Winnow #3
“Yeah . . . ” A final sip of beer slides down my throat as Morpheus croaks from the windowsill like a portent of doom.
I force myself to look at Harper, even though I fear the pain I might see in her eyes.
“Yates said something unsettling about Arthur. That he suspected Arthur had something to do with the death of his wife but couldn’t prove it. ”
The silent moment that follows is like a knife pushing into my flesh. Harper doesn’t look away, doesn’t balk. Barely blinks. “What did Yates say, specifically?”
“Only that he was worried about you with Arthur. He didn’t give any specifics about what happened, just alluded to it. And I found nothing of consequence when I looked it up.”
“You looked it up?” she asks, and I nod. Her eyes narrow to suspicious slits. “How, when you didn’t have your phone?”
I resist the urge to pull away from her gaze. I’m not sure why it feels like I’ve done something gravely wrong, but it does. “I went to the library.”
Harper sits back in her chair and regards me for a long, torturous moment. The only motion she makes is to slowly spin her beer bottle on the place mat, the condensation smearing beneath her fingertips. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I didn’t have my phone, remember?” I counter, struggling to keep any sarcasm from bleeding into the dark notes of my voice.
But I think she still hunts it out. Fury blazes to life in her sharp steel eyes.
I reach for her wrist before it can slice, and I’m a little surprised when she lets me hold on.
“I’m asking you now, Harper. What happened? ”
My breath seems caught in my lungs. There’s a lingering beat before she says, “Arthur killed his wife. Because she begged him to.”
Harper slides her arm free of my hand to raise her beer to her lips, taking a long sip.
My fingers tense in the absence of her touch.
I knew there must be something behind Yates’s words, but this isn’t what I expected.
When Harper finally meets my eyes, they’re haunted, as though they’re able to reflect Arthur’s pain.
“Vivian had breast cancer. But it had already metastasized to her bones. He said she was in so much pain that she couldn’t even get out of bed.
She begged him for weeks before he finally gave in.
” It seems like another layer of her armor has been stripped away when she says, “He gave her midazolam. Traces showed up on the autopsy report, but it was never connected to Arthur. To my knowledge, Yates never even tried. If he had suspicions, this is the first I’ve heard of it. At least, Arthur told me nobody asked.”
Maybe it’s a fiction Arthur spun to keep Harper in his web.
Or maybe it’s the truth. But if it is, does that mean she’s in any less danger?
What if he’s confused and tries to hurt Harper while trapped in an echo of memory?
Or what if he demands something of her that she’s unable to bear?
“Why would Yates mention it to me if he hadn’t tried to link Arthur to Vivian’s death? ”
“I don’t know,” she says simply.
“Maybe it’s exactly as he said, that there wasn’t enough evidence to even pursue it.
And that he’s worried about you. Because I am too.
” I rest my palm on her hand, and this time, even if she tries to pull free, I won’t let her slip away.
“Arthur is a brilliant, capable man. And he is a dangerous man.”
Harper squares her shoulders. “Not to me.”
“No?” I ask, and she shakes her head. “Never?”
This time, she remains still, and I know there must be something she’s unwilling to share.
“He was dangerous to you when he manipulated me into grabbing his murder bag. The same one that you’d stored for safekeeping because you knew he might do something rash.
And then he went out and did exactly what you were trying to prevent him from doing.
” I lean closer when Harper’s eyes drop.
“That’s why we’re in this whole Search and Rescue mess, remember?
He put you in the middle of everything you’ve been trying to escape. ”
Harper shakes her head. “It’s not like that,” she whispers, meeting my eyes for only a moment. The defiance in them is covered by a tormented shimmer. “What he did to Evanston was a mistake. I get that. I know the risk it’s put us all in. But he needs me, and I won’t abandon him.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I say, and she bites down on her lip as though forcing herself to withhold a sharp retort.
“But what happens if he confuses you with Vivian one day? Or someone else?” I let go of her hand only long enough to sweep the hair back from her face with the lightest touch, and her eyes flutter closed for a heartbeat of time.
“He knows he’s losing his memories. His identity.
He knows he cannot be cured. What if he asks the same thing of you that Vivian asked of him? What would that do to you?”
Harper is crumbling before my eyes, her brow furrowed and her features pinched as she stares down at our hands.
She’s trying hard not to cry. And I feel so fucking guilty about it.
She probably thought we’d have some pizza and beer and watch that goddamn addictive TV show she loves so much.
Not that she’d have to hear me lay out all the things she surely worries about in such a harsh and unforgiving light.
But I just can’t bear the thought of her becoming trapped by promises she made to a man who might be manipulating her at every turn.
I get up from my chair, never breaking my touch as I bend down to wrap her in an embrace.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, relieved when she folds an arm across my back.
“I know how much you care about Arthur. But he has the capacity to hurt you in so many ways. And I struggle with that, Harper. I really do.”
Harper says nothing. She doesn’t nod, doesn’t move.
But she doesn’t let me go either. Not until long moments pass, and the pizza is cold and the beer has warmed in the humid summer air that flows in from the open windows.
When I finally sit back down, I feel like I’ve made another wound in a woman who already carries so many scars.
We pick at our dinner but don’t finish it. We put on Surviving Love, but don’t watch it. We go to bed, but we don’t fall asleep, not for a long and silent stretch of time.
When Harper’s breathing finally deepens beside me and she slides into her dreams, I take her hand off my chest and move it to the bed where my body should be.
I stand next to her sleeping form, watching her for just a breath of time, and then I leave.