The marshal jumped to his feet and gave Burnett a look of sympathy that Sorrow found wholly unbelievable.
“Detective Burnett, we deeply regret what has happened here. We will investigate this thoroughly—”
“I’ll ask you again, Lewis. What happened to these people? Who in the hell did that to him? What kind of a town is this?”
“Lucy killed them, Detective. At Ada Oliver’s bidding,” Sorrow called out.
Burnett’s head whipped around as if he had failed to notice Sorrow in the prison cell until now, and his dark eyes widened.
“Why in the hell is that girl locked up like that, Marshal? And what’d you do to her face?”
“We found her at the scene of the murders this morning with a bloody knife, Detective. Mr. Sherman and Mrs. Oliver’s daughter were lying dead at her feet, and your associate was inside the house, slaughtered in a similarly violent, bloody fashion. I’m terribly sorry. I had suspected the girl might be behind the recent death here, but I wasn’t able to apprehend her before she killed again.”
“Mrs. Oliver’s daughter? What in God’s name are you talking about, Lewis?” The color rose in Burnett’s face.
“Detective. Please,” Sorrow said, trying to keep her voice steady. “They’ll kill us both if we don’t get away from here.”
Lewis continued as if Sorrow hadn’t spoken. “Mrs. Oliver’s daughter was one of her victims. Surely you saw her. She… she was rather hard to miss. She had a unique appearance.”
Burnett looked back and forth between Lewis and Sorrow, his mouth open.
“There wasn’t any girl there. Or anything like a girl. Charles Sherman was lying dead outside the Oliver house. My partner was dead inside. Who in hell is this daughter you’re talking about?”
Sorrow’s unpleasant breakfast threatened to come up again. Lucy was gone? That wasn’t possible. She’d made damn sure Lucy would never rise again.
Hadn’t she?
“Detective, Miss Hamilton told me herself—”
“You expect me to believe this girl could have done all that?” Burnett jabbed a shaking finger at her. “Poor Warner looked ripped nearly to shreds. And as for the Sherman fellow, why in hell would she slaughter her only friend here?”
Lewis rubbed the back of his neck. “Have you another explanation for why she would be right there with the bloody murder weapon?”
“Mrs. Oliver and her daughter killed Henry, Detective,” Sorrow blurted out. “They told me. I couldn’t save Charlie. It was so fast—”
“Shut up!” Lewis roared, his attempt at calm pleasantry gone now.
“And they got your partner,” Sorrow continued, ignoring Lewis. “They’re going to kill me as soon as they can figure out a way to explain it away. And they’ll get you, too.”
Burnett glared at her, his face growing pale except for bright red spots that stood out on either side of his nose. She couldn’t tell how he was taking this. Did he believe her? Or would he side with Lewis?
Lewis coughed.
“Detective Burnett, strange things have been happening ever since the Hamiltons first appeared in this town. I’ve no idea why they chose to focus on our nice, quiet place—”
Burnett rounded on Lewis and slammed a meaty fist into the man’s round face. Sorrow gasped as the marshal’s head snapped backwards and hit the office wall with a crack that sickened her. Lewis let out one low gurgle, slid down the wall, and collapsed on the floor.
“I’ve had about enough from the lying hayseeds here,” Burnett said to nobody in particular. “And that was before they decided to gut my partner.”
And then he trained his intense dark gaze on Sorrow again.
“And who is this ‘Lucy’?” he asked.
Burnett was so angry he actually trembled from it, and she knew full well that if she began speaking of murderous sea creatures being kept in people’s basements, he might well strike her too.
“They said she was Mrs. Oliver’s daughter,” Sorrow said carefully. “I don’t know if that was true.”
“And you were there? You saw what happened?” His glance swept down her muddied, bloody dress.
Sorrow, attempting to keep the shaking from her voice, told Burnett as much as she dared about what she had seen. She told him how she and Charlie had gone to Mrs. Oliver’s mansion only to find Warner dead and mutilated in the parlor. How they had left the house, and how a deranged Lucy had run after them and attacked Charlie. Fatally.
And how Sorrow, in fear for her own life and attempting to save Charlie’s, had killed Lucy with the butcher knife she had taken from the Coopers’ kitchen.
She carefully neglected to mention that Lucy, whatever she might have been, wasn’t human.
“I thought Lucy was dead, Detective. Perhaps I was wrong.”
“What in hell were you doing with the Coopers’ butcher knife?” he asked, and she hoped she hadn’t made a mistake telling him about that.
“I’ve been terrified here. Between the dead people washing up on the beach and my brother going missing…I just didn’t feel safe. And I wasn’t wrong, was I?”
“I see,” Burnett said. He ran a finger across his large chin several times. “Well, now. Let me think on this.”
Sorrow tried not to look at Marshal Lewis’s arm, which stretched sideways as if he were reaching out from behind his desk for her. Lewis let out a rasping snore. At least he was still alive.
“You stay here just a little while longer,” he said. “I’m going to go up to the stables and make the arrangements to get Mr. Sherman and Mr. Warner back home. When that’s done, I’ll return here and collect you.”
Sorrow’s heart sank at the sound of that. Charlie. Poor dear Charlie. Going home at last.
“At least let me out.”
“Hm. I’m sure that cell isn’t pleasant, Miss Hamilton, but it’s probably the safest place for you right now. I don’t know what the rabble might do if they learn that you killed a prominent neighbor’s daughter, but best that you don’t have to find that out the hard way. These small-town types can be vengeful.”
“But what about him?” Sorrow pointed a shaking finger at Lewis’s unconscious form.
“Who, him? He’s not going anywhere for the moment. And he isn’t my problem.”
With that, Burnett left, slamming the door behind him.
Sorrow slid down the wall, burying her head against her knees so she didn’t have to look at Lewis’s hand reaching out from behind the desk. She was not a praying type, but as she huddled on the floor, she quietly called upon anyone who might possibly be listening—Charlie, Henry, the mother she had never known, even Detective Warner—to help her escape Tidepool with her life.
She had no idea how long she had been sitting with her face buried when the door to the office swung open again. She looked up, expecting to see Burnett.
Quentin walked into the office. His heavy glasses were pushed up over his forehead, causing his black hair to stick out in a jagged halo all around his head. He peered down at her with his sad, dark eyes.
“Hello, Sally. What are you doing in there?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE LORDS BELOW
Sorrow pulled herself to her feet again, relief pulsing through her body. “Marshal Lewis brought me here. And then Detective Burnett wanted me to remain until he is ready to escort me home.”
Quentin walked over and peered down at the marshal’s crumpled form with curiosity, but no apparent distress.
“Did you do that?” He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Certainly not. Detective Burnett did it.”
“Oh,” Quentin said. And then he gave Sorrow a closer look.
“You got a letter from your brother this morning.” It wasn’t a question, and Sorrow stared at him.
“How did you know?”
“They made me write it.” He stared at the floor as if he were ashamed. “Ada made Henry write his address for her when he visited the house, and I’m good at copying.�
��
“Why did you do that, Quentin?”
He shook his head, unable to meet her eye. “Ada and the Coopers were scared when those men showed up. They thought the note would make all of you go away. I’m sorry.”
Sorrow’s head reeled. “Then why on earth did Ada set Lucy on Warner?”
“She didn’t. Lucy wasn’t herself lately. She was hungry all the time, and she wanted to feed again. Ada couldn’t stop her.”
Sorrow pressed her forehead against the cell bars.
“My god,” she said.
“You killed Lucy,” he said, with no particular emotion.
“She killed Charlie. And she would have killed me too, if I hadn’t had that knife from the Coopers’ kitchen.”
“Ada’s very angry,” Quentin said.
“I don’t care.”
“You should care.”
Sorrow’s temper began to rise. “She and Lucy should have left my brother and my dear friend alone.”
“But Ada can do things you can’t,” Quentin said. “You should leave here soon, but it might already be too late.”
Sorrow, who had already accepted that she was going to meet her end in Tidepool, looked at Quentin with a slight hope.
“Quentin? If you could find the key to this cell and let me out, I could leave.”
Quentin nodded. He casually walked over to Lewis and rifled through the unconscious man’s pockets until he came up with a keyring.
“This must be it,” he said. He approached Sorrow’s cell.
The first key didn’t fit in the lock. Neither did the second or third keys, and Quentin’s hands began to tremble.
“What on earth does that man need with all those?” Sorrow asked in frustration as Quentin fumbled with the keyring.
The next two keys didn’t work either. But the sixth key turned, and the lock clicked. Quentin pulled the padlock free and then swung the door open. Sorrow hurried out.
“Thank you, Quentin,” she said. “With all my heart.”
“Come with me, Sally,” he said. “I might be able to protect you from Ada until we get to the stables.”
“I will. But wait.”
She scrawled a note for Burnett to find when he returned to the office, as she didn’t want him running around town attacking random people if he couldn’t find her. She tucked the note in between the bars of the cell.
That left her with one more disagreeable task. She approached Marshal Lewis. The man’s nose was turning the size and color of an eggplant, and dark blood soaked his sandy moustache. The man still snored softly.
“What are you doing, Sally?”
“Protecting myself.”
Moving slowly and carefully so as not to rouse him, Sorrow ran a hand under Lewis’s coat until she found his gun. She wasn’t sure if she could shoot someone. But she was quite willing to try if someone attempted to interfere with her escape yet again. She placed the pistol in her dress pocket.
And then she followed Quentin out of the office. The rain had stopped, and rays of sunlight attempted to break through the gray cloud cover. Humid air rolled off the ocean, and she wondered how the day itself could seem so normal when such horrible things had happened. Sorrow heard the waves hitting the shore and knew she would never go to a beach voluntarily again. The sounds and the smells were no longer agreeable to her. They made her think of dead things floating in the water. They made her think of Charlie’s death, and her throat tightened up.
When they passed the beach, Quentin froze.
Mrs. Oliver stood at the water’s edge, her hands outstretched, her black hair unbound. She was chanting words in a language Sorrow didn’t understand but felt deeply unnerved by anyhow.
Something green bobbed up and down in the ocean. As Mrs. Oliver stood on the sand and chanted, Lucy’s corpse floated away on the waves.
Quentin turned, and his dark eyes were wide with alarm. He held a finger to his lips.
But as if she had sensed them coming, Mrs. Oliver looked over her shoulder and glared at Sorrow.
And as she did, a rage both fire-hot and ice cold rose inside Sorrow’s chest, making her pulse pound. This woman, this unnatural and pitiless creature, had taken the lives of the two people most dear to her. She raised her chin and marched over to the boardwalk as she returned Mrs. Oliver’s hate-filled stare.
“You murdered my Lucy,” Mrs. Oliver snarled at Sorrow.
“Your Lucy killed my brother. And Charlie. And countless others. The scales are quite unbalanced on your end, Ada Oliver.”
Mrs. Oliver’s dark eyes looked even blacker and more pitiless as a beam of the struggling sunlight hit her face.
“Your dear brother was told when he first made contact with the mayor of this town that we had no interest in being ‘developed’. We prefer to be left alone. He chose to come anyhow. What happened next was on his own head.”
“He was a guest in your town.” Sorrow’s heart beat faster as she spoke to Ada in the manner she had been wanting to almost since her arrival in Tidepool. “And he meant you no harm. He couldn’t possibly have known about the sick and demented things you get up to in this vile place.”
“He thought of seducing me in order to get my money and further this ridiculous development idea he had,” Ada shot back.
“What?” Sorrow’s cheeks grew hot. “You’re a liar. He would never.”
The wind picked up from the direction of the water as Ada smirked. “I am afraid your dear brother was not as saintly as you believe, Miss Hamilton. Men are never as clever around women as they think they are. I should know, as I have had had far more experience with them than you have, child.”
“How dare you?” Sorrow blazed. “I am no child. And no matter what you say, there was no reason for you to kill him.”
“I must tend to the needs of the Lords Below. He made himself available. I do not enjoy doing such things, but the alternative cost to the town would be far worse.”
Sorrow’s head throbbed with anger. “I see. Well, in all honesty, I quite enjoyed ending the life of that disgusting thing you called a daughter. I only wish I could have filleted her before she murdered my dear Charlie.”
“Sally,” Quentin whispered from somewhere behind her. But Sorrow was going to speak her piece.
“Why get rid of the body, Ada? Tossing it in the ocean like that seems quite wasteful. Can’t you serve a thing like that for supper around here? Perhaps the Coopers could dish it up at their inn. Surely Lucy couldn’t taste worse than the rest of their cooking.”
The roar of the ocean seemed to grow louder behind Ada. The woman spun around until she was fully facing Sorrow and began to stride towards her.
Sorrow pulled Marshal Lewis’ gun out of her pocket and trained it on Ada. The woman stopped walking.
“You’ll condemn this whole town to death if you pull that trigger.” Ada sounded quite matter-of-fact rather than alarmed.
“What do I care? This town allows the hellish bargain you made with it to continue, claiming the lives of innocents. Perhaps they all deserve to die.”
“But this won’t stop here, Miss Hamilton. Once the Lords have their fill of Tidepool, they will move on. It can take years for a priestess to get a new town under control.”
Sorrow shook her head.
“A priestess? What in God’s name are you?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
THEY RISE
“I am a priestess of the Lords Below and the protector of this town, Miss Hamilton. My death would break the covenant I have made with Tidepool and leave all the people here vulnerable to the ancient ones in the water.”
Sorrow’s hands shook as she kept the gun trained on Ada. “You’re a madwoman.”
The breeze began to whip Ada’s loose black hair around her face as she spoke. “Miss Hamilton, you strike me as a reasonably intelligent young woman. You have seen for yourself the creatures that live here. You met Lucy. I see what Lucy must have done to your face before you killed her. If I am mad, how d
o you explain that?”
“I don’t care what you are, and I don’t care about this town.” Sorrow’s lips trembled as she fought to hold back grief she did not want Ada to have the satisfaction of seeing. “You’ve destroyed my family. My father will never recover from losing my brother and me. The Sherman family will be heartbroken that Charlie is gone.”
Ada looked at Sorrow for a long, intense moment, and Sorrow wondered if the woman were trying to read her thoughts.
“Miss Hamilton,” she said at last, “we need not be adversaries. We are not so different.”
“That’s preposterous.” Was the woman trying to get her to lower the gun? Well, it wouldn’t work.
“Not at all, if you think about it. We both lost our mothers at a very young age, and we both dote on our brothers. I would even venture to guess that, judging from the devotion you have shown by pursuing him here without knowing what you might find, you relied on your brother every bit as much as I always have on Quentin.”
“I did, Ada. He was far more of a parent to me than my father has ever been, and the best friend I have ever had. And you and Lucy took him away from me.”
Ada bowed her head. Sorrow thought that if the woman was even capable of showing remorse, she might have been showing it at that moment.
“If I had been aware of your bond, Miss Hamilton, I might not have acted as I did.”
“That does neither my brother nor me any good now, does it?”
Ada regarded her with a steady dark gaze before speaking again.
“There is one thing I can do to make amends. Because my brother—who rarely warms to anyone, it must be said—has taken such a liking to you, I will give you one last chance. I will pardon you for Lucy’s death and grant you safe passage if you leave Tidepool at once.”
That sounded entirely too good to be true. And the last time Ada had pretended to be helpful, Sorrow had ended up locked in a basement with Lucy.
“What am I to tell everyone when I get home?”
Tidepool Page 20
