’re probably right,” he says with a dismissive wave. “All that town gossip is a little hard to keep track of, you know?”
“Sure do.”
“Well, it’s probably for the best that nothing ever came of you and Hornell.
Better you wind up with a nice boy like Rhodes here,” Yates says, clapping my arm with a strong hand before shifting his focus back to Harper.
“So, Mr. Hornell didn’t say anything about his plans for the day when you saw him?
Anyone he was going to meet up with, maybe . . . ?”
“Not that I can recall, no. We just chatted about the gym. But if I remember anything else, I’ll let you know.”
Yates’s smile broadens and he tips the end of his ball cap to her, like he’s some fucking caricature of small-town policing.
It’s as though he’s going through the motions of what the man behind the uniform is supposed to do.
“Appreciate you, Harper,” he says, and jerks his head toward the main tent of the command center in a bid for us to follow.
I spare a discontented glance at Harper before we trail after Yates, and the one she shoots back is one of sharpened steel and predatory determination. Get your shit together, she says in nothing more than a narrowing of her eyes.
I grit my teeth and face forward.
“Hornell had a habit of getting into trouble when he was drinking,” Yates says over his shoulder, more to me than to Harper, as we start weaving through the crowd. “He seemed to be on the straight and narrow since the DUI six months ago.”
“You think he just went on a bender, maybe? People like that have a habit of turning up eventually.” That’s a lie. While they have a habit of turning up, when they’ve been gone as long as Hornell, it’s usually in a body bag.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But the mayor thinks we should add him to the search, especially with Mrs. Evanston making such a fuss in town and stirring up the press. If we initiate a search for one man and not another, it’ll raise questions.”
“Sure thing,” I reply, glancing back at Harper to continue our silent conversation.
Get the fuck out of here while you still can, my lowered brows say.
Harper’s wordless response clearly declares, Get bent.
I roll my eyes, and when I turn forward once more, I nearly face-plant into the sheriff’s broad back.
I suppress a groan when I get a view of the obstacle to our progress.
That fucking dog.
Mrs. Evanston holds on to that irritating little demon like it’s a lifeline, her eyes puffy and swollen, as she asks Sheriff Yates if there’s been any update on the search for her husband.
I do feel bad for the woman, even if her dog is a wolverine hiding in the fur of a teacup Maltese.
That awful ball of fuzz has spent the morning trying to attack everyone who comes within biting distance when it’s not sheltered in Mrs. Evanston’s iron grip.
Everyone except Harper.
The moment she sees Harper, the dog’s entire demeanor changes. She whines. Paddles her tiny legs. Scrapes at her owner’s arm. “All right, all right,” Mrs. Evanston says, adjusting Queenie’s harness before setting her down on the pavement. “What’s gotten into you?”
The dog goes straight for Harper, bouncing at her feet in a bid to be picked up.
“Oh,” Harper says, and it’s the first time I sense an unsure tremor in her voice. She squats down to pet the dog. Queenie tries to climb onto her thighs as she licks Harper’s hand with enthusiasm. “Hello, cute little thing. Who are you?”
Mrs. Evanston’s brows furrow as she takes a step closer, her eyes shifting between Harper and Sheriff Yates in a way that I do not like. “Have you . . . have you met Queenie before? Have you seen her?”
“No, I—”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d remember—”
“She seems to know you, she’s not like this with anyone but family.
” Mrs. Evanston’s eyes shine with tears.
Her pulse hums in her neck as she takes a step forward and bends to get a better look at Harper.
My hands tense with the urge to keep her from getting any closer, but I stay planted in place as Yates takes in the scene at my side.
“Please, I’m looking for my husband, Peter.
He took Queenie for a walk but never came home.
She was just there on the lawn by herself. Maybe you saw them two nights ago—”
“I’m sorry,” Harper says, straightening to her full height. She rests a palm on Mrs. Evanston’s trembling shoulder. “I haven’t. She probably smells the jerky I carry around for the ravens. May I?”
Like a fucking pro, she pulls a piece of beef jerky from one of the pockets in her overalls and holds it between them.
Queenie lasers in on the treat and immediately sits like she’s at the goddamn Westminster Dog Show.
I still haven’t fully established if that jerky is actually beef.
For all I know, she could be about to feed Queenie a strip of Peter Evanston.
It shouldn’t be morbidly adorable to picture Harper layering strips of Peter into a dehydrator—but somehow, it is.
I swipe a hand down my face. Fucking hell, what am I doing with my life?
“I’ll be damned,” Yates says on the heels of a low whistle as Queenie devours the treat and bounces in a pirouette before staring up at Harper with adoring, beady little eyes.
“You’re like an animal whisperer, Harper.
Were you a professional dog trainer before you came to Cape Carnage?
Or is that something you did as a hobby when you were a kid? ”