Chapter Swathing #3
I give him a flash of a weak smile and disappear into the tent before Tylor can spot me.
It’s a few agonizing minutes before I hear his voice, one I recognize from the day he stood right behind me in Maya’s Magical Mixtures.
“I’d like to sample the Bloody Butcher Bourbon, please,” he says, and I resist the urge to peer around the edge of the tarp.
“No problem,” I hear Lukas say, and then the clink of a bottle as he pulls it off the metal rack to pour a mouthful of liquor. “This is from one of the last batches before the distillery closed down almost thirty years ago. It has notes of apple, crème br?lée, and—”
“Have you seen this woman?”
My breath hitches in my chest. When I close my eyes, I can see that photo so clearly.
At least, I hope that’s still the only one of me that he’s got.
I didn’t even know he was coming back to town.
There wasn’t a whisper of it on the Discord server, and a sudden fear strikes me that maybe they’ve realized someone was lurking among them who shouldn’t be there.
What if they’ve been talking somewhere more secure?
What if Tylor isn’t the only one here? What if his friend Emma has come back too?
Or people I would never have a hope of recognizing in the crowd of unfamiliar faces that outnumber the townsfolk?
And what if Lukas Lancaster—sweet, naive, debatably virginal Lukas—is my undoing?
“From the back of a head?” Lukas says. “Can’t say that I do. Sorry.”
I let out a breath, but the air is sucked out of my lungs again when Tylor says, “Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“Because the lady at the bakery stand over there seems to think this might be a woman named Harper Starling who lives in the cottage on the Lancaster estate. The same estate that belongs to your grandfather.”
Lukas lets out a hollow chuckle that has a dark edge in its notes. “Sarah Winkle, huh? Yeah, she’s usually wrong about a lot of shit.”
“So this ‘Harper’ doesn’t live in your grandfather’s cottage?”
“She does. But that’s not Harper. I don’t know who that is.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.” Lukas’s tone brooks no argument and invites no further conversation on the matter. “Want to try something else?”
There’s a delay that feels like it takes a little too long to pass before Tylor says, “The Reserve, please.”
Lukas explains the flavor profile over another clink of a bottle.
This time, Tylor stays quiet through the explanation.
There’s a brief moment of silence in which he must be trying the amber liquid, but I don’t dare check around the edge of the tarp.
I hold a fleeting hope that their tense conversation has ended, and that Tylor is ready to move on.
But he’s a Sleuthseeker. He doesn’t give up that easily.
“Does it strike you as weird that there are so many unusual disappearances here?” Tylor asks.
“It’s a remote town on a stretch of unforgiving coastline. People get lost. People die at sea. It’s always been that way here, unfortunately.”
“Sometimes they die at your distillery too. And since the sheriff’s explanation seems a little lacking, I’m wondering if the woman in this picture might be able to answer some questions that he seems unable or unwilling to address.”
A heavy pause lingers in the air. Lukas’s voice is a low rumble of menace when he says, “If you have questions, take them up with the sheriff. Do you want to buy a bottle or not?”
There’s an announcement over the speakers mounted across the grounds, Bert’s voice cutting through the sounds of the festival.
“The chili-eating contest will start in one hour. This is your last chance to enter. The winner will receive an epic basket from a number of our vendors, including Clean Your Crack handcrafted soap from Maya’s Magical Mixtures, gift certificates from the Buoy and Beacon Pub and A Shipwrecked Bean coffee shop, and a bottle of Lancaster Distilleries Reserve Rye Whiskey.
If you think you can handle the heat, come on up to the booth next to the stage and register now. ”
“Well,” Tylor says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “Guess I’ll enter the contest. Thanks for the tasting.”
Lukas says nothing more. And I don’t return to the counter.
No more murder, I think as I stare down at my backpack where it’s shoved against the wall of the tent. It’s Nolan’s voice I hear, and I picture the way he looked at me when he caged me in against the counter at the grain shed. That feral smile, that gleam of pure promise in his eyes.
“If the chance to keep them away from you is right there in front of me, I’m going to fucking take it, Harper,” he’d said. “I’ll gladly break every rule to do it.”
If Knightsbridge is closing in, it’s not just me he could unearth. It’s Arthur. It’s Nolan.
Maybe it’s time for me to bend a few rules too.
I grab my bag. Open the interior zipper. Pull out a vial from the depths of the pocket.
Red Tide, the label says in Arthur’s handwriting.
I grin at the clear liquid that coats the glass, and then I chase after the KnightofTruth.