Page 50 of Tourist Season

I round the second corner and head down a deliciously straight patch of Maple Street, gathering even more speed.

My car is fast . I don’t catch my exact time as I pass the first of four milestone markers along the route, but I can hear the excitement in Bert’s voice.

Something about a record. I could win this thing.

I wonder why the hell I haven’t done this before.

Sailing down the road with the crowd cheering and a deranged copilot silently hyping me up in a soapbox airplane?

This is fucking perfect . The screaming kids.

The smell of barbecue. Bert’s enthusiastic commentary.

The speed. The wind roaring past my ears.

I’m having the time of my life. This is freedom.

It’s “no fucks given” fun. I laugh. It’s a laugh that comes from a deep place I forgot I had.

I used to laugh like this a lot. And I like it. I missed this part of me.

I zip around the next turn, having so much fun I barely touch the brakes, nearly colliding with the straw bales set along the exterior edge of the curve. A collective ooh sounds from the crowd at the near miss and I howl with delight.

But I’ve gathered too much speed.

I nearly crash again into the next section of the curve that directly follows, and I turn the wheel hard left to avoid the row of straw bales lining the sidewalk.

Another rush of awe and excitement rises from the onlookers as I veer toward the inner side of the curve.

I curse and slam my foot down on the brake …

… but nothing happens.

“Oh shit .”

I pump the brakes. Nothing. I wrench the wheels back to the right so I can slow my descent along the wall of straw. And then there’s a snap . Panic seizes my chest.

“Fuck—not good—”

The car veers hard left.

“Look out—”

People on the left side of the road scream. They pick up their kids. Spill their beer. Toss their popcorn and grip their turkey legs. They gasp and shout and jump out of the path as I careen toward the sidewalk. There are no straw bales on this side of the curve. Nothing to stop me.

Not even Nolan.

He’s the one person I recognize among the tourists scrambling to get out of my way.

He’s the only one standing nearly still, moving only enough to follow the motion of my car as I pass him in a moment that seems like it’s been stretched so thin that time and all the world have disappeared.

It’s long enough to freeze the panic on his face.

Despite his stillness, his expression seems frantic, as though his energy has been funneled into the fear that paints his face and haunts his eyes.

And that moment is ripped apart in a single heartbeat as I hit the curb with a jarring thud and then jump onto the sidewalk.

“Harper—” I hear him yell after me.

“Not safe!” is all I have time to reply.

And then I’m crossing the lawn to join Piper Boulevard, an even steeper road.

“Shit, totally not safe,” I say to myself between tight breaths that pull my chest taut.

I jerk the steering wheel from one side to the next, but it has no effect.

I pump the brakes, but nothing happens. My car barrels straight down the steep road.

Bert’s worried commentary fades into the distance.

The only thing I hear is the rattle of my wheels and the clatter of Corpsie behind me and the occasional shout of startled passersby on the sidewalk as I rocket down Piper Boulevard, gathering speed.

That is, until I hear Nolan shouting my name, his voice growing impossibly closer.

“Harper,” he calls, dinging a bicycle bell to get my attention. I turn to see him pedaling furiously on a kid’s pink bike with multicolored tassels fluttering from the ends of the handlebars. “Aim for a hedge and cover your face!”

“No steering,” I call back, jostling the steering wheel with no effect. “No brakes!”

He gets closer, only a few feet behind me.

Corpsie’s ribbons whip him in the face and he manages to grab a fistful and tug, pulling hard enough to detach the mannequin’s arm, which he discards on the road.

When he refocuses on me, the panic is still etched into his features, his eyes not leaving mine. Not until they look past me and widen.

I turn and face ahead. I’m closer to the end of the cul-de-sac than I thought I was. Closer to the path that leads to Widow’s Point. To the cliff that drops into the sea.

Fuck.

“Nolan—”

“Undo your harness!”

I press the first button. The buckle sticks in the mechanism.

I’m picking up speed. The end of the road is only a block ahead.

“Your harness—”

“It’s stuck—”

“I thought you said you’d checked this thing—”

“Now is not the time !” I frantically jam my thumb against the button and tug on the straps, but the harness only tightens across my body.

The sound of the waves crashing against the cliff rises above the squeak of my wheels and Nolan’s furious pedaling and the heartbeat roaring in my ears.

I can smell the water and my breath catches as though I’m already drowning.

I’m rocketing straight for the short path that leads to the edge, getting closer with every ragged inhalation. No, no, no.

“Keep trying. Loosen the harness all the way and climb out—”

“Nolan,” he’s just behind me when I turn toward his voice, wrestling with the belt, trying and failing to loosen it with shaking hands. I choke down a panicked sob. “I can’t swim!”

There’s a flicker of pure panic in his eyes.

And then, as quickly as it appears, it snuffs out, replaced with unflinching resolve.

His legs pump. He doubles his efforts to catch up.

He manages to come alongside my car, as his hand is outstretched, reaching for me.

I reach back. His voice is trapped in a slow-motion haze.

Take my hand . All the other details fade away.

I just see the lines on his palm. The tattoo on his forearm, the snake’s mouth wrapped around its own scales.

The fear in his eyes. And just as his fingers graze mine, I hit the curb.

I scream as the car lurches onto the path. Every bone in my body vibrates with the impact, but it hardly even slows me down. Nolan disappears from view. I hear him yell out in pain and frustration and glance behind me to see his body tangled with the bike on the rocks.

I bump over the uneven dirt and stone. The water shimmers in hues of gold on the horizon. It was silver on black water when I sent the real Harper Starling over a cliff and into the sea. And now destiny is eating its tail, consuming itself. Taking me with it.

The car veers off the path. It jostles, careening onto two wheels just long enough to give me hope that it might tip over. But it rights itself. It straightens, landing on the smooth granite ledge at the edge of the cliff.

Four feet. Three. Two. One.

I grip my harness and close my eyes as the car rockets off the ledge.

Wind whips across my face. I’m weightless. The ocean crashes beneath me. I remember the sound of Harper Starling’s scream in the instant before her car hit the rocks and flipped, catapulting into the violent, churning surf.

And there’s only one word that escapes me when I hit the water.

A name. One that surprises me almost as much as the impact that steals my breath.

It’s the word I scream as the freezing water rushes into the cab and sinks my broken car faster than I thought possible.

It’s still an echo in my mind as a wave folds over my head and roars into my ears, into my open mouth.

It’s the one clear thought I have as I reach toward the surface even though there’s nothing to grab, the metal that encases me dragging me down, the last of the ribbons swirling in the current above me as I fall into the abyss.

Nolan.