Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

assailant. God knew he didn’t have anything else to go on at this point.
     
    “Soon,” he said. “How are you both holding up?”
     
    “I’m okay. Maggie’s head still hurts. I made her go lie down while I put her dress in the dryer.”
     
    “What?”
     
    His sister sighed. “It’s complicated.”
     
    “Right. Later, then,” he said, and ended the call.
     
    He didn’t need complicated. He’d come home to World’s End in search of a simple, normal life, to put down roots, or return to them.
     
    Maggie was a stranger without ties to the island. Without home ties at all. She didn’t even remember her past.
     
    Or maybe she was running from it. He couldn’t dismiss the possibility that she knew the man who attacked her.
     
    Either angle was a complication Caleb hadn’t bargained for.
     
    And yet she drew him.
     
    He had always been a sucker for strays. Lost dogs, feral cats, even sea creatures stranded by the tide . . . Not that his father had ever allowed him to keep the baby birds that fell from their nests, the dogs that followed him home.
     
    He wanted to keep Maggie.
     
    But even dazed and bloodied, homeless and naked, Maggie was more than a victim. She was stubborn, courageous, and vibrantly, vitally alive. He admired her. Wanted her.
     
    Which meant things were about to get a lot more complicated.
     
    111
    Bruce Whittaker’s house perched on a hill above the point like an island cottage on steroids. Caleb parked at the bottom of the driveway, noting the late-model Lexus SUV in the carport, the half-closed blinds in the middle of the afternoon.
     
    Most of what he needed to know to police his town he could pick up over a morning cup of coffee at Antonia’s or a beer at the Inn after the boats came in. Amazing what people would confide in a casual setting to their local cop: bad feelings at home or a kid in trouble at school, a mailbox or a dog gone missing, items lifted from the gift shop, tourists’
    cars blocking residents’ driveways. Caleb nodded and listened and filed it all away.
     
    It sure beat the hell out of canvassing the projects. Or waiting on unreliable Intel from terrified Iraqis.
     
    The downside of the island grapevine was that his pool of potential witnesses had shrunk to a mere puddle. In the city, a canvass of the neighborhood involved thousands of windows, hundreds of doors, dozens of passers-by and man-hours.
     
    Caleb had covered the entire point area in three hours. Stiffly, he climbed from the Jeep and approached the porch. More damn steps .
     
    And so far he had nothing.
     
    The houses here were few and set back from the ocean. Islanders didn’t build on the point. Anyway, most of them had spent the evening at the school assembly. The tourists wouldn’t recognize unusual activity on the beach at night if it bit them on the ass. Whittaker, with his view of the point and his constant complaints, was Caleb’s last, best hope.
     
    The lawyer hadn’t answered his door or his phone the first time Caleb came around. The shiny vehicle beside the house didn’t mean anybody was home. The island was small enough that folks could walk most anywhere.
     
    In the rain ?
     
    Caleb knocked again.
     
    A shadow moved beyond the leaded glass.
     
    112
    Out of habit, Caleb stepped to the side of the door, his elbow pressing the butt of his gun.
     
    The door opened. Whittaker, pale-faced and clean-shaven, stood framed in the shadows.
     
    “Sorry to bother you,” Caleb said easily. “Do you have a moment?”
     
    Whittaker blinked, as if the light pained him. “Is someone hurt?”
     
    Something clicked in Caleb’s head like the safety release on a gun.
    “Why do you ask?”
     
    “Well, I— Isn’t that what anyone asks when the police show up on their doorstep at . . .” Whittaker winced. “I’m sorry, it’s hardly the wee hours of the morning now, is it?”
     
    “Three o’clock,” Caleb said. “Can I come in?”
     
    “Of course.” Whittaker stepped back, opening the door wide. “Make yourself at home.”
     
    Not likely. Outside, at least, the gray shingles and crisp white trim made some concession to the New England setting and the neighbors’
    sensibilities. But the open floor plan inside didn’t look like any home Caleb had ever lived in. A massive stone fireplace dominated one end of the great room. A six-foot-long aquarium full of fish occupied the other.
    In between, wide plate glass windows overlooked the point.
     
    Caleb