Harmony’s heart hammered. “I’m fine,” she managed, though her hands shook as she stared at her torn sleeve. Her composure wasn’t as steady as usual. “That wasn’t an accident.”
Cass stared down the empty road as a shudder rippled through her. “Do you think that was the killer?”
Harmony’s voice was shaking. “I think it was a warning.”
Cass stood on shaky legs, mud streaked across her jeans. “A warning for what?”
Harmony looked into the thickening fog, eyes narrowing. “Maybe, to stop asking questions.”
Or maybe it had nothing to do with the murders at all. Maybe it was something else entirely, someone who’d decided her curiosity was a personal inconvenience. Catalina had never lacked for grudges.
Cass’s voice broke into a whisper. “Will you stop?”
Harmony’s shoulders stiffened. “No.”
They both stood there for a long moment, rain misting down again, faint but cold. The fog closed in even more tightly around them, soft and thick as clouds. Somewhere far below, the sea hissed against the rocks—patient, beckoning, waiting. Somewhere above them, an engine hummed, then cut out—so faint it could’ve been imagination, or someone idling on the ridge, just watching.
“Harmony, what if this means you’ve been marked?” Cass asked.
“Maybe it means we’ve both been marked,” Harmony said.
A tear slid down Cass’s cheek. “I want to leave now.”
Harmony gave her a hug. “We’re not allowed to. We’ve been placed on lockdown, remember?”
“They can’t make us stay if we’re unsafe,” Cass said, panic sharpening her tone.
“I don’t know if anywhere is safe, Cass. We just need to stick together.”
“We need to report this,” Cass insisted. “Right now.”
“I don’t know how much good it’ll do,” Harmony said.
“It’ll make me feel better,” Cass said. “And maybe we stay off the narrow roads for a while.”
Harmony let out a short chuckle as they limped forward. Cass stared at her, confused at how Harmony could laugh after nearly being run off a cliff. But what else could they do? They could let the fear control them—or they could carry on. Those were the only two options left.
They walked back into town in silence, fog muting everything. At the sheriff’s station, they filed the report and left it for Durante—who wasn’t there. Deputy Ciscel watched them a little too closely as they left, like he was filing away who walked in shaken and who walked out breathing again.
His gaze lingered not just on Harmony’s face, but on the tear in her sleeve, on her hands, on the mud streaking her jeans—memorizing the exact shape of her fear. There was nothing reassuring in it. It felt less like protection and more like inventory.
Harmony filed him away in return. She might not know his first name, but she’d remember the way he looked at her like a problem to solve instead of a person to keep safe.
Neither of them wanted to return to the cottage, so they headed to The Hotel Atwater.
Inside, the lobby smelled faintly of varnish and salt air, with bamboo-legged chairs and a worn safe in the corner—its massive steel door stampedWrigley 1906, too heavy to feel real, now repurposed to hold board games for tourists.
They found Durante speaking with several people in the lobby. He turned the moment they entered. Harmony could tell he already knew they’d filed a report. Of course, he knew. His people were watching all of them.
For a flicker of a second, Harmony saw it—the way Durante’s eyes slid past her to the doorway where Ciscel stood, thennarrowed the tiniest bit before smoothing over. The deputy wasn’t just watching suspects. He was watching his own men.
“Take a walk with me, Harmony,” Durante said. There were no greetings. They weren’t friends, and didn’t need to pretend they were.
Cass squeezed Harmony’s hand, then sank onto a couch, exhausted. Harmony suspected they’d be spending far less time alone at the cottage she’d once loved so much.
She followed the sergeant through the Hotel Atwater’s softly lit hallways, the air thick with that unsettling blend of fresh renovation layered over a century of someone else’s memories. The Atwater had always been tied to the Wrigleys—built in 1920, named for Helen Atwater Wrigley—even after its recent facelift, nothing about it felt new, which Harmony loved.
The wallpaper alone, that distinctive coral-and-leaf pattern the hotel was so proud of, made the walls feel as if they were leaning in, listening.
