Sea Fever (13 page)

“Don’t drop him.”

“Thanks,” Dylan said dryly and took his brother’s burden.

* * *

Regina sucked in her breath. The water was really cold. It soaked her

sneakers, swirled around her ankles, saturated her pant legs.

She steeled herself to wade forward, ducking her head to avoid

contact with the sloping ceiling. Her hands groped blindly, clutching at

the rough rock with torn, tingling fingers. She was afraid of the water, of

what might live in the water, unseen in the dark.

She felt the tremors start deep in her bones. She was already

freezing. The water would drop her body temperature even faster, like a

turkey defrosting in the sink. She could get hypothermia. She could die.

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Of course, she could die sitting on her ass in the dark waiting for

somebody who never came.

She gritted her teeth against the bone-biting cold and slid her feet

forward over the uneven bottom. Holy Mary, Mother of God, don’t let me

fall into a hole. Twist an ankle. Trip over a rock.

Her feet were numb. She couldn’t feel her toes at all. The water crept

up her knees, her thighs. How deep was it? She wished she had a stick to

test the way, to probe the cold black void. If Jericho had come this way,

he would have had a light. Boots. A hard hat.

Maybe he hadn’t brought her in this way at all. But she’d already

tried the tunnel on the other side. What was left?

The cold hit her crotch, and her bladder couldn’t take it anymore. A

cloud of pee released into the cold water. Regina shuddered in relief,

standing in her own pee, warm around her freezing thighs. She forced

herself to shuffle deeper into the water and the dark.

The water level rose to her waist. To her ribs. She could feel a cold

current around her ankles. Hope trickled in her chest. There was an

opening somewhere. The water went somewhere. She strained her eyes in

the dark. Silver spots and red webs floated on the face of the water, in the

moist black air. The darkness was a thing, a barrier like the water, cold

and choking. She waded through it, pushed against it, and smacked her

head into the stone ceiling.

Ow ow ow. Pain exploded, white stars and yellow bolts of pain. She

doubled over and her face splashed in the water. She could not breathe.

Panicked, she sputtered, gulped, gasped. She was pressed between the

low hard ceiling and the cold flat water. Trapped. She flattened her palms

against the rock face, reading the passage like a blind woman learning

Braille. The tunnel dropped. The ceiling touched the water. She was

trapped.

She went a little crazy then, beating the walls and the water with her

hands, croaking and crying out. She wanted out. Oh, God, she needed to

get out of here.

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Breathing hard, she stood shuddering, chest deep in the freezing

water. Her face was wet, her hair was wet, her clothes glued to her body.

She bit her lip, tasting blood and salt and defeat.

Tasting salt.

She brought her trembling hand to her lips, sucked on her fingers.

The salt taste was definitely stronger. Or was she simply thirstier? She

held herself still, listening to the echoes bounce and fade, and felt the

surge moving between her legs. Her heart pounded. In or out? She could

not tell. When the tide dropped, would the passage open? Had she found

a way out?

Shaking with cold and a desperate hope, Regina fumbled her way

back to the black chamber in the rock to wait for the tide to turn.

* * *

Dylan waited outside the yellow tape stretched along the sidewalk in

front of Antonia’s, his hands in his pockets and every muscle tensed.

Through the plate glass window he could see busy humans with brushes,

bags, and bits of tape moving systematically through the dining room.

They were wasting their time. They had no idea what they were looking

for. What they were up against. Fingerprints and carpet fibers would not

get Regina back.

Caleb had mobilized volunteers to search the ten square miles of

island in a carefully coordinated grid, concentrating first on the areas

around the restaurant and the homeless encampment. Dylan wanted to

plunge after them, to run around screaming her name. Futile human

activity, he told himself. Useless human emotion.

But at least they were doing something.

His hands clenched into fists. Conn had directed him to observe, not

to act.

His inactivity was killing him. Regina was gone. Missing. And

Dylan was desperately aware that his inactivity could be killing her, too.

He wanted to take his fists to Jericho, to beat him bloody until the

man confessed what he had done with her. Jericho, however, was under

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guard at the clinic, awaiting medevac to a hospital on the mainland to

have his burn treated. Even if the unconscious man were here and in his

right mind, he could not tell Dylan anything the selkie didn’t already

know.

Regina was gone. Dylan had to find her.

She was only human, and yet he felt . . . connected to her. They had

a sexual bond. If his power were stronger, if their connection were

stronger, he might have used it to trace her.

But their attachment was too tenuous for him to follow. The memory

of her wide brown eyes, her wry smile, haunted him. “Maybe I can’t risk

me getting attached either.”

He felt the bite of frustration and, worse, a lick of guilt. He could

have changed her mind. He could have told her, promised her . . . What?

She was human. He was selkie.

She was gone.

He had to find her.

“Nonna says you know where my mother is.”

Startled, Dylan looked down. Nick Barone scowled from beside the

yellow tape, his chin cocked at a kiss-my-ass angle and his eyes full of

raw misery.

Dylan’s stomach lurched. “Is that what she told you?” he asked

carefully.

“I heard her talking to Chief Hunter. Do you?” Nick persisted.

“Know where my mom is?”

“No.” Such a flat, bald word. “But I will find her.”

The promises he had not made to Regina were somehow easier to

make to the child. Her son.

Nick looked skeptical. “How?”

“I don’t know yet,” Dylan admitted.

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Nick’s face closed into a smooth, polite child’s mask. “Yeah. Okay.

Thanks.”

The boy did not believe him. Why should he? Nick did not need

some stranger to tell him everything would be all right. He needed his

mother.

Dylan’s gaze went past him to the quiet street. The yellow tape had

drawn as many people as it kept away. As hours passed without a break

in the case or the gossip, however, most of the islanders who weren’t

assisting in the search had gone on with their grocery shopping or their

work or their lives.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Dylan said, sounding, even to his own

ears, like a well-meaning and clueless adult. He tried again. “Where is

your grandmother?”

Nick hunched a shoulder.

“Does she know you’re here?”

The boy’s gaze dropped. “Chief Hunter said he wanted to talk to

me,” Nick mumbled.

Dylan had a sudden image of himself at fourteen, fearful and alone,

waiting at Caer Subai for his mother to come home from the sea. Only

she never had. Conn had taken Dylan under his wing. Nick needed

someone like that, someone he could trust to provide him with assurances

and answers.

Someone like . . . Caleb.

“I’ll get him for you,” Dylan said and ducked under the crime scene

tape.

The bell jangled overhead as Dylan pushed open the door of the

restaurant. A man wearing the navy wind-breaker of the state police was

on his knees by one of the booths.

He looked up in annoyance. “What do you want?”

“Caleb.”

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“Do you have information pertaining to the case?”

“No.”

“Then get the fuck out of the crime scene.”

Dylan strode past him.

“Hey!” The man’s shout followed him into the kitchen.

He found Caleb standing at the stainless steel counter watching

another man slide a shiny object into an envelope.

Every muscle in Dylan’s body went rigid. “Where did you get that?”

“Do you recognize it?” Caleb asked.

Dylan stared at the small gold cross glittering from a nest of fine

chain. His mouth went dry. His head buzzed. “It’s Regina’s. She must

have been wearing it when he grabbed her. That’s why his hand is

burned. Where did you find it?”

“Mop bucket,” Caleb answered shortly. “I missed it on the initial

walk-through.”

The other man’s quick brown gaze shifted from Dylanto Caleb.

“Who is this guy and why are you confiding details of the case to him?”

Caleb stiffened. “My brother, Dylan, Detective Sam Reynolds of the

Maine CID.”

Dylan didn’t care who he was. The noise in his head drowned out

everything else. He held out his hand for the chain. “Give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Is he crazy?” Reynolds asked.

“She wore it all the time,” Dylan said to Caleb. The totem of her

murdered Christ, bright across the smooth skin of her breast, a ward as

personal and more powerful than the triskelion inked into her skin. It

should have protected her. Perhaps it even had. But now that protection

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had been stripped from her, and she was out there somewhere,

defenseless.

Not quite defenseless, he thought, recalling her strong will, her sharp

tongue. But still only human and alone.

He hoped she was alone. Because if she were in demon hands . . .

“It’s a connection,” he explained, aware of the urgency surging in

his veins, pushing into his voice. “I can use it to find her. Give it to me.”

“I can’t,” Caleb said regretfully. “It’s evidence. We’ll send the

necklace to the crime lab for testing, and then—”

“The necklace won’t tell you a damn thing you don’t already know,”

Dylan said.

Caleb raised his eyebrows. “And it will you?”

Dylan held his gaze. Held out his hand. “Yes.”

“No,” Reynolds said. “We’re not using some crazy psychic, even if

he is your brother. Get him the hell out of here.”

Dylan ignored him, his gaze locked on his brother’s, his heart

pounding in his ears.

“Right,” Caleb said.

He dropped the necklace into his brother’s hand.

* * *

Regina huddled in her silent chamber in the rock. The dark wasn’t

worse than the cold. The darkness couldn’t kill her. The cold might.

Time passed. Minutes? Hours? She hadn’t dried one bit. Water still

saturated her hair, T-shirt, and jeans. The chill penetrated her clothes. Her

blood. Her bones.

The oppressive quiet, the unrelenting void, sapped her energy.

Weighed on her spirits. Messed with her mind.

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She dozed. Sometimes she dreamed— of her son’s face, her

mother’s voice, the baby inside her— and woke to find herself with tears

sliding down her cheeks, alone again. Always alone.

“I’m sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean for you to raise another kid on your

own.”

“It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”

But it did. It mattered a lot.

She raised her head from her knees, roused by the sound of dripping

water. At least she wasn’t shaking so hard. She wanted to think that was a

good sign. Her body, however, knew differently. Her breath wheezed.

Her joints ached. Her head felt like a lead balloon, heavy and hollow. It

would be so easy to put her face back down and escape into sleep. She

didn’t even have to close her eyes. So dark . . .

Regina jerked back her head and swore. Time to get up. Get moving.

She listened to the drip become a gurgle, the gurgle grow to a rush,

and felt a faint, warming flicker of hope. The tide must have turned. Time

to try the passage again.

So cold. She forced her body to uncurl, her body trembling in

protest. Painfully, she stood, biting her lip against the stabs of returning

circulation. She could not see her feet. She couldn’t feel her toes. She

shuffled forward, one hand on the wall.

Splash.

She froze, bewildered, her sluggish mind struggling with the

message her feet were sending. She had already reached the water. She

was standing in the current. The tide had turned.

The water was rising.

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Nine

THE TIDE WAS COMING IN. DYLAN STOOD ON the headland

where the island fell down in a tumble of rocks and spray. Below him