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She sent me an eyebrows-up nod. “Listen, this is not for public consumption,” she said. “There’s this little cove on the eastern bank. You can’t get to it unless you walk out into the surf, around its boulders. It’s my favorite spot. When I got there this afternoon, she was there in the surf.”
I swore under my breath, then whispered, “What are the odds?”
“That was my first thought too. That it was deliberate. Somebody put her there on purpose, because it was my case. And that was my spot. But I’ve been studying the currents today, remembering past visits, too. The lake brings a lot of flotsam in there. I usually leave with a few souvenirs in my bag. Six-pack rings, fast food cups. Found a pair of Ray-Bans once.”
I could imagine the spot and felt sad about garbage washing up on its shore. “I want to see that cove.”
She frowned at me. “County forensics team went over it with a fine-tooth comb.”
“Oh, sure they did,” I said. “I didn’t mean for business. It just sounds… special.” And maybe I’d be able to feel something there.
“Oh.” The word pitched up, as if in happy acknowledgement of a connection made. “So what did you guys think? About the body?”
I thought a lot of things. I thought the cause of death would be drowning, and that the water in her lungs would be chlorinated. Pool water, not lake water. I thought her knuckles were destroyed from pounding on the glass walls that stood between her and her next breath. But of course, I couldn’t say any of that. So I offered up a provable observation.
“She had a head injury that looked just like Christy’s.”
Jen turned my way fast, and I drew the line the blood had made, from my part, down along my hairline and in front of my ear.
She put her eyes back on the road and used the Lord’s name in vain.
“I don’t want Christy back in that tank,” I said. “But she’s of age, and the doc at the ER gave her medical clearance.”
“I don’t want her back in that tank, either,” the detective said. “I don’t want any of them back in that tank.”
I nodded hard. “Listen, I didn’t want Mason with me because I might do something illegal, and I don’t want to fuck up his work life. I don’t want to fuck up yours, either.”
She looked at me and wiggled her eyebrows. “How illegal?”
Goddammit, I did. I liked her. Didn’t I have enough cops in my life?
* * *
RACHEL
Jen Scott and I stood in the pool room, looking down into the tank. The cover was fully open. Two of the mermaids were performing. From above, their antics in the water appeared as if through a carnival mirror, distorted and warped.
“Detective Scott, good to see you again.”
We turned away from the pool to see the three who’d been in that private room earlier. Filthy fucking pigs was probably written all over my face.
Jen said, “Rachel de Luca, this is Raphael Jones, one of the owners.”
He held out a hand.
I looked at it in disgust. “Are you the one who was fondling your junk while my niece performed?”
His face went as lax as if he’d momentarily lost brain function. The two assholes behind him laughed.
“You think it’s funny?” I took a step closer to the pair, learning in, “You think it’s fucking funny?” They backed up as one. You’d have thought it was choreographed. “Who shut that fucking cover while she was in the pool?”
Raphael held up his hands, glancing between us as if he thought Jen would jump in any second. But she seemed content to let me growl.
“We don’t know. Our club manager suspects it was never opened all the way.”
Jen said, “Jeremy— the mermaid’s friend who took her to the ER— said you were going to check the surveillance.”
“We did,” Jones said. “It um, wasn’t on.”
