Sea Witch (12 page)

magic, or at least had studied as much as any of the sea folk. Margred

herself had learned to read, despite a scarcity of books. Sea water was not

kind to pulp and print. Conn maintained some sort of library at Caer

Subai, but generally knowledge among the mer was passed on parent to

child and mind to mind.

When it was passed on at all. For along with their birth rate, the

selkies’ aptitude for magic had been declining for years. Centuries.

The sea king’s son warned about the slow wane of the selkies’

power, but his preoccupation with his people’s fate was not a popular

topic. The children of the sea counted themselves among the First

Creation, elemental, immortal, inviolate in their primacy. What need did

creatures of magic have for spells and enchantments?

Well, she needed something now, Margred thought.

She needed . . . help. Not human help, although she was grateful to

Caleb for sheltering her.

She had to contact Dylan to find out what, if anything at all, Caleb

and Lucy knew about their heritage.

And she needed to get word of her plight to the prince. Tomorrow

she would go down to the sea to summon a messenger. Conn would tell

her what to do.

If anything could be done
. The whisper licked along her nerves like

flame.

She sat up in the tub, water sluicing from her bare shoulders. She

would not think that way. She was enough of a fatalist to accept that what

would be, would be.

And enough of a survivor to take her pleasures in the meantime.

Reaching a hand for one of the pretty colored bottles along the edge

of the tub, she unscrewed the cap and sniffed.

Caleb was climbing the stairs when the smell smacked him like a

wet towel.

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A cloud of scent and steam rolled from the bathroom and enveloped

him. Cucumber, melon, apricot, strawberry, mixed and mingled together.

His head swam. Like a fricking bomb had gone off at a farmers’

market.

He cleared his throat. “Maggie?”

“In here.” Her throaty voice purred through the open bathroom door.

Hell, he knew she was in there. Wet. Naked. Vulnerable, he

reminded himself.

“Do you, uh, need anything?”

“Yes.”

He waited.

Nothing.

He released his breath. Okay. He’d seen her naked before. Recently.

Just because she sounded like a wet dream and smelled like a whole roll

of Lifesavers was no reason to lose his mind or his cool.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, as if he was approaching a crime

scene.
Don’t touch
. “Right. Coming.”

The door stood open. He walked in and there she was, naked in the

bathtub, her dark hair damp on her bare shoulders and her breasts just

below the bubble line.

“Well.” He focused on her face with an effort. “You look better.”

Her cheeks were flushed. Her knees rose from the sea of foam like

little pink islands.

“I feel better.” She stretched her shoulders, and her breasts bobbed

briefly above the scented bubbles.

He felt like an idiot, stiff and awkward. Aroused. “What did you

want?”

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“I need to go back to the beach,” she said. “Will you take me?”

He shook his head, caution penetrating his fruit-flavored, lust-induced fog. “It’s too late.”

“Likely in more ways than one.” Her full lips quirked and then

firmed. “Nevertheless, I must go.”

“Why?”

Her eyes challenged his. “Does it matter?”

“It might.” He remembered her wild struggle to reach the fire. She

didn’t trust him. He needed her to trust him. “What’s on the beach,

Maggie?”

“Nothing now.”

“Then—”

She stood. Bubbles streamed down her body, parted over breast and

thigh, slid over that gorgeous length of leg. “Will you hand me a towel?”

His tongue was suddenly too large for his mouth. His pants were too

tight. Wordless, he grabbed a towel off the edge of the sink and extended

it toward her.

Maggie wrapped her body, tucking the edge of the towel between

her breasts. “If you won’t take me, I will find my own way.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll take you.”

No reason not to, he reasoned, after he had processed the scene.

Maybe returning to the place she’d been attacked would jog her memory.

She smiled faintly. “Thank you.”

“You did that on purpose.”

Her smile broadened. “Do you care?”

“Not if I get to see you naked,” he answered frankly, and was

rewarded by her laugh.

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“Then we both are satisfied.”

“Not by a long shot.” Edgy and restless, he prowled the short

distance to the sink and back, his hands still safely anchored in his

pockets. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow. After lunch.”

She tilted her head, regarding him. “Not in the morning? ”

“I’m busy.”

“Ah.” She shrugged, making the towel move in interesting ways.

“Until tomorrow, then.”

He’d expected her to object, to acknowledge that she wanted him.

Needed him, even if it was only for this. He had to find some way to

reforge the connection between them, to remind her she was his.

Unable to resist, he bent to kiss her, a brief, frustrated meeting of

mouths.

And left with the taste of her on his lips.

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Eight

WHEN THE SUN ROSE, BLEEDING PINK BETWEEN the gray

sky and the iron ocean, Caleb gained the light but lost four of the men he

had assigned to protect the crime scene.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.

Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.

Last night, he’d called out the island’s volunteer fire department,

posting guards at the access road, the hiking trail, and both ends of the

beach. Most of the firefighters were willing to sacrifice sleep for the

novelty of playing policeman. But working men couldn’t ignore their jobs

to stand around outside the yellow tape, smoking and speculating.

Howard and Manuel had left with the lobster boats at 5:00 A.M.; Dick

and Earl had taken the 7:00 ferry to the mainland.

Caleb recorded their exits in the log book, aware of his team slipping

away. His time, slipping away. His chances, slipping away. At 10:00

A.M., the ferry would return, carrying the state evidence team he had

requested to process the crime scene.

Too
late
, he thought.

The wind snatched at his notebook. He anchored the pages with one

hand, glancing from his diagram of the scene to the heavy clouds above.

Some small-town police chiefs were too proud or too dumb or too

damn territorial to call in the State Criminal Division for anything less

than homicide. Mainers liked to do for themselves, and cops used to

dealing with petty thefts and traffic violations didn’t always realize how

quickly a case could be lost by a single missed or mishandled piece of

evidence.

Caleb knew. But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Rain and tide threatened the point. If he didn’t conduct a detailed search

soon, his crime scene would be irretrievably contaminated, the evidence

swept or washed or blown away.

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I need what he took from me
, Maggie had said.

He wanted to find it.

Whatever it was.

Five hours later, Caleb sat at his desk with a mug of bitter coffee,

working his way through the paperwork required by the state lab as

methodically as he’d worked his way across the beach.

His eyes were gritty with sand and ash and lack of sleep. His leg

throbbed. His stomach growled. He hadn’t stopped for breakfast. Sliding

open his desk drawer, he groped under the files and procedure manuals

for the brown prescription bottle that held his painkillers.

The doctor had said Maggie wasn’t supposed to take aspirin because

of the risk of bleeding into the brain. Had Lucy remembered?

He reached for the phone with his other hand, punching in the

number from memory. His sister answered on the second ring.

“How is everybody?” he asked.

“Maggie’s fine. We’re both fine. We’re about to have lunch. Where

are you?”

“No nausea? Headaches?”

Muffled voices carried over the line.

“She has a bit of a headache,” his sister reported moments later. “I

gave her some Tylenol.”

“Good,” Caleb said, feeling foolish. “That’s good.”

“Maggie wants to know when you’re going to take her to the beach.”

“Later.” He glanced at the window, where a cold, gray rain lashed

the glass. “It’s raining.”

“Do you want to talk to her?”

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He tapped the plastic bottle on the desk. He shouldn’t feel like a

damn fifteen-year-old calling a girl and then hanging up because he had

nothing to say.

But he had nothing to offer her. Not yet. He looked from the piles of

crap on his desk to the piles of crap on the floor.

“I’ll call back,” he said, and hung up.

Cradling the pills in his hand, he squinted at the bright warning

labels:
Do not take on an empty stomach. May cause drowsiness. Do not

drive or operate heavy machinery
.

His hand clenched in frustration before he dropped the bottle back

into the drawer.

He needed Vicodin and about twelve hours of sleep. He’d settle for a

shower and a cigarette. Instead, he took another sip of cooling coffee.

He’d managed to give up smoking in the hospital, and no amount of

frustration was driving him to go through that again.

He rubbed his eyes. What he really needed was a body. Or a weapon.

Clothing. Hell, even footprints or tire tracks. But the wind and the tide

had destroyed any obvious marks, and the beach had been

disconcertingly, discouragingly bare. Not even a cigarette butt. Well,

except for the firefighters’, carefully restricted outside the perimeter.

Caleb was—had been—a good investigator. He’d combed and sifted

the scene, photographed and preserved everything, however apparently

insignificant. But he’d found nothing to identify Maggie.

Or her attacker.

A rap sounded on his office door.

“Come in.”

Edith poked her head inside, curiosity flashing behind her glasses.

“Detective Sam Reynolds.”

Caleb seriously considered not getting to his feet—his leg hurt like a

son of a bitch—and then did it anyway. “Detective. ”

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Reynolds had smooth brown hair, quick eyes, and neat whiskers. A

field rat, rather than a lab rat.

“Sam. CID.”

Like Caleb needed to be told. He raised his eyebrows. “You’re it?

You’re my Evidence Response Team?”

The investigator smiled, revealing large white teeth. “Somebody die

that I don’t know about?”

“Nope.”

“Then I’m it.” He sat in the molded plastic chair that was all the

town of World’s End could afford for its visitors. “What’ve you got for

me?”

“Food wrappers, beer cans, one rubber flip-flop, a couple fishhooks,

and a load of fire debris.” Caleb didn’t need the look on the other man’s

face to tell him he had squat. He nodded to the sealed cartons on the floor

behind him. “It’s all in there. Taped, dated, and labeled. Agency number,

item number, description, and source.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“Major crime division,” Caleb explained briefly. “Portland.

“Good for you. Makes my job easier. Paperwork?”

“All but the case synopsis. I can fax it to you this afternoon.

The whiskers twitched. “Meaning you want me to take your boxes

and get out of your hair.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d save me the trip,” Caleb answered

carefully. “I’m on my own here.”

“You call the sheriff’s office?”

In a one-man jurisdiction, the county sheriff’s department was your

best resource. Which still put Caleb’s nearest backup forty minutes away

by boat.

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“Yeah. He’s accessing the NCIC missing persons database for me.”

“I thought you said the victim was still alive.”

Caleb massaged his leg absently under the desk. “She is. She’s not

talking.”

“Uncooperative?”

“She doesn’t remember the attack. Or anything else.”

Except him. She remembered him.

“
What were you doing on the beach last night
?”

“
Looking for you
.”

Reynolds scratched his mustache. “Not a crime to lose your

memory.”

“No.”

“If she really did lose her memory.”

Their eyes met a moment in perfect understanding. Female victims

of domestic disputes often lied or claimed loss of memory to protect