Strands of Truth

by Colleen Coble

  August 1969

  Judy Russo barely contained the exuberance rippling up her bell bottom jeans and right through the back of her blue baby doll top. She’d had a good feeling when she left Woodstock a few days ago that her life was about to change, but it was up to her to get what she wanted.

  She turned off her Camaro in the middle of “Born to Be Wild,” squared her shoulders in the shimmering heat of the Weeki Wachee parking lot, then marched to the office door to stand in line with other mermaid applicants. The humidity was like a physical presence that pressed against her so tightly it was hard to draw a breath. She was used to the dry air of West Texas, and this Florida weather would take some getting used to. She dug a rubber band out of her bag, then lifted her long hair off her neck and put it in a ponytail.

  “Good call,” the woman in charge of hiring said. Her thick brown hair was up in a stylish bouffant with a ponytail hanging down the back.

  Judy felt positively dowdy next to her. “Judy Russo from Abilene. I heard y’all are hiring mermaids? I was part of a swim team back home and have plenty of experience.”

  The woman looked about five years older than Judy, maybe twenty-three or four. “You just get here?”

  Judy nodded. “I haven’t even found a hotel yet.”

  “You won’t need one if you’re as good as you say. You’re pretty, and our visitors will like your curly red hair. Get suited up and let me see you swim. I’m Grace Beck, by the way.”

  Judy’s lungs filled with a joyous gasp of air. “Where do I change?”

  Grace pointed out a door. “Back there. Use one of our swimsuits.” She stood and surveyed the remaining four applicants. “I think I have all I’m looking for right now. Thanks for your time.” She opened the door for Judy.

  In less than ten minutes Judy was suited up and in the crystal-clear water of the springs. She performed some of the moves she’d seen here last summer with her parents, and Grace nodded with approval through the glass into the auditorium. When Judy exited the building, she had a job.

  Her new life was about to start, and she was so ready to put her backwater life in Texas behind her. Weeki Wachee was now owned by ABC, and there was always the chance someone important would spot her and give her a shot at an acting career.

  Her smile was bright as she rushed toward her car to drive around to one of the mermaid cottages in the back.

  A screech of brakes brought her head up, and she stared through the windshield into the warm brown eyes of the most handsome man she’d ever seen. He managed to stop his Mustang a couple of inches from her hips.

  His face was white when he got out. “I nearly hit you.”

  “It was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  She looked him over, this gorgeous guy in his navy uniform. She knew enough about the military to recognize his officer insignia. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I’m Judy Russo, the newest mermaid here.”

  A grin as adorable as Elvis’s lifted his lips, and she was lost. She imagined introducing him to her friends back home and could see the approval in her dad’s eyes if she brought home a navy man. Not that she cared about her dad’s opinion, of course. He didn’t deserve any consideration after he’d left her with his shrewish second wife.

  He took a step toward her. “You have lunch yet, Judy Russo? Even mermaids have to eat.”

  “I’m starving.”

  He went around to the passenger side of his car and opened the door. “Let me whisk you off for some sustenance then. I’ve got a boat with some beer chilling and some food in the cooler. How does that sound?”

  She smiled and sashayed toward the open car door. “Like heaven.”

  * * *

  This visit was not turning out as Harper had envisioned. Instead of discussing connections and discovering her father’s identity, she was knee deep in talking about murder.

  She took the last sip of her lukewarm coffee. “What can you tell me about your mother?”

  “What do you know about the Weeki Wachee mermaids?”

  “One of my foster mothers took me there when I was ten. It was magical.” The beautiful, smiling women floating in the clear spring had mesmerized her.

  “My mother was one of the early mermaids. Let me show you.” Annabelle turned on the television and started the DVD player. “I have it all queued up.”

  The screen flickered to life and began to play. The young women swam in perfect synchronization under the water. From the modest one-piece bathing suits, Harper guessed the video was taken in the late sixties. They didn’t wear fish tails in the video like she’d seen when she went.

  The recording seemed to be a promo and was dubbed with a man’s voice. “The great conch shell at the canyon’s rim is actually an air lock where the mermaids await their cue, breathing air until they emerge to perform their excitingly beautiful routines.” He droned on about how the spring poured forth 117 million gallons of water a day at a perfect temperature of seventy-four degrees.

  Harper couldn’t take her eyes off the women performing on the screen. It was like peeking back into a long-forgotten era to the old kitschy Florida. A beautiful redhead swam closer to the auditorium’s window and smiled as she began to peel and eat a banana.

  “That’s my mother,” Annabelle said. “Judy Russo.”

  “She’s lovely.”

  “I was sorry I didn’t inherit her coloring.” Annabelle sent a speculative glance Harper’s direction. “Did your mother have red hair like you?”

  “Yes.”

  Their father must have liked redheads. Harper felt a little nauseated, but she couldn’t look away from the flickering screen.

  “Newton Perry was the mastermind behind the mermaids. He used to train navy frogmen and got the bright idea about a tourist attraction featuring beautiful girls. In the early days the girls didn’t even get paid—they just got room and board. Highway 19 was a two-lane road without much traffic, and when the girls heard a car, they’d run out to the road in their bathing suits and flag down passing motorists. The original theater only seated eighteen.”

  “When was this film made?”

  Her expression wistful, Annabelle stared at the television. “It was in 1969. ABC had bought it by then, in 1959, and had expanded the theater to seat four hundred. My mom lived in one of the mermaid cottages out back.”

  A mermaid cottage sounded almost too charming for words, and Harper’s imagination was fired by the images Annabelle’s history brought to life.

  The film ended, and Annabelle clicked off the TV. “She was found in her cottage. They were never able to determine what object pierced her temple and killed her. I was staying with her best friend, who found her a couple of hours after Mom was killed.”

  Harper’s chest squeezed at the thought of a baby being left in such tragic circumstances. “Is her best friend still alive? Have you spoken with her?”

  “I’ve never tracked her down. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. If you’re interested, I have a shoebox full of newspaper clippings and other information my parents gave me.”

  “I’d love to see them. I’ll take good care of them and bring them back to you.”

  “They’re just copies. I have the originals in a safe place.”

  Harper frowned. “You have them hidden?”

  Annabelle bit her lip. “This is going to sound crazy. I just had them in a shoebox in my closet, but lately I’ve felt like someone is following me.” She shrugged. “Probably paranoia from being sick, but the other day I got home, and the back door was standing open. I don’t always lock the doors—it’s not usually necessary around here—but I know I shut the door. And the house felt violated somehow.” She gave a shaky laugh. “My son Scott checked out the house, but he couldn’t find any evidence of a break-in.”

  “But you still felt you should make copies and hide the originals?”

  Annabelle nodded. “Let me get them for you. I have them in my office.” She rose and went down the hall,
then reappeared a few moments later with a cardboard box.

  Harper took it and stuffed it into her big bag. “I’ll look at them right away. As soon as I talk to the detective who investigated my mother’s death, I’ll come back and we can discuss it. Should I wait a few weeks until you adjust to your chemo schedule?”

  “No. I want to know immediately. I need something else to think about other than what’s facing me.”

  Harper didn’t want to lose her sister now that she’d found her. She touched Annabelle’s hand. “I’ll see what I can find out and come back on Saturday.”

  She normally wasn’t the hugging sort, but she found herself clinging tightly to Annabelle at the door when they said good-bye. She slid under the wheel and headed out to meet Sara at the bivalve beds. Wait until she heard all this.

  6

  His dad still clung to life. The afternoon sun glared into his eyes as Ridge, dressed in a shortie wetsuit, walked from his dad’s house down to the dock where he’d anchored the boat last night. He’d gotten a frantic call from Jamal’s mom after her mother had had a heart attack. He’d agreed to take him until her mom was stable.

  It couldn’t have come at a worse time, but he had to be there for the boy. Jamal needed him.

  “So what are we looking for?” Jamal had the rangy lope of a typical fifteen-year-old, and he’d shaved his head since Ridge saw him last. All that was left was a two-inch strip of black hair running down the center of his head.

  “Anything that seems out of place.” Ridge motioned for Jamal to precede him aboard the vessel.

  The boat, a brand-new Grady-White Freedom, was his dad’s pride and joy. He could afford something bigger, but he’d wanted a smaller, nimble boat to get closer to shore for fishing and for access to the pen shell beds. He found Dad’s dive equipment in a heap back by the swim platform. He stooped and picked up the air gauge. Empty. His dad couldn’t have been down long enough to have used up his air—at least not according to Harper.

  Ridge began to go over everything—the BCD and regulator as well as the octopus and hoses. When he ran his hands over the hoses, he felt something. He turned into full sunlight and examined the hose. It had a slice in it. The air would have leaked out fairly quickly with a cut this size in the rubber.

  Someone with a knife had come at Harper. Had the same man cut his dad’s air hose—maybe to eliminate him from seeing her attack?

  Ridge went belowdecks and checked out the other dive equipment, which was in good working order. He went back up topside and found Jamal. “You game to ride out to the mollusk beds?”

  “Sure.” The teenager sprawled into the seat with the controls. “Can I act as captain?”

  “Sure. You know how to handle a boat?”

  “I can learn.”

  He couldn’t resist the boy’s pleading expression and showed him how to start the engine and steer. They motored out to the location of the mollusk beds, and then Ridge dropped anchor and got ready. Harper had pointed out where his dad had been the day before, and he thought he was as close as possible.

  “I’m going to dive down. You can keep an eye on the boat.” He planned to teach Jamal to dive one of these days.

  A pelican flapped overhead, and two gulls landed on the boat to observe him with beady eyes. They were probably hoping for a handout. He went to the stern and fell backward into the water. The water temperature was near seventy, warm for February, but still cold enough to make him wish he’d donned a full wetsuit.

  He kicked down to the mollusk beds and swam over the top of the wire cages. They appeared to be the same as yesterday. Controlling his breathing to get the maximum time out of his air, he swam west past the beds and down to the sandy bottom. He took his time cruising over the area even though he had no idea what he might be looking for. Anything that might explain what had happened to his father.

  After an hour he was ready to give up and head back to the boat when he spotted something half buried in the sand in about twenty feet of water. He kicked down at the glint of metal and found a knife. With a gloved hand he picked it up and clipped it carefully to his belt. It was unlikely there would be a way to find out who this had belonged to, but it might be the knife used to cut his dad’s air hose. He’d turn it over to law enforcement.

  He only had a few minutes of air left, so he began his ascent. When his head broke the surface, he looked around. Where was the boat? He turned 180 degrees and spied the boat drifting away from him.

  “Jamal!” When there was no answer, he swam toward the boat and reached it after several minutes of hard work. He slapped a hand on the lower rung of the ladder and hauled himself up. “Jamal?”

  His chest was tight as he went to the helm where he found the boy sprawled on the floor. Was he asleep or injured? Ridge knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Jamal?”

  The boy’s head rolled to one side, and Ridge saw a goose egg on the back of his head. Blood oozed from the spot.

  Jamal’s eyelids fluttered, and he groaned. “Ridge? What happened?”

  Ridge helped him sit up. “Do you remember anything?”

  Jamal frowned. “Some guy came aboard. A big white dude wearing a mask. I couldn’t tell much more than that. He hit me with his air tank.” He fingered the lump on his head. “He took your dad’s tank and hose with him.”

  The intruder had taken the evidence. Ridge got Jamal seated in a chair and went to start the engine. “Let’s run you by the ER and make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  Had someone recognized him as Oliver’s son and decided to try to derail any investigation into what happened? It would be the only reason to take the cut hose.

  Which meant there was something very sinister about his dad’s condition.

  He reached for his phone as he headed to Dunedin, then called the Coast Guard to report what he’d found. After he took care of Jamal, Ridge would confirm with the doctors that oxygen deprivation was almost certainly the underlying cause of his dad’s condition. It might affect his treatment.

  * * *

  The salt-laden air whipped Harper’s ponytail as she sat on the boat and watched Sara shrugging on her tanks and getting ready for the dive. Harper had rushed back from Orlando, eager to tell her friend about the visit, and Sara had been as awestruck as Harper at the news.

  Sara glanced her way with a question in her eyes. “You’re not suited up.”

  Harper would have to tell Sara she couldn’t dive. An excuse wouldn’t work—it had to be the truth. She didn’t expect her friend to understand her desire for a baby at all costs.

  “Um, Sara, do you think you can handle the planting of more pen shells for me? I’m not going to be able to dive. I might be pregnant.” Sara would know what that meant—she was a health technician with the Coast Guard.

  Sara’s gray eyes widened. “B-But who? How?”

  She should have launched into this in a different way. “You know how much I want family. I know this is a shock. I normally would have talked this over with you before I did it, but it all happened so fast, and you were gone the week I got the call.”

  Harper drew in a deep breath. “I decided to adopt an embryo. I talked about it with my doctor a few months ago, and he called me when he heard about a single mom who’d gone through IVF before her husband left her. She had an embryo left. She’s very pro-life and wanted the babies to have a chance at life. She was open to another single mom.”

  Sara held up her hand. “Wait, I don’t think I’m following you. People can adopt other people’s embryos?”

  Harper nodded. “I could have used my own eggs and donor sperm, but then I’ve got a child who doesn’t know where they came from—just like me. This way my child will know who his or her birth parents are. I received the embryo last week. I won’t know for a couple of weeks if it implanted, but I don’t want to risk harming the baby by diving.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Sara gave her a curious look. “You’ve thought all this through?”


  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Oliver did, too, but I’m giving life to a baby that would normally be thrown away. And I’ll finally have a family of my own.”

  Sara lifted a brow. “Being a single mom is hard.”

  “I don’t deny that, but I think I can handle it. I’ve got tons of patience, and I love kids.”

  “I know you do.” Tanks clanking, Sara rose and bent over to hug her. “I’ll be there for you. So what do you need me to do?”

  That had gone better than Harper had hoped. “Just plant the pen shells in bare spaces. I’ll snorkel along above you and make sure you’re doing okay.”

  “You got it.” Sara hopped over the side of the Sea Silk II and into the water.

  With her mask and snorkel in place, Harper handed down the bucket of pen shells, then jumped in herself. The warm water closed over her head, and she surfaced and adjusted her mask. She kicked past a school of silvery fish and swam over to the pen shell beds. She stopped and stared below her. One of the cages had been torn off. That area of her pen shell farm had been ravaged. All the shells were missing, leaving gaping holes.

  Who would have done this? Some random fisherman who felt he was entitled to her shells? Or was it something much more sinister? Ridge hadn’t thought the attacks had anything to do with the shell beds, but this might change his mind.

  Sara began to plant the shells into the ravaged beds. When she was done, she joined Harper and they swam back to the boat. Harper climbed the ladder, then reached down to lift up the tanks Sara had shed.

  Sara tossed her mask to Harper. “Any idea what happened down there?”

  Harper pulled off her mask and snorkel. “Someone harvested my shells. The cages are posted as belonging to me, so they had to know they were stealing. I lost a lot of money. Maybe I should put out a few cameras.”

  “Could it have been deliberate destruction?”

  “It’s possible. Eric Kennedy has been badgering me about moving the beds, but it’s a massive undertaking. They aren’t hurting anything where they are, and he’s just playing a political game, so I don’t know what to do. The bigger question is, does the damage have anything to do with the attacks on Oliver and me?”