“I need a little time.”
“Why?”
“There can’t be another body so soon.”
“That’s not a viable excuse. Get it done.”
“Then I need a boat, a big one that can go deep.” If he was going to kill two more people he needed to be sure no bodies were found for a long time after he was out of town. He had a job to do down in Miami when this one was over. If he had a boat, he could drop the bodies out in the Atlantic a hundred miles away from here. Either that or he needed to find an alternative.
“I will get you a boat. Just tell me when and where and I’ll have it ready. I just need you to eliminate the problems before they get too big.”
“It’s your nickel.”
“Good, get it done. We can’t take another chance. Go with the plan for tonight, the one we talked about. I’ve made some other arrangements to cover things.”
“It’s risky.”
“Just do it, don’t alter the plan now.”
“And if he does?”
“We’ll deal with that bridge when we need to cross it.”
Castro ended the call. He hated the idea of someone else pushing him into a move he didn’t approve of. But they were insistent and offered to double his pay. For that, he would take a few more risks.
* * *
Ariel
Ariel woke up earlier than usual and leveraged herself so the sun fell on her face. Arms stretched above her head, she enjoyed the warmth with a purposeful yawn.
For half the night, she tossed and turned. Her mind churned with questions. What Jake had said about Father watching her seemed impossible. At first. But the more she thought about it, the more she started to wonder.
How could he be watching her? There was no way he could. She never told him where she was going, she never told anyone. He certainly didn’t swim like she did. No one could. She’d spent her life in the water, and although she couldn’t keep up with the dolphins and belugas, she could hold pace with them for a bit at their cruising speeds.
With a sigh, she slid into the water and caught a deep breath before swimming down to the bottom of her pool. By pure instinct, she went toward the tunnel to the intercoastal river waters that would lead her out to the sea.
In less than twenty seconds, she was popping up into the garden area where no prying eyes would ever see her. Lush vegetation grew tall on all sides and thick trees hanged over her head, only allowing daggers of sunlight to dance on the lagoon.
She swam over to the greenhouse and plucked a fresh orange from the tree. While peeling and eating her orange, her usual day planning started to unfold. On most days, she’d go for a long swim, then search for some shells to add to her collection, then come back and read. She loved to read, it was her favorite thing to do. The people in her books had such fantastical adventures. Letting them take her away to their world was so much fun it made her forget for a while who she was…what she was.
Never before in her life had she wished so hard to be someone else. She just wanted to be human. She wanted to be a girl like Ashley, who could walk around and hold hands with Jake.
Sitting on the rocks, she reached down and punched her tail. “Stupid fin, I hate you!” She picked up a broken seashell and started scoring the skin of her tail until it left a mark.
The skin didn’t have any feeling, she’d always hated that part. Father would get mad when she would cut her tail on something because he would have to perform a fix. He said because she couldn’t feel anything infection could set in and get very bad.
Right now, she didn’t care. She used the seashell to score the thick skin, digging at it deeper and deeper. Part of her wanted to just keep going until it did hurt, like the time she got hit by the boat when she was twelve. She’d accidentally surfaced in front of a boat, it hit her, and cut her tail all the way to the blood. Father had to perform surgery. It wasn’t the first time she’d hurt herself, nor the last, but it was the worst.
She headed out of the waterway until she got to the clearing of the ocean. Diving into the waves, she swam as hard and fast as possible for several minutes and finally surfaced way out past the breakers. Swimming north, she kept going until she reached one of the most populated beaches in the area, Carolina Beach.
Just sitting there, bobbing in the water, looking back at the shore, she never wanted to just swim over and slide up onto the sand more than she did right now. A couple times, she’d let people glimpse her, just to see what they would do. Usually she’d pick a little girl, and then watch her run to her family and tell them what she’d seen. Maybe that was mean in a way, because the families never believed. They used to just smile and pat the girls on the head or marvel at their imaginations with wide-mouthed smiles. A couple times, she’d gotten too close to the lifeguard towers and caused them to become worried when she popped up and went back under. But she usually stayed far enough out and the fin would always just leave them thinking they’d probably seen a dolphin.
She didn’t see any families hanging around this side of the beach. Tourist season was going to end soon and people were already heading back up to the cold north. Ariel had never seen snow but she wanted to badly. One of her favorite books was Call of the Wild by Jack London. It was a wonderful adventure.
After a few more moments in the waves, she decided to head back home. It was going to get busy out here soon and she wasn’t allowed to be in the waters when it was busy.
The swim went by quickly. She didn’t see any of her dolphin friends, which told her maybe the weather was going to get bad later. There were some darker clouds rolling into the area.
She popped up in her pool and saw Father standing at the edge.
“I was expecting you sooner,” he said.
She blinked away the water from her eyes. “Sorry, I was just enjoying the view.”
He squatted down. “Ariel, it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
The look on his face said it all. “It’s time.”
She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to accept it. In a few months, she would give birth and die.
Chapter 19
Jake
The retirement community, a sprawling campus, was unlike anything Jake pictured in his head when those words conjured images. It reminded him of a college that started out small and kept adding on. None of the buildings matched perfectly, they all had a similar color and shape, but they were just different enough to tell they were built at different times and probably by different people. The place was nice, the large grassy areas were well-groomed and the water features looked so clean they were making him thirsty. The nearby crashing ocean waves just over the bluff were soft but constant.
“There.” Ashley pointed. “That building, that’s the Sea Pine.”
Jake eyed the tan and white building.
They walked up to the structure where a middle-aged woman in a powder blue button-down shirt and khaki shorts smiled while she stood behind a small table. “Welcome to Sea Pine at Holiday Sands.”
Ashley extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Ashley, this is Jake. We’re looking for Roger Pender. We were told by the office he lived in this building.”
The woman nodded. “Roger is in the courtyard right now around back. We’re welcoming a new resident today.” She motioned with her hand. “We throw a little party to welcome them, so just follow the smell of barbeque. You’re welcome to grab a bite to eat.”
Ashley smiled. “Thank you so much.”
They headed around the building where a gathering of people milled about. Most of the people were seniors, but there were a few kids roaming with other younger adults. Jake had to assume they were friends or relatives, since as far as he knew, this place was only for retired people. He’d never been to this place, but he knew from people around that it was one of the most expensive retirement communities on all of the Carolina coast. It was definitely less retirement community and more luxury resort. They had their own private beach access, a golf
course, four swimming pools—two of which were indoors—a huge fitness facility, a gourmet restaurant, and a shopping center with grocery store. One could live here and almost never leave the campus. The more Jake looked around, the more he wanted to live here right now.
Ashley walked up to an older woman with soft blue eyes. “Hi, we’re looking for Roger Pender.”
The woman had a slight tremor in her hand, but seemed otherwise healthy. “That’s Roger over there.” She pointed to a tall, muscular man with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, round glasses and a strong jaw. He stood there looking out at the ocean.
Ashley approached him. “Mr. Pender?”
He glanced at her but looked back at the water. “Who’s asking?”
“My name is Ashley and this is Jake.”
“Are you celebrities?”
Ashley made a face and shrugged. “No.”
“Then you must have last names.”
“This is Jake Wheeler, and I’m Ashley Robertson.”
Roger sipped his glass of red wine. “What can I help you with, Miss Robertson?”
“We wanted to speak with you about your old business partner, Bruce Shepard.”
Roger smirked and started to walk away. “This conversation is over.”
Ashley chased after him. “Please, sir, this is an important matter. It’s a matter of life and death.”
He turned and gave her an odd look. Then he looked over at Jake. “It often is with Shepard. He’s a terrible doctor. But I’m not getting involved in any malpractice lawsuit. Sorry.” He walked on.
“Wait, please.” Ashley hurried into his path. “This is not about malpractice or a lawsuit of any kind.”
Roger narrowed his eyes, moving them back and forth between her and Jake. “What is this about?”
“We just want to know about Dr. Shepard.”
“Why?”
Jake offered, “Curiosity?”
Roger laughed. “I don’t think so. People don’t track down a loosely associated former colleague because of simple curiosity.”
Jake started to mutter a wise remark but Ashley gave him a look that said, Let me do the talking. Jake knew how persuasive Ashley could be so he didn’t want to argue with her point.
She looked back at Roger. “Look, Mr. Pender, I know this is weird and probably out of the blue, but someone close to me was just murdered, and we think it has something to do with Dr. Shepard.”
“Murdered?” He turned to face her more directly. “How?”
“He was shot.”
Roger looked to the sea. “You’re talking about the man who was shot on the island?”
Ashley nodded. “Yes.”
“The realtor, Mike Robertson, he was related to you?”
“He was my husband.”
Roger turned his head. “I’m sorry for your loss. I never had the opportunity to work with him, but I’m told he was a fine realtor and a good man.”
“Thank you.”
“But how, may I ask, is this related to Dr. Shepard?”
“We think the man who killed Mike was trying,” she pointed to Jake, “to kill him.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Jake offered, “It’s complicated.”
Roger looked at Ashley. “Explain it to me.”
Ashley sighed. “We think that Dr. Shepard hired this man.”
Roger laughed. “Why would Shepard hire someone to kill you?”
Jake shrugged. “He doesn’t like me.”
He stared at Jake an uncomfortable amount of time. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t like you. It doesn’t mean they want to kill you.”
Ashley lied, “Jake is a key witness in a malpractice suit against the doctor.”
Roger looked away and emptied his wine glass. It wasn’t empty for more than five seconds before a man in a white uniform approached him with a bottle and offered to top off the glass, which he accepted. The man then slid away to the next guest.
Roger sipped more wine. “So you lied to my face.”
“Umm…oh…” Ashley replied.
Roger pressed on. “Doctors face those kinds of lawsuits all the time. It’s no reason to kill anyone. I can’t help you. You’ve come to the wrong place.”
“Please, Dr. Pender,” Ashley pleaded. “I can feel in my heart that this man—”
“No, don’t! You’re barking up the wrong tree. Belden is no killer.”
“But—”
“No but, no nothing.”
Jake jumped in. “So you’re just going to let him kill me? You’re a pathetic excuse for a man.”
Roger stepped closer to Jake. “You’d better watch your mouth, son. I may be twice your age, but I spend six days a week at the gym. I will not hesitate to knock your block off.”
Jake sneered at him. “Go right ahead, old man. I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of anything. I sat on the rocks at Fort Fisher for a month with a pistol to my head, itching to pull the trigger, looking for the courage.”
“My point exactly. If you had any balls, you’d have pulled that trigger.”
“I was about to, until something—someone—very extraordinary appeared to me from the sea.” Roger’s face went slack and Jake could tell right away that he knew. “I think Shepard has a little secret. And his little secret is going to get me killed.”
Roger ran his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He then slowly started to walk toward the shore. “Belden has always been eccentric, a little strange even. I didn’t want to go into business with him, but he was fresh out of med school and had a bank account busting with cash. I’d been in practice for just a few years and was struggling to pay the rent. Here comes this hotshot tossing around big numbers, an advertising budget so big he wanted to spend more in a week than I spent all year.”
“So you did what you had to do.”
Roger narrowed his gaze. “I did what I felt was best. I’m a doctor, and I wanted to help as many people as possible. It was never about the money for me. But I couldn’t reach anyone with my practice. When Belden came on, business went up tenfold.”
“That’s all well and good.”
“It was to me.”
“So you’ve been to his house?”
Roger stopped at the crest of the hill overlooking the sea just about ten feet below. “I have.”
“You’ve seen her.”
He met Jake’s eyes, almost gauging how to respond. After a long moment, he seemingly gave up trying to hide anything. “She was hurt. At first, he resisted my help, but I forced my way into the scene. But he still wouldn’t let me assist on the operation at first. But there was some vascular bleeding in the upper thigh area that he struggled with. I was able to stop the bleeding and get things sorted out.”
“But you didn’t see what she was?”
“Not at first, not until after. But what was I going to do? He made valid points about her becoming a freak show. She was just a little kid, so I forced myself to forget. And I hadn’t spoken of it in over ten years until this moment.”
“How didn’t you know while you were assisting?”
“She was covered except for the wound. And frankly, there was nothing different that I noticed. Internally she looked just like you or I would.”
“And when you saw it, your curiosity didn’t drive you crazy?”
Roger shrugged. “I stayed busy with my work. I didn’t have time to dissect it, and after a few weeks it was more or less out of my mind. It’s like seeing a UFO, you don’t want believe it, so it’s easy to forget it.”
“He never mentioned it again?”
“Not a word. But I could feel him thinking it sometimes. He wondered if I was going to keep the secret.”
“How come he didn’t try to kill you?”
Roger looked at him and shrugged. “Like I said, Belden is not a killer. And even if he was, he knows I’m not a threat. I’m not about to turn that girl, whatever she is, into some sort of freak. She doesn’t threat
en my existence.”
“I’m not about to, either. So what makes me different?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Ashley asked, “How come it’s so hard to find information on Dr. Bruce Shepard?”
Roger looked at her. “I wasn’t aware it was.”
“There’s almost nothing on him. We looked up Bruce Shepard, but everything goes to some old country singer from the seventies.”
“Bruce is not his real name, it’s a nickname. Did you try Albert Belden Shepard, or A. Belden Shepard?”
“No.”
“His medical license is under Albert Belden Shepard.”
“That would explain a lot,” Ashley replied.
Roger turned away from the view. “I’ve told you all I could.”
“Are you sure? Because I don’t trust this psychopath won’t still kill us,” Jake asked.
Roger cast a knowing smile. “Belden is the furthest thing from a psychopath. He’s not even a sociopath.”
“What’s the difference?” Jake asked flippantly.
“The difference is that if you know what to look for, you can always spot a sociopath, they’re narcissistic and egocentric. They are masters of manipulation. You can’t always spot a psychopath, and by the time you do, it’s too late. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a prior commitment.” He turned away and headed back toward the building.
Ashley stood next to Jake and asked, “Do you think he’s telling us everything?”
Jake shook his head. “Not a chance. He’s too smart to tell us anything.”
“Why did he tell us what he did?”
“Why indeed.”
Chapter 20
Jake looked across the ratty old table at Ashley. Her long hair was draped over her left shoulder. She stroked it while she silently read off the laptop screen, moving her lips ever so slightly. He could not look away.
“What?” she asked, startling him.
“What?”
“I don’t know. It looked like you wanted to say something.”
The Mermaid Page 11
