“You saw that?”
He nodded. “I saw him walking away. I saw the red marks all over your neck.” He looked over at her. “You’re innocent, Mykaela. And you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You can call the police. File a report—get a restraining order.”
“What world do you live in?” she asked. “He’s a police officer, and the sheriff’s son. He has unlimited access to a get out of jail free card.”
“That’s not right.”
“But it’s the way things are.” She sighed. “Life isn’t always fair, and the law doesn’t always protect you.”
He stared at her, his expression pitying. “Fine. Then I will.”
She lifted herself to sit on the counter. “Please, don’t. You’ve saved me so many times I’m starting to get a complex.”
Looking down at her hand, she felt the bracelet around her wrist. Fingering the small beads in the shapes of flowers, she wondered if Charity was buried with hers. At the funeral, Mykaela hadn’t thought to look. If she wasn’t buried wearing the bracelet, where did it go?
Mykaela let out a slow breath, trying not to cry, as the thought echoed in her head once again. It’s all your fault.
Seeing Mykaela stare at the bracelet, Dylan stepped closer. “That’s pretty,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”
He sounded like he was trying to get her mind off what happened, but all he did was make the memories surface. “Charity and I made it,” she said, her voice cracking. “We each wore one.”
His expression changed, his mouth dropping a little in shock and remorse. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know.”
She shook her head, opening her mouth to tell him it was okay, but she couldn’t force the words out.
Dylan trailed his fingers across the counter as he walked over to her. Placing his hands on each side of her, he leaned his weight on his palms and looked up at her.
She reminded herself to breathe. His eyes sparkled at her, all water-colored and glittery. Looking into those eyes, something inside her caved, and the words she’d held back spilled out. “I just left her there.”
“What were you supposed to do?” he asked, his voice soothing. “Honestly, what could you have done?”
“I don’t know.” She sniffled and rubbed her eyes to wipe away tears. “Something. I wasn’t supposed to leave her there to die. What kind of person does something like that? No amount of guilt, or crying will ever rectify what I’ve done. I’ll always be a traitor.”
“Mykaela...” His voice was soft as his hands moved to cup her knees, sending a tingling alert through her body. He kept his gaze on hers, honest and genuine. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save her, too.”
More tears fell as a breath shuddered from her lungs. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around Dylan’s neck and gripped him tight. Burying her head in his shoulder, she cried.
With his strong, sheltering arms, he held her while she mourned her best friend. For the first time since this nightmare started, she felt safe.
Chapter Seven
The Sins of the Father
Mykaela walked along the aisles of Mike’s Everything. Jared took Brad on another hunting trip after Susan’s funeral, and he’d taken half the contents of the refrigerator with him. Mykaela was comparing milk prices when a black-haired girl approached her—she looked vaguely familiar, but Mykaela couldn’t remember where she’d seen her before.
“Excuse me, are you Mykaela Whindom?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Morrigan, a reporter with The Hydra. Have you heard of it?”
She shook her head, her stomach jumping at the word reporter. “No.”
“It’s a magazine that draws parallels between mythology and every-day occurrences, strange sightings, unusual deaths, that kind of thing.” She fished through her oversized purse. “A little birdie told us about the recent murders. I believe there have been three?”
“Four.”
“Oh, right. The sheriff’s daughter.” Morrigan retrieved a stack of papers from her purse, then handed half of them over. “Four unexplained deaths in four months. All young women within the same age range. They died the same way. Coroner’s report says drowning, and yet, everyone seems to refer to them as murders.”
Mykaela suddenly felt uneasy. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Yes, but not here. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
She hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about the deaths. If Morrigan was researching, though, she might have some answers, or at least a theory. “Sure.”
They walked to the Diner and slid into a booth. Mykaela ordered a glass of iced tea, but Morrigan chose water.
“When strange and unusual deaths come to our attention, the first step is to rule out all human and natural causes. So, after that file crossed my desk last week, I did some digging.” Morrigan pulled out a manila folder. “I’m sure you’re aware of the deaths—or murders—ten years ago?”
“Yes.”
“How much do you know, exactly?” Morrigan opened the folder and pulled out a picture. She slid it across the table. “This is a crime scene photo from the first murder in ‘01. Do you recognize this man?” She pointed to a person in the crowd.
Mykaela looked down at the picture, shocked to see her father looking back at her. The photo was black-and-white, and frayed around the edges as if it’d been clipped from a newspaper. He stood on the front steps of the Inn, with his hands hanging loosely at his sides. His dark features stared out at the camera with a look so intent, so angry it gave her chills. “It was right in front of our house,” she said. “Of course he was there.”
“What about this one? She washed up near the forest.” She slid another photo across the table. Her dad was in it, too. “Or this one? Or these four.”
Mykaela gripped her hands tight around her cup. “What’s your point?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences. So, I don’t believe that Daddy Dearest just happened to be at every crime scene when each body was found.”
“My father didn’t kill anybody.”
“I wasn’t very sure, myself. Until I found this.” She slid a sheet of paper across the table.
“What is this?” The paper was wrinkled and yellowed around the edges and rattled in her hands as she brought it closer so she could read the tiny print.
“It’s an arrest warrant. Issued the very night your father disappeared.”
Mykaela pushed the papers and pictures back across the table. “I don’t know who you think you are, but if you’re thinking of dragging my family’s name through the mud—”
“You’ll what?” Morrigan raised a challenging eyebrow. “Ensure that I wash up on the shore next?”
“What is it you’re trying to accomplish, exactly?”
“It’s quite the mystery I’ve stumbled upon.” She organized all of the photos and papers and slid them back in the folder. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you.” All she had was a boatload of questions and not a single answer. She eyed the folder in front of Morrigan, reached out and snatched it, and stood up.
“Hey—”
“You’ll get it back when I find out more.” She moved toward the door.
“Mykaela.” Morrigan turned in her seat, making eye contact. The left corner of her lip curved into a grin. “I’ll see you around.”
Although a shiver crawled up her spine, Mykaela ignored the nosy reporter and gawking customers.
Outside, she headed for her car with quick, smooth steps. She couldn’t believe what Morrigan implied about her father. Did the town consider him a suspect? Why had she never heard of this before? The arrest warrant…it must be fake, right?
She needed to find out what was going on around her town.
***
Mykaela stormed into the kitchen, le
tting the door bang shut behind her.
Blanche turned from the stove, startled. “What’s wrong with you?”
She mumbled something about needing to be alone, then darted up the back staircase. Once inside her room, she twisted the lock on her door and tossed the folder onto her desk.
She didn’t remember much about her father. It was surprising how memories faded over a decade. He was a fisherman who always wore a leather jacket. He’d loved the ocean and its beauty.
Something changed when the bodies were found. He refused to go out on his boat anymore, insisted Mykaela stay away from the water. He made her stay in the house that entire summer, until the day he and Jared took his boat out. Her dad never came back.
The same questions haunted her since it happened. Why? What made her father suddenly fear the water? Why did he suddenly decide to go out on it again? Why take Jared and not her? Why did he always let Jared go on the boat with him, but force Mykaela to stay inside?
She opened the folder and leafed through it. She’d already seen the pictures and the arrest warrant, but the folder was filled with newspaper clippings, too. One for every single body, from both sets of murders. Too much information for her to filter through on her own.
She slammed the folder shut and tucked it under her arm. Then she headed back down the steps, but instead of turning into the kitchen, she went to the rooms in the old servant’s quarters, where Bobby and Dylan slept.
Bobby’s door was shut, but Dylan’s was not. Inside, he sat at the small desk in the corner, using a pocketknife, to carve at a block of wood. Mykaela knocked on the open door. “Hey,” she said when he turned around. “Are you busy?”
“No.” He stood up. “Come in, please.”
She couldn’t help but notice how neat and tidy his room was, neater than hers. There wasn’t a single piece of laundry on the floor, and the blankets were tucked in military-style. She was sure the surfaces would pass a white glove test. She glanced at the block of wood on the desk and the splinters of wood around it. “Are you carving something?”
“Yeah.” He scraped a hand through his hair and glanced down at the table. “Just something I do to pass the time.”
“That’s cool,” she said. “What’s it going to be?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He grabbed the dwindling block of wood, set it on a shelf, then grabbed the trashcan and wiped the wood shavings into it. Standing back, he motioned to the chair he’d vacated. “Have a seat.”
She smiled, once again touched by his polite manners. “Thank you.” She sat down and set the folder on the table. “I told you about my dad, right? He drowned…or disappeared…no one knows.”
“I remember.”
“I ran into a reporter today.” She opened the folder and spread the articles out in front of her. “She compiled all this information on my dad, linking him to the murders.”
Looking at the newspaper clippings, he bit his lip. “How did you get these?”
She blushed. “I stole—borrowed—them from the reporter.”
He laughed, straightening his shoulders. “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. You deserve to know the truth.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I haven’t gotten a chance to look at the rest of this, yet. I was hoping you could help me.”
“Yeah, I’d be happy to help.” He grabbed the handle of an old trunk, pulled it over to the table and sat on it, bringing them to the same height.
“This is the real nail in the coffin.” She handed him the arrest warrant. “It was issued the day he disappeared.”
He read over the document. “Was your dad a violent person?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “I never even got a spanking.”
He picked up a newspaper article. “They thought the first one was an accidental drowning. As well as the second. It looks like they didn’t start getting suspicious until the third.”
“Just like this time.”
“But you knew from the second one, right? When Charity was taken?”
“By the hand-shaped water?” She shook her head. “I must have been hallucinating.”
“If that were the case, you wouldn’t worry about it so much.”
“So what are you saying?” she asked, turning to him. “That what I saw was real? That the water leapt a hundred feet and grabbed us?”
“I’m saying there’s tons of folklore on the mystical abilities of water. It all comes from somewhere—who are we to say they’re wrong?”
“We are rational human beings—that’s who.”
“What is rational?” His eyes twinkled at her again, sparking with interest. “Is rational discounting anything ‘fantastic’ because it can’t exist? Or is it admitting that there are things beyond our understanding?”
“You make a good argument,” she said. “So you think that’s what’s going on here? That…the water is killing people?”
Or somebody controlling the water. “I’m not sure. I doubt your father was doing it. It’s more likely he was trying to figure out what was going on.”
She picked up a sheet of newspaper, then felt her pulse slow as she read it. “This is the article covering his disappearance.”
“What’s it say?”
“Not much,” she said. “Mom reported him missing after three days. He’d gone on a fishing trip that was supposed to last two, and when he didn’t come home, she called the police. They sent out a search party, including volunteers from the community. Bobby found the boat. Jared was the only one on it.”
“Let me see.” He took the article. “He was eleven at the time. When asked about what happened to his father, he said he didn’t remember anything.”
His eyes trailed over the table, taking in the contents of the folder. She could see his posture change when his gaze fell on the photos.
His eyebrow lifted and he leaned over the pictures. He pointed to one. “That’s your dad, right?”
She nodded. “In every crime scene photo. Why was he at every crime scene?”
He looked deep in thought, miles away from her.
“Dylan,” she said louder, catching his attention. “What is it?”
“Huh?” He glanced up at her. “Nothing, it’s just…he doesn’t look like a killer.”
“He’s not. I mean, he wasn’t.” She bit her lip as pain stabbed her. The hardest part about losing someone, she decided, was when you slipped up and spoke about them as if they were still around. She turned back to the folder, desperate to focus her attention on something else. “So, thusfar we have ten dead girls and a suspicious fisherman. It makes no sense.”
He placed the article on the table and massaged his temples with his fingertips. “Mykaela, do you mind if we finish this later? There’s something I need to do.”
“Sure.” She gathered up the file and tucked it against her chest. “Just let me know when. I’ll look over it in the meantime—see if anything new comes up.”
“Try not to worry,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll figure this out.”
She smiled at him and edged toward the door. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”
***
“You did good this time,” Brad told Jared. “But you should work on your speed. If we’d been facing off a real monster, you probably would have died.”
Jared rolled his eyes and hung his arm out the passenger window of the truck. “Not everyone can pick a lock in two seconds. Especially underwater.”
“Hey, I practiced for a long time to be able to do that.” Brad turned down Main Street. “You can’t expect it to just happen naturally.”
“I don’t.”Why wouldn’t Brad just drop it? They both knew he was a better Hunter than Jared. Brad was faster, stronger, smarter and had better reactions. Hunting came naturally to him; it was an activity he enjoyed. Unlike Jared, who’d been shoved into it after watching his father die. How could he see the monsters that lurked under the ocean’s surface, and not become a Hunter? Nobody human could just forget something like that. “
I was just down on my game. Must have something to do with begging for air.”
“Well, deal with it,” Brad said. “If we ever have to fight them on their territory, it’ll come in handy.”
Jared averted his gaze to look out the window, and spotted the girl from the beach, the raven-haired beauty who’d swept him off his feet. “Hey, pull over.”
“What?”
“Just do it,” Jared snapped.
Grumbling, Brad pulled the truck over in the first available parking space. Jared pushed his door open and hopped out.
“Hey!” He jogged down the sidewalk toward the girl.
She turned around, searching his face as if trying to recognize him.
Stopping in front of her, his stomach tied itself in knots, but he managed to smile. “I was wondering if I would see you again.”
She lifted her chin—finally placing him. “Glad I could make your dreams come true.”
He laughed, scratching his head. “Do you want to do something sometime, maybe?”
She chuckled. “Well, that’s specific.”
Her soft, throaty laugh made his insides twist with desire. “Dinner? Maybe a movie?”
She nodded, taking a step backward. “Maybe.”
She turned away, and he wanted to reach out, grab her, and tell her that now she wasn’t being specific. Instead, he watched, helpless, as she walked away. “Wait,” he called. “At least tell me your name.”
Still laughing, she turned to face him, walking backward. “Morrigan.”
Soul of the Sea Page 8