A Watery Death (A Missing Pieces Mystery Book 7) (17 page)

“No one can blow it, Gramps. I think that’s what brought Tovi and Lilly to us in the first place.”

“Do I need to send Scott with you?”

“No. I’ll bring it in.”

“Dae?”

“I’ll bring it in, Gramps.” I glanced at his raised brow and annoyed expression. “The sooner Chief Michaels can take over again, the sooner I go back to not feeling like a teenager. You’re not the sheriff anymore!”

I didn’t slam the office door, but I was irritated at the way he’d treated me. He didn’t even know what I had—just assumed it had something to do with the murder. I understood that he was under pressure to fill Chief Michaels’s shoes, but he didn’t have to take it out on me.

Scott nodded to me, and I left town hall.

The coral horn was still at Missing Pieces, but I wasn’t going there until I had a chance to shower, get the saltwater off me, and change clothes. I knew if I went to the shop first, I had a good chance of not leaving again until late. Everyone would be buzzing about the merman picture. It was the way the town’s grapevine worked.

Plus I’d promised Treasure that I’d bring him to the shop. There was also the matter of taking all the family goodies I’d found in the attic to fill in the holes that had been created by sales the day before.

Lucky for me that Gramps had Chief Michaels’s police car and didn’t need the golf cart. It would be a good way to transport everything to Missing Pieces.

I walked home quickly and wasn’t happy to see someone waiting on the front steps for me. It wasn’t a good time to talk about the future of Duck or why the water tower wasn’t painted more frequently.

To my surprise, it was Cathi Connors.

“Can we talk?” she asked me.

“Sure. Let’s go inside.” I opened the front door, and she followed me in. I knew what she wanted to talk about.

“Dae, you have to put a stop to all this speculation about Tovi and Lilly. You know where this will lead. Both of us are history majors. Neither one of us wants to see new witch trials taking place in Duck—except with seafolk. It will be a freak show. Tovi and Lilly will be taken away and analyzed to death. You know it’s true.”

I sat opposite her at the kitchen table. “I agree with you. We can’t let them be captured.”

“About the photos and video—”

“There’s nothing I can do about that. You know how the Internet is, Cathi. Once it gets out there, it’s always there.”

“Then it’s too late to stop it.”

“I won’t release the picture I got of Tovi changing into a merman. Not that it was much to look at anyway. The one in the paper wasn’t great either. This will all die down after a while. You can talk to Tovi. Tell him that he and his sister need to stay away from Duck for a while.”

She got to her feet and paced the worn wood floor. “It’s not that easy. He feels like he has as much right to be here as we do.”

“I’m sure that’s true. I know he thinks he knows all about humans, but he’s wrong. Explain it to him, graphically, if you need to.”

“I’ll try again.”

“He doesn’t want to leave because he’s in love with you, isn’t he?”

“What?” She seemed puzzled. “No. I’m just friends with both of them. I have been for years. He’s in love with a human, but I don’t know who it is. Lilly just wants to protect him from us and their elders.”

“Did she kill Captain Lucky to keep him from posting those pictures?”

“No. Absolutely not! Tovi and Lilly told me about the pictures. They threatened Captain Lucky, but they didn’t kill him. They aren’t like that, Dae.”

I looked at her red eyes and pale face. “How did you get involved with them?”

She smiled. “I was down by the water—this was years ago, after the divorce. I was thinking about jumping in and never coming back. I was so lonely, Dae. I just couldn’t stand it.”

“I’m so sorry, Cathi.”

“Don’t be. It led me to Tovi and Lilly. They suddenly appeared in the water. Tovi was lonely too. We tried being together, but he was looking for someone else, despite the rules of his people and the stupidity of mine. But it doesn’t matter. I’m happy for the first time in years. I don’t want anything or anyone to take that away.”

Her eyes were fierce when she stared at me. I’d known Cathi all my life. She always seemed so strong and capable. I wondered if she really still loved Tovi but was content being his friend while he looked for the other woman. That didn’t sound like a happy ending.

“What will they do? With the newspaper article and the Internet, they’ll have to go away or risk being captured.”

“I’ve thought about it,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll be here much longer. You know they say seafolk are born from drowning victims. I’d be willing to die to this world, Dae, to be with them in the next. I hope they take me with them.”

“You don’t mean that. Think about what you’re saying.”

“I have—a lot. If they’ll take me, I’ll go.” She smiled and hugged me. “So don’t get everyone all riled up looking for me if I disappear. Just know that I’m happy and with them.”

“Cathi—”

“See you later, Dae.”

I watched her leave the house, torn between trying to find help for her before she did something she couldn’t come back from and minding my own business. Was it was true that mermaids were drowning victims? I’d heard it all my life. I knew Cathi had too. But neither one of us could swear to it.

On the other hand, I wasn’t in love with a merman. Maybe I’d be willing to take my chances if Kevin was a merman.

The desperate tone of her voice started me thinking. Was it possible Cathi had killed Captain Lucky? She obviously felt passionately about protecting Tovi and Lilly. It would explain the human touch I thought had been responsible for hitting him in the head.

With a sigh, I went upstairs and played with Treasure for a while. He was so happy to see me. I was sure he thought I’d forgotten about taking him to the shop. I hadn’t seen Baylor anywhere, but he was probably with Mary Catherine.

I asked Treasure if he wouldn’t rather stay at home where he could enjoy his privacy, but he went over and pawed at the special tote bag I’d made to carry him. That was good enough for me.

Thinking about Cathi and Tovi, I got dressed in clean pink shorts and a tank top with the summer Duck logo on it. Who was I to stop Cathi if this was really what she wanted? My mood was contemplative as I took everything I’d scavenged from the attic out to the golf cart.

Love was something different for everyone. I hoped Cathi wouldn’t end up going away with Tovi, but I wasn’t going to try to stop her. Captain Lucky’s murder was another matter. If I found that Cathi had killed him, it wouldn’t be right to let her swim away with no responsibility.

I was down to the last two pieces I’d found in the attic—Gramps’s wedding memento and my mother’s souvenirs from her day at the carnival with a psychic. I didn’t plan to sell either of these and tucked my mother’s souvenir into the drawer of my bedside table. The case that held Grandma Eleanore’s pink garter was pretty in an old fashioned way. I picked it up to admire it, almost feeling her personal essence from it.

But as soon as I touched it, there was a sharp zap, like from an electrical outlet or an appliance with wiring problems. I pulled back from it and let the garter fall to the floor. There was a bright red welt on my finger. That had never happened to me before.

Treasure stuck his nose in the garter as he examined it. He sniffed it a few times and then walked away toward the bag I used to carry him.

“Okay. I get it. I’m ready to go. We’ll have to take this stuff to Missing Pieces and then take the coral horn to Gramps. I hope you’re up for some travel.”

He meowed and rubbed up against my bare legs. I laughed and put him in the bag. He was usually good in there when I carried him places with me. Fortunately he wasn’t the size of Baylor, or I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to carry him. I couldn’t figure out how Mary Catherine could balance that enormous cat around her neck without slumping forward.

“I guess it happened with practice,” I told Treasure who purred in understanding.

I scooped up the garter from the floor and put it in the drawer. Kevin’s strong words of caution regarding Grandma Eleanore rang in my ears from that morning. But could I just let it go the way he wanted me to and not bring Grandma Eleanore home if it was possible? It wasn’t like I was bringing her back from the dead after all—she’d never really died—just had become lost in time.

There was a noise from downstairs. I thought it was probably Gramps on break and looking around for cookies to go with his coffee. I went down, hoping he wasn’t still frowning as he had been at the police department.

I froze halfway down the stairs as I heard singing. With my heart racing and knees trembling, I went slowly down the rest of the stairs until I could see into the kitchen.

“There you are,” Grandma Eleanore said in her cheerful voice. “Come down and have some tea with me. It’s seems we have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter Seventeen

“How did you get here?”

My words were slow and hesitant. I was excited and scared at the same time. I wanted to hug her and cry. Was she real, or a ghost of the past I’d brought forward?

“Is that all you can say?” She came quickly toward me and took me in her arms. “Oh my Lord, how I’ve wanted to do that. My beautiful Dae. It’s so good to be home.”

I stood completely still for about five seconds before I put my arms around her and hugged with all my might. “How is this possible? I didn’t do anything.”

“Sometimes it’s not how hard you work at something—it’s doing exactly the right thing.” She left one arm around my waist, and we walked into the kitchen. “With our gift, it’s a matter of finding exactly the right item or person to see what we need. What did you recently find that belonged to me?”

“I found the stuff from your and Gramps’s honeymoon in Wilmington. I was just looking at it after I opened the case that held your garter.” I stuck out my finger and showed her where it had zapped me. “What was that?”

“My grandmother, who passed the gift to me, called it life spark. What she meant was finding the thing you needed to do to follow your heart.”

“I can’t believe it. I thought it would be more complicated.”

Grandma Eleanore reminded me so much of my mother, except rounder and softer. Their faces were so much alike. My mother had come to wear a lot of unhappy lines around her eyes and mouth before she died. My grandmother appeared to have avoided that kind of unhappiness in her life.

“I wouldn’t have thought my garter would be the key.” She shrugged. “But it’s always a missing piece of our lives that frees us or holds us back.”

“I’m glad you’re not angry that I kept trying.” I smiled. “Once Gramps told me that you weren’t dead—you just never came back—I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Gramps
! I have to call him.”

I pulled out my cell phone, and she stared at it.

“I can see I have a lot of catching up to do,” she said. “You actually carry a phone around in your pocket now?”

“Not just a phone,” I explained as I punched in Gramps’s number. “It’s information from all over the world. News and music. You can call or send messages to a person in China if you want to.”

“That’s amazing.”

“O’Donnell,” Gramps barked his name impatiently.

“You have to come home right now,” I said. “You won’t believe what’s happened.”

“Dae, I don’t have time to play games. I’m out at the Andalusia. Did you take that thing Captain Lucky gave you to the police department yet?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I wiped tears from my face and eyes. “None of it matters right now. Come home, Gramps. Don’t do anything else. Just come home.”

“What’s wrong?” His tone changed abruptly. “Are you in trouble? Are you hurt?”

“Please, Gramps. Come home now.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

I sat down, trying to imagine the impact this would have on him. His life would be completely different now too.

The front door opened. It was Mary Catherine, with Baylor wrapped around her neck and shoulders like a shawl, almost matching her hair.

“Hello, Dae.” Her inquisitive green eyes went to my grandmother. “I don’t think we’ve met. Mary Catherine Roberts.” She held out her hand, and Baylor lifted his big head.

“Eleanore O’Donnell.”

Mary Catherine, stunned, sat in a kitchen chair beside me. “You did it. You really did it. You brought her back.”

“I know.” I knew it would have a big impact on Mary Catherine as well. “Gramps is on his way home.”

“I would imagine so.”

“Would you like some tea?” Grandma Eleanore asked her. “You know, it feels like I just woke up here this morning. I can see there have been a few changes, but it’s as though they happened while I was sleeping.”

“Is this the way everything was the day you disappeared?” I asked. “Are you the same age?”

“As far as I can tell,” she answered. “It’s a little mixed up for me right now.”

“I believe I need something stronger than tea,” Mary Catherine said. “How did you do this, Dae? Time can’t change, and people can’t swim through it like we do through water.”

“You know about Dae’s gift,” Grandma Eleanore said. “You walked in without knocking. Are you living here? Are you married to Horace now?”

I heard the screech of tires as Gramps turned sharply into the drive from Duck Road.

“No,” Mary Catherine assured her. “I’m not married to Horace. I’m just…a friend of the family. Dae was nice enough to invite me to stay until I could decide if I should live in Duck permanently.”

Grandma Eleanore smiled at me. “I always knew that’s how she’d be.”

Gramps burst through the front door with his gun drawn.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Are you hurt, Dae?”

“Horace!” Grandma Eleanore scolded. “Have things changed so much that you’d come in here with your gun in your hand?”

I thought Gramps might fall to the floor. The look of shock on his face when he saw her was so powerful. His mouth hung open, and his eyes bulged. The hand that held his sidearm dropped, and he staggered forward.

“Eleanore? Is that
really
you?”