Nolan Rhodes, June 6–July 15, Room 117.

I double-check the date on my watch, hoping I could magically be wrong. But I’m not. It’s June 8.

“He’s here for six fucking weeks?” I whisper-snarl. Irene snorts in the room next door and I duck on instinct, but a moment later, her snore resumes.

It’s early in the season. There are only a few other bookings on Irene’s ledger for this week. Most people stay for a week or two at most. Cape Carnage is cute and all, but there’s only so much to do in a town our size. Unless, of course, you’re here to see someone in particular. And I think it’s clear with the “we need to communicate better as enemies” bullshit, the person he’s here for is me.

Fighting the urge to slam it shut, I close the book more gently than I’d like to, then duck beneath the counter and take off at a jog to Room 117.

When I get there, I listen at the door even though I know he’s out. There’s no room for sloppy mistakes with a guy like this. With a glance over my shoulder, I give it a knock, but still nothing comes. Then I slip the master key I had made two years ago into the lock and enter the temporary lair of my new adversary.

There’s nothing particularly revealing about the room, at first. He’s made the bed. His shoes are lined up next to the door. A black roller bag is open on the luggage stand, but there’s nothing in it. I flip the luggage tag over and, though there’s no address, there is a phone number. I take a picture and move along. On one nightstand is a laptop. I open it just in case I strike lucky, I’m not surprised that it’s password protected. I might be good at a little light burglary now and then, but computer hacker I am not. On the other nightstand is a bottle of prescription painkillers. I head to the kitchenette, opening the cupboards and the fridge. There’s not an abundance of food, but what’s here is healthy and fresh. I can tell he must intend to cook for himself frequently.

I open the armoire next, moving each piece of hanging clothing just enough to search for clues, but not enough to tip him off that anything has been disturbed. There’s a black backpack beneath the clothes, pushed to the back of the shelf. I slide it free and open it wide.

“Oh, Mr. Rhodes,” I say as I pull a garrote from the bag. The smell of chlorine rises from the polished wire. “You’ve come to the wrong fucking town.”

I riffle through the bag just long enough to spot a pair of leather gloves and a hammer before I zip it up and toss the strap over one shoulder, closing the wardrobe before I turn toward my next objective.

The shelves across from the bathroom.

There’s an iron and an ironing board. A pair of folded robes. Extra towels and pillows. And on the middle shelf, the safe.

My heart thuds heavy beats against my bones. My hands sweat in my gloves. I’m just about to push the buttons to enter the master code, the same one I managed to wrangle from Irene the time I got her drunk on an old bottle of whiskey from Arthur’s long-defunct Lancaster Distillery. Irene might have puked on my only nice pair of shoes that night, but it was worth it. Especially in times like this.

And then my phone rings. I pull it from my pocket and check the screen.

“Arthur,” I say, placing the call on speaker before I lay it on top of the safe. I press the first number of the code.

Zero.

“What are you doing?”

“Who says I’m doing anything?”

“You promised you’d tell me if you were up to no good. I’m an aged, dying man who is not-so-slowly sliding into the oblivion of the afterlife—”

“You’re so dramatic. Shit or get off the pot, old man—”

“—and I need to live vicariously through my protégé.”

I snort as I press the next button on the safe. Nine.

“I’m not up to no good,” I say. Two. “I’m just having a little look around.”

“A look around where, exactly?”

“Capeside Inn. I’m in a tourist’s room.”

“And where is he?”

“Out for a run.” I look down at my watch. Something about the way he favored one leg sets me on edge. If it starts to bother him on the steep hills that snake through the town, I might not have long. I run these streets too. I know how hard it can be without persistent pain, especially in the cool mist that feels like it climbs into your bones to chill you from the inside out. “I’m nearly done,” I say, more to myself than to Arthur. “I just need to get a read on how likely it is that this particular tourist will wind up in the jaws of the Cookie Monster.”

I press the last button on the safe’s combination lock. Three.

“And what is your determination?” The lock clicks as the bolts slide free. The door swings open. I pull a leather-bound book from the shadows and rest its weight on my left hand as I flip to the page that’s saved by a bookmark. “Harper …?”

“Pretty fucking likely,” I whisper. The page is some kind of scrapbook. “Trevor Fisher,” the headline says. There’s a map on the left side. An X next to a river, drawn in red pen. Beneath the name is a list of dates and crimes. Some of them relatively minor. Theft from an electronics store, disorderly conduct. Some of them serious. An assault in a bar. A firearms charge. More than one arrest for domestic violence. On the right side of the page are photos of a man, taken at a distance. And then some taken up close. The man’s face, twisted in terror. Spattered with blood. And near the bottom of the page, something that looks like leather. Preserved, dried, and crinkled—and glued to the page. But I can see the fine hairs lodged in the tissue. I can make out the warped script still written in the desiccated skin.

Memento mori.

“What is it, Harper?” Arthur asks. A thread of worry is woven through his voice. “What do you see?”

I shut the book and clutch it to my chest, sliding the phone off the safe before striding into the room. “We’ve got someone very bad here.”

“How bad?”

I could say “someone like us.” But the truth is, even if we have similar … extracurriculars … Nolan Rhodes and I could not be more different. But I know others like him. I’ve survived others like him. And so has Arthur. “He’s like La Plume,” I say.

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line as I stuff the scrapbook into the empty laptop compartment of the backpack and zip it up. And I know it’s not because Arthur is struggling to remember. La Plume is the last name he’ll ever forget. It’s the name that will haunt him until his dying breath.

Arthur’s voice has dropped an octave when he says, “You need to leave there immediately. Get out.”

“I’m already on it,” I grit out, hanging up before Arthur has a chance to say anything more.

I stop at the nightstand and take a photo of his pill bottle, making sure to capture the details and location of the pharmacy that filled the prescription. Then I stare down at the paper and pen. I should be terrified of the trophy I saw in that book. Nolan knows where I live. He’s murdered someone on my property without me even knowing. He’s toying with me.

I should be running as fast and as far as I can from Cape Carnage.

But running is not enough. I’ve run before and been caught. I’ve already died once and started over. I’m not going to do it again.

I scrawl a note across the paper, my smile stretching with every word.

I fold it and put it where I know he’ll find it.

And then I leave the Capeside Inn with a backpack slung across my shoulder, my thoughts taken up by war.

Irene is still asleep when I stride through the lobby and pause at the door, taking my time to survey the parking lot. It’s raining, misty. There are only a few cars parked here, and aside from Irene’s old Hyundai, which I’m ninety-nine percent positive she can’t legally drive, the others seem to be mostly rentals. A nondescript SUV. A silver sedan. There’s an Escalade with a personalized license plate, so I discount that one. With a menacing smile, I run into the rain, headed straight for the black SUV.