“No,” I say, burying my face against her neck and crushing her to me. I inhale the sweet aroma of her distinctive scent. I relish every breath she takes against me, every touch as her hands slide across my back to hold me just as tightly. “I did not leave. I told you already. You’re mine, and I’m not letting you go.”
She nods. Maybe she thinks they’re just pretty words. She might not realize that it’s a promise. A vow that has no end. But when I pull back just enough to capture her mouth in a searing kiss, I show her. I press my lips to hers and steal her breath and lavish her tongue with mine. My hand threads into her hair and I hold her close. I know she’s not ready to hear the words. They hardly even make sense to me. But I love her, and with my touch, I prove it.
“Fucking help me, you fucking psychopaths,” Sam screeches, shattering our moment.
I rest my forehead against Harper’s, leaving a bloody stamp behind when we part. “I guess we should do something about that asshole.”
Harper lets out a long sigh, her eyes fluttering closed for just a moment as though she’s still savoring my touch. “Yeah,” she says before she steps back. “You’re probably right.”
With a brighter smile, Harper pivots on her heel and heads for Sam, kneeling to slide her hands between the rungs of the railing on either side of Sam’s boot.
“W-what are you doing?” he stammers.
“Helping, clearly.” She tugs at his laces, loosening the bow. “But I didn’t say who.”
Harper rises and gives a swift kick to his boot. Sam’s foot slides free of the shoe. His screech is cut short as he lands on the floor one level below.
“Christ. The silence is nice, isn’t it,” I say as we peer over the railing to look at his unmoving body. Blood seeps from beneath his head to creep across the concrete.
“Yeah, he was getting on my last nerve.” Harper grabs his boot to chuck it over the landing. It smacks his face before bouncing off to the side. “That’s going to be a bitch to clean up. We’d better get to it. We’re pretty far out of town—the nearest property is old Mr. Talbot’s farm a half mile south, and he’s pretty hard of hearing, but you never know. Someone still could have heard that gunshot and called it in.”
“Hey.” I lay a hand on her wrist, stopping her progress toward the lights that still shine behind us. She looks up at me with a question in her gunmetal eyes. “I know you thought I could have left you, but you could have left me too. I’m not sure how you figured out how to find me. I’m grateful that you did.”
She nods. It takes her a beat before she finally says, “Sure. What are friends for, right?”
I give her a dead-eyed glare. “We are not ‘friends.’”
“Yeah, I think I remember you saying that already,” she replies, but I know she can tell what I really mean. That she’s so much more than that. It’s in the way she flashes me a shy smile that lodges like a splinter in my heart before she turns away to start working on dismantling the lights. I know we both went back to that moment when we first faced off in her garden. It was supposed to be the defining confrontation that would seal our destiny. Bounty and executioner. Crime and justice. But maybe I’m just ready to leave that behind for the other memories that are starting to eclipse it. Anger served a purpose for me in the beginning. But in the end, it was a cage. And guilt is an equally vicious prison, one Harper is clearly still trapped in.
For the first time, I wonder if I can help her escape it when I had a hand in putting her there.
That thought haunts me as we pack Sam’s equipment, bringing anything that connects him with us to my rental and Arthur’s Jaguar where they’re parked at the back of the building, out of sight from the road.
After debating the best plan for the body, we agree that we should leave Sam here at the distillery, but take a final sweep through the space to ensure we’ve erased our presence so it looks like the unfortunate accident it was … almost.
If we remove him from the scene, it will only pique the interest of the Sleuthseekers. They’ll be rabid for details, and they won’t stop until they unravel the mystery. But if it’s an accident, we might have hope for fewer problems. And if Vinny wakes from where Harper clocked him in the head back at the inn, it will be his word against mine. His wild story about his unhinged boss kidnapping me for an interview probably won’t hold much weight with the pragmatic Sheriff Yates, particularly not against my alibi of sleeping soundly at Lancaster Manor’s cottage with my girlfriend at my side.
We’re heading down the slope to the lower entrance of the distillery for a last check of the scene, still talking through the finer details of our plan, when we hear the sound of a car engine and gravel crunching beneath tires.
Harper and I both stop abruptly, holding our breath. But there’s no way we’re mistaken, not when we hear the engine cut out, followed by the creak and thud of a car door closing.
Someone has pulled to a stop at the main parking lot of the Lancaster Distillery.
“Maybe it’s the drone guy,” Harper whispers as we peer through the windows at the body just visible in the dim light.
“Maybe,” I agree, though I clasp a hand around her wrist, ready to pull her back toward the path that leads to the vehicles. A flashlight sweeps across the windows at the opposite side of the building. Slow, careful footsteps make their way toward the entrance, followed by the creak of the door as it opens and shuts.
We turn and jog toward the cars.
“But I don’t think we should wait around to find out.”
CHART DATUMNolan
MAYBE I SHOULD BE WORRIED that we missed something. Terrified that Yates will finally figure out how to do his job and come knocking at our door. I should feel like running away from this place.
But I don’t. I feel alive.
It’s nearly three in the morning, and the adrenaline has been going all night. First it was the encounter with Sam. Then escaping from the distillery. Then racing to the Capeside Inn. We swept through Sam’s and Vinny’s rooms to either erase or steal anything we could find that appeared too connected to Harper and me, and then we took the murdered tourist and all the evidence to Lancaster Manor, hiding it all in the shed. Even after we managed to get the tourist’s stiffening body into the oversized chest freezer, we both felt far too energized for sleep.
So we decided on the next best thing.
Ropes cross Harper’s skin, each soft cord carefully and precisely laid against her flesh. One loop sits across her neck. Two intertwined cords drop down the center of her chest, ending just above her pelvis. Perpendicular lines fan from a series of knots. Above her breasts. Below them. Across her waist. Even down each thigh. An intricate network binds her arms behind her back. I took my time to tie each knot and position each rope exactly where I wanted. Over an hour later, her upper body is immobilized, and she’s completely at my mercy.
With the final knot tied, I savor my work, letting my gaze travel slowly over every inch of her flesh. I catalog every detail. The flush in her skin. The goose bumps on her thighs. The shimmer of arousal gathered at her entrance. The way she shudders as I drag a finger across her pussy and to her clit. The sound of her moan, the desperate edge to it when I remove my hand.
“Open,” I say as I hold my finger between us. Her lips part, and I lay my finger on her tongue. “Suck it off.”
Her lips close and she sucks hard on my finger, my cock hardening as her tongue rolls across my skin. When I remove my finger from her mouth, I trace it across her lips.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask.
