“You were holding hands with that man,” Arthur says, scaring the shit out of me even though he’s been next to me the whole time. I’d been too immersed in the details of Nolan’s hot ass and enigmatic serial killer appeal to think about my surroundings.

God. I really need that fucking drink.

“More accurately, he was holding hands with me,” I reply, as though I’m some teenager trying to downplay her first crush to her dad. It’s hard not to feel that way when Arthur gives me an unblinking stare.

“Do you want me to cut his hands off?”

I snort, trying to calm the blush that burns in my cheeks. “Jesus, Arthur. No.”

“I didn’t think so,” he says in his most curmudgeonly grumble. I shake my head and survey the seats behind me again for Sam. Satisfied there’s no sign of him lurking nearby, I close my arms around my middle and I settle deeper into my chair. “So. Who is he, this man whose hand you were holding as equally as he was holding yours?”

That blush just refuses to go away. “His name is Nolan,” I reply, in case he’s forgotten again. “He’s a tourist.”

Arthur rumbles a low, disgruntled note. He’s not a fan of tourists, though like all Cape Carnage residents, he understands how necessary they are for the town’s flourishing economy. But with tourists comes trouble, and for a man who has spent his entire adult life looking after our odd little home, there’s a built-in level of suspicion toward visitors that he’ll never get over.

“Is he good to you?” he finally asks.

That simple question seems to dismantle my thoughts. It should be so easy to answer. No, I want to say. He came here to murder me, slowly and painfully. To slice pieces from my body and glue them into his fucked-up trophy case. But also yes. I know that he’s helping me to help himself, but it feels like more than that. The shovel, the bear spray, the hot chocolate—though he tries to make them seem like practical things that benefit himself, he watches me as though he hopes I’ll be happy when he gives them to me. The way he looks at me feels real, despite how hard I try to convince myself it’s all part of his game. The hurt in his eyes the other day. I don’t think that could be manufactured. Even holding my hand tonight. If he truly wanted me to suffer, if he really hated me so much, would he offer such a simple but meaningful comfort?

“I don’t know,” I say, though I’m not sure if it’s an answer to Arthur’s question or a continuation of my thoughts. “I’d like to hope so.”

“That’s not an encouraging answer.”

“It’s the best one I’ve got.”

“Sensible,” Arthur mutters before his attention wanders away. “It’s difficult to judge character these days.”

I don’t know if he’s referring to his own deteriorating health, or the general state of the world, or both. “A guidebook would be helpful. Some criteria.”

“Perhaps you could ask him if he would allow his hideous little dog to relieve itself among my award-winning roses and not clean it up,” he says, his eyes fixed to a bald man in his sixties who’s sidestepping down the aisle three rows ahead. A woman with fluffy blonde hair follows close behind him, chunky gold chains layered around her neck. The couple looks like snowbirds, with their golf club clothes and their over-bleached smiles and their sunglasses tans. Arthur despises tourists like this. Garish. Entitled. When I first arrived in Cape Carnage, crimes such as indiscriminate dog shitting wouldn’t qualify as a murderable offense—these people would have to do something legitimately heinous for Arthur to consider that. But lately …? I’m not sure his barometer for what qualifies as a “murderable offense” is very accurate.

“I don’t think he would allow that, no,” I say.

Arthur doesn’t pay me any attention. His focus is entirely homed in on this couple as they take their seats to talk and laugh just a decibel too loudly for Arthur’s taste. He’s still watching them intently when he suddenly says, “You can’t tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

Arthur turns his attention my way, his eyes clearer than they’ve been all night. “Who you are.”

“I had no plans to. I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I’m not going to break my word,” I say, laying a hand on his arm and squeezing gently. “I’ll look after the town, don’t worry—”

“It’s not for the town, Harper. It’s for you.”

My brows knit. “What do you mean?”

“The wrong man discovered my true nature, my identity, and it made me a prized target. And look at what that cost me,” Arthur says. His eyes shine as he raises a hand to my face. “Keep your past safe. Or the whole world will descend upon you, and you don’t know what kind of creatures will be coaxed out of hiding. I cannot bear to lose another daughter.”

I can’t trust my voice to form words, not when my heart is crumpling in my chest like crushed flowers. I don’t tell him that Sam is closing in. Or that keeping my identity buried might be a lost cause. I don’t whisper about all the worries that are piling up around me in a suffocating embrace. I just place my hand on his. Lean into the warmth of his palm. With a nod, I reaffirm what I promised to do four years ago.

Arthur gives me a weak smile and then refocuses his attention on the couple ahead. “You’re a good girl, Harper. Even though you put my keys in the dishwasher.”

A breath of a laugh escapes my lips as I sneak a finger beneath my damp lashes. “Are you sure you didn’t—”

“I am absolutely confident I would never put keys in a dishwasher, if that’s what you were about to insinuate.” Arthur’s brows lower when the woman three rows ahead laughs too loudly at something the man says. “I’m looking forward to your topiaries. Perhaps you should start with a beaver.”

“I don’t know shit about topiaries.”

“You’ll learn. I have faith in you.”

“Please don’t.”

Arthur ignores my protests as the couple continues to talk and laugh, his aggravation deepening with every moment of their existence. Though I try to pull his attention away, he seems happily steeped in his irritation, and maybe a little worn out by the emotion of our conversation. So I let us slip into companionable silence. Before long, Nolan returns with a box of popcorn in one hand and two cocktails balanced in the other.

“One Orbit-uary,” he says, passing me the drink with a flummoxed expression. “This place is fucking bizarre.”

“That’s what’s so great about Carnage. It’s unapologetically weird,” I say. Nolan seems to ruminate on that as I take the popcorn from him under the guise of making it easier for him to get settled next to me, but when he reaches for it, I hold it beyond his reach. “Where’s yours?” I ask with faux innocence. “You didn’t forget it at the counter … did you?”

The flat glare he gives me tastes better than the sweet cocktail I take a sip of. His eyes drop to my lips and darken. I can feel the hunger in him that has nothing to do with sugar and salt. A lick of heat coils deep in my belly. I’m flirting with him. And it’s working.

Hold on a second …

I’m flirting with him.

And it’s—

“Have you had dinner?” he asks. It looks as though it takes effort for him to peel his focus away from my mouth. I shake my head. He reaches over and wraps his warm palm around my forearm and reels it in until the box is resting on my lap. “We’ll get dinner after.”

My brows hike. My heart is flip-flopping in my chest like a fish drowning on air. “Don’t we have work to do?”

Nolan just shrugs. He keeps his attention on the stage as the lights lower and a hush descends across the crowd, but I still feel the pull of his thoughts, as though he wants to meet my eyes but denies himself the indulgence. “We need to eat,” he finally says.

Right. It’s just eating. Normal human biological stuff. It’s not as though it’s a date or anything. We haven’t even really gotten past the whole McMillan thing from the other day, despite my apology last night. A bit of empathetic hand-holding and some popcorn doesn’t fix a murder-induced argument. Probably.