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“I have news,” she said, and everyone came to attention, including Toby, who was still lying face-down, but propped his chin on his elbows. “The owners are coming.”
“When?” Jasmine asked. Her voice was an octave higher than normal. No doubt she planned to show off for them, maybe even land one of them. While her face revealed nothing, her voice was the gateway to her feelings.
“Two weeks,” Coach replied.
The owners were three very wealthy men, thanks to their fathers, who’d bought them this place. The Sapphire Club was their fun little hobby. They came out a couple of times every summer and got hammered in the private dining room directly below the locker room on the right side of the pool. The right side of the aquarium formed one wall of the private dining room, so the billionaire bad boys could get a private show. She didn’t know why anyone called them “boys.” They had to be pushing fast toward forty.
Misty put on her tail as she contemplated yet another visit from the owners. It meant hard work and some squirminess. They always flirted outrageously with the wait staff and the performers. Especially the performers. They didn’t outright proposition anyone, at least not that Misty had heard. But they let every mermaid there know they would like to have sex.
It was harassment, yes, but who was going to turn them in or complain? It wasn’t as if the world was awash in open positions for professional mermaids. Without this gig, you’d either have to move to another city with a tank or make a living doing birthday parties.
Misty really didn’t look at this gig as a life goal. It was just a fun side job that she’d fallen in love with. It wouldn’t be her career. She hadn’t decided what her career would be, but she knew it wouldn’t be performing as a mermaid.
She rolled onto her belly. Toby sat up, scooted over, and tugged her zipper up.
“Oooooh baby. Bonus time,” Echo said. She leaned up on the edge over the pool’s mechanical opening-closing cover and slapped the water with her tail to punctuate her joy.
“We have to do something amazing this time,” Toby put in.
The owners always expected a high caliber performance, and they gave the performers big, fat bonus checks every single time. The better the show, the bigger the bonus.
“I have some ideas and I want to hear yours.” Coach Hannah walked over to the pool’s edge and pulled the big rubber band on over her feet, up to mid-calf. Then she dove in, her legs locked together, just like a mermaid.
She used the rubber band method for training, but she still had her old tail. It was a real stunner, silver and white and it glittered when any light source hit it. She didn’t perform anymore, and Misty thought it was a crying shame. She was good.
Toby had barrel-rolled himself to the edge, and right over the side, leaving Misty the rotten egg. Last one in bought drinks after practice. Shoot.
She crawled on her arms, dragging her tail behind her, slid headfirst into the cool, chlorinated water, and tried not to think about the fact that she was going to slide just as smoothly into Mr. Mackey’s office later to search his computer for anything about Eva Quaid.
The club’s manager had a temper like a wounded bear, so she’d better not get caught. But he’d been tending bar during the same time Eva had worked there, and the paper had printed a co-worker’s opinion that the two had hated each other, so he was a suspect. If nothing else, she should at least be able to pull up Eva’s employee files.
She was a nervous wreck. It seemed really bad, breaking the law when her boyfriend was a cop. It kind of seemed like being unfaithful.
She did a few laps around the tank, then surfaced when Coach pointed up. “Warmups,” she called as the four merfolk bobbed in the water. “Mermaid Pose! Go!”
They swam to the edge, braced their palms on the floor, and pushed their upper bodies up out of the water, simultaneously arching their backs and throwing back their heads. Misty arched her entire spine and neck, flipping her long, wet hair behind her. This was the iconic Mermaid Pose, and one of most popular photo ops for fans, when struck on the boulders along the lakeshore.
The merfolk lowered into the water, then sprang up into Mermaid Pose again for thirty reps. It was how they began every practice session.
* * *
RACHEL
“What makes you think anything’s wrong with Misty, Aunt Rache?”
I was sitting across from the handsome young police officer I’d helped to raise, a little bit, just at the end there. His mom was still incarcerated in a maximum-security psychiatric facility for killing a bunch of people and trying to cut out my eyes. His father, Mason’s brother, had taken his own life. He’d left a note confessing to a pile of murders— a note nobody ever saw besides Mason and me. Was it any wonder the kid had issues with alcohol?
And yet here he was, a cop, clean and sober and dating my niece Misty.
“Aunt Rache?” he prompted, because I’d gotten lost noticing how he’d turned from lanky teenager to broad-shouldered man overnight.
“You can drop the ‘aunt’ part, if you want.”
He tipped his head sideways, frowned, then shook his head. “I don’t think I can.”
We were having coffee at the breakfast bar in my kitchen. Myrtle was sitting between our stools with her head tipped up and her smooshed nose twitching. Jere handed her down a tiny corner of his muffin, then yelled, “Ouch!” when she took fingers and all. She did not notice, merely swallowed, and resumed the position— head up, nose twitching.
“But back to Misty.”
