AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A woman tore across the beach toward the cordon, her flowery blue dress whipping out behind her. One of her sandals flew off midstep, but she didn’t even blink.
I held my flippers to my chest. Normally, Michaela Bakewell had the disposition of a flower child in a field of corn on a sunny day. But her son, her only surviving child, had meant more to her than her own life.
“I need to see him!” Michaela stumbled again, but fell to her knees this time.
Sand flew up around her as she scrambled back to her feet.
Behind her, two figures followed at a run. The first was a lumbering man who limped across the beach, already out of breath, Michaela’s husband and Tyler’s stepfather, George. His military buzz cut spoke of his past as a member of the supernatural armed forces. A past that was long behind him.
The other had my stomach turning. Ben Everhart dashed across the beach at a pace a big cat would have struggled to match. He reached Michaela just feet away from the cordon and wrapped his arms around her.
“I need to see my boy!” Michaela beat her fists against Ben’s arms.
A handful of officers ducked under the cordon and guided them both away from the scene.
Over the top of Michaela’s shoulder, Ben’s gaze met mine. My breath caught in my throat. I had expected more anger, maybe resentment. But his eyes shone with nothing but sorrow.
Perhaps the blow of losing one of his best friends had pushed our feud down the list of Ben’s priorities.
A lump rose in my throat, and I continued my trek toward the van. They needed a little solitude, and our presence wouldn’t help matters.
But a hand on my shoulder stopped me in my tracks yet again.
The chief pursed her lips, her gaze bypassing me completely to watch Michaela kick sand at the officers and shove them with all her might.
“We’ll have the autopsy results in a few days,” she said. “I’d like you to come and evaluate them.”
“Me?” I asked. “I’m no mortician.”
“No, but you can surely confirm which injuries killed Tyler and which were sustained after?” she said.
I mulled her words over for a moment, with difficulty, as Michaela’s cries rang in my ears.
It didn’t sound as though the chief had any suspicions about Tyler’s death. But a look at the autopsy might lead to uncovering injuries that could point to a murder.
“Whatever I can do to help,” I said.
The chief clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you. And thank you for all you’ve done here today.”
I nodded and cast a final look back at Ben and the officers wrangling Michaela as I followed Dad up the beach.
The two lipsticks in my hands didn’t look different enough to bother with choosing. What difference would it make, really?
Dragging Tyler’s body out of the water had really put a damper on my day. The last thing I wanted to do was prepare for this weird dating agency thing.
But as ever, Kira and Allison had burst into my room—through the door this time—and torn through my wardrobe to help me find something suitable to wear.
They hadn’t stopped even when I told them about what Janeira had told me about what happened to Tyler.
“I think it’s ridiculous.” Kira flicked her eyelashes with mascara next to me, staring into my mirror. “I get they don’t like us, but someone was just murdered. Don’t the merfolk care?”
I put down the redder of the two lipsticks on my vanity and popped open the pinker one.
“You know they don’t trust land dwellers,” I said, before running the lipstick across my upper lip.
Allison twirled in front of my full-length mirror, admiring her brown dress. “Land dwellers haven’t exactly treated the merfolk well. I’m not surprised they don’t want to get involved.”
Kira snorted. “They could make more of an effort to integrate—. Ow!”
