His gaze sharpened, dark with calculation.
“You, Harmony, speak about these murders like you’re narrating them. You never live within the panic like so many of the others.”
She gazed back without fear. “You don’t know me, Detective. You don’t know how I cope with emotion or pressure.”
“True,” he said. “But I know how to read people.”
He stepped a little closer, his gaze dipping to her purse, where the folded note peeked out. Clearly, he’d heard the conversation they’d just had inside the coffee shop. It didn’t help that no doors shut in Avalon, making eavesdropping far too easy.
“Most people would be falling apart right now. Not you, though. You’re . . . steady.”
“Would it make me look less suspicious if I were falling apart? Should I put on a show for you?”
Vega took another step closer. Harmony refused to retreat. “There’s something that scares me about you, Harmony.”
She smirked at him. “What would that be, Detective?” She wanted to tell him he wasn’t allowed to use her first name anymore. But that would give the man power, and she was unwilling to offer him a single thing. She respected him, but that didn’t mean she liked the man.
“You seem to know exactly how this story ends. Does that mean you’re writing it?”
She met his stare without flinching. “Do you believe I’m the killer?”
Neither of them was beating around the bush, so she might as well ask the question. He paused for long enough that it would make most people sweat. Harmony wasn’t most people.
“People fear monsters for two reasons,” Vega murmured. “Either they don’t understand what the monster is . . . or they know it a little too well.”
Harmony was very aware he hadn’t answered her question. He was making implications without painting himself into a corner. She smiled, letting him know she wasn’t affected. If she were being fully honest, she’d know that wasn’t true, but there wasn’t a chance she was giving this man an ounce of power. Once she handed that over, she’d never get it back.
“I’ll remind you again, DetectiveVega, that you don’t know me.” She emphasized his name, almost mocking.
She knew better than to cross the line with the law, but she had zero problem dipping her toe over the edge a little bit.
He smiled, confidence in his gaze. “True, I don’t know you . . . yet.”
He pulled back, boots echoing on the wet pavement. He took a few steps before turning his head, looking at her once more.
“Harmony, I’d be careful if I were you. Terror cracks people. Sometimes killers crack, too.”
He then walked away, the fog swallowing him.
Harmony let out a long, slow exhale. She turned . . . then stopped as a chill slid down her spine. She tried seeing past the fog, but it was impossible.
She didn’t know how she knew, but had no doubt someone’s eyes were on her.
She refused to cower. She took confident steps forward. After a few more steps, Deputy Evans came into view at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Steve’s Steakhouse. He held a notebook but wasn’t writing. He was watching . . . her, his gaze intent.
A faint glimmer of recognition crossed his eyes—not of guilt, not of accusation, but of possession, like someone seeing a secret they weren’t ready to let go of.
“Been here long?” she casually asked.
“Long enough,” he murmured.
“For what?” she asked. She was done being looked at like a suspect in the place she’d always found serenity.
“For patterns. Schedules. Habits.”
Patterns meant he’d been studying her long before this morning. Maybe longer than she realized. Harmony suddenly felt the uncomfortable truth that Evans might have already mapped her habits, her walks, the rhythm of her days.
His stare drifted over her features, unsettling in its precision. “We’re all aware how composed you remain under pressure. Most people don’t. That kind of control says a lot about a person.”
