Pink sandals.
Hell and buggering angels.
He ground his teeth together. “Where,” he said very precisely, “is your mother?”
Edith Paine paused her tapping. “I called the clinic. She’s on the way.”
So that was all right, then, Morgan thought. He really had no responsibility here at all.
He frowned. “And your brother?” he asked the child.
Those wide brown eyes fixed on his face with a desperate, completely misplaced hope. “He had to go with the policeman.”
“Where?” Morgan asked sharply.
One grubby hand released the doll. The girl pointed one small, nail-bitten finger to a closed door.
“He said he wanted to talk to Zack.” She drew a shaky breath. Hiccupped. “We had to get in his car. I had to wait out here, he said.”
Morgan’s cold blood boiled. He strode across the lobby.
“You can’t go in there,” Edith objected.
He ignored her. The little girl scrambled off her chair and after him.
Morgan opened the door.
Police Chief Caleb Hunter leaned back behind his desk, big and imposing in a wrinkled blue uniform. The boy—Zachary—hunched in a chair before him, face sullen and eyes miserable.
The chief shot a look at the open door, mild annoyance drawing his brows together. “Morgan. I have to ask you to wait outside.”
Morgan felt a pressure against his leg and glanced down. The little girl had attached herself to him, one arm clinging to his knee, the other gripping the doll. Shaking her loose would be undignified and time-consuming, Morgan decided. He could tolerate her touch for the time it would take him to sort things out.
He locked eyes with the policeman. “What are you doing with him?”
“None of your business,” Caleb replied evenly. “Edith! I told you no interruptions.”
“You want a linebacker out here, call the Patriots.”
Morgan looked at Zachary. The boy slouched deeper in his chair, his mouth sulky, his gaze defiant. Beneath the kiss-my-ass attitude, he stank of fear and shame, his muscles coiled with animal tension.
“What happened?” he asked the boy.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Caleb said. “Now unless you’re his mother or his lawyer, get the hell out.”
“I’m his father.”
Silence crashed over the room like a wave.
The police chief rubbed his face with his hand. “Well, shit. That puts a different spin on things. Let’s see what his mother has to say.”
Her son had been picked up for questioning.
Her daughter was in the care of strangers at the police station.
It was Liz’s worst nightmare.
Well, not the worst. She’d survived the worst three years ago, watching Ben lose his hair, his strength, his voice . . . his life.
But the feeling she was wading through a bad dream, the sick helplessness in the pit of her stomach, the struggle to make sense of the unacceptable, those were the same.
“There’s been some trouble.” Edith Paine’s brusque Yankee voice replayed in her head. “Chief picked up that boy of yours down by the ferry . . . Need to answer some questions before you take him home.”
No one was hurt, Liz told herself. That was the important thing. Whatever else had happened, they would deal with it. That’s what she did. Deal with things. She instructed Nancy to reschedule her afternoon appointments and drove to the police station, a hard ball of panic pounding in her chest.
She was the mommy. She was a doctor. She could fix this, whatever it was.
She parked the car and bypassed the required ramp to march up the town hall steps. In another mood, at another time, she might have been charmed or at least reassured by the small town vibe of the place, the old-fashioned wooden counter and modern fluorescent lights, the community bulletin board papered with wanted posters and bake sale flyers, city regulations and hand-lettered signs: HOUSE CLEANING. PET SITTING. DEEP SEA FISHING. ORGANIC JAM.
Her gaze swept the lobby. A small room housed a coffeepot and a copy machine. A row of straight-backed chairs lined up against one wall, a discarded candy bar on one seat.
But no Zack.
No Emily.
Taking a deep breath, she approached the counter. She had met Edith Paine before. The town clerk had served on the search committee responsible for hiring the new island doctor.
Liz struggled to paste on a professional smile, but her lips refused to cooperate. Her hand trembled on the strap of her purse. “Edith, can you tell me—”
Edith’s eyes glinted behind her glasses. “The party’s in there.”
Liz followed her gaze down the hall, and her wildly beating heart stopped, frozen in her chest. The blood drained from her head.
Morgan. She recognized the strong flow of his back, the muscled curve of his shoulders. Above his black jeans and black T-shirt, his hair looked almost white. His voice was deep, cool, annoyed.
And clinging to the long, black line of his leg was her daughter, Emily.
Trouble, Edith had said on the phone.
Oh, yes.
Liz rolled forward, propelled by a surge of protective fury. “What are you doing here?”
Morgan turned, his expression unreadable. “I was looking for you.”
Her heart jumped. She ignored it. “I want you to stay away from my children.”
Morgan cocked an eyebrow. “Then you will have to remove this one from my leg.”
Hot blood swept into her face. “Emily, come here.”
Her daughter loosened her grip on Morgan’s pant leg. Liz pulled her close, steadied by the sharp, delicate bones beneath her palm.
“Maybe we should all sit down,” Caleb Hunter suggested.
The police chief sat behind a battered desk covered with short stacks of paper and neatly aligned pens. Zack slouched in a chair on the other side, gaze fixed on his dirty black combat boots. He did not, would not, meet her eyes.
Liz’s mouth dried. Her pulse pounded in her temples. What had Morgan said to him? What was he thinking? Why was he here?
She turned to Caleb. She’d met the policeman a week ago at his wife’s prenatal appointment. He’d struck her then as a clear-eyed, thoughtful man with big hands and a slow smile. He wasn’t smiling now.
She moistened her lips. “There’s no reason for him to be here.”
“No reason,” Morgan shot back. “But every right.”
Oh, God.
Zack raised his head. His pale gold eyes blazed, hard and curiously adult. Morgan’s eyes, in their son’s white face.
The accusation in his gaze hit her like a punch in the gut. Liz’s heart plummeted to her stomach.
He knew, she thought sickly. Or he suspected, and his suspicions were ripping him apart. Tearing them apart.
She ached to go to him, to take him in her arms. But in this mood, in this setting, she knew the teen would never tolerate her touch.
She crossed the small office to him and stood as close as she dared, Emily a warm weight against her side.
“Zack . . .”
“I’ll just get another chair,” Caleb murmured and left the room.
“You lied,” Zack said bitterly.
She clenched her hands together. “No, I—”
“When were you going to tell me?”
Liz sighed. “I don’t know. I was trying to find the right time to—”
“Liar.”
Morgan’s rebuke cracked like winter ice. “You will not speak to your mother that way.”
“Fuck off.” Zack’s head whipped around as Caleb reentered the room carrying one of the wooden chairs from the lobby. “I want him to leave,” he said to the police chief. His voice wobbled around the edges. “I want them both to leave.”
Liz’s heart broke. She raised her chin. “He’s only fifteen. You can’t question him without an adult present.”
Caleb set the chair for her and shut the door. “That w
ould be true if he was facing charges. However—”
“I won’t talk unless they go,” Zack said.
“According to Chief Hunter, you did not talk before we came,” Morgan said coolly. “Now shut your mouth and listen.”
Liz bristled in defense of her son.
“That sounds like a father,” Caleb said dryly.
She opened her mouth to deny it. Shut it again.
Caleb moved behind his desk. “Why don’t we sit down. See if we can clear this up.”
She recognized the order beneath his mild tone. She unlocked her knees enough to perch on the edge of the chair.
“I will stand,” Morgan said.
Caleb shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He dropped onto his chair. “Look, your family situation is none of my business. But what happens on this island is. People here depend on the sea. The sea and their neighbors. Anybody interferes with that, they take it seriously.”
Liz’s face felt stiff. “I don’t understand.”
“There have been reports in the past week of lobster traps coming up empty.” Caleb spoke to her, but his eyes were on Zack. “Most infractions around here, the fishermen handle themselves with a warning. Knot a line, bust a trap. If that doesn’t work, they’ll send a call out over the radio, sometimes a gunshot across the bows. With the economy so bad and lobster prices down, feelings are running pretty high. Poaching is the Marine Patrol’s responsibility. But keeping the peace is mine.”
She didn’t need a lesson on the island economy or police jurisdiction. “What does any of this have to do with Zack?”
“Your boy here met the ten-thirty ferry with a cooler full of lobsters. He was selling them to tourists for four bucks apiece.”
She’d been braced for something else. Drugs. Alcohol. Those would fit the pattern. Shoplifting, to support her son’s suspected habit. Fighting, because they were new in town and Zack looked different, was different, from other boys. But . . .
“Lobsters?” Incredulity strained her voice. “Where would he get lobsters?”
“That’s what I asked him,” Caleb said.
“Zack?”
He jerked a shoulder, eyes on his boots.
“Did someone give you the lobsters to sell?”
He was silent.
“Because if you’re protecting someone, they don’t deserve your loyalty.”
Something flickered across his face and was gone, too quickly to be identified. He didn’t look up.
Frustration tightened her jaw. “He’s not a poacher,” she said, wanting to believe it. “We don’t even have a boat.”
“I wondered about that,” Caleb said.
“He would not necessarily need a boat,” Morgan murmured.
The two men exchanged a long look.
“I wondered about that, too,” Caleb said. “He one of yours?”
“The evidence would seem to point that way.”
Incomprehension swam in her head. She narrowed her eyes. “One of yours? How many children do you have?”
He flashed his teeth at her. “Only one. And I do not intend to lose him again.”
Zachary watched from under his lashes while they talked about him as if he wasn’t there. His stomach churned with a combination of guilt and greasy panic. His eyes burned.
They couldn’t prove anything. It’s not like lobsters came painted with lobster serial numbers.
But maybe Big Cop would lock him up anyway. Maybe it would be a relief. Ever since they’d come to this stupid island, Zack was finding it harder and harder to control himself. If they threw him in jail, at least he could stop trying.
His mom was in full doctor mode, pressing, prodding, trying to get at the root of the problem. But she couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t fix him. Nothing in her medical books, no online diagnosis Zack had ever found, offered him any help, any hope at all.
So he kept his mouth shut and prayed Em would do the same.
She was just a baby. Too young to be charged, too young to be believed. Too young, he thought with another lurch of guilt, to be mixed up in his shit. To her, the furtive trip to the beach had been a game, an adventure. Anyway, he’d been careful not to let her see anything that would scare her. She’d been a hit with the tourists, too. Grown-ups who wouldn’t give Zack the time of day had stopped to talk with Emily, charmed by her big brown eyes and that stupid doll she carried everywhere.
His gaze slipped past her to the man who claimed to be his biological father. Big Bad Ass in black. Zack sneered. He hadn’t looked so tough with Emily clinging to his leg.
The man turned his head. His eyes pierced Zack, skewered and held him in his chair like a bug pinned to a piece of Styrofoam.
Zack’s heart pounded. Like the man could read his thoughts, like he could see inside his head.
Shit.
He dropped his gaze hastily, his blood drumming in his ears.
Through the roaring in his head, he heard the man say, “The boy is not under your authority. This is not your concern.”
“It is if he’s stealing,” Big Cop replied.
“He’s not your responsibility either,” his mom said to the man in black. “Zack is my son. Let me talk to him.”
The cop leaned back in his chair. “Maybe it would be best if you both talked to him.”
His mother sucked in her breath like she did before she launched into a lecture. Emily ducked her head, hiding her face in her doll’s hair.
Zack couldn’t stand it.
“Okay,” he said.
Silence descended on the room. He fought not to squirm.
“Zack . . .” His mother’s voice was brittle and unhappy.
His hands tightened on the arms of the chair. He knew she was only trying to help. But she didn’t understand. Nobody understood.
But just for a second, meeting the eyes of the man who claimed to be his father, he’d felt a flicker of something. Not hope. Recognition.
He swallowed hard and looked at the cop. “If I promise to talk to them, can we go?”
The cop regarded him until Zack’s mouth went dry and his palms stuck to the arms of the chair.
“For now,” the cop said at last. “I’ve got no cause to hold you. I’m going to ask around, see whose catch is missing. We’re not finished with this by a long shot.”
“No,” the man in black agreed softly. “I would say we were just beginning.”
6
THEY WALKED OUT OF THE POLICE STATION TOGETHER, Liz holding on to Emily’s hand and Zack with his shoulders up around his ears and Morgan stalking behind. Like a unit. Like a family.
Liz hated it.
He was crowding her. She felt him on the back of her neck and in the pit of her stomach, a tickle like lust or alarm. She stopped abruptly and turned.
Her breath caught. Too damn close. “You’re not coming with us.”
Morgan looked down at her, his face as cool and unimpressionable as marble, and a chill chased the tickle up her spine. He was not a man she could boss around, which made him dangerous. And far too attractive.
She shook her head to rid it of that thought. “I need to talk to Zack alone.”
“So must I.”
“Not alone.”
“Very well,” he agreed so promptly she wondered if she’d been set up. “Then we will talk to him together.”
She frowned. “No, I . . .” She couldn’t think with him standing so close. She took a step back, still gripping Emily’s hand, and bumped into her car. “It’s my responsibility.”
“And you are always responsible.”
Was he mocking her?
Her lips set. “Yes.”
“Responsible and . . .” The pad of his thumb hovered at the corner of her eye where the skin was thin and sensitive. “Tired. Let me help.”
The unexpectedness of his feather contact robbed her of breath. Of speech. He traced a line from cheek to jaw, making her throat constrict. For one weak moment, she was tempted to close her eyes and lean into his hand, to
absorb the warmth and strength of his touch.
Self-preservation straightened her spine. She was not a woman who leaned on anybody.
“I’m not tired,” she said, ice in her voice. “I’m frustrated.”
Unholy laughter gleamed in his eyes. “I could help you with that, too.”
Her jaw cracked. She was not swapping innuendos with this man in full view of the town and within earshot of her kids. “No, you can’t. Go away.”
“After I talk with the boy.”
“Not here. Not now. When you talk to my son, it will be on my terms and my turf.”
“Fine. When and where?”
“I . . .”
Their eyes locked.
Trapped, she realized, her heart knocking against her ribs. Emily leaned into her side, watching them with wide, anxious eyes. Zack scowled from the other side of the car.
For her children’s sake, it was important she maintain a pretense of civility. A semblance of control.
“You can come to dinner,” she decided.
“Tonight.”
She pressed her lips together in annoyance. “Fine. Six o’clock. Eighteen Juniper Road.”
“I will see you then.” He nodded across the car at Zack. “All of you.”
Liz’s gaze darted between them. They were nothing alike, one big, blond, commanding, the other bony and dark.
And yet something about the shape of their lips, the cant of their shoulders, those weird, pale, golden eyes proclaimed them father and son. Her stomach sank.
“Maybe it would be best if you both talked to him,” the police chief had said.
Maybe.
Liz bit her lip. And maybe she was making a big mistake.
Morgan stood half-naked at the pedestal sink in his room, scraping the blade of his knife over his face to remove three days of stubble. The finfolk’s skin was almost smooth, but to pass as a human, he must groom as a human.
The door to his hotel room banged open.
His hand checked and then continued carefully along his jaw.
Dylan Hunter, dark and furious, blew into the room behind him. “What the hell are you playing at?”
“Next time, knock.”
Immortal Sea Page 7