Deep Betrayal (Lies Beneath #2) (17 page)

Serious Boy kept his distance from me, just as he had the night before, but his pale blue eyes never left my face. That is, until the other Cornucopia boy dragged him away, saying, “Let it be. One should be enough,” and giving me an icy glare that froze me to the core.

T
he next day after Mass, Calder and I sat in a sunny park across the street from the Bayfield Police Station. It was quiet here, and I was glad for that. Early-morning sun streamed through the trees. Two coffee cups stood in the grass between us. This morning I’d opted for Calder’s double espresso in lieu of my usual caramel mocha latte. Calder read to me from my anthology of Victorian poets, trying to distract me from morbid thoughts, but it was tough going considering the material he was working with.

After a few minutes, he turned the page and began to
recite from one of my favorites—the one that always made him roll his eyes. This time he used a funny voice, mugging and preening, as he read Tennyson’s “The Merman”:

I knew what he was doing. But trying to make me laugh wasn’t going to work. Nothing could take my mind off Connor.

Calder had explained to me, months ago, how mermaids hunted. Somehow, the way he explained things, it sounded almost excusable. Now having seen the wasted remains of their hunt, it was impossible to think about. More terrifying than the inescapable memory of Connor’s vacant, milky eyes was the knowledge that he wouldn’t be their last.

Calder slipped into Hopkins’s “Epithalamion” without me noticing he’d turned the page.

“Lily? Are you listening?” I looked up without an answer. “Where’s your head at?” Calder asked. “You’re so distant.”

“It’s Father’s Day,” I said. “And Dad’s not—” But before I could finish my thought, tires squealed around the corner and screeched to a stop punctuated by car doors slamming. Across the street, Gabby and Mr. Pettit hurried from their van toward the station.

“I wonder what that’s about,” I said.

“One guess,” Calder said. “Come on.”

I staggered to my feet, and Calder dragged me across the road. He paused in front of the building, lifting his chin and cocking his head to listen. Then he pulled me around the left side of the building and back toward the third set of windows, which were cracked an inch. Calder crouched below the window and gestured for me to do the same. From inside, Gabby’s voice carried above the others.

“Are you trying to ruin my life, Jack? Y’know, it didn’t used to completely suck being your sister.”

“Quiet, Gabby. Don’t make me regret letting you come,” Mr. Pettit said.

“I’m sorry to have to call you down here, Martin,” said an unfamiliar male voice.

“What else could you do?” Mr. Pettit asked. “Explain yourself, Jack.”

There was a scuffle and the sound of a chair turning over. “Get your hands off me!” Jack said. “Someone’s got to finally listen. I’m not crazy.”

“This has got to stop. This time you’ve gone too far,” Mr. Pettit said.

“Your father’s right,” said the other man. “Wasting my
time is wasting tax dollars. I’ve got a limited staff. What if a real emergency comes in and you’ve got my people dealing with your bogus pranks? I can’t have that.”

“Chief Eaton, I’m telling you that kid’s death was a real emergency,” Jack said. “A mermaid killed him.”

“That boy’s death was a tragic accident,” Chief Eaton said.

“You’ll be keeping Jack overnight, then?” Mr. Pettit suggested.

There was a pause. It seemed Chief Eaton hadn’t been considering that. But then he said, “S’pose we could do a twenty-four-hour hold, if that’s what you want. We can look at whether there’ll be any criminal charges in the morning. Disorderly conduct most likely. And I’m sure the district attorney’s going to want restitution for the handcuffs and the window.”

“That’s fair, Bob,” Mr. Pettit said.

“Fair?” Jack cried. “Fair? I’m trying to stop a killer, and you’re asking him to lock me up?”

“Oh, shut up,” Gabby said. “Serves you right. I’m so out of here.” Gabby’s flip-flops slapped on the floor and faded away. Calder pulled me toward the front of the building to cut her off on the sidewalk. The heavy doors scraped open, and we heard Gabby’s shoes on the concrete steps.

“Hey,” Calder called. “Hey, Gabrielle! Wait up.”

Gabby spun around and threw her hands in the air. “Oh, great. I was hoping I wouldn’t see anyone I knew.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Gabby turned her back on us and kept marching toward their van.

“Gabby!” I called.

She stopped in her tracks and threw back her head. “Fine,” she said. “You’re going to hear about it sooner or later.”

“Hear about what?” I asked, running around in front of her. It was a terrible performance on my part—playing dumb like that—but Gabby didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe about Jack breaking in to the station last night. Or how about Jack handcuffing himself to a chair and swallowing the key. He’s become completely unhinged.”

“No way,” I breathed.

“Way,” Gabby said. “He refused to leave until someone agreed to investigate that Connor kid as a mermaid victim. God, I feel ridiculous even saying that out loud.”

I massaged my temples. “What did they say?”

“They laughed,” Calder said.

“If I could be so lucky,” Gabby said. “No one’s thinking this is funny anymore. I tried to talk to him. Nobody’s going to ever take him seriously again. He told the chief it was only a matter of time before the next ‘accident.’ ” She made air quotes with her fingers.

I put my hand on her shoulder as my insides twisted in knots. Gabby was in full rant mode now.

“Jack got in a huge fight with my mom and dad last night, too. They said he’s throwing his life away. My dad’s not going to let him use the boat anymore. Jack went ballistic, of course. Threw a kitchen chair. Stormed out. Mom and I waited up, but he didn’t come home. Then this morning, Chief Eaton calls.”

The front door of the station house opened and Mr.
Pettit walked out, pushing Jack slightly ahead of him, his hand clamped down on Jack’s shoulder like a vice.

Gabby muttered, “So much for the lockup. I can’t catch a break.”

Jack stopped dead in his tracks and glared at Calder. “You,” he said, his hands balled into fists.

Calder stared him down, his expression emotionless, while my heart crashed against my rib cage.

“Guess who came to see me last night,” Jack said to Calder, spit flying with each word.

Pavati
, I thought.
She made good on her promise to see Jack, after all
. Would this make things better or worse? But then I remembered what Gabby’d said about Jack’s late-night trip to the police station, and I answered my own question. Calder didn’t say a word.

“She got close enough for me to know she was there, but then she ran away.”

“Enough,” Mr. Pettit said, and he pushed Jack into the backseat of his car. “Sorry, Lily. Calder. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone.”

Gabby shook her head and climbed into the front seat, folding her arms over her chest.

After the car pulled away from the curb and raced up the street, Calder pinched the bridge of his nose and walked back to the park. He found a seat on the ground and leaned up against a tree.

I stood in front of him and looked down on the top of his head. “Do you believe him?” I asked. “About Pavati?”

“I have no reason not to.” He rested his elbows on his knees and laced his hands together, twisting his fingers.

“Do you think she knows that Jack’s been revealing her secret?”

“Doubtful. She wouldn’t risk being captured. She’s just doing her best to fulfill her promise to see him. Sick compulsion. We’ll go look again tonight. If Pavati came to see Jack, she might still be close. And if she’s close, your dad’s fast enough to catch up to her.”

“That’s good,” I said.

The look Calder gave me told me it wasn’t the same conclusion he’d drawn. I scrutinized his face to discern the cause of his conflict, but he didn’t explain.

T
he willow tree north of our dock must have been hit by lightning at some point in its history. While the whole tree was a beautiful umbrella of green, part of the trunk was split low, throwing a branch across the water with young shoots all along its length. I walked it as if it were a knobby balance beam, picking my way to a place where I could sit and dangle my feet in the water but still hide should someone want to drown me like poor Connor.

Didn’t work, though. Sophie found me. She followed, her arms held out to her sides, balancing, wavering, grinning at me. “Pretty dress,” she said. “Going somewhere?”

I looked down at the white, tiered minidress. I wasn’t going anywhere. With Calder gone, life—it seemed—had come to a standstill.

“Whatever you’re doing, can I watch?” Sophie asked.

“I’m just sitting here, Soph.”

“Really?” She scrunched up her face and sat beside me, kicking a spray of water out toward the dock. “You don’t look like you’re doing nothing.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Huh.” She picked bark off the willow branch and threw it at the water. “I thought maybe you were thinking about looking for Dad. He’s been gone a—”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Every time Sophie brought up Dad, it also brought a liquefying feeling to my stomach. I tried to suppress it, but Sophie wasn’t fooled.

She said, “Settle down, Lily. I just thought maybe you could try looking for him. For Mom. She’s really worried.”

“If I could do something about it, I would have already,” I snapped back. I looked up at Sophie, and two red spots were burning in the center of her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Soph. But I don’t have any idea where to search.”

Sophie studied the water and nodded seriously, then, after a while, asked, “Do you wonder what Dad and Calder are doing?”

“What makes you think they’re together?”

She sighed dramatically and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Never mind,” she said. She got up.

“Sophie, what are you trying to say?”

“I’ll go. I can tell you don’t want me here.”

Her curly blond ponytail bobbed as she jumped from
the branch down to the sand and walked up the yard. Before she reached the porch, she turned and yelled, “So are you going swimming or not?”

“Not!”

She ran into the house and slammed the door. I understood her frustration. By my count, it had been eight days since we’d seen Dad around the dinner table. I hadn’t seen Calder in a few days either. Not since our run-in with the Pettits at the police station.

But what did Sophie expect me to do about it? Even if I let her in on my secret experiments, it wasn’t like I could just go swimming after them. Holding my breath and searching three thousand cubic miles were two different things. Plus, there was Maris and Pavati to contend with. But maybe …

Maybe I didn’t have to leave. I jumped off the branch without a thought for my dress. The water was just barely over my head. Deep breath, and I let myself sink under to sit cross-legged on the rocky bottom, pressing my hands against the underside of the willow branch to keep from floating.

I’d heard voices before. If Calder’s theory was right, I should recognize Dad’s thoughts, seeing as he was family, and I was familiar with his voice on land. Maybe I could … if I strained.… At the very least I could practice my breath control.

The underwater experience always started the same for me: The crush on my ears. The metallic ringing. The low, humming vibration. I had to push past all that to hear anything else. The pips of lake trout. The brushing grasses. The
tumble of small stones under my feet. Only when I searched beyond the expected could I discover the unexpected.

But today there was nothing.

I pulled out from under the branch and pushed myself up to the surface. Water streamed down my hair and down the lengths of my arms. I stared down at the water. My face reflected back at me. When did I start looking so serious?

I ducked under the branch again. Crush, ring, hum, pip, brush, tumble, then suddenly the hard bite of the
T
sound. I pushed further, straining to hear more.
Teh, teh
, the words
time
and
can’t
. Then the slosh of a
J
.

The first voice I heard was Calder’s. I’d know it anywhere. But it was muffled and far, far away. It came to me broken and thin:
“Jas … iss time oo oh home …”

Then Dad’s voice, as clear as if he were standing right next to me:
“I told you. I can’t.”

“Remem’er … Ba—and for … exerci … both muscles … impor’an …”

“I feel tight. I’m drying up. I need to stay in the water.”

Calder’s voice wavered even more.
“Thas nah … emo … Geh … ba … your family.”

They both went out of earshot. I pressed forward, keeping only one finger on the branch. Where did they go, where did they go? After a few minutes:

“Speaking of family,”
Dad said.

If Calder responded, I heard nothing from him.

Dad continued,
“What are your intentions regarding Lily? I worry I’m not there to supervise.”

Oh dear God
, I thought.
Oh, please, no. Dad, do not embarrass me. I’m begging you
.