Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

her heart. And yet it was the wrong question.
     
    She saw the instant he realized it, watched his eyes chill, felt his body brace like a warrior’s for a blow.
     
    “If you had your sealskin,” Caleb said quietly, “if you could return to the sea, would you stay here with me?”
     
    Would she give up all the seas and eternity to live on land with this one man until they both were dead?
     
    Her mouth dried. She did not, could not, answer him.
     
    But that was all the reply he needed.
     
    234
     

Eighteen
     
    "WELL, THAT WENT WELL,” CALEB SAID AS HE left the polygraph examiner in possession of his office—the only space on the island that hadn’t already been taken over by the state’s task force.
     
    He lied.
     
    Not for the first time that morning. But even with Caleb’s right arm in a blood pressure cuff and finger plates wired to his left hand, even with rubber tubes around his chest and a digital readout confirming the truth of every word, there was no way the examiner was going to believe a story about a seven-hundred-year-old mermaid being stalked by a demon.
     
    Sam Reynolds stood in the doorway of the small break room that housed the coffeepot and the copy machine. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Three hours on the box would have my mother sweating like a pig.
    You already passed my test.”
     
    Caleb raised his eyebrows. “DNA results back already?”
     
    The state dick snorted. “Who do you think we are, the FBI?”
     
    “So why the sudden change of heart? Unless you’re grateful that I let you sleep in my jail cell instead of on the beach.”
     
    Reynolds shrugged. “You gave us the DNA sample. You volunteered for a polygraph. If you were guilty, you would have told us to pound sand. So either you’re thick-as-a-brick dumb or you’re innocent.”
     
    Caleb was not in the mood to be mollified. The woman he loved wanted to leave him, he’d been shut out of the task force meeting that morning, and the sergeant in charge didn’t trust him to direct traffic.
     
    He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, his gaze traveling from the flashing copy machine to the stacks of paper lined along the counter. “What are you doing?”
     
    235
    Reynolds fed another sheet into the machine. “Copying your case notes.”
     
    Caleb cocked an eyebrow at Edith Paine. The reflection from her computer screen—bright white cards against a brilliant green background—gleamed in her glasses. “I don’t make copies,” she announced. “I don’t get coffee either.”
     
    “Good to see you keeping busy,” Caleb drawled.
     
    Edith clicked on another card. “Don’t start with me. That phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. Every busy-body on the island has been through that door. The summer people want armed escorts to go swimming, and the homeowners want you to arrest the rubberneckers for trespassing. ”
     
    The vise gripping the back of Caleb’s neck tightened. “Whittaker?”
     
    “Haven’t heard from him.”
     
    Caleb frowned. That was odd. “Did he go to the mainland?
     
    “And miss the excitement?” Edith sniffed. “Not likely.”
     
    “He could be sick. I’ll check on him when I do patrol.”
     
    The island was hard on those who lived alone. Visiting shut-ins and the elderly was good community relations. And in this case, visiting Whittaker gave Caleb an excuse to recanvass the area.
     
    If he’s human, I’ll find him .
     
    “Who are you talking about?” Reynolds asked.
     
    His questions jarred Caleb from his thoughts. “Local lawyer,” he said briefly.
     
    “Local blowhard,” Edith muttered.
     
    “Well, if you’re going out, watch out for reporters,” Reynolds said.
    “A Channel Six news crew came over on the ferry this morning.”
     
    236
    Edith kept her eyes on her game. “They’re at Antonia’s. Regina called.”
     
    Caleb’s tension spiked. He’d just spent three hours lying on a polygraph exam, and Maggie could blow it all in a five-minute interview with a couple of tabloid headlines. MERMAID BEDEVILS LOCAL
    COP. DEMON HUNTS OFF COAST OF MAINE.
     
    Screw patrol. Maggie needed him, whether she admitted it or not.
     
    News of a nude blond corpse on the beach attracted more folks than a Rotary Club clambake.
     
    Like a winter storm, the threat to their island brought the locals out in search of food, company, community. When Caleb pushed open the door to Antonia’s, a wave of noise rushed to greet him: