Surely there was no harm in a little kiss …

“It’s OK,” she whispered, fascinated with the darkening of his grey eyes. Tillman wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him. Dangerous territory, her mind whispered. Remember what happened to your mother when she fell in love with a human. Shelly squeezed her eyes shut, determined to drown the demon voices of doom. She had wanted to get close to him for so long, had fantasized about this moment for over a year.

His lips were upon hers, hot, demanding and probing. She was drowning in sensation, her bones and blood liquefying in pools of desire. The sweet, fierce hotness made Shelly’s toes curl into the warm sand. The pounding of the waves matched the pounding in her blood.

DEBBIE HERBERT writes paranormal romance novels reflecting her belief that love, like magic, casts its own spell of enchantment. She’s always been fascinated by magic, romance and gothic stories. Married and living in Alabama, she roots for the Crimson Tide football team. Her oldest son, like many of her characters, has autism. Her youngest son is in the US Army. A past Maggie finalist in both Young Adult and Paranormal Romance, she’s a member of the GA Romance Writers of America. Debbie has a degree in English (Berry College, GA) and a master’s in library studies (University of Alabama).

Siren’s Secret

Debbie Herbert

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my parents, J.W. and Deanne Gainey,

my biggest fans.

To my husband, Tim,

who believes and supports me in everything I do.

And to our two wonderful sons, Byron and Jacob.

I’m so blessed to have each of you in my life.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Under autumn’s moon-blood red

Beneath a foam-tipped wave

The unseen mermaid spies the dead

Sink to a watery grave.

With a flick of her mermaid’s tail, Shelly surfaced from the deep coastal waters holding the dead body of victim number two.

Black garbage bags, held together with yards of duct tape, wrapped around the dead human like a macabre gift package. A cement block dangled from the rope attached to the body. Shelly removed a knife from the leather pouch belted at her waist and sliced through the rope, releasing the block. She plunged her long, sharp nails into one end of the garbage bag, ripped open a layer of plastic and stared into a pair of empty eye sockets.

The killer’s signature calling card. News of the previous dead body with missing eyes, dumped weeks earlier in the bayou, still dominated the news media as an unsolved case.

From the tip of her fin to the top of her scalp, an electric surge of fear blazed through her body like a burn. This could have been me. Whether she was on land in human form, or at sea as a mermaid, both worlds were filled with danger.

Miles from shore, she kept afloat by swishing the tail fin beneath her torso. Her gaze froze on the maimed body as her heart pounded in time with each rise and fall of the waves. Seawater pooled in the victim’s empty eye sockets like wells of tears. The placid mood of the ocean shifted, as if it resented the violent encounter it was asked to hide. Shelly’s arms ached as she struggled to hold the slippery plastic-encased body in the turbulent water. Against the waves, the plastic wriggled and slithered like a monstrous black eel.

The abrupt rumble of a boat engine sliced through the humid night air. Shelly jerked and the victim’s body skated from her grasp and bobbed beside her in the water. She thought the killer had left, but panic and surprise at the unexpected encounter during her swim had made her careless.

Earlier, she’d been close to her human home, finishing her evening’s swim, when a sudden splash sent screaming vibrations rippling through the sea. She’d heard the boat above her on the ocean’s surface and watched as the long, cylindrical object sank like a torpedo not twenty yards away. She should have left at once. But she had suspected the foreign object was human, and hoped the human might still be alive.

So Shelly had watched and waited at first. Through the dark ripples, the full moon illuminated a man peering over the side of an old johnboat. She couldn’t move as he’d stood there, waiting. Probably making sure the weighted-down corpse wouldn’t pop back up, and then the boat had sped away.

Now he was back.

The boat gathered speed and headed directly at her.

No! I can’t be seen. Stupid, stupid, getting caught. Got to get the hell away. He would be on her in seconds. Shelly reached for the body and her hands slid off the slick plastic. She took a deep breath and forced her panicked mind to be clear. Her fingers, then palms, grabbed a handful of plastic and she pulled it close enough to circle her arms around the victim’s center. But the now-waterlogged body was so heavy it slipped through her arms down into the sea.

Yards away, the killer stared at Shelly with the eyes of an intense predator. With the light of a full moon, she made out the curly dark hair peeking out from under a baseball cap, a hookish beak of a nose, glittering dark eyes with gold flecks and a short, wiry body tensed in fury.

Her eyes burned as she strained to adjust her vision from water to air, the sudden beam of a flashlight blinding her for a moment. Judging from the way his mouth gaped open, Shelly knew he’d seen her inhuman pupils do their wild thing, shine with the bioluminescent glow of deep-sea marine life as the irises swirled like a miniature aurora borealis. Her muscles seized and locked, refusing her mind’s screaming command to flee.

Damn. Wait until he sees my tail.

The boat stopped next to her and the man’s face contorted with rage. He pointed at Shelly. “What the hell?” he screamed in a tight, shrill voice. He reached into his pants pocket and drew out something. Silver flashed as moonbeams reflected off a thin metallic surface.

A long-bladed stiletto knife.

The sight broke Shelly’s paralyzing stupor. She somersaulted, momentarily flipping her tail fin in the air before diving down to the ocean floor. Despite a mysterious, searing pain in her tail, Shelly swam to the bed of sand, knowing he couldn’t come after her this deep down.

The foreign odor of dead human wafted through the usual smell of marine life. As her eyes adjusted to the absence of light in the deep sea, Shelly located the body and swam over to it.

A few long strands of black hair escaped from the torn garbage bag. Shelly ran her fingers through her own honey-colored locks. She had never come so close to evil and death. It wasn’t right to leave the body this way. Too disrespectful. Unable to resist, she touched the victim’s forehead, noting the heart-shaped face and delicate, arched eyebrows above the gaping wounds.

I am so sorry this happened to you. So sorry.

She tucked the long black strands back into the plastic, trying to bestow some dignity and kindness on the dead woman. I’ll come back for you, she promised as she placed the body in a wedge between a large outcropping of limestone rocks.

The sharp pain from the tip of her tail fin broke through the shock and grief. She looked down and saw a small stream of blood oozing out in swirling, crimson eddies. The killer’s knife had stuck into her fin. Damn. In the split second her tail had been exposed, the killer had managed to stab her. She pulled out the knife and this time the pain was excruciating. Had this been what he used to kill his victims?

I have to stop him.

She forced herself back up through the black depths of water, gripping his weapon in her right hand. Nearing the surface, she found the rusty boat still rocking from her downward dive. Flat-bottomed and only fourteen feet long, the rusted aluminum boat was not the best choice for anything but the calmest of waters. Although the style was popular in the bayou for leisure fishing, and easily navigable in the winding backwaters threading along the bayou shoreline, the killer was out of his element so far from land and with the increased wave action of the sea.

His engine sputtered as the killer tried frantically to restart the old worn-down motor. He was on the scrawny side, but his biceps bulged as he yanked the pull cord over and over.

As the boat’s motor sprang to life, the waters churned and roared around her. Too late to knock him overboard now. The motored blades could slice her to pieces if she came too close.

Her fingers gripped the knife’s handle in frustration as the boat raced off.

She fought against the instinct to fling it away and leave it on the ocean floor. Maybe the killer’s identity could be traced through the weapon.

Certain he was gone, Shelly lifted her torso higher out of the ocean and spotted a dingy white baseball cap floating on the boat’s wake. She grabbed it and submerged undersea again.

Home. There she could think, form a plan. And get her cousins’ advice.

“Anybody out there?” Shelly pushed air out of her lungs, sent the vibration of her voice in a compressive wave motion, similar to the high-frequency elocution of dolphins but minus the clicking sound. “Lily? Jet?” If they were anywhere near, they’d pick up her message and respond. Underwater sound traveled twice as fast as on land and four times as far.

Shelly strained to hear an answer but only caught the snapping of crab claws and a few toadfish whistles.

She swam home, each flick of her fin sending shooting sparks of pain through her body. Please, no sharks. She focused on keeping an eye out for opportunistic predators attracted by bloody smell—a mermaid’s worst nightmare. She feared hungry sharks more than the killer returning. No way could that man get near her so many fathoms deep.

At last she swam through her home’s undersea cave portal with its narrow tunnel climbing upward, and broke surface. The tunnel led to land, the opening covered by a hurricane-proof steel structure shed erected after Hurricane Katrina. It replaced the dilapidated tin building that had stood in this exact spot ever since Shelly was a teenager visiting her cousins on summer vacation. Some such structure had stood for decades at this portal, providing cover for her ancestors as they came and went to the sea.

Dark, humid air rushed into her lungs and she paused at the portal’s slender opening, about the size of a city-street manhole. Arms clinging to the edge of its sandy surface, Shelly braced to raise her tail fin out of the water.

This was going to hurt like hell.

The transformation from tail fin to legs usually lasted about thirty seconds with only minor discomfort as oxygen bubbled through her veins. But tonight’s stab wound was a bitch. Already tired and in shock, it took all Shelly’s energy to pull her body out of the sea. When her breathing slowed a bit, Shelly stood on her left foot and cautiously put weight on the injured right one. It was bearable. She limped to the left wall of the shed and fumbled for the flashlight, kept for these late-night swims. Once she shifted from mermaid form, her night vision decreased to that of an average twenty-nine-year-old.

The halo of light revealed a deep puncture wound, but the bleeding wasn’t as bad as she’d first feared. She hoped that was a good sign. She removed the sporran always belted to her waist during swims. It contained her knife, useful for cutting her way loose from fishing nets and as protection against dangerous predators.

Shelly had thought the human world a much safer place.

Until tonight.

The moonlight made her feel exposed and vulnerable as she hobbled to the house. Once inside, she quickly locked the door behind her and leaned against it. Home. It had never felt so good to be home.

The smell of grilled seafood and the musical babbling of her cousins in the kitchen hit her with such relief it made her knees wobble.

She meant to call for her cousins, Jet and Lily, but she was too spent for her voice to carry. She stumbled into the kitchen and leaned an arm against the table. Her long hair dripped, forming a puddle on the Spanish-style tiled floor.

Shelly drank in the domestic scene. Jet put down a platter of extremely rare grilled shrimp and crab claws while Lily rolled up chopped fish in seaweed for sushi rolls. From the back, Lily’s long blond hair, so similar to her own, fell in graceful swirls down to her hips. Jet noisily pulled out knives and forks to set the table. The colored glow from an antique Italian chandelier cast variegated prisms of light dancing across the walls.

“It’s not like Shelly to get home so late,” Jet said, running a hand over her cropped black bob. “And she’s the one who insisted on grilled shrimp tonight, too.”

“I’m here,” Shelly said weakly. Neither could hear her over the kitchen rattling and a small TV playing the evening news.

“It’s a full moon,” Lily said. “I’m sure the tug of the tide called her. I plan on a long swim myself after dinner. Care to join me?”

“I said I’m here,” Shelly managed, louder this time.

They turned as one to look at Shelly standing there, dripping and shivering from a combination of fear and cold. Jet strode over and shook her arm. “Shelly? Are you hurt?”

Shelly gazed at her injured foot and pointed a trembling finger.

Jet knelt down for a look. “Holy shit, girl. How’d you get this?”

“Kn-knife wound,” she stuttered.

Lily gasped and dropped a handful of the seaweed wrap. A glob of raw fish plopped against her pedicured toes.

“How’d you manage that?” Jet asked.

Lily hurried across the kitchen. Stepping over the dropped sushi, she grabbed a chair and set it behind Shelly.

She sank into it gratefully and stared at the worried faces of her cousins, the only family she had left in the world and the only ones who truly knew and understood her. Being mermaids, the trio pretty much kept to themselves and protected one another from outsiders.

The enormity of what she had just witnessed hit Shelly like a tsunami. If she was in danger, so were her cousins. So was every mermaid, few as they now were in the Gulf Coast. The toxic oil spills had chased away most of those lingering in the area.

“I saw a body being dumped about three miles out in the ocean, near the mussel beds.”

“You mean—a dead body?” Jet asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath and spoke again, the bottled words tumbling out. “I felt the pulse of the water change and when I looked to the surface I saw a tall object falling. And...and there was a boat, too, but it left.” Her mouth quivered violently and Shelly clamped her jaws, trying to still her chattering teeth.

Lily laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You’re okay now,” she murmured in a voice that held the echo of an ocean wave.

Shelly nodded. “I knew, as soon as it dropped, that it smelled human even though it looked all wrong. You know? Just a long, cylindrical object with no arms or legs moving.

“I dragged the thing up and realized the plastic had interfered with my sense of smell. When I tore open the bags, the human smell overpowered me and I saw...” Her whole body convulsed. “I saw a face with missing eyes.”

“Just like the body found a few months ago,” Lily whispered. “Oh, honey, no wonder you’re so upset. How awful.”

“That’s not the worst part,” Shelly confessed. “I was seen. In mermaid form.”

A stunned silence settled in the kitchen.

“Don’t tell me the killer saw you,” Jet demanded.

Shelly hung her head. She’d screwed up big-time. “He got close enough to stab me in my tail fin as I tried to get away. The damn thing stuck.”

Jet’s hands fisted at her sides. “Son of a bitch. Wish I’d been the one who killed him.”

They thought she’d killed him.

“Don’t be upset.” Lily stroked her arm. “You did what you had to do. It’s over now.”

“It’s not over,” Shelly confessed. “He got away.”

Jet slammed a fist down on the kitchen table. “He can’t know our secret. I’ll take him out myself.” She took a determined step toward the back door. “Just tell me what direction he went and I’ll find the bastard.”

Lily stood. “Let me do it. I’ll sing to him. No man can resist me when I sing. It’ll be easier that way, and less violent.”

“But he’s gone.” Shelly stood, grimaced at the shooting pain in her right foot and sat back down. “Besides, you don’t know what he looks like.”

Jet faced her, hands on hips. “So. Describe him and the boat.”

Shelly shook her head and lowered her lashes. “It’s too late to do anything about it now.”

“So...what? Are we supposed to sit around and chance that he’ll find us?” Jet paced, running her hands through her short hair.

Lily’s musical voice interrupted. “He doesn’t know who we are. It was dark. A human’s eyesight isn’t as good as ours. We should be safe.”

Shelly again felt the killer’s fierce eyes boring into hers. “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “But Bayou La Siryna is a pretty small town and he got a close-up view of my face. What if I run into him on the streets? Will I have to watch my back every day for the rest of my life wondering if he’s recognized me?”

“We’ll find him first,” Jet said. “Find him and kill him.”

Shelly regarded her cousin warily. Jet’s bloodthirsty nature surfaced at the first threat of danger to her family. Once aroused, Jet was more like a tiger than a mermaid. She didn’t resemble a typical mermaid anyway with her tall, athletic body and bold brown eyes.

Lily, on the other hand, was all feminine grace and mystery. A petite but voluptuous body, golden hair to her waist and large ocean-blue eyes that could be kind with her family, coy with the men and a bit calculating with everyone else.

Lily’s eyes fixed on Shelly as she tapped her full lips with graceful fingers. “We don’t have to find him ourselves. We’ll let the police do it for us.”

Jet snickered. “They didn’t catch him the first time. What makes you think they will now?”

The first stirrings of hope warmed Shelly. “Because we’ll lead them to the killer,” she said slowly, with a slight smile at Lily. “I know where the body is and I know what he looks like.”

Jet was already shaking her head. “We can’t go to the police. No way. They’ll either think we’re the killers or that we’re some kind of accomplices. Besides, what can you tell them? Hey, I was out swimming miles from shore, alone at night, and—guess what?—I found your killer for you.”

“We can do this,” Shelly said, with more enthusiasm. “I haven’t told you the best part yet. That knife he stabbed me with? I’ve got it. Along with a hat that blew off his head. Maybe with all that, the police can find him.”

“Those local yokels? Don’t bet on it.” Jet folded her arms across her chest and sighed. “I guess it’s worth a try. But I’m still going to do some searching on my own.”

“Don’t. Please don’t,” Shelly begged. “I’ve got you both in enough danger already. This is my fault. I have to fix it.” She pictured Sheriff Angier. Remembered his intense aura and tall, lanky body that moved slowly but with deliberation and controlled energy. The few times she’d run into him at the YMCA, picking up his brother, she’d been reluctantly intrigued by him. “Besides, you’re not giving enough credit to our local law enforcement.”

Jet interrupted Shelly’s thoughts of Sheriff Angier. “Where are this hat and knife?”

“The shed.”

“I’m going to get them.” Jet dashed off, ready to take action.

“Don’t get your fingerprints on anything,” Shelly called out. “Bad enough mine are already on there.”

Lily placed a hand on top of Shelly’s head. “I’m going to get a towel for your hair, fix you a cup of chai tea and then see to that foot of yours.”

Lily’s image blurred from unexpected tears. Shelly was overcome with exhaustion as the adrenaline rush left her body. “You and Jet have been so good to me since I came here.”

“We’re lucky to have you, silly.” Lily bent over and gave her a quick hug. “If you haven’t noticed, Jet can be a real pain to live with sometimes.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed.” Lily’s kindness lifted her spirits. “I don’t know what I would do without the two of you.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, hair wrapped and sipping chai tea, Shelly watched as Lily finished cleaning the knife wound.

“It could really use a couple of stitches, but if you’re dead set on not going to the E.R., it ought to heal okay with the butterfly bandage,” Lily said, sitting down at the table with Jet and Shelly, each wearing yellow Playtex gloves.

“I’m fine.” Shelly lifted the soggy hat Jet had placed on the table. “‘Trident Processing and Packing.’ Terrific. That’s not going to help us find him. Half the people who live here either work in the plant or have relatives who work there.”

They stared glumly at the white baseball cap with the blue Trident logo emblazoned on the front.

“It may give the police something to work with,” Lily said.

Jet picked up the stiletto knife. “This won’t. The make is mass-produced. And thanks to being in the water, I’m not sure there’s going to be fingerprints. Was he wearing gloves?”

Shelly closed her eyes and pictured the killer, seeing again those burning hate-filled eyes. That was the first thing she would always remember about him. She forced her mind to roam the larger picture, trying to pick up details. She opened her eyes abruptly. “Yes, he wore those heavy rubber gloves up to his elbows that fishermen sometimes wear when it’s cold. But I say the knife could still be a clue for the police.”

“Don’t see how.” Jet examined the blade. “Don’t see any markings.”

Shelly watched the metal blade flickering under the chandelier’s light and shuddered. He had used this at least twice now to gouge out the eyes of his victims.

“Sick bastard.” Jet dropped the knife back on the table. “So we’re in agreement. I’ll retrieve the body and put it on shore for the cops to find.”

“No. You’re not doing it. I am. I’m the one that got us into this mess. If he comes back I’ll take care of him like I should have done in the first place.” Shelly hoped her voice sounded convincing. She couldn’t kill a human but she could, if necessary, injure the killer and help the police capture him.

“I’ll do it,” Lily said, rising to her feet. “It will be easier for me since I’ve got the voice that can mesmerize if we run into him. Most useful in sinking a boat.”

Shelly was startled. Lily sounded as if she had experience in doing just that. Long ago, there were a few pockets of mermaids known for violent protection of their sea territory, but the decrease in the mermaid population coupled with human advances in science and sea travel had forced mermaids to abandon such bold, public tactics. No, Shelly shook her head slightly, she was wound up tonight and reading too much into Lily’s words.

“Guess it’s going to take all three of us,” Jet reluctantly agreed. “Drive the car to Murrell’s Point and park around the bend. This time of night, teenagers will be making out in parked cars, too busy to notice us. By morning at least, a fisherman will discover the body. When we poke our head out of the water, blink the headlights once if the coast is clear, twice if not. We’ll put it on shore with the knife and hat.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you exactly where to find the body. It’s secured undersea between two large rocks in that huge limestone outcropping three miles southwest from our house. The dead human smell will lead you right to the victim.” Shelly hesitantly picked up the weapon by its handle. “Maybe we should keep the knife.”

Her cousins stared at her in surprise.

“Why would we want to do that?” Jet asked.

“Say the police are suspicious of our guy, but there’s no physical evidence to tie him to the murders. We could plant this on him.”

Jet shook her head. “But I told you, there’s nothing special about this knife. Even if they found it on him it doesn’t prove anything.”

Shelly smiled—they were buying into her plan to frame the killer instead of tracking him down on their own and meting out their own form of mermaid justice. “Not yet it doesn’t,” she said softly. “But if we learn his identity we could carve his name and the victim’s initials on the blade and plant it for the police to find. They’ll think it’s some kind of sick trophy.”

Jet blew out a whistle. “That would be some damning evidence.”

Lily ran a long, manicured fingernail across Shelly’s cheek. “Now you’re thinking like a true, full-blooded mermaid.”

A tiny prickle of chill ran down Shelly’s spine at the words. She suspected her cousins could be quite ruthless when it came to preserving their secrets. Just how far would they go to protect their hidden mermaid heritage?

As far as necessary, whispered a tiny voice in her mind.

Chapter 2

Close your eyes, all is well

Seal your mouth, don’t ever tell

For if you do, shame will come

Mama’s Boy falls all undone.

Shelly rolled her shoulders back with determination. Even with no sleep last night, she couldn’t allow fatigue to interfere with her clients’ therapy. And staying focused on her job helped keep the terror at bay when she pictured the killer she’d encountered the previous evening.

Eddie made a beeline for the water, eyes focused straight ahead to their objective, ignoring his mother three steps behind him, stumbling in designer sandals.

Shelly moved between Eddie and the pool steps, holding up a vest. “First, we put on our vest, then we get in the water,” she reminded him.

Eddie reluctantly let Shelly strap it on.

“He’s too fast for me,” his mom panted as she caught up to them. Mrs. Angier wore black pants and a frilly high-necked white shirt accented with a striking coral necklace. While the rest of the locals sported shorts and T-shirts, Eddie’s mom stood out with her inappropriately elegant attire. The blood-sucking Alabama humidity that had everyone else sweaty and defeated never seemed to affect Portia Angier. “I can’t keep up with Eddie,” she whined, rubbing her temples with a slight wince.

“No problem,” Shelly assured her.

It had taken a whole month of once-weekly sessions to get Eddie to accept the water jacket without it being a major ordeal. He was extremely sensitive to the texture of anything against his skin. And it had taken about the same amount of time to stop Eddie from stripping off his bathing trunks the minute he stepped out of the pool.

Suitably strapped in, Eddie walked down the pool steps and waded around the shallow end, splashing and laughing.

“Too bad we don’t have an indoor pool at home,” Mrs. Angier said, still rubbing her temples, Donna Karan sunglasses dangling in one hand.

“Headache?” Shelly asked, getting into the pool with Eddie.

“The worst. If it’s okay, I’ll head on home and have his brother pick him up.”

Shelly’s heart did a little flutter. Tillman Angier had a way of making her feel like a lust-crazed teenager. Get a grip.

“Fine.” She turned to Eddie. “Ready to get started?”

He was already a step ahead of her. He picked up the kickboard from the side of the pool and began kicking his long legs. Water shot up around him but for all the exertion and noise, he only swam a few feet. “Good job,” Shelly said anyway, and they high-fived.

Eddie jumped up and down, laughing and spraying water over the side of the pool. Shelly held his hands and they jumped together in mutual delight. The buoyancy and feeling of weightlessness in the water was good for the soul. Besides improving coordination, flexibility and muscle, the warm water provided healing benefits. Shelly speculated that people with a special affinity for water were long-removed descendants of mermaid blood—so far removed they knew nothing of their heritage but were inexplicably drawn to water, especially the ocean.

She was rewarded with two seconds of eye contact before Eddie looked back down to the clear aqua depths swirling around his body.

“Time for the ball toss,” she said. She took a twelve-inch beach ball and tossed it to Eddie. Without aiming, Eddie threw it back, the ball landing a good six feet behind her.

Shelly swam after it and returned to Eddie. “Let’s try again. Throw it to me this time.”

Eddie slam-dunked the ball in the middle of her face.

Ouch. Well, she wasn’t specific enough.

Shelly threw it back and waved her hands in front of her. “Throw it at my hands, Eddie.”

He did. But after less than half a dozen throws he started humming. A sure sign he was growing impatient. Shelly quickly moved on to another exercise. During the next hour, she alternated coordination tasks with social play. Afterward, she’d return to her office and make notes on his progress. Few things gave her more satisfaction than celebrating clients’ progress.

“Shoes,” Eddie suddenly called out.

Shoes was one of Eddie’s code words—it meant someone was here to take him home and he needed to put on his shoes, get dressed and go. She searched the room with more eagerness than necessary.

Sheriff Angier, in his neatly pressed brown uniform, headed toward them in long strides. His presence filled the room and she was acutely aware of every detail of his strong face...the prominent jaw, the sharp planes of his cheeks and broad forehead. He was as unlike his sibling as much as Jet and Lily were polar opposites. The only common feature of the brothers was the same light brown, slightly wavy hair. She knew Eddie’s age was twenty-eight and that Tillman was several years older than him. Where Eddie was shorter and more compact, and prone to softness in his stomach, Tillman was tall with a well-defined musculature. Unlike Eddie’s vague, unfocused blue eyes and dreamy expression, Tillman’s slate-gray eyes were sharp and penetrating—as if he could see down to the hidden depths she didn’t allow anyone to know about.

Shelly took a deep breath and hurried after Eddie, who could be pretty darn quick when properly motivated. She reached him just in time. At the last step out of the pool, his hands were already at the top of his bathing trunks.

“Wait,” she said. “Put on your robe.”

No sooner had he fastened the robe than the trunks came off.

Shelly bent to pick up the wet trunks at the same time as the sheriff. His large tanned arm brushed against her smaller, paler arm. Prickles of heat spread from the point of contact to all parts of her body.

“I’ve got it,” he said in a deep husky voice that warmed her insides.

They rose together and Shelly fought to control her rapid heartbeat. Here she stood dripping wet with him so polished and sharp in his uniform. She judged him to be in his early thirties, only a few years older than herself, and yet he exuded a natural authority and confidence that befitted his position.

Shelly sighed inwardly. He had not caught her on her most flattering day. Her huge green eyes, what she considered her most striking feature, were red-rimmed from lack of sleep and her honey-colored hair was nothing but a sodden heap of tangles at the moment.

“I’ll be right there,” he called to Eddie, who was already halfway to the locker room.

“Your mom left Eddie’s tote bag of dry clothes over here.” Shelly went to the bleachers, acutely aware of the sheriff following behind. Damn, she should have wrapped a towel around her waist. Toned or not, wet flesh in the light of day made her feel vulnerable. The one-piece bathing suit she wore was modest, but it was still a bathing suit. And her hair was flat and clung to her back in wet chunks. She’d given up on makeup at work. Even the waterproof stuff didn’t hold up to hours in the pool.

The edge of her bathing suit rode up the cheek of her left buttocks. Terrific. Shelly fought the urge to pull it down. If she was lucky and left it alone, maybe the sheriff wouldn’t notice.

She picked up the bag and forced herself to remain professional as she faced Eddie’s brother and held it out.

His eyes jerked up from her derriere. Oh, crap. She could tell by the darkening of those gray eyes and the ghost of a smile on his lips that he had definitely been checking out her ass. But perhaps that was progress, since he hadn’t paid her much attention before. “Hope your mom is feeling better,” she said with a self-conscious smile.

His lips thinned and a flicker of annoyance lit his eyes before he slid back into his cool, confident persona. “You’re limping.” He pointed at Shelly’s foot. “An accident?”

“A minor cut.” She shrugged. “Kitchen mishap.”

He jerked his head toward the locker room. “I better see if Eddie needs any help.”

Shelly stared at his back as he walked away, a tiny bit disappointed. The man was definitely not a conversationalist.

The sheriff whirled around and caught her staring. His lips twitched at the corners.

“I watched you working with Eddie. You’re doing a great job.”

“I love working with your brother. He’s my favorite—I know I shouldn’t have any, but he is.”

“How about you let me take you to dinner Friday in appreciation for all your hard work?”

Shelly fought not to sound too excited. “Sure.” Please don’t invite your mother, she thought fervently. Don’t let this be a family thing. Nice enough woman, but she wanted the sheriff all to herself. It had been too long since she’d felt any interest in dating again.

Lurlene Elmore and others from the senior water aerobics class, the Water Babes and Buoys, emerged from the ladies’ locker room.

“Eddie’s stark naked in our locker room,” Lurlene called out in way of greeting.

A tinge of red crept up the sheriff’s neck. So he wasn’t perfectly composed at all times, Shelly thought. What a relief.

The sheriff tipped his hat to Mrs. Elmore. “Sorry. He doesn’t know the difference between the men’s and ladies’ rooms. I’m on my way.”

“Don’t apologize.” Lurlene let loose a honking laugh. “For God’s sake, it’s not like any of us have reached our advanced ages without seeing a man’s talleywacker a time or two.”

Shelly followed her ribald senior clients to the shallow end of the pool. “Talk to you later,” she said with a wave at Tillman.

Lurlene pointed at Shelly’s legs. “I tried to find that lotion that makes your legs sparkly but I didn’t see it anywhere.”

Not that again. Lurlene had been hounding her for what she used to make her legs glitter. Shelly glanced down discreetly. They weren’t that noticeable. The skin had a faint opalescence, like silver-and-pink mica particles freckling the legs. Lurlene would freak if she knew the glitter came from the faint residue of her tail fin when she shape-shifted.

Shelly shrugged. “Just put some powdered pink and silver eye shadow in a jar of baby oil and shake it.”

Lurlene nodded as she sank her massive frame into the pool. “Saw the sheriff checking you out.” She winked. “He’s a handsome devil.”

It occurred to her these senior women had probably seen more action in the past two years than she had.

Friday night couldn’t get here soon enough.

* * *

Melkie roamed the downtown shops, avoiding eye contact and blending easily with the crowd. Even in early September, the air was thick with humidity and his shirt felt sticky from perspiration. He smirked as he passed the quaint shops. The town was nothing but a fucking Mayberry R.F.D. perched precariously on the edge of a continental shelf. Hurricane Katrina had almost swept it entirely away.

A fat woman in spandex bike shorts and an oversize fuchsia T-shirt exited the soda parlor and brushed against him. Her triple scoop of blueberry ice cream narrowly missed plopping on his chest.

“Excuse me, darlin’,” she said with an apologetic grin.

Melkie pulled away and shot her a furious look. He fought back the urge to growl. The woman’s smile faded and he registered confusion, embarrassment and fear in her fatty pig eyes.

He lowered his head and kept going.

She was like everyone else in this stupid, stinking backwater. They had no idea who he was, what he was capable of doing.

Three blocks away, he entered the Bayou Seed and Feed to get a bag of Rebel’s favorite dog biscuits. Several old men in denim overalls stood around the counter, bullshitting. Melkie plopped the bag on the counter where an old fart with rheumy eyes winked at one of the customers. “How’s that ol’ mutt of yers gettin’ along?”

Melkie threw down a ten-dollar bill on the scratched Formica, ignoring the jibe.

The cashier handed back the change, which Melkie stuffed in his pocket. As he headed to the door, one of the men muttered, “Ugliest damn dog you’d ever want to lay eyes on.”

Snickering ensued.

Melkie slowly turned. All of them fell silent and looked away. He wanted to say Fuck off, but he wouldn’t give the cashier an excuse to ban him from the store. Instead, he settled for banging the door shut behind him. The attached bells gave a satisfied clanging at the violence.

He was in a crappy mood today, when he should have been calm and in control. That’s how he had felt after the first hooker, anyway. The second one...well, that was a problem.

What the hell had happened out there? That—that thing had risen up from the sea. She—it, whatever—had seen him, knew who he was and what he had done. Somehow he had to find her again. He couldn’t let a witness live. Big mistake dumping that second bitch at sea. He thought no one would ever find the body. Unlike the first one he’d left in the shallow salt marsh. That had been clumsy and ill-planned.

Images from the night before consumed him. Sure, he’d had a few beers before getting on the boat, but he wasn’t stinking drunk. He knew what he saw and that was no scuba diver. When the woman disappeared with the body, he’d seen a giant fish tail emerge.

Melkie threw the bag in the bed of his rusted-out Chevy truck with his other recently purchased supplies and drove out of town, onto the white sandy roads leading home. In the past, he would have taken Rebel with him, but he got sick of the ugly jokes. Ignorant hicks.

He’d found the dog abandoned on the roadside years ago and had taken a shine to it. At first, Melkie thought the stray resembled an overgrown rat, but he checked the library’s internet and found it was a full-bred hairless Chinese crested. Try telling that to people in the bayou.

His thoughts turned again to the woman at sea. Either he was crazy or that woman was truly a mermaid. He brooded over the mermaid possibility.

Bayou La Siryna had as many mermaid tales and sightings as some places had their resident ghost hauntings. A few locals claimed to have seen strange creatures at night, half human and half fish, swimming deep at sea. Some scuba divers once claimed they’d seen a topless mermaid with long blond hair swimming close to the marsh grassland savannas that lined the shore. All stories Melkie never believed.

Buildings changed from redbrick structures to clapboard shacks with dirt floors that smelled like a combination of ripe soil and mice droppings. At last, his neighborhood was heralded by a faded hand-painted sign reading Happy Hollows, nailed to an oak tree.

There was nothing happy about Happy Hollows. He flipped off the sign, as was his custom. Tired shotgun-style houses lined the streets, in various states of disrepair. He pulled into an unpaved driveway on a dead-end street. Rebel yapped excitedly by the peeling handmade picket fence slapped together from scrap wood.

A smile tugged the corners of Melkie’s thin mouth for the first time today. Rebel spotted the biscuit bag and ran in circles, delirious with joy.

“Shut that ugly mutt up,” a neighbor hollered from a front porch crammed with broken kids’ toys and other unidentifiable junk.

“Fuck off,” Melkie hollered back. He didn’t have to pretend to be nice around this place. Niceness got you nowhere with these folks; instead, it was viewed as a sign of weakness. Melkie had learned early on not to take anything from anyone. Ever.

Melkie stomped up the rotted steps and onto the porch, arms laden with bags and boxes, carefully avoiding spots where pieces of boards were broken or missing, exposing sand and weeds four feet beneath the foundation. He opened the screen door, but Rebel pushed up underneath his feet and a cardboard box fell out of his arms. An explosive noise of crashed glass erupted in the box like a miniature self-contained bomb. Rebel whimpered and ran away, skinny tail tucked between his legs.

“What the hell was that?” his neighbor screamed from across the street.

“None of your business,” Melkie yelled, kicking the mess to one side of the door. The box of broken Mason jars, used as insect-killing jars, joined the cast-off collection on his porch—a broken washing machine, plastic beach chairs with missing slats and who knew what else.

Melkie perked up at seeing the brown package tucked between the screen and front doors. As he checked the mailing label, his mouth curved upward.

He whistled for Rebel and the dog followed him inside. Melkie headed straight to the fridge and pulled out a beer. His unemployment check was running low, but he always had a cold one for himself, a biscuit for Rebel and his ever-increasing insect collection.

Only ten steps from the den, he entered the cramped kitchen with its battered pine cabinets. Another eight steps and Melkie would pass through a tiny bedroom, leading to a bathroom with only a toilet, a rusted-out tub and sink. Another ten steps led to the final cramped bedroom, barely large enough for a mattress and dresser. This pathetic, rotting dump was all his. Mom’s last legacy. The sisters were long gone, escaped as soon as they’d found some pussy-whipped dope to take them away. But he was still trapped here. For all its miserable worth, the house was a way to live rent-free.

“I don’t owe nobody nothing, do I, boy?”

The dog leaped on Melkie’s legs, clawing for his treat.

“Coming right up,” Melkie promised. He peeled off his sweaty T-shirt. Opening the kitchen drawer, pulling out a dull knife with a cracked wooden handle, he cut open the bag and threw a biscuit on the ripped linoleum floor. Normally, he liked watching Rebel tear into the treat with his buck teeth, the few remaining ones jutting out at crazy angles. But today he stared at the knife gripped in his palms.

His knife.

Anger rose in him, fierce and hungry. Melkie tamped it down, refused to let it interfere with the gratification in his latest package. Pulling up a chair to the table, Melkie cut open the box and spread its contents onto the scarred Formica. A hurricane of colors lay hodgepodge before him, but he focused on the largest specimen—a black spicebush swallowtail with a robin’s-egg blush fanning its hind wing and the forewing bordered by white dots. Beautiful. The butterfly’s delicate antennae and proboscis had survived shipping intact.

He dug out supplies from a plastic container and set to work, pinning the specimens with stainless-steel insect pins against a white styrene foam board. Rebel barked and whined, but Melkie shushed him with an impatient flick of his hand. At last pleased with the arrangement, Melkie slipped the foam under a shadow box frame.

It took a good twenty minutes to find the perfect location amongst the den walls covered with similar arrangements, mostly butterflies but also mountings of praying mantises, grasshoppers and dragonflies.

As soon as Melkie drove in the nail and hung his latest creation, Rebel barked and ran to the kitchen for another treat. Melkie tossed him one and Rebel gobbled it up with his yellow misshapen canine teeth.

The anger returned as he palmed the kitchen knife. His prized knife was gone. He’d seen it stuck in the tail fin of that thing at sea. He grabbed a six-pack and settled into the den’s old recliner with its ripped turquoise vinyl upholstery. He gulped his beer in long swallows, brooding over the lost knife. It was what he had used to cut out both bitches’ eyes. It was special. It also happened to be the only gift he ever remembered getting from his mother.

A big beautiful knife in a worn leather case.

“Here, kiddo,” she’d said, casually tossing it in his direction one Christmas when he’d asked her where his presents were. “It belonged to your dad. He told me it was a gift from his father.”

Melkie had grinned, fingers closing over the family heirloom. Violent vibrations hummed in his hand as he held the knife.

It had been the best Christmas ever.

Rebel jumped in his lap, jolting Melkie from the memory, and dog and owner stretched out to watch a police drama on the twenty-inch black-and-white TV set with a rabbit-ears antenna. No cable in this backwater hellhole.

Melkie petted Rebel’s mottled skin before raising an arm to flip on the window air conditioner. Between the loud hum of the AC and staring at the fuzzy speckles on the TV screen, Melkie sensed the tension ease out of his lean body. He’d just relax a bit, not sleep. If he took short dozes, Melkie found he was less apt to dream or, at least, remember them if he did. He avoided sleep, but after days of only ten-minute naps snatched here and there, his weak, treacherous body would rebel and go under for hours at a time.

Most people welcomed sleep, sought refuge and refreshment in the mysterious, suspended state of being. Not for him. Nighttime was when his mother used to slip into bed beside him. She’d creep past the first bedroom, which she shared with her two daughters, and seek him out.

But most nights she didn’t creep, she stumbled, a result of too many gin and tonics, trying to wash away the taste of customers. Then she staggered and often fell as she went through his sisters’ room to get to him. Not that his older sisters gave a damn. They conserved their energy for their own survival—for those nights Mom brought a customer to their sorry shack.

When he slept now he still fought against the groping, the sucking, the humiliation that rolled over him in waves, leaving him powerless and frightened. Even when it had happened, he knew it wasn’t right. By day he was her whipping boy and at night...

The old bitch had been dead ten years now and she still haunted his dreams. But he had found another way to fight the memories, to punish someone and take back control.

Melkie flexed his large hands with its long fingers, so out of proportion to the rest of his smaller physical frame.

Oh, yeah, he loved taking control.

* * *

Jolene Babineaux. Age thirty-four. Caucasian.

Tillman studied the photographs for what had to be the hundredth time. In one, provided by a family member of the deceased, Jolene sat on a sofa, cuddling a couple of children. A second photo was a grim mug shot of her arrest for prostitution a year earlier. She wasn’t smiling in that one. The last photograph was of her battered, skimpily clad body, sans eyes, which had been discovered last evening.

Even though Bayou La Siryna was a relatively small town, Tillman had never run across the victim. And he was pretty good at remembering names and faces. All part of the job. But a large part of the population, at least a third of the county, lived in a squalid, poverty-ridden area with the unlikely name of Happy Hollows. Most of the families there were a tight-knit community of shrimpers—people who lived for decades fishing on family-owned boats.

Evidently, Jolene had resorted to the world’s oldest profession to supplement that meager income.

Tillman snapped the file shut. Despite door-to-door interviews in Jolene’s neighborhood and surrounding area, Tillman’s officers had no leads.

Tillman shoved the file to the side of his desk and opened the second folder with photographs of the second victim, China Wang. Age thirty-seven. Vietnamese.

She had the same missing eyeballs as Jolene. But there, the similarities ended. Where Jolene had been a big-boned, redheaded woman, China was petite and exotic-looking. Never married, but with three young children, now farmed out to relatives, she had spoken broken English and never made it past the sixth grade.

The only obvious similarity between the two victims was their line of work.

Because of the festering pockets of poverty in the bayou, it wasn’t unheard of for women to use their bodies. Often to drum up enough business, it was necessary for them to ride into Mobile, about twenty miles east, and walk along the port city’s shipping docks for johns. Even in bad economic times, customers could be found if you priced yourself competitively.

He tapped his fingers on his lips. Jolene’s body didn’t have a rope around it and it was discovered by Old Man Higginbotham who’d been out boat riding in a remote swampy area.

When China’s body had been found on shore at Murrell’s Point, there was a thick rope around the victim’s waist that frayed at the ends. The body hadn’t been submerged in water long enough for the rope to have disintegrated. He dialed the coroner’s office, anxious to see what forensic evidence had been unearthed.

Jeff Saunders was the Englazia County coroner. A retired doctor, Tillman bet Saunders thought being coroner in a small town would be an easy gravy train. But that had all changed.

Saunders confirmed sperm was found in China’s body, but the sample would have to be sent to the state crime lab in Montgomery to know if it matched the sperm sample from Jolene Babineaux. “We did find a curious thing with the second body. I recovered a couple strands of blond hair, thirty-one inches long, interspersed with the strands of China’s black hair.”

Tillman sat up straighter. “Can you determine if the hair came from a male or female?”

“Probably not. Unless the hair was yanked out of the scalp, there won’t be enough follicular matter to run a DNA test.”

China’s family all resembled her, olive-skinned with dark brown or black hair. Tillman hung up. He tilted back in his chair, feet on his desk, and speculated on the news.

It could be the killer didn’t act alone. Perhaps he had a female accomplice, Tillman thought, remembering the small footsteps they’d found leading from the body into the water. But the psychological profile from the first case indicated the perp had a deep hatred of women. If true, a female accomplice seemed unlikely.

How had the body been moved to shore? And why?

The plastic bags covering China had been coated in sand, leaving patterns consistent with dragging. A thorough search had not turned up any evidence other than a baseball hat with Trident Processing and Packing emblazoned on it and footprints. Had the killer decided against leaving the body in the ocean and left it out to be found—either a subconscious wish to be caught or as a kind of sick bragging trophy that he had gotten away with murder twice now? And what was that damn rope around China supposed to be for?

Carl Dismukes rapped sharply on the door before entering.

“A little brain food,” he said, plopping a box of glazed doughnuts on the desk.

“A little cliché, don’t you think?” Tillman asked. “But I could use the sugar and carbs right about now.”

They dug in, Tillman studying China’s photograph, his deputy opening the first file and reviewing Jolene’s photographs. Carl threw it back on the desk after a cursory examination. “I ever tell you I knew Jolene?”

Tillman gulped down a mouthful of doughnut in surprise. “No. I think that’s something you might have mentioned long before now.” He struggled to keep his censure mild. Carl was thirty years his senior and his dad’s right-hand man when he’d served as sheriff. When Dad died from a heart attack two years ago, Carl had been the one to break the news to him. And it was Carl’s suggestion that he come home and fill his father’s position until the next election.

Tillman had been torn. He loved being an investigator with the Mobile P.D. and thought he’d been falling in love with Marlena. But shortly before Dad died, she’d moved to Atlanta to further her interior design business. Mobile was plenty big enough; he had no intention of moving to Atlanta. Besides, after he’d taken her home the first time, he’d known it would never work. Mom had been tipsy and asked pointed questions about Marlena’s family pedigree, while Eddie had taken an immediate dislike to his girlfriend. “Bye-bye,” he kept telling Marlena, taking her arm and leading her to the door. In the end, Tillman knew his duty and he’d come home.

The doughnut settled heavy on his stomach and Tillman pushed the box in Carl’s direction. “Just how well did you know Jolene?”

“Not that good.” Carl held up a hand and rolled his eyes. “Never been a customer. Your dad and I went to her place a time or two over the years. Typical domestic violence stuff. Her latest man would beat her, but by the time we got there Jolene would refuse to press charges.” Carl ran his fingers through his close-cropped silver hair. “I felt sorry for her little ones.”

Tillman had his share of those calls when working the beat in Mobile. It was always the kids you remembered most. Scared and hopeless before they graduated elementary school.

“How much longer on that forensics lab report?” Carl asked.

“Another two weeks at the earliest.” Tillman filled him in on the blond hair discovery.

“Doubt much will come of that. Damn salt water kills everything.”

“But it could answer how the body got back on shore.” Tillman mulled over the hair. “It didn’t come from the teenagers that found her. They both had dark brown hair.”

“It’s possible someone else came across the victim before our lovebirds. She—or he—was unsure what was under those plastic bags and tore into it to look. When they saw what was inside they panicked and ran away.”

“I’ve called my old partner at Mobile P.D. to see if they have any missing person cases for known prostitutes. Just in case our killer has spread a wider net.”

Carl shook his head. “Something tells me our perp hasn’t stopped at two victims.” He clapped Tillman’s back. “Damn shame it’s happened on your watch.” Carl hesitated. “But at least your dad was spared this. He had enough on his plate without chasing a serial killer.”

Not to mention taking care of his wife, Tillman silently added. But if Dad didn’t want to break their family’s code of silence, then he wouldn’t, either.

“Here’s something I whittled for Eddie.” Carl set a three-inch wooden block on the desk.

Not another one, he inwardly groaned. Eddie’s room was overflowing with Carl’s creations. He opened a drawer and placed it in a bag filled with about twenty similar blocks. As his deputy meandered away, Tillman put in a call to Sam, his old partner, to talk things out.

“You’ve got a disaster brewing,” Sam commented. “Thought moving to Hicksville would be a bore. One more body surfaces and the FBI is on your doorstep. Good luck with that.”

Most law enforcement officers were territorial and hated outsiders coming in. But if the manpower would help catch a killer faster, he was all for it.

Tillman hung up and closed his eyes, wanting to erase the violent images. The investigation had been eating at him, long days and nights of nothing but working the case or helping out Mom and Eddie. Damn it, he was tired of living like a monk, all work and no play.

Unbidden, he pictured Shelly, the way her wet bathing suit had clung to her smoking body, the friendly green eyes and long hair plastered around her hips...a hot angel of deliverance.

Chapter 3

A mermaid—really? Can this be?

A creature of part land, part sea.

Mustn’t let a siren’s call

Make me falter, make me fall.

Melkie cruised the back roads, Rebel drooling and snorting by his side. He had no particular destination, but after hearing on the local television news that a second body had turned up on the beach, he’d been going increasingly mad at home. He kept waiting for a knock at the door, his paranoia growing with every second enclosed in the shotgun house.

How had that body gotten to the shore? That woman—that thing—must have put it there. Melkie found himself on a road leading to Murrell’s Point. Rounding a bend, he spotted half a dozen police and sheriff’s vehicles gathered on one side of the road.

Right there. That must be where they’d found it.

He was suffocating, the truck’s interior closing in on him. The old truck’s dying AC was no match against the pepper-hot heat. Maybe the cops were here waiting for him to return to the crime scene. They already knew he was the one. His life was over. He’d rot at Holman prison on death row. His breath came in painful, jagged spasms and his body knotted with tension.

The wet sensation of tongue on his right forearm broke through the paralysis. Rebel licked and whimpered, attuned to Melkie’s panic. The dog’s eyes, despite their disarming milky haze, pierced Melkie with pure love.

He caught his breath and patted Rebel’s hairless flesh. What would happen to his dog if they took him away? He had no friends or family. And everyone found Rebel repulsive, even though he was worth more than the rest of that sorry-assed lot of humanity.

Melkie turned his head from the cops and kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. The azure-blue of the sky met the gray-blue of ocean in a horizontal line. The moment passed, and he looked out the rearview mirror at the uniformed police scouring the area.

Fucking pigs. Where were they when he was getting punched around as a kid?

The familiar rage tamped down on the residual panic.

“How about you and me getting a little treat?” he asked Rebel, who yipped in excitement.

He pulled into the drive-through at the hamburger shack in town and ordered cheeseburgers and fries for both of them, plus a chocolate milkshake for himself. The fat-and-sugar rush sated his gnawing anxiety. Why had he been so freaked out? There was nothing that could tie him to the murders. He was safe.

He was contentedly gulping the last of his shake when a purple-and-pink sign slammed into his consciousness.

The Mermaid’s Hair Lair.

What the hell?

Mermaid. The word was a red neon light burning in his brain.

He’d lived here all his life, been down this main street forever, but had never paid much attention to the beauty parlor or the large water fountain in the court square with a figure of a mermaid sculpted in copper.

The image of the thing in the water arose. Melkie slammed on his brakes and parked at the first empty spot. Rebel gazed at him quizzically, panting onion breath.

Wouldn’t hurt to look in the window. Melkie put a leash on Rebel and knelt down to whisper. “We’ll just walk real casual-like, okay?” He stood, took a deep breath and sauntered by the shop. The ever-present smell of bilge and shucked oysters assaulted his nose.

In the salon window he saw old ladies in chairs, gray hair tightly bound in perm rollers, with bubble dryers over them, a few younger clientele getting bleach jobs. The interior was painted in shades of coral, with paintings of mermaids hung all over the walls.

He knew just how it would smell, the stinky ammonia fumes and peroxide in the air so strong it would make your eyes water. His stomach rumbled and he was back in that dumpy house, Mom and her whore friends dyeing each other’s hair and preparing for the night’s work.

“There’s little Melkie,” one of them would coo, beckoning him over with long red nails.

His face aflame, he’d have to go into the gaggle of whores. Nine years old and the stupid bitches would pull down his shorts and giggle.

“Let me feel that cute little pecker.” They’d grab him and fondle and laugh at the predictable response.

Especially dear old Mom.

She’d refused to allow him to cut his hair. She and her posse of bitches teased him about his thick, wavy hair and would put rollers in it and paint his face. A few years later he decided it was worth the ass whupping to disobey Mom and cut it short.

Even now, the memories churned his stomach. That cheeseburger wasn’t such a hot idea, after all.

The sight of a woman with long blond hair caught his attention. She stood behind a chair, wielding a pair of shears with grace and authority. Her hair was unusual, a thick honey-gold confection with streaks of the palest pink and lavender. On her, the highlights looked natural, not like on the phony Goth teenagers you saw in Mobile these days with bold colors against black hair.

His mermaid that night had long hair, but impossible to make out the color other than it was light. It had hung down the front of her torso like a second skin.

What if...what if this was her? Maybe she had the ability to be on land and sea. It wasn’t such a stretch to think the thing had some kind of mutation abilities. He recalled those eyes of swirling colors. Melkie peered intently at the woman’s reflection in the mirrored walls. The eyes were a perfectly human shade of blue, not that freaky cat-eyed glow he’d seen.

He would seek out Tia Henrietta. The hoodoo witch down in the boondocks might know something. He’d never placed any faith in the old woman’s tales but his mother and sisters and all their buddies swore by her occult powers.

If anybody knew something about mermaids or sea creatures, it would be her.

* * *

Shelly leaned back in the beautician’s chair and let Lily massage her head and neck as she washed her hair. It was after hours at the shop, but when Lily had heard about her date, she wanted Shelly to come on in and get gorgeous.

“Your neck muscles are tight,” Lily said. “Relax.”

Lily’s soothing voice failed its usual magic. As did the varying shades of coral, rose and ivory on the walls that a local artist had painted to their specification. The effect of the pearly tones usually soothed Shelly—it was like being enveloped in the shelter of a giant conch shell.

Shelly opened her eyes and met Lily’s in the mirror. “How can I relax?” The half-moon dark circles under her eyes and the faint lines of worry on her brow were new. “I’m scared to death that psycho will find one of us.”

“You’re here with us now.” Lily pressed her strong fingers on a trigger point at the base of Shelly’s skull. “Nothing’s happened.”

Jet looked up from the desk. “Good thing you have a date tomorrow night. Nothing like a man for distraction. Just don’t let it get serious.” Her fingers resumed their clicking on the adding machine. Thank goodness Jet actually enjoyed working with numbers, since Shelly and Lily avoided it as much as possible. At the shop Lily was in her element and had earned a reputation for her talents. Jet handled the business end of things and filled in as shampoo girl when needed.

Shelly groaned. “I haven’t been on a real date in two years. I’m a nervous mess.”

Lily laughed. “Just have fun. A man’s attention will get rid of a funk every time.”

The adding machine’s clicking stopped. “Attention, hell,” Jet said. “We’re talking sex.”

“You’re almost thirty years old, in your sexual prime,” Lily continued. “I couldn’t go without it more than a couple of weeks myself. And it’s been months since I’ve been with a merman.” A dreamy look clouded her eyes. “Nothing like sex with a real merman.”

Shelly eyed Lily curiously. As a full-blooded siren, her cousin responded instinctually to the call of an annual spawning ritual. Mermen and mermaids gathered at a remote South Pacific island for a week of orgies. Those inclined to produce a litter of merchildren built undersea nests in beds of coral for fertilizing and hatching their newborn.

Shelly had no desire to attend a reproduction ritual. Not that she would be allowed—that right was reserved only for the full-blooded. Raised as a landlubber in a human family, the whole thing sounded bizarre and unappealing. Regular sex, right here in the bayou, would be exciting enough. She shut her eyes, imagining Tillman’s naked body against hers. It had been so long since she’d desired a man.

“Little cuz is blushing,” Jet said wryly.

Lily rinsed Shelly’s hair. “No teasing,” she scolded. Lily placed a warmed towel over Shelly’s head and rubbed. “Any special style requests?”

“I leave it all in your hands. Even if I don’t like it, it will grow out in no time.”

“Our hair is a pain in the fins,” Jet said, her eyes still on the numbers. “Easiest thing to do is just keep it hacked off like mine.”

Lily and Shelly shared a secret smile. Their mermaid hair grew at a rate of nearly an inch a week and their nails grew so fast weekly manicures were a must. “I like the long layers you have in it now,” Shelly said. “Just give it a good trim and blow-dry it.”

Shelly relaxed as the warmth and noise of the blow-dryer eased her tension. Everything was going to be okay. They had done what they could to help the police identify the killer by putting the body on land. Well, almost everything. She still had the knife.

Her mind drifted to the date. She’d had her eye on Tillman for quite a while. But she didn’t think he even noticed her. He was always so remote and professional the few times he’d picked up Eddie. Shelly imagined those gray eyes darkening with desire for her and squirmed.

Stop it. You’re way past the age to be so nervous about a date. It’s just...sex and companionship. That’s all she could hope for since that was all she could offer. No man wanted to love a freak; it could only end in disaster. Her parents’ stormy marriage was proof of that. All the tears, the shouting, the fundamental differences that stifled her mother’s mermaid desire to be at sea and frustrated her human father, who resented that his love wasn’t enough to make her happy. The answer lay in a long-term affair of mutual affection. Sure, she risked him finding out her secret. But she was tired of being alone. She knew her cousins were there for her, but it wasn’t the same. It could never be the same. She was part human...they weren’t.

Jet interrupted her thoughts. “Tell us about this guy. How did you meet him?”

“He’s the older brother of Eddie, one of my clients at the Y.”

Jet crossed her arms over her chest. “Could be awkward if you break up and you have to keep running into him.”

“Always the pessimist,” Lily murmured. “Just think of having a good time for as long as it lasts.” A smile tugged her lips. “In fact, pass him on to me when you’re done with him. I cut Gary loose a couple days ago.”

Jet yawned and headed to the break room. “I need coffee.”

“You’ve only been seeing Gary a month and you’re already bored?” She shouldn’t be surprised; Lily went through men like crazy. A wonder there were still men left in town she hadn’t already had an affair with and then dumped. An unexpected burst of jealousy reared its head. “Is a man named Tillman one of your exes?”

Lily patted the top of Shelly’s head. “I prefer the bad boys, not Boy Scouts who take care of their little brothers.”

Jet returned, coffee cup refilled. Lily turned to her sister. “Learn from Shelly. Get yourself back out there and find you a man.”

“Don’t need ’em,” Jet said, settling back down to the books. “There’s always a one-night stand if I’m in the mood for sex.”

Shelly and Lily eyed each other with a knowing look. Jet had never gotten over Perry and his betrayal. Almost three years had passed since he’d been put in some South American prison for stealing sea treasure and Jet still ached. She’d never admit it, but Shelly suspected her cousin’s life was on hold until Perry showed up again. If he did.

But who was she to judge her cousins? She’d made a mess of her own past love life. Never again would she tell a man her secret and be called a freak. That college experience still rankled. She’d passed off her confession as a drunken fantasy but Steve had dumped her shortly afterward.

Her cousins—and their attitude toward men—was what it was, just as she was a product of her parents’ mixed genetics.

* * *

Melkie drove the endless stretch of sandy back roads that seemed to be never-ending paths to nowhere. Finally he rounded a corner and found Tia Henrietta’s shack.

A scraggly orange tabby came out from behind a bush, arching his back at Rebel. The dog barked and jumped out the truck window before Melkie could stop him.

A screen door banged open. “Call off yer dawg.”

The old woman glared at him with eyes dark as midnight. Under the purple turban her olive skin and faintly almond eyes made her something of an enigma. Melkie wasn’t sure if she was distantly related to the many Vietnamese who worked in the fishing industry, Creole or black, or perhaps a mixture of several races.

He whistled and Rebel slunk to his side, tail tucked between his legs. Melkie patted his head in reassurance.

Tia Henrietta approached. “What you doing way out here?”

“You’re the psychic. You tell me.”

She turned and walked back to the house, surprisingly spry for her age. “You always were a smart-alecky little ’un. C’mon, then.”

They walked to the porch, Melkie motioning Rebel to stay before he followed the old woman inside. For all the unkempt appearance outside, the inside was neat, if shabby.

The place hadn’t changed in the past two decades. Dozens of Jesus and saint candles glowed atop several mini altars of seashells, crystals and peacock feathers. Small pieces of folded-up paper were tucked among the altars. People seeking divine help for their problems. What bullshit.

The same mysterious, earthy scent of smoked herbs pervaded the sitting room.

Tia Henrietta snapped off the small black-and-white TV in the corner.

“Sit.” She gestured to a grandma floral-print sofa that looked like a 1950s thrift shop throwaway.

Melkie carefully sat on the edge. Even with his wiry five-foot-eight-inch frame, he wasn’t confident the crappy furniture would hold. His eyes darted to a glass globe on the end table.

Still there.

He remembered coming here at age eight with his mom and two of her drunken whore friends. They’d stumbled in with their high heels and teased hair, dragging him along like a rag doll. Anita, his mom’s closest friend, had downed tequila shots all morning before deciding it would be a hoot to have Tia foretell her future.

Melkie had picked up the globe. Instead of the usual plastic orb with a trapped Santa Claus and snow swirls, this glass object had a mermaid figurine suspended in blue-tinted water. He had picked it up and shaken it, sending white-and-pink sand swirling around the mermaid.

Whack. A burst of pain had slashed hotly against a cheek.

“Put that down,” Mom had screamed. The globe slipped from his grasp onto the cheap linoleum and rolled. The wooden base broke off.

Could this really be the same one? Melkie picked it up and squinted at the pedestal.

“I hot-glued it back on,” Tia said. “That hot glue gun was the best damn thing I ever bought. That, and duct tape, pretty much holds everything together around here.”

He carefully placed it back on the coffee table. “You remember that day?”

Tia shrugged. “Yer mama is not an easy woman to forget. Heard she died of the cancer a few years back.”

Amen and thank heavens for that.

Tia sat across from him, folded hands in her lap. “So what brings you back here?”

Her eyes were smoldering coals, even beneath some weird kind of film at the corners. Probably cataracts, he guessed. Melkie shifted uncomfortably under the direct gaze. He hated anyone looking at him, especially close up. His fists tightened. Why, he ought to cut out those eyes.... He forced himself to focus and pointed at the globe. “They real? Mermaids, I mean.”

“Oh, they’s real awright.” She clicked her tongue. “Saw one when I was a teeny girl. I was picking up sharks’ teeth on the beach when somethin’ made me look up. And there she was. A beautiful redheaded siren not far from shore. Nekked from the waist up. When she caught my eye she winked and flipped her tail fin up in the air afore she dived back in the sea.”

Tia closed her eyes, a dreamy smile on her wrinkled face. “I ain’t never forgot her, neither.” She opened her eyes. “You seen one?”

“Maybe.”

“Where at?”

“None of your business,” he snapped. Nosy old woman.

“You’ve turned into a bitter, angry person,” she said after a moment of silence. “You’ve got a red aura with black streaks in it.” But there was no real bite in her voice, more a dispassionate observation. “Can’t says that’s a surprise. Given yer background and all.”

Melkie scowled. “Never mind my background, witch.”

“That’s no way to talk to an ol’ woman. ’Specially if you want information.”

Melkie reached in his wallet and slapped a twenty on the table. “Talk.”

“You a real smooth one,” Tia said, scooping up the money and stuffing it into her bra. “Whatcha wanna know?”

“Everything you know about mermaids.”

“That won’t take long.” She settled back in her rocker and took a dip of snuff. “Lots of folks ’round here claim they done seen mermaids. ’Course, not nearly so much over the last ten years. What with the increase in shrimping and the oil spills.”

Melkie frowned. “Don’t see why shrimping matters none. There’s always been family shrimping boats trolling the bayou.”

“Think about it. All those nets in the sea bother more’n just dolphins. Could be trouble to any sea creature afraid of being trapped.”

“And you think the oil spills out here can harm them, too.”

Tia spit into a plastic Coke bottle that served as a makeshift spittoon. “Been killin’ all kinds of wildlife out here including birds and crabs. No reason for nothing to hang around the Gulf no more.”

So why would a mermaid hang around? he wondered.

“Could be they’s done grown attached to this place.”

Time to get to the real matter at hand. “Is it possible for them to come on land? You know, grow feet or something?”

“I done heard a such. Usually ’cause they think they’s fallen in love with a human. Love’s a powerful thing.” She stopped rocking and leaned forward. “Have you fallen in love with a mermaid? That why you here?”

Melkie snorted. “Love? You really are crazy.”

Tia picked up the mermaid globe and pressed it into his hands. “A little something to remind you of yer mermaid.”

He scowled but kept it. “Tell me more. Ever hear of a mermaid living on land?”

“Used to be when I’s a little girl, some sailors claimed to have got them a mermaid, brought them home, and made them their wife. Usually didn’t end up so well for the husbands. Mermaids may leave the sea, but it always calls to them. Sooner or later, they’ll go back.”

“But they’re half human, too, and must have human needs.” Melkie ran a finger over the cold mermaid globe. “Maybe they wouldn’t have to leave. Not if they lived close to the shore. They could split their time, have the best of both worlds.”

“I suspect you’re right,” Tia agreed. “Back in the old days, locals believed mermaids lived amongst them, ’specially beautiful women new in town were looked on with suspicion. One of my papa’s friends, he was a fisherman, said he once saw a woman jump off a boat and turn into a mermaid. She swam away and never came back.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why not? I done seen plenty a strange things in my lifetime.” She stopped rocking and tilted her head to one side. “I think lots of folks done forgot why the bayou’s called ‘La Siryna.’”

“Thought it was some French word.”

“I don’t know if it was Frenched up, but it’s named for the sirens.”

Melkie wrinkled his brow. “But you said the bayou was named after mermaids.”

“Same thing. Folks used to say the mermaids—sirens—could sing so’s a man would fall instantly in love with her.”

Melkie pictured the mermaid at sea. He couldn’t deny what he’d seen with his own eyes. He’d better face up to it and find her before she got him in trouble.

Tia lashed out weathered hands, scarred at the base of every finger, and caught his right one in hers, exposing his palms. He flinched at the contact and tried to pull away, but the old woman’s hands were surprisingly strong. Tia moved a callused finger over his palm lines before letting go. Those perceptive eyes blazed at him.

“Yer filled with hatred and rage,” she warned. “Learn to control yourself or the anger inside will be yer death.”

“And you’re full of crap.” Melkie seethed with resentment. He didn’t like being touched, especially when it was unexpected. He slammed the door on the way out.

He would have to find a way to test the waters himself with the mermaid. Try to fish her out or scare her into admitting she was the one who saw him dump the body.

Halfway home, inspiration struck.

Chapter 4

Purloined coins and copper vases

Portraits of striking female faces

Antique swords and silver spoons

Artifacts filling every room.

Shelly picked through the seafood platter of sautéed shrimp and clams, scraping the baked potato, corn and bread sticks off to one side.

“I see you’re not much of a vegetable person,” Tillman said after a bite of his potato.

“’Fraid not.” She forced herself to take a bite of corn. Truth was, her diet consisted almost entirely of seafood. Anything else pretty much tasted like sawdust. Besides, she was too nervous to eat much. Which was ridiculous, really. Yeah, her dates had been few and far between since she’d moved to Bayou La Siryna three years ago. But part of it was because she didn’t relish the thought of dating any of Lily’s leftovers. The beautiful siren mercilessly enthralled the opposite sex. Lily had pretty much used and discarded the best the bayou had to offer, and Shelly wasn’t interested in being a consolation prize for Lily’s lovesick exes.

“Eddie’s enjoying your sessions together at the pool.”

“He’s come a long way. At first, he wanted nothing to do with me. Splashed around and did his own thing with minimal interaction.” She smiled, enthusiastic about her work.

“How’d you win him over?”

“Patience. I have lots of experience with special-needs persons. They need time to know you’re safe and that there’s a predictable pattern in what you ask of them.”

“He needs predictable routine, all right.” Tillman nodded. “Any little change in his routine throws him out of whack.”

She stared at him thoughtfully. “It must be tough dealing with Eddie on a daily basis.”

He shrugged. “It can be. But Eddie’s also my best friend. We go fishing at least a couple times a week and he never laughs at my off-key singing or rolls his eyes at my bad jokes.”

“And I bet he’s an excellent listener,” she added with a grin.

“The best.”

“Let’s hope others appreciate his good qualities, too, because I hope eventually Eddie can move to a group session. Socialization skills are important. Of course, I’d start him off slowly, just add one or two other people to his session and then gradually add more.”

Tillman frowned. “It’s hard for him to be around groups of people. Too much noise and he gets overloaded. I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” He reached in his pocket as his cell phone went off. “Angier speaking.”

Shelly ate a few more clams as Tillman carried on his conversation.

He half rose from the table. “Excuse me, it’s work. Let me take this outside a few minutes.”

She waved a hand. “No problem.” She watched him head across the restaurant, noting the way his jeans hugged a very nice-looking ass. She hoped his invitation tonight wasn’t just to thank her for her work with Eddie.

A middle-aged woman decked in polyester approached. “Lily,” she said, “what are you doing here all alone?”

“Lily’s my cousin—I’m Shelly.”

The woman lifted a well-manicured hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Happens all the time.”

“My apologies. I’m Lulu,” the woman said, extending a hand. “Be sure and tell Lily I said hello. Your cousin is an absolute genius with hair.”

“She is,” Shelly agreed. “I’ll tell her I ran into you.”

Tillman returned, worry lines creasing his brow. “Sorry about that. Occupational hazard. One of my deputies had a question about a due process hearing at the jail.”

“Sounds like you never really get away from your job.”

He shrugged. “Comes with the territory. Does that bother you?”

“No. I know what it’s like to put your heart and energy into a job. I care about my clients.” She gave him a pointed stare. “And I won’t push them to do anything I don’t think they’re ready for.”

Tillman held up a hand. “I believe you. No harm in trying out the group thing with Eddie.”

“If I see it’s a problem, I promise I’ll back off.” Shelly took a long swallow of wine, curious if he had any news about the body she’d found. Maybe he could tell her something to ease her fears. She was not pumping for information. Well, perhaps a little...but what was the harm in that?

“It can’t be easy for you, what with the latest body turning up a couple of days ago.”

His jaw clinched almost imperceptibly. “This will be the last one.”

“Really? That’s good news.”

“No such thing as a perfect crime. We’re closing in on the sick bastard.”

Shelly’s heart pounded. The sooner the better. She waited for him to continue but he concentrated on his shrimp platter.

“Any good leads?” she prompted.

“A couple.”

“I hope you find him soon. It’s nerve-racking knowing he’s out there. If I leave work after dark, I’m looking over my shoulder in the parking lot.”

He frowned. “Our office is working hard. We’re doing everything we can to end the fear in our community.”

At his grim face Shelly touched his hand. “Nobody doubts that.”

“Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Just let me see it a minute.” He grinned. “I’m not going to read your texts.”

“I didn’t think you were.” She retrieved it from her purse and handed it over. Tillman punched in some numbers before giving it back.

“I put in the number to my office and my personal cell number. Call if you feel threatened or see anything that makes you nervous.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Probably one of the nicest gestures she’d had from a man in ages. Uh-oh, she’d better guard her heart with this one.

Tillman touched the ring on her right hand. “Nice emerald.”

Shelly knew he was evading specifics on the case. Mata Hari she was not. She only hoped he was right about finding the killer. She glanced at the ring. “This belonged to my mother. She died while I was in college and I’ve worn it ever since.” Mom told her she’d recovered it from a shipwreck somewhere in the Baltic Ocean. Shelly liked to think it might once have belonged to a Russian princess. The gem quality was truly that rare and magnificent.

“I’m sorry about your mother. How did she die?”

A sharp pang cramped her stomach at the concern in his warm gray eyes and she had to fight past the lump in her throat to speak. “Car wreck. A drunk driver hit my parents as they were returning home from a movie.”

He nodded. “That had to be tough, losing them both at the same time.”

She managed a small smile. She doubted the fierce pain would ever ease and she’d feel like an orphan even as an old lady. She imagined rocking on the front porch, alone, gray-haired and forgotten, staring at the vast expanse of the ocean while her only blood relations were out there somewhere frolicking under the sea.

“My dad died two years ago, I guess about the same time you came to this town. It was tough, we were close. I looked up to him,” Tillman said.

“He couldn’t have been that old. What happened?”

“Heart attack. I’m sure the pressures of work and home contributed to it.”

“I’m sorry, Tillman.” She touched his hand and felt warmth travel up her arm at the brief contact.

“He was sheriff here. When I got the news he died I left Mobile and came back home. They wanted me in the Sheriff’s Office, and Mom and Eddie needed me, too.”

Shelly’s heart clinched. “Do you plan to stay in Bayou La Siryna or is this assignment temporary?”

Tillman hesitated. “There’ll be an election next year for the job. I don’t see things changing on the home front.”

“What do you mean?”

“Eddie’s a handful.”

“True, he’s on the severe end of the autism scale, but I’ve seen worse.”

“You haven’t seen Eddie at his worst. And Mom...” His voice trailed off and he shifted in his seat. “She can’t deal with it.”

Shelly recalled Portia Angier’s pale, delicate face, the way she rubbed her temples, how she often dropped off Eddie and called Tillman to pick him up from the Y. Probably suffered the classic Fragile Southern Belle Syndrome. “You’re a good man to help your family.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m no saint.”

Shelly smiled inside. She certainly had no use for saints. Her fantasies of Tillman were far from saintly.

* * *

It had all been so easy.

A quick search on the internet at the public library to find her photo and name, and then one click for her personal address. Their names were listed on the hair salon’s business license. There had even been a picture of them at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the shop years earlier. Lily Bosarge had long blond hair and the other, Jet Bosarge, was taller and had dark short hair that barely covered her ears.

Lily was his target.

Melkie parked his car down the road, careful not to be seen, before approaching the large Victorian home with its wraparound porch. The silent darkness of the house reminded him of a cemetery. He peered through the windows and listened for the faintest sign of life inside. Convinced they weren’t home, he searched and found, behind some dense hawthorn shrubs, a small unlocked utility window. Donning latex gloves and a black skullcap to prevent loose hairs from falling, he squeezed his wiry body in the small opening and landed in the basement.

Melkie crept upstairs, entering the living room. He stopped every few seconds to check for sounds or the beam of approaching car headlights from the driveway. Taking out his penlight, he explored. He’d never seen anything like it. Coins and clutter oozed in every cubbyhole, spilled over the tops of pricy-looking furniture, and lined walls were stippled in rich tones of burnt umbers and corals. He stuffed his pockets, indiscriminately shoving handfuls of coins and little doodads that gleamed in the dark. That couldn’t be real gold, could it? What little hope he had of finding his knife vanished. Needle in a haystack, baby.

A laptop computer lay on the kitchen counter, the monitor asleep. Melkie jiggled the mouse and the screen came to life. He clicked on the email icon, grinning at the thought of leaving a message. He’d keep it short and succinct.

Die, freaking mermaid bitch. Boatman.

That should scare her out of hiding.

He headed upstairs, the pine steps creaking like a coffin opening in the midnight emptiness of a morgue. Portraits of strikingly beautiful women in old-fashioned dresses from different eras lined the walls on both sides. The old house had six bedrooms and three bathrooms on the top level. The three stale bedrooms with no signs of life he quickly dismissed. He wanted hers.

One bedroom definitely had a lived-in look. Clothes, mostly jeans, shorts and T-shirts, draped the bed and antique dresser. Melkie opened drawers, found more T-shirts and plain underwear and poked around papers and books on the nightstand. Nothing useful there—used tubes of ChapStick, old yellow-stained maps. Probably the short-haired Jet’s room, although he couldn’t rule out that it might be the bitch’s room.

The next bedroom was slightly neater, although its dresser was littered with expensive-looking glass perfume bottles and an elaborate silver comb and mirror set atop a mirrored plate. Its closet was jammed with sundresses and lacy negligees in pastel hues that shimmered like ghosts in the darkness. Melkie fingered several—their soft, feminine fabric gliding against his callused skin like the promise of sex, of tangled bodies in twisted silk sheets. He imagined fashioning a length of that silk, wrapping it around a fragile neck, jerking and pulling until she lay broken, that neck red-welted and raw from the smooth fabric. His erection was immediate and painful; all mixed with outrage that she had seen him and knew who he really was.

Focus.

He turned from the closet and went to a huge dresser stuffed with lacey things, little slips of panties with matching bras. No knife. Melkie opened the silver flask on one of the perfume bottles, breathing deep its scent, both musky and floral, complex notes scrambling his brain with lust. He put the top back on it and stuffed it in his pants pocket, too. As he left the room, possibly her room, he saw an Oriental jewelry box by the nightstand. He crossed the room and greedily swiped gold rings lined up against black velvet, sparking like midnight rainbows. Sweet. These pickings would help supplement the state of Alabama’s measly unemployment check.

This could be her room—but he’d seen nothing to know for sure.

The last bedroom was pristine, and he’d almost passed it by. But a faint citrusy scent gave him pause. He entered, checking out the closet and dresser drawers. Perhaps an overnight guest of Jet and Lily Bosarge?

Light bounced off a photo on a nightstand. Melkie picked it up, pocketing the black pearl necklace draped on its abalone-shell frame. The corners of his lips twitched as he stared at the photograph of the mermaid with her long, blond hair.

Gotcha, he whispered in the stillness.

He set it back on the table, reached in his back pocket and pulled out the mermaid figurine from the globe Tia Henrietta had given him. Breaking it into two pieces, he laid the broken mermaid under the pillow. That message should be clear enough. Melkie lay on her bed, pulling out the other present he’d bought for her—one of his mom’s old hooker panties. He’d intended to just leave them where she would find them, knowing someone had been in her room. But now—the scent of woman, the lingerie, the photograph of her smiling at him as he lay there—now he had another gift for this mermaid.

He’d show her who was boss, would make her scream in agony as he ripped out those sea-witchy, freaky eyes. Melkie unzipped his jeans and began rubbing Mama’s panties on his crotch.

* * *

By the time they got out of the restaurant and drove to Murrell’s Point for a walk, Tillman’s phone had rung twice more. Shelly wanted to toss the device in the ocean. How could he stand being tied to it all the time?

One disconcerting moment occurred when they had exited Tillman’s car and a half-dozen cats gathered around her. They bristled and hissed, their alien eyes flashing fluorescent in the moonbeams. Clearly they sensed she was the mother lode of a fish dinner. One had nipped at her legs experimentally until Tillman gallantly shooed them all away.

The ocean was calm with only an occasional whitecap in the distance. Even though the moon was beginning to wane and not at its peak, Shelly still felt a strong urge to leap in and swim, to feel the undercurrents tugging at her weightless body as she played and swam among kindred creatures. She breathed in the briny air, rife with the scent of algae and seaweed and wet driftwood. She sighed in longing, doubting she’d ever feel safe out there again.

Tillman regarded her curiously. “Smell something good?”

“I love the smell of the ocean.” Shelly grinned, slipping off her sandals.

“You mean that stinky odor produced by bacterial gas?”

She lifted her hair from the back of her sticky neck and let the ocean breeze cool the clammy skin. “I see you’re quite the romantic.”

Tillman took her hand and led her closer to the water.

Her sudden pleasure at his touch disappeared. Being in a pool was fine, but if her feet contacted the ocean’s salt water her body would automatically transform. The bare skin of her feet, when mixed with the alchemy of the sea, caused webs to form between her toes. All it took was an unexpected splash around the knees and both legs would fuse into a single tail. Iridescent scales would burst forth, coating human skin, completing the metamorphosis from legs to fins.

She hung back. “Let’s walk here where the sand is dry and warm.”

“Guess this means my fantasy of a skinny-dip together is not going to happen?”

Shelly laughed. If he got her in the sea, it would be beyond any fantasy he could ever imagine. Her laughter choked at the sudden hot ache as she pictured Tillman swimming naked. Her cousins were right—it had been too long since she’d had a man in her life. Probably explained why she was so drawn to Tillman.

He must have caught the drift of her errant thoughts. Tillman pulled her to his side and she snuggled up against his hard body, her head against his chest. The fingers of his right hand traced the outline of a wicked scar on her shoulder. A nasty souvenir from an encounter two years ago when she’d swum too close to a charter fishing boat and a hook had sunk into her flesh. Those fishermen almost got the surprise of their lives.

“Where did this scar come from?”

“Childhood accident from swimming too close to a pier.” Only a half lie.

“Ouch.”

His hand explored further to a smaller scar by her collarbone. “And this?”

“I don’t remember,” she lied. She could hardly tell him it was from struggling to get out of a tuna net last summer. Her torso bore several such scars, especially since returning to live in the Gulf. She hung her head, wondering what he would make of a close examination of her body.

He tilted her chin up with a firm hand.

“I’m too curious,” he said gruffly. “Another occupational hazard. Great for my job, not so much with people.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered, fascinated with the darkening of his gray eyes. He wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him. Dangerous territory, her mind whispered. Remember what happened to your mother when she fell in love with a human. Shelly squeezed her eyes shut, determined to drown the demon voices of doom. Surely there was no harm in a little kiss. She had wanted to get close to him for so long, had fantasized about this moment for over a year.

His lips were upon hers, hot, demanding and probing. She was drowning in sensation, her bones and blood liquefying in pools of desire. And when his tongue explored, she eagerly met it with her own. The sweet, fierce hotness made her toes curl into the warm sand. The pounding of the waves matched the pounding in her blood.

Tillman pulled back first and cupped her face in his large hands. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he said in a voice husky with desire.

“Thank God. I was beginning to think maybe this date was only your way of thanking me for my work with Eddie.”

“Not a chance.”

His fingers caressed her scalp, then traveled through the length of her hair. He paused, a thoughtful look on his face.

“What is it?”

“The length and color of your hair reminds me of something else.” He shook his head and dropped his arms. “Never mind.” He appeared to hesitate a moment before clasping her hand and continuing their walk on the shore. “If you’d like, we can go to a club in Mobile for a little dancing.”

Shelly thought fast. From what he’d told her at dinner, Tillman must live at home with his family. Not exactly conducive to privacy. The thought of loud music and crowds of people was the last thing she wanted. “Let’s just return to my house for a drink. We can sit on the porch with a glass of wine. Or a beer, if you prefer.”

“Beer sounds good.” He turned a curious sideways glance her way. “I was going to suggest we go back to my fishing cabin, but I’m sure your house is much nicer. From what I understand, not many around here have been invited inside the Bosarge home.”

Shelly followed him nervously back to the car. What had she done? Her physical desire for Tillman made her reckless. If she had been a little more patient, he would have invited her to his cabin where they could have been alone.

If she was lucky, Jet would be off for a swim, or in her bedroom immersed in her old undersea maps and shipwreck books. Her cousin could be tricky with humans—short-tempered, suspicious, condescending. No problem with Lily, she was all sweetness, unless someone bored her. Besides, Lily would be out on another flavor-of-the-month date.

Shelly drew steadying breaths as they drew nearer. Everything would be fine. Sure, they had valuable treasure scattered throughout the place, but a casual observer wouldn’t realize their china was from the Ming Dynasty or that the pottery on display was from ancient civilizations or that the various knickknacks lying about were rare maritime relics.

But when they walked in the den, Jet was sprawled on the sofa watching a Jacques Cousteau documentary.

“What are you doing back so early? Thought you’d—” She broke off at the sight of Tillman.

“Jet, this is Tillman Angier. He’s our sheriff, by the way.” Shelly waved a hand in the direction of the sofa. “Tillman, my cousin Jet.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” He crossed the room in three long strides and shook Jet’s hand.

Jet wasn’t the siren her sister was but was still a stunner with her tall, athletic frame and unusually dark irises that gave the impression her eyes were solid black pupils. Those eyes now flashed in irritation.

Tillman either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Jet shook his hand with the briefest of human contact.

“Surprised we haven’t met before.” He surveyed the room and let out a small whistle of appreciation. “Someone around here’s a collector.”

He crossed to the dozens of swords, mostly Confederate, which hung over the mantel. “Where’d you get all these?”

“Jet used to be an antiques dealer.” Shelly shot Jet a pointed look at the coffee table, its surface strewn with dozens of cartographic and monographic maps of known shipwrecks.

“Here in Bayou La Siryna?” Tillman asked with his back still to them. He strolled over to a mahogany étagère storing their better pieces of seventeenth-century French, Italian and English pottery and ceramics they couldn’t bear to sell on either the open or black market. The pieces were shipwreck finds of several generations of Bosarge mermaids from all seven seas.

“My business was wholesaling to other dealers,” Jet said, turning the treasure maps facedown on the table. “I didn’t have an actual store.” She stuffed her magnifying glass and cartographic measuring tools under the brown leather recliner.

“I know a bit about antiques myself,” Tillman said. “Mom dragged all of us to estate auctions when I was younger.”

Shelly inwardly groaned. Of all the rotten luck, Tillman actually knew something of the worth of these objects. She had brought a law enforcement officer right into their home and introduced him to her errant cousin.

Jet’s business was strictly to black-market vendors on a cash-only basis. That way, she avoided the pesky problem of explaining how the finds were retrieved with no treasure excavation expenses, and no worries of state and federal agents questioning the finds. In other words, it was all extremely illegal.

Jet shrugged and lifted both hands in a what-ya-gonna-do gesture.

Tillman continued his inspection of the room. This time he picked up a restored brass pocket watch from an end table, a pre–Civil War artifact etched with the date 1842.

“Where—?”

“Family heirloom,” Jet said. “We’re the sentimental sort.”

Shelly almost snickered. Jet and Lily didn’t have a sentimental bone or scale on their mermaid bodies. Unless you counted Jet’s unexplained preoccupation with Perry, her human lover and partner in shipwreck recovery crimes—who turned out to be a lying, self-serving scumbag, now serving time.

And good riddance, Shelly and Lily told each other. Unfortunately, Jet was still hung up on the guy, even if she refused to admit it. She probably mistook him for a swashbuckling pirate, à la Johnny Depp.

“Fascinating place you have here,” Tillman said, eyeing the large brass porthole above the fireplace. Shelly couldn’t help but feel a little surge of pride. That porthole had been a lucky discovery on her part when she was only sixteen years old and visiting the Bosarge family for the summer. She’d been swimming five miles from the house when her eyes picked up a reflective glint from a black sand bed. It had been a risky and difficult swim home with her prize, but she’d managed.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.