Page 65 of Tourist Season

I drag a hand down my face, ready to claw my skin off. She’s a fucking monster. And to drive the point home, she sends through two more photos of her breasts, one from the side and another a close-up of one nipple.

Okay okay okay. 1pm.

Fucking brat.

The kettle whistles and I pocket my phone. As I’m pouring the water, a notification comes through on my laptop. My heart lurches, a hit of adrenaline flooding its chambers. Tea in hand, I head to the table and wake the screen to find my request approved.

With a grim smile, I start exploring the information on the server.

First, I start with Sam’s recent posts. He’s been teasing his trip to Cape Carnage, posting the occasional image of the town or his film equipment or shots of him and Vinny as they focus on their work.

I come to learn that Vinny is a trusted friend to Sam in his escapades to unearth the town’s secrets.

Much of the recent discourse centers on La Plume and the interviews Sam has conducted to confirm his suspicions that Arthur is the infamous serial killer.

Nothing of the latest posts tells me about the Chevy van.

So I start trawling the archives.

Once I search for a Chevy G20, a new picture starts to emerge.

The earliest posts referencing the G20 are from three years ago, mentions of a van that had been refurbished before setting out on a road trip across the southern states, starting in Texas.

“AC bought the G20 in September, and they spent the winter overhauling it,” one of the posts says, along with a photo of the old van that must have come from the used car dealership’s listing.

I check the VIN report, and it lists a transfer of ownership in September six years ago.

There are some questions in response to the post. And then, “His parents gave it to AB the October after Mead.”

I have no idea what that means, but the dates line up with the VIN report.

It’s useless trying to search up “AB” or “AC.” I blow out a long breath, readying myself to start delving into the bigger picture to understand the context in which the van occurs.

Just as I’m about to start trawling through the posts, a new message comes through on the general chat, and I click on it.

Anybody hear from Sam or Vinny? it reads.

A few replies confirm that no one has heard from either Sam or Vinny yet. Sam’s absence is no surprise to me, of course, but it’s odd that Vinny hasn’t checked in with the group if that’s what they would expect. Maybe Harper hit him harder than she thought and he’s spent the night in the hospital.

Sam told me in confidence a couple of weeks ago that he was going to be looking for something at spring tide, which was this morning sometime, a user called KnightofTruth replies. He might still be out on the water. I’ll check in with his girlfriend and report back.

This message generates some chatter in the group, an atmosphere of excitement. Another user asks a question that strikes my interest. Something to do with autumn?

I don’t know what could be happening in the autumn here. Aside from the Taste of Terror festival near the end of summer, there’s not much planned in the fall when the coastal weather starts to turn. If there’s something coming up that Sam would take an interest in, it’s a mystery to me.

I frown at the screen and start a new search for autumn.

But what I find is not at all what I expected.

There are numerous results for “autumn,” some as recent as yesterday, some dating back to four years ago.

But it’s not a season. It’s a person. Autumn Bower.

The name brings up a vague recollection of news stories and speculation.

She was fodder for the press. A popular influencer in her niche who survived a prolific serial killer, what could be a more enticing story than that?

She was a seemingly unassuming woman who somehow escaped from the cellar of a house of horrors and walked seven miles to the nearest town barefoot in nothing but a fucking plaid shirt, leaving the remains of her slain boyfriend and his murderer burned in her wake.

And then, several months later, she just … disappeared.

I keep scrolling through entries, so many of them from shortly after her mysterious disappearance focused on trying to track her down. Autumn’s last video , one entry says, with a YouTube link. I click on it.

And smiling back at me is Harper Starling.

“Hi,” she says, with a wave to the camera.

“I’m Autumn, and welcome to Autumn and Adam’s Vanventures with Goonie, our 1985 Chevy G20 camper van conversion.

Now that we’ve been living in Goonie for a month, we have a better idea of what we’ve done well in our rebuild and what we’ll probably change.

Today I’m going to show you my top-five favorite things in the van so far. Come on in …”

The rest of her words are lost to the roaring heartbeats in my ears.

I’m staring at Harper. But I’m not. She seems so different.

And it’s not just the long blond hair or the lighter eyebrows or the sun-kissed glow.

It’s not a Texas accent I can hear in her voice, one I’ve never heard when she speaks.

It’s the ease in her. The openness. It’s her welcoming smile, her enthusiasm.

She shows the interior of the van, from the kitchen to the little wood stove, the layout identical to the van that lies at the bottom of the sea.

I start the video again and pause it when her face is centered in the shot, and then I bring up my pictures of Harper Starling from before the accident, placing them side by side on the screen.

The resemblance is there. They must be about the same age.

Their face shape is similar. Even the width of their noses and the angle of their jaws.

They look like they could be sisters if their hair color was different. But they are not the same woman.

I close my eyes and try to force a memory that refuses to surface.

When I look back at the glimpse of the driver of the car that hit Billy and me, it’s the woman I know that I see behind the wheel.

But is it? When I recall the feeling of the asphalt against my face, it’s her voice I hear arguing with the men whose souls I’ve already claimed. But can I be sure?

What if my memory is wrong?

It was only a flash of a moment, her features illuminated by the dashboard lights in the instant before the crash. Could I have warped this memory with my hatred until it matched what I wanted to see and hear?

I navigate to the channel page and click on the introductory video.

It’s her again, this time with a man her age, his arm around her shoulders.

He has a surfer vibe: a wide, bright smile and a mop of unruly blond hair.

He’s the kind of guy everyone loves. It bleeds right through the screen.

There are photos and video shots of them working on the van, with a voice-over. “I’m Adam Cunningham,” he says.

“And I’m Autumn Bower,” she chimes in.

“And welcome to Autumn and Adam’s Vanventures …”

I press a shaking finger to the keyboard and pause the video.

And then I stand so quickly that I knock the table, rattling my laptop and cup and saucer with a shock of sound that just barely penetrates the thoughts that are clicking together like magnets snapping into place.

I rush to my jacket where I tossed it over my backpack and take out the silver bracelet I put there the day the raven dropped it in the sink.

A2BC .

Autumn Bower. Adam Cunningham.

I slowly sit on the edge of the bed.

She’s not the woman who struck me and left me for dead.

She’s Autumn Bower.

The hint of blond roots I noticed in her hair just the other day. The way she feared Sam as though she knew exactly what he could do to her life.

Tears blur the metal links laid across my open palms.

All the fucking horrible things I spent years wanting to do to her.

The way I’ve hated her. The way I’ve treated her.

Until only recently, I’ve always approached her with the expectation that she was the one who owed me .

And every harsh word, every glare, every threat and vow to wreak havoc upon her, she took it all.

Somehow, she made her way here. And in the process, though I have no recollection of when or how, we crossed paths. She must have stolen Harper Starling’s identity, maybe in the hopes of evading a past that refused to let her have what she’d fought for and earned. A life .

And I almost took that from her. I came here to destroy her. But she isn’t even the woman I was seeking, and yet she never said a word.

… or did she?

I’m not who you think I am , she’d said, defiance vibrantly gleaming in her silver eyes. And I didn’t listen, not really. I didn’t hear what she was trying to say.

She has survived loss. Captivity. Horror and death. And she was ready to survive me.

Me .

I’ve fallen in love with a phantom. A woman I hardly know. One who never told me the truth. She’ll let me pierce her skin and pledge my loyalty with the pain she craves, but she won’t tell me her fucking name.

What happened to the actual Harper Starling? And how the hell did Autumn take her identity and wind up here ?

I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel in this squall that crashes through the cavity of my chest. The guilt and shame for how I treated her and what I nearly did.

Betrayal and anger that she never told me who she really was, even after I promised I was never going to give her up.

Worry and hope. Longing and sorrow and regret.

With a heavy sigh, I curl my fist around the bracelet and hang my head, trying to figure my way out of this storm.

But I don’t see a clear path through it.

A notification dings from my computer. Then another. And another. My brow furrows, and I push myself off the bed, returning to the table. When I click on the tab for the Discord server, KnightofTruth has sent a message to the chat.

Sleuthseekers, it’s time to fucking mobilize.

A chill dances through my flesh. Goose bumps rise on my arms. A slew of messages comes through from other users in the server. Questions. Excitement. Guesses and theories.

I type out a question of my own: Mobilize for what?

KnightofTruth sends a reply to my query that sets off another storm of questions.

War.

Anxiety bleeds through the chat. The same question echoes in different iterations. Why?

Maybe some instinct within me expects KnightofTruth’s reply, at least in part. But it still hits me like the car that started this tempest four years ago. An unstoppable impact that slams right into my chest. It crushes muscle and bone, sucking the air from my lungs.

Sam and Vinny are both dead, KnightofTruth says. It’s time to blow this case wide open .

We’re going to Cape Carnage .