Chapter Sown #3
I toss a weak smile over my shoulder. Max lets her hand fall to her side, her brow furrowed. She gives me a nod. Her desire to help is clearly genuine. But she’s already seen too much.
“Who is Harper?” Arthur asks again.
I squeeze his hand. It’s tempting to tell him not to worry about it. That Harper is nobody. It wouldn’t be a lie. But it wouldn’t be a kept promise either. “Harper is your friend,” I say, swallowing the fist lodged in my throat. “And she loves you very much.”
Arthur grumbles something I can’t make out.
His brows are drawn, his jaw working as he mulls this over.
We reach the front door, and though I told myself I’d be able to breathe once it was closed behind us, it’s not true.
My chest is knit tight with all the things I won’t let myself think about. Not until I get Arthur settled.
I lead Arthur to the kitchen and slide the newspaper in his direction, asking him questions to keep him occupied as I make him tea.
How’s that storm looking for tomorrow? Is there still a discount at the Starlight Boutique?
Have they published the roundup for the Taste of Terror festival yet?
Every time Arthur reverts to talking about the “hideous purse demon” or “the wretched woman on the lawn,” I ask him another question.
Then I bring him a plate of cheese and crackers, his cup of tea, and a dose of Risperdal to calm his agitation.
I sit with him as he eats. We talk about the local news, the weather—anything to take both our minds off what just happened.
And when he’s done, I take him to the living room for his nap, that sense of suffocation never leaving my lungs.
“Harper,” Arthur says, his voice a little sleepy, his gaze caught on the garden diagrams spread across his desk as I lower him onto the recliner.
“Yes?”
“Did . . . did we have the judging for the garden today?”
“We did indeed,” I reply, laying a blanket over his lap. I place his cane within reach, the wolf staring into the distance of the room like a guardian.
Arthur fidgets with the edge of the crocheted squares where a thread has come loose. “I don’t remember it.”
“That’s okay.” I take Arthur’s phone from my pocket and open his playlist, selecting Schubert’s “Shepherd on the Rock” to play through his Bluetooth speakers.
He seems reassured when I smile, though confusion still lingers in his features.
“It was nothing worth remembering,” I say.
And before he can ask any more questions, I give him a kiss on his cheek.
“I have to go. Give me a shout if you need anything. I love you, Arthur.”
I rise and stride toward the arched entrance of the room. I’m nearly at the threshold when Arthur calls out, “Harper.”
My palm lands on the carved oak that sweeps over my head as I turn to face him. He seems so frail in his chair with the blanket stretched across his lap. So vulnerable, despite everything he’s done.
“Thank you,” he says. “For everything.”
I do my best to smile. “Of course, Arthur.”
When I turn away, sorrow swallows me whole.
The judging committee is long gone. The property is quiet. Someone has closed the gate to the driveway, sealing our secrets behind iron bars of leaves and flowers. But I feel like our sins are growing through the cracks.
And I let someone breach our defenses.
Every step I take, I force my despair into dark corners of my heart, stoking my fury to life instead.
I got two gifts today. Gloves from Arthur. And a bone from the only person who knew where to find it. The one person I told. The man I fucking trusted.
Nolan Rhodes.
The betrayal sings through my veins, wiping out any defenses my mind comes up with the moment they arise.
Maybe it was a mistake, I think. But a piece of damning evidence doesn’t just magically show up among the exact same poisonous flowers Nolan referenced in one of his notes.
Maybe he has an explanation. But what could it possibly be, other than “I wanted to fuck with your life”?
I told him where this bone was—him and only him.
No one else could have known where it was, or would have the motivation to use it against me the way that he did.
But he said that he loved me. And then two days ago, I told Nolan I loved him too.
It felt so real when he said it back. I had no doubt in my heart.
And what could possibly be a better revenge than that?
There are feelings. And there are facts. What if he gave them to me all along, and I ignored the messages? Just like he ignored me all the times I told him I wasn’t the woman he thought I was?
“I just want a little bit of you for myself,” he’d told me when I gave him McMillan’s shirt to plant at the lake—the same one that’s never shown up in the search.
“I want to make you suffer for what you’ve done to me,” he’d whispered when he fucked me in the shed.
“What if the clues were there all along?” I whisper aloud, my hand clutched to the ache in my chest.
Maybe he couldn’t risk murdering me, not with everything going on in this town.
But the truth is, I let him close enough that he knew this fate would be worse for me than death.
He opened each layer of my heart only to crush them like petals in a fist. He knew exactly how to make me into a living ghost. How to kill me while keeping me alive.
By the time I reach the back gate to the cottage, I’m vibrating with rage.
Morpheus caws as I pass his bird feeder, but I have nothing left on me to give him.
When I get to the back door, I slip soundlessly inside, heading straight for the cupboard under the sink.
I pull out the SIG Sauer handgun hidden there and check the magazine, blowing out a long breath when I find it still loaded with rounds.
I check every room. Every closet. Every hiding place. But Nolan isn’t here.
When I get back downstairs, I check the freezer.
There’s no note left behind like I once did to him when I stole his scrapbook.
When I check the garbage can, the tinfoil that once wrapped the bone is there, crumpled up on top of the domestic refuse of what I thought was our imperfectly perfect life.
I slam the drawer shut and smash my fist on the counter, an enraged cry escaping from my throat.
Nolan came here with one motive: revenge for the accident that took his brother. And I was the fool who confessed to being there that night. A fool for believing anything he said.
“I promised.” I smash my hand on the counter again. “I fucking promised.”
It won’t be me, I’d promised myself. Never again.
I was never going to be caught again. Never going to suffer at the hands of a psychopath again. Never going to let my guard down again.
And I’ve let it all happen.
I hit the counter over and over until pain radiates through my wrist and elbow. But eventually I realize that there’s one person I want to punish more than myself. Ragged breaths saw from my chest as I straighten. My hands shake as I wipe the tears from my lashes before they can touch my cheeks.
And then I calmly walk to the couch.
I sit, placing the gun next to my lap. Next I take the gloves, setting them on the coffee table as though having them in sight will bring me strength.
I place my phone on the side table. And lastly, I take out Bryce Mahoney’s bone.
I turn it in the light. The shattered ivory points.
The scarred silver plate. The metal screws.
How did I miss the signs? How did I not know this was all about revenge? How could I believe him when he said that he loved me?
How could I let myself love him back?
The ache in my heart steals my breath. But I force it down into the dark.
I will not break my promise again.
My phone buzzes with a text. I glance over to see Nolan’s contact information flash on the screen and pick it up.
Did you win?
A grim, mirthless laugh escapes my control.
“Not yet,” I say aloud before I turn the phone face down, staring at the chessboard as the light slowly bleeds from the room.
Morpheus flutters to the open window, regarding me with inky eyes.
“Pretty murder bird,” he says in my voice.
“That’s right,” I whisper, looking down at the gun in my hand. “We are.”