Page 40 of Tourist Season

I RUN MY HANDS DOWN my skirt, one that has an almost Victorian-era feel despite the hem landing just below my knees, its black-and-white stripes unusual and quirky, perfect for the evening’s festivities.

With a short-sleeved black top and black tights and a pair of retro deep red velvet oxford heels, I’m cute as hell.

Then I loop a red ribbon around my ponytail.

Even cuter . I just wish Nolan could see me in something other than muddy or bloody clothes.

No, I don’t. That’s fucking stupid.

Is it, though?

It feels like the most asinine thing I could ever do would be to put my trust—my real trust, not my tenuous “I have your skinbook and you will do what I want” trust—in a man who has explicitly said that he would hunt the deepest reaches of hell to find me.

One who has come here to kill me. Of all the women in the world, I cannot be the one to roll over and say, “Take me now, Murder Daddy.”

Fuck no . Not after what I’ve survived.

A deep sigh fills and empties from my lungs and I press my eyes closed, rolling my neck where tension has been endlessly building until it feels ready to snap.

My head says I can’t do it. But my heart sees the hurt in his eyes when I told him I didn’t believe that he could care about anything other than the belongings Lukas hid on my behalf. It looked real.

But appearances can be so deceiving that they’re deadly.

I leave the floor-length mirror to open the top drawer in my dresser.

Beneath my lingerie is a small, nondescript jewelry box.

One I don’t open often. I couldn’t bear to put it beneath the floorboards or on the makeshift gravestone in the Lancaster family plot of the cemetery. But I can hardly look at it either.

I take the watch out and lay it on my palm.

There’s no strap. Just the shattered crystal and scratched dial of a TAG Heuer Autavia.

A faint smile passes over my lips as I remember Adam’s twenty-first birthday.

We went to dinner with his parents. They gave him this watch.

Adam was so surprised. He was always joyful, generous with his laughter and kind words.

But that night, he was so vibrant he lit up the whole room.

That was the day before we left on our adventure to live the van life for the next two years.

My smile fades.

“I can tow you. I’ve got a garage. I’ll fix that van right up for ya,” Harvey Mead’s voice echoes from memory, corrupting my mind like ink on pristine paper.

Adam had given him the same glowing grin he gave to everyone. “That would be so great, thank you.”

I remember Mead smiling at Adam in return, but it never reached the lightless abyss of his eyes. He walked back to his tow truck as I whispered to Adam, “Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah,” he’d said, running a hand over my hair before placing a kiss on my forehead. “He seems all right.”

I open my eyes as the image of scattering vultures flutters through my mind.

I blink down at the watch. It looks just the same as it did when I pulled it from the ashes of Harvey Mead’s house.

Just the same as when I tried to give it to Adam’s parents.

When Mrs. Cunningham’s hand folded around mine and she told me to keep it.

She never once tried to make me feel guilty for being the one to survive that hell where her son was torn apart. But I still felt it anyway.

There were many times I wished it had been me who died there.

Grief debrided me like teeth on a grater, shaving away every piece of me until only ribbons of my life were left behind.

And every time I tried to pick them up and mold them into something that looked vaguely familiar, they fell apart.

I had to let go of the woman I used to be and glue my shredded pieces together with shadow and sin to feel anything close to whole again.

I can’t just give that up. I can’t force that broken woman back into the light. I can’t unravel this life I’ve created here in Cape Carnage. I cannot, I will not , let Nolan Rhodes take it from me.

I set the watch inside the box, staring down at it for a long moment before I place it back in the dresser and walk into town, forgoing the opportunity to ride with Lukas so he can have some one-on-one time with his grandfather.

It feels good to just walk for the sake of it.

Lately, it’s just been a constant swirl of gardening, refurbishing the soapbox racer, crafting a fake corpse, and, for the last three nights, ever since I dispatched Mr. McMillan on my lawn, working in near-silence with Nolan to exhume Arthur’s long-buried victims.

I finally mustered up the courage last night to apologize for nearly getting him killed and then yelling at him, though he didn’t give me much of a reaction, unless a bottomless, indecipherable stare of molten darkness qualifies as tacit acceptance.

At least I tried, I guess. It won’t be a bad thing to get a break from Nolan for a night.

I should probably be getting ready to head to the river right now, but I just can’t bear to miss one of Arthur’s favorite annual events on his first day out of the hospital.

So on this warm, clear evening, I soak in the details of my town on a leisurely stroll instead.

From the ornate wooden scrollwork on the peaked roofs of houses to the hanging baskets I take care of every summer, Cape Carnage is a place I finally feel at home.

It looks after me. And I look after it, just the way Arthur has taught me.

Tonight kicks off the time of year when I need to be most vigilant. The official start of tourist season. The opening event of the Carnival of Carnage Festival.

There’s already a lineup outside the theater when I arrive on Maple Street.

It’s a mix of visitors and townsfolk. Some of them are dressed in costumes aligning with tonight’s show.

Others are like me, festive but not going so far as dressing like candelabras or teapots or burly nineteenth-century hunters.

Some, mostly tourists, are casual. I eavesdrop on conversations and soak in the atmosphere until my ticket is finally taken and I make my way inside, grabbing popcorn and a soda.

I find a seat in the center of the seventh row, using my handbag to save the one next to me for Arthur.

I settle in, reading the playbill as I wait for the auditorium to slowly fill up.

“Well, well,” a familiar voice says to my left after only a few moments of blessed serenity.

I close my eyes for a beat and blow out a long, slow breath that does nothing to alleviate the irritation that seems to drown me from the inside.

Okay, maybe a little excitement too, but I do my best to trample that. “What a surprise seeing you here.”

A waft of sandalwood and cedar drifts around me as Nolan Rhodes takes a seat at my side. I keep my eyes closed, unwilling to be assaulted by his infuriating hotness. “I’m sure.”

“Cape Carnage Theater presents Beauty and the Beast . That’s fitting, don’t you think?” he asks.

I crack open a single eye and glare at him. The instant I catch his gaze, one corner of his lips pulls back into a lopsided smile. I barely repress a groan.

“Since I’m so beautiful and all.” He runs a hand through his hair with dramatic flair.

“And I’m such a monster, right?”

“You’re the one who said it, not me.” His smirk dissolves into an unflinching stare, a mirror of my own. It feels like it takes far too long for him to drop his attention to the paper in his hands. “What is this?” Nolan asks as he reviews the playbill, a crease notched between his brows.

“Do you have reading comprehension problems? You literally just read the title to me.”

Nolan rolls his eyes and reaches over for a fistful of my popcorn.

I slap his hand. “Get your own.”

“I got the title part. But what I don’t understand is why there’s a content warning for Beauty and the Beast . It’s Disney.”

“This is Cape Carnage. Nothing is Disney. This is the antithesis of Disney.” I scowl at Nolan, and he returns my irritation with a steely glare of his own. “If you don’t like it, leave.”

A sardonic smile sneaks across his lips. “I’m comfortable right here, thanks.”

Something darkens in his expression, and it summons heat beneath my bones, deep in the cavern where my soul should be.

There’s no light in his eyes. No air between us.

The voices and laughter, people moving to their seats, the instruments warming up in the little orchestra pit—it all fades away.

There’s only Nolan and the way he watches me, as though he would tear my heart out with his bare hands if I didn’t have his precious book hidden away.

Like he would hunt me to the darkest hidden corners of the earth if I ever tried to disappear.

I almost want to run, just to be chased by him.

To be caught and bound, forced to face whatever fate is lurking in his predatory machinations.

But I’m too ensnared by him to go anywhere.

And I’m too slow to react when he steals a fistful of popcorn from the bucket on my lap.

I blink as though clearing my mind from a haze and move the bucket, holding it on the empty seat next to me and out of his reach. When I face him once more, he seems quite pleased with himself, as though he’s fully aware of the effect he has on me, whether I like it or not. “Go. Away.”

“Too late. I paid the ticket price.”

“I’ll personally reimburse you.”

“There’s no amount of money that would mean more to me than your suffering, no matter how minute.

Isn’t that what you think?” he says, that darkened, mocking smile of his still fixed on his face.

I roll my eyes and lean forward to look beyond him before I twist in my seat, searching the patrons entering the theater. “What is it?”