Chapter Transplant #2
Our conversation slips into the beautifully mundane.
What we should have for dinner, whether we should watch a movie or the next episode of Surviving Love.
And after a while, I realize I’m smiling down at my phone.
I’m not the kind of girl who does that—at least, I didn’t think I was anymore.
One who sends flirty texts, or falls asleep in the dark, or laughs in a man’s arms. One who falls in love.
A thousand times over, I would do it again, Arthur’s voice replays in my head.
I could lose Nolan one day. Grief and loss haunt love like a shadow.
But the warmth, the need, the smallest words to the biggest declarations—these simple breaths of time make a life more than just existence.
Maybe the risk of being clipped short is still worth blossoming for even a brief moment in the sun.
And it doesn’t matter that I might go from penis topiaries to fears of discovery to talking about love with my aging serial killer mentor. Nolan’s presence somehow threads through it all, anchoring every piece of me in place.
By the time I get to Main Street, Nolan is forced back into his work, and I pocket my phone to focus on my destination.
There are few people on the streets with this weather.
Though I consider stopping for a coffee, A Shipwrecked Bean looks packed with mostly unfamiliar faces.
And the thought of Sleuthseekers slinking into town stings like a thorn beneath my skin.
They could be right there, waiting to put Sam’s broken puzzle together.
I stay on the opposite side of the street, despite the lure of caffeine, and continue on my path to Maya’s Magical Mixtures.
Jake Hornell’s face stares back at me as I draw closer, his poster still taped to the telephone pole near the shop’s entrance, the image warped around the edges where water has seeped between the cellophane.
When I enter the shop, Maya is behind the counter, staring thoughtfully at the chemistry equations spread before her.
A moody indie song is playing in the background, lyrics about a ruinous love swirling on jasmine-scented incense.
Maya nudges her gold-rimmed glasses up her nose, assessing me with obsidian eyes. “Oh hey, Harper.”
“Hey.” I push my hood down and stop at the counter, trying to decipher the equations scribbled across the paper as though I could understand them any better upside down. Honestly, that would probably give me a better shot. “What are you working on?”
“Bugfucker 2.0.” Maya rests her chin in her palm with a defeated sigh, her long black braids tumbling onto the page.
“The original formula is great for mosquitoes, but not the horseflies. I want to make something that can repel both, but without melting people’s skin off,” she says as she circles a compound and makes it into a skull with two crossed-out eyes.
“That’s a shame. Melting people’s skin off sounds both fun and useful.”
Maya snickers. “You could use it on that Nolan guy.”
“I get that a lot. You know about him, huh?”
“Half the town knows. Nightfog, baby.” Maya’s smile broadens when I roll my eyes. “Auntie Irene says it’s serious.”
I grab a basket from beneath the counter, even though I don’t need one, just to hide the blush that rages in my cheeks. “He’s a tourist.”
“There are these amazing devices called ‘phones.’ See also ‘planes.’”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I reply, moving toward the home and garden section of the small store.
The bell above the door dings behind me.
I cast a brief glance over my shoulder just before I move down the aisle and see two unfamiliar men and a woman enter the store, their attention focused on Maya as she chimes the chipper “hello” she reserves for tourists.
“ . . . but he’s totally useless, so I’m guessing by the time I’m back to work, everything will be a hot pile of trash,” one of the men says.
“I’m just planning to delete all my emails,” the woman replies. I hear one of them pick up a basket, and then the rustle of a jacket in the aisle next to mine. “Start fresh, you know? If someone really needs something, they’ll follow up.”
“At least Sam and Vinny had the decency to die close to Independence Day,” the other man says. An immediate burst of adrenaline at the presence of Sleuthseekers dulls my reaction to his callous yet logical declaration. “I was running low on holiday time.”
“Charlie. What the fuck—”
“You’d better not say that shit around the others if they show up. Can you imagine if Willow heard you?”
“Of course I wouldn’t. My EQ is low, but it’s not that low.”
“Do you ever not talk in consultant speak? ‘EQ.’” The woman scoffs. “‘We need to disrupt the marketplace, get into more granularity about the low-hanging fruit,’” she says, mimicking his voice as the other man snickers.
“That was disturbingly accurate. Now come on,” the man who isn’t Charlie says. “Let’s get a move on. I want to get outside before the rain really starts pissing down.”
The image of the photo of me on Discord flashes through my mind, panic settling in my guts.
Silence descends in the shop as I tuck wayward strands of my long hair behind my ears and tug my hood up.
I pull a bottle of You’re Not So Fun-gus fungicide from the shelf and start making my way back toward the top of the aisle in the hope that I can toss some cash down on the counter for Maya and make a quick exit.
But just as I’m near the end, the squeak of damp shoes on tile has me spinning in the other direction.
“Hey, guys,” Charlie says from another aisle. “Corpse Reviver Hangover Juice. We’ll need that if we’re gonna survive Emma’s rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ for karaoke night at the pub.”
“Shut up,” the woman snipes back as Charlie laughs.
“You do realize we’re not here to party, right?” the other man says.
“Yeah, and you never know what you might uncover with a few beers and Celine Dion, Tylor,” Charlie replies.
“Let’s just get through the next few days first, yeah?” Tylor replies. I don’t need to look up to know that he’s the one who’s now starting down my aisle.
I keep my head lowered. Blood thunders in my ears, dampening the sound of the music.
I pretend to read the label of the bottle clutched in my hand, but really I’m stealing sidelong glances at the man from beneath my hood.
All I can see are damp Blundstones. Jeans with water marks from the rain.
I refuse to look higher and risk catching his eyes.
My hand is trembling as I reach out for a bottle.
I’m not even paying attention to what I grab.
It takes every ounce of restraint to stand my ground and not succumb to the urge to run.
Especially when he stops right behind me.
“Piss-Off!” he says quietly to himself. Even though I know he must be reading the label of Maya’s concoction, my adrenaline still surges as though he could be speaking to me. I take a slow step toward the far end of the aisle but stop when I hear the other two chatting from that direction.
I’m caught in the narrow space, too afraid to move yet too scared to stay still. I’m contemplating making a break for the staff-only storage room along the back wall when the woman’s voice rises from the direction of Maya’s counter.
“You wouldn’t happen to know who this person is, would you?” Emma asks.
The pause that follows might only last for a heartbeat, but it feels like a lifetime.
I don’t need to see what she’s showing Maya to know it’s the photo of me, the same one that was on the Sleuthseekers Discord.
Or maybe worse. For all I know, KnightofTruth could have found an even better shot, one that shows my face.
The alarm blaring through my mind cannot be ignored. I squeeze my eyes shut. Hold my breath.
“Based off the back of their head? Uhh, no. I don’t,” Maya replies. Suspicion is woven into her voice. “Why do you ask, are you police or something?”
“No.” Charlie scoffs. “We’re better.”
I can almost hear Emma’s eyes roll. “We’re from an investigative group called the Sleuthseekers.”
“Oh, right.” Maya’s fingers snap. “That group with the guy that killed the other guy and tried to kill the sheriff, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“So . . . a different group?”
The man behind me sighs and turns away, his footsteps departing toward his companions at the counter.
“We investigate the cold cases that the police in towns like this one can’t seem to solve on their own,” Tylor says, his voice a blanket over the palpable tension in the store.
“We’re not sure what really happened with Sam and Vinny, but we’d like to find out, and we think the woman in the photo might know more about what they were looking for. Are you sure you don’t recognize her?”
Maya’s tone is final when she says, “Sorry, man. No clue who that is.”
“All right. But if something clicks,” he says with a brief pause, “this is how you can reach us.”
I listen to the group’s clipped chatter while they unload their purchases on the counter. A few endless moments later, the bell dings above the door, and the only sound left is the music gently flowing from the speakers.
“They’re gone,” Maya says. “You can come out now.”
Sweat itches beneath my collar, the heat of fear trapped beneath my hood. The urge to run out the back door is nearly overpowering, but I make my way toward Maya. Slowly. Painfully slowly.
“Thank you,” I say, setting my basket on the counter. I can’t even look at Maya. For some reason, the burn of tears erupts in the back of my throat. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did.” Her delicate hand touches my arm, and I finally meet her eyes. “You’re one of us. A Carnagean . . . Carnagite . . . Carnelean . . . ”
I give her a weak smile, and Maya’s dark eyes sparkle. “A Carnivore . . . ?” I venture.