by Janni Nell
Casper wasn’t cruel. If he’d been able to read my thoughts he would never have said, “Your father isn’t dead.”
I stared at him in disbelief. My chest constricted. Somehow I managed to ask, “How do you know that?”
“I looked it up.” He made it sound so easy.
“Where? In some kind of heavenly register?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re allowed to tell me this?”
“The Powers-That-Be haven’t said not to.”
So Dad had abandoned us. Oh bugger. I told myself I wouldn’t say that any more. I wouldn’t use any of Dad’s expressions ever again. Then I had another thought. If Dad was alive, he was still legally married to Mom. That made her a bigamist. It got worse and worse.
“What’s up?” asked Casper. “Aren’t you pleased your father’s alive?”
How could a two-thousand-year-old man be so naïve?
But I didn’t want Casper to know how much his information had hurt me, so I smiled. “I’m glad Dad’s alive but I’m not going to think about him right now. Just like he doesn’t think about me.” Even I could hear the edge in my voice.
“How do you know he doesn’t thi—?”
“I’m not going to talk about him anymore, Casper.”
He said easily, like a psychologist to a stubborn patient, “Okay.”
I managed to breathe again. Shoving Dad out of my mind, I focused on Casper’s outfit. “Turn around so I can see you properly.”
He did as I asked. The kilt flared out, revealing a fine set of masculine thighs. It didn’t rise quite high enough to reveal what he was wearing underneath, which was probably just as well considering I hadn’t purchased any underwear.
I smiled.
So did Casper. “This reminds me of the clothes I used to wear when I was alive,” he said. “It’s very comfortable.”
I drew my feet up and sat cross-legged on the double bed. “Tell me about when you were alive.”
He folded his arms defensively across his chest and said shyly, “There’s too much to tell.”
“Just tell me about one thing.”
“Okay,” he said agreeably. “You choose. Do you want to hear about the battles I fought, or the people in my family, or what life was like in my village?”
I decided against asking about his wartime experiences. I had no wish to hear a detailed description of Casper’s sins. Perhaps I should ask about his family. Not his mother who had been killed by soldiers, but his sister or his father.
On second thought, I had once asked Casper about his father and I had no wish to hear again of the man who had sacrificed his life for his son’s. The contrast to my own paternal experience was too painful.
I remembered something I had long wanted to ask Casper and had never dared. This was the perfect opportunity.
I took a deep breath. “Were you ever in love?”
Casper’s jaw sagged. “I didn’t expect you to ask that.”
“Too late now. You have to answer.”
“No I don’t.” He folded his arms tighter. Then he sighed. “But, to please you, I will.”
To please me. My heart soared. He was going to do something specifically to please me.
Immediately, however, I realized how dumb I’d been. Casper was now going to tell me about someone who might have been the love of his life. My heart contracted as he said her name. Halfrida. I wanted to block my ears, but like someone who can’t turn away from a road accident, I had to absorb every heart-wrenching detail.
“Halfrida lived in my village,” he said. “I had known her all my life but I didn’t really see her until the year she turned fourteen. She had hair the color of moonlight and eyes like a clear stream. Her skin was like fresh cream and…”
I so did not want to hear this. Casper made her sound perfect. What was even worse, he made her sound like The One. Ms. Right, now and forever.
“I was sixteen,” Casper continued. “We married young in those days and we were obliged to ask our parents for permission. Luckily my father agreed to our betrothal, but he insisted we postpone the marriage until I had returned from my first—I suppose you’d call it a tour of duty.
“Naturally I protested—I worried I might die before I’d made love to Halfrida—but my father insisted I had to defend our village before the marriage took place. In those days we didn’t argue with our parents. So I went away to war.
“After four long years, I returned. Halfrida was waiting for me. We married within a week. Our wedding night was…” His eyes glowed. Then he blushed, “I’m sorry, Allegra, I can’t describe it to you. It’s too private.”
“Yeah, I know.” Frankly I was glad I didn’t have to hear the details. His expression had already told me how beautiful it had been.
“Halfrida and I had only two months together before I went off to war again. This time I was gone for three years.” Casper turned away. He walked to the window and opened the drapes. I didn’t think he was interested in the night view of the loch. I suspected he didn’t want me to see his face.
He spoke softly. “When I returned I had a two-year-old daughter. But Halfrida was gone. She’d died in childbirth. Two years she’d been dead, and all that time I’d believed her alive and thriving.” He slammed his fist onto the windowsill.
“I left my daughter, Zerlina, with my sister and went to war again. Up until then, even in the heat of battle, I’d been faithful to Halfrida. But now there was nothing to hold me back. I envied every man who had a woman he loved. I took women while their wounded husbands watched in horror. I shamed myself and my daughter. I died in shame.”
When he stopped talking the silence was very loud.
I got off the bed. I can honestly say I had no thought of seducing him when I moved to his side. All I felt was pity for the anguished young man he had been. I reached out to touch his shoulder. His shirt was thin and I could feel the firmness of his muscles beneath. The heat of his skin burned my palm.
He turned to face me. We were inches apart. I was tantalized by the fullness of his lips, the sweet depths of his eyes.
Was I in love with him? No, I couldn’t be. I wanted sex. That was all.
If I had leaned forward I could have kissed him. I could have led him to the double bed and made him forget Halfrida, but in so doing I would had made him forfeit Heaven. That was too high a price for my own selfish pleasure.
I stepped away and crossed to the other side of the room. Like the coldest TV cop I said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” said Casper formally. Then, “I think I’m needed on Cloud 9.”
“Will I see you again?” I had a terrible feeling that what had almost happened between us might mean he could no longer be my guardian angel.
“You’ll see me next time you’re in trouble.”
I vowed to go out looking for trouble first thing tomorrow.
“Gotta go,” said Casper.
Instead of his usual disappearing act, he went out the door, closing it softly behind him. I walked to the place where he had stood. There was nothing to show he had been there. No shoe imprints in the carpet. Nothing. Hugging myself, I turned to the window. I touched the drapes he had pulled aside.
Outside the moonlight made the loch look like black glass. As I stared at it, I heard my door reopen.
“What did you forget, Casper?” I asked without turning around.
“It’s not Casper.” Douglas sounded peeved. I guess he didn’t like being mistaken for his rival.
Fixing a smile on my face, I turned to him.
“What’s up, Douglas?”
“It’s only eight p.m.,” he said. “Much too early to go to bed. Are you feeling ill?”
This wasn’t the moment to tell him I’d been playing dress up with Casper. But I had to tell him something. He knew Casper had been in my room. Think quick, Allegra.
“We were discussing the case,” I said. “We didn’t want anyone to overhear.”
/> Douglas bought it. “Did Casper come up with anything new?”
When I shook my head, Douglas seemed pleased.
I sighed inwardly. Men are so competitive.
Douglas took a step toward me. “I’m sorry the case isn’t going well.”
“Me too. But it’s often like this. Everything seems hopeless, then suddenly—” I snapped my fingers, “—there’s a breakthrough.”
“For your sake I hope the breakthrough comes quickly,” he said. “For mine I hope it doesn’t.” He was looking at me with an expression that could only be described as lustful.
I knew what was coming next even before he slipped his arms around me. Gently he pressed his lips against mine. I didn’t move away. If my feelings for Casper were simply an itch for sex, it shouldn’t matter whether he or Douglas did the scratching. I put my arms around Douglas.
Unlike the last time I’d kissed him, this time I felt something. Sadly, it had little to do with the erotic feelings I’d anticipated. What I felt was an itch in my back, right where his hand was trying to sneak under my sweater. It made me think of the itch I got in my big toe when I was in the presence of the paranormal. I’d got that itch at Scarlett Gordon’s house. Maybe it was because she was a witch. Or maybe it had something to do with her houseguest.
As Douglas’s tongue explored my oral cavity, I thought, I have to get a look at that houseguest. Eager to do it as soon as possible, I wriggled impatiently in his embrace.
He stopped kissing me. “Is something wrong?”
“No, but there’s something I have to do. The case…”
“Is that what you were thinking about while I was kissing you?”
“Sorry, Douglas, sometimes my brain works in a funny way. But your kiss helped me think. That’s some powerful kiss you’ve got there.”
“I suppose.” He sounded unconvinced.
“Maybe we should take a rain check on this.” I removed his hands from my waist.
As I headed for the door, he asked, “Where’re you going?”
“Scarlett Gordon’s.”
Chapter Sixteen
I parked my car some distance from Scarlett’s house and went the rest of the way on foot. There was a light on in a room at the back of the house. Good, she was home.
I had no plans to announce my arrival by knocking on the door. That wouldn’t get me a look at the houseguest. Instead I planned to creep around the house and peep in the window.
During my earlier visit I had noticed the curtains in the sitting room at the back of the house were open. Hoping they were still open, I crept along the paved path that ran down one side of the house.
Luck was with me. Light streamed from an uncurtained window. Standing on a couple of planter pots, I hoisted myself up to look inside. It looked much as it had when I’d been there earlier, except now there were two wine glasses and an open bottle on the coffee table. Scarlett and the houseguest were nowhere in sight. Had they already gone to bed?
I had moved around to the back door and was planning to go inside when I heard something in the garden.
Scarlett’s garden was a series of three terraces that descended to the shore of the loch. What I heard had come from one of the lower terraces. It had sounded like a little gasp.
Keeping out of sight behind various shrubs, I made my way down the garden toward the shore. I had reached the second terrace when I saw them.
Scarlett was dressed in a tracksuit but the houseguest was naked. They were locked in a tight embrace, which concealed some of the houseguest’s—um—charms but still allowed me to see more of him than I probably should have.
From my vantage point I could see that his sleek black hair hung down to his shoulders. His face was partly obscured—mainly because he was kissing Scarlett—but what I could see of it hinted that he was handsome. I didn’t have to guess about the rest of him. He had broad shoulders, a muscular back, and one of the finest butts I had ever seen.
When he released Scarlett, I finally got a good look at his face. He was beautiful, in a pale, unearthly kind of way. He cradled Scarlett’s face between his hands and said something I couldn’t hear. Then he reached down to pick something up. It looked like a wetsuit.
What kind of idiot would swim in the loch at this hour?
I watched him step into the suit. He had pulled it all the way to his hips before I realized it wasn’t a wetsuit at all. He was putting on his skin.
This was the moment to announce my presence—before he dived back into the loch and I lost the chance to question him.
As I sprinted down the terrace, I called out, “Wait right there!”
If I’d had to tackle him, I would have. But that wasn’t necessary. He pulled down his skin and stepped out of it.
Scarlett stepped in front of him protectively. Or maybe she didn’t want me getting a free peek at his charms. Too late, Scarlett. But there was no chance I was going to become a rival for his affections. I was quite sure Casper’s charms were equal to and probably surpassed the houseguest’s. Not that I was ever likely to partake of Casper’s charms, but it pleased me to speculate on their superior qualities.
Stop it, Allegra. You’ve got a case to solve.
“What are you doing here?” Scarlett asked.
“I need to talk to your houseguest.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a— I don’t want to shout it out. Why don’t we go inside.”
Scarlett insisted on going in first to close the curtains. The houseguest and I followed. He seemed perfectly comfortable with his nudity even in the harsh electric light. It was Scarlett who got a towel and told him to wrap it around his waist. Then we all sat down.
I looked at the houseguest. My toe was itching like crazy. “So you’re a selkie.” Although I’d never seen one in the flesh—and what fine flesh it was—I knew selkies were seal-like creatures who could shed their skins and assume human appearance. I also knew that if someone stole their skin they were forced to remain in human form.
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” said Scarlett.
I couldn’t promise that. Not that I didn’t sympathize with Scarlett, but I had a job to do.
“You sank my rowboat,” I said.
He nodded again.
“Why did you kill McEwen and Malcolm?”
I hadn’t been sure that he was responsible until I saw the look on his face. Scarlett’s reaction was even more damning.
She leapt to her feet. “You can’t prove that.”
She was right. Even if the selkie admitted it, imagine going to the cops and saying, Two murders have been committed but there are no bodies. Oh, and by the way, a selkie did it. They’d lock me in a padded room.
Scarlett grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of the chair. “Get out of my house!” she screamed.
It was the selkie who said calmly, “Sit down, Scarlett. It is time the truth was told.”
“They’ll drive you out of the loch,” she said miserably.
“We will not go,” he said.
We? “How many of you are there?” I asked.
“About two hundred, but we are not all from the same pod.”
Gently I repeated my earlier question. “Why did you kill McEwen and Malcolm? Did they harm one of your women—I mean females?”
He nodded. “Before I tell you what happened, I want you to know who I am.” He had difficulty with some of the words. His voice sounded croaky and hoarse. “My name is Harq. I am the leader of my pod. If you are to understand what happened, you must know our history.
“We—the selkies—came to the loch centuries ago. At first we hid from the humans but one day a young boy rowed out onto the loch to fish. He fell overboard. He could not swim and would have drowned if a selkie had not brought him back to shore.
“That child, his name was Donald, never forgot that a selkie had saved his life. Until the day he died he made sure that we lived in harmony with the villagers. We walked on land and nobody tried to steal our ski
ns. Donald’s son and his son’s son honored the treaty between our people.”
“So that’s why the villagers denied that anything lived in the loch,” I murmured. “They were honoring the treaty.”
“They denied our existence?” Harq seemed surprised. “Why would they do that? The treaty had already been broken. Twice.”
“Tell me how it happened,” I said.
“Sometimes my people go ashore. They like to run and dance, particularly the females.
“Three men were hiding in the bushes when—” He made a noise that sounded like Cark. I guess that was the name of the female selkie The Three M’s had seen near the rose. “—when Cark went ashore. The men came out of the bushes to look at her. She was frightened. They shouted at her. One of them grabbed her hair but she got away.
“We wanted to teach the men not to touch our females,” he said, struggling with the words. “We caught one of the men and pulled him into the loch—to frighten, not kill. But we kept him underwater too long. He drowned.
“My people decided to mark him. We wanted to—to—” He glanced at Scarlett as though he couldn’t think of the right word.
Scarlett said, “They wanted to send a message to the villagers to leave the selkies alone.”
He nodded.
I thought about that. It almost made sense, but there was one thing I didn’t understand.
“If the selkies wanted to send a message,” I began, “why was the body removed and replaced by fish?”
“That was my idea,” said Scarlett. “I panicked. I feared what the villagers would do if they knew the selkies were responsible for McEwen’s death.”
“Where is McEwen’s body now?”
It was Scarlett who answered. “The selkies took it out to sea.”
So it would probably never be found. I turned to Harq.
“What about Malcolm?” I asked. “Why did you kill him?”
“We did not,” said Harq. “We found him floating. He was already dead.”
“The man was a known drunk,” said Scarlett. “He must have fallen in and drowned.” She looked to Harq for confirmation.