It couldn’t be. She couldn’t have seen it.
Shaking her head, Lora took a step toward the body. “Don’t,” the man said, pulling her back. “We need to call the police.”
Lora’s knees wavered and the man gripped her cold arm to keep her upright. Sounds of the ocean faded until Lora only heard her own quickened breathing. She hadn’t been mistaken. The Siren mark, a small wave-like crest linking a Siren to the sea, concealed behind the dead woman’s ear. The ice plant shrouded the woman’s face too well for Lora to see it clearly.
Her grandmother had told her the tales of Siren killers, tales of men with an ancient grudge who wanted them silenced forever. Through her fright, she tried to place the memories together, hoping to make sense of them, for they were jumbled and unclear. All Lora could remember was that the threat came from men who appeared normal, but were killers underneath. She’d always trusted they were merely stories, untrue mythology. Nothing more.
Panic gripped her, and she tore her hand from her male companion, inching toward the dead body, which now seemed a safer haven than the man. Her green eyes widened. Could it be him? Did he arrive on the beach earlier to kill her Siren sister?
Taking a deep breath, she tried to think rationally. If he had killed the woman, he would be covered in blood. He wouldn’t appear so frightened. The sight of the lifeless body lying on the ground wouldn’t sicken him.
Sensing her turmoil, the man stepped back and held up his hands, giving her added space, but she didn’t take her eyes off him. He wasn’t tall, only standing an inch or so higher than Lora’s slender frame, with red hair, a pointed nose and a face covered in freckles. The same wind which had carried her song and revealed the Siren mark on the dead woman now rustled his sweatpants and white shirt. Workout clothes, she realized with relief. He had jogged on the beach this morning; he did not kill an innocent member of her beloved clan.
Lora extended her hand, hoping she hadn’t angered him with her reaction. He accepted it. Overcome with muddled stories from her ancestors, she allowed the man to pull her away from her dead sister, back toward the sandy path.
The Earth seemed to have lost its color. The ocean, the cypress, even her unnamed companion were gray and colorless. Clouds now ruled the sky, covering the beautiful primrose sunrise and erasing the possibility of a promising morning.
The man clutched his phone against his ear, body trembling, but still clung to her hand. Police sirens cried in the distance, growing nearer, and they both faced the ocean, afraid to peek back at the dead woman in her ice plant coffin.
The tide receded from the violence.
Tucking the phone into his pocket, the man sighed. “I’m James,” he whispered, as if speaking too loudly would reveal them to the unknown killer. Lora could not take her eyes from the ocean. She concentrated only on its quiet lament. “I have a wife. Two little boys.”
“Do they have red hair too?” she asked, picturing two tiny clones of their father. The thought provided a temporary reprieve from the image of the dead girl.
James’ breath remained shallow as he spoke, “Only one. The other is blond like his mother.” As James described his child’s blond hair, the picture of blond, red-streaked hair against pale green ice plant consumed her again, and Lora began to cry silent tears. James showed her a family picture he kept in his wallet, probably to distract her.
Movement from the road caught her eye and Lora saw two police cars approaching. They parked, and several men emerged from the vehicles, hurrying toward her and James, hands on their holsters.
One gentleman reached them first, but he did not wear a police uniform; his brown suit had frayed pockets and she could see his shoes were old and scuffed. He did not extend his hand, but instead surveyed them with an expression so deadpan, Lora had a difficult time discerning his emotions. “I’m Eric Stone,” he said, “a detective with the Pacific Grove police department. Which one of you made the call?”
James raised his hand, an uncertain gesture, as if he were a little boy in class who’d been called upon to answer a difficult question.
“Come with me,” the detective said. He moved Lora and James up the path to where it met the road, away from the dead girl. Lora glanced behind her to see the other officers descend upon the body like circling birds. Shivering, she turned back to Detective Stone, who pulled out a pad and pencil and regarded them with dark, tiny eyes.
“Who found the girl first?” he asked in a deep voice, heavy with years of smoking.
“I did,” Lora said. Her voice cracked as she spoke. She worried it made her sound as though she were guilty of something, so she cleared her throat and tried for a second time. “I did.” This time she sounded more confident.
The detective frowned at his pen, then tapped it against his pad of paper. He moved his mouth back and forth in a chewing motion while he furrowed his brow. “And what were you doing out here so early in the morning?” he asked.
Her mind searched for the right answer. She obviously couldn’t tell him she lived the secret life of a Siren who had been unable to resist the call of the ocean. I’m sure you understand, Detective Stone. I couldn’t ignore the beautiful music this morning. Care for me to sing a tune for you? Lora tried her best to control her voice. “I went for a bike ride and decided to take a walk on the beach before school,” she said. Her voice quaked at the lie.
“Mmph,” the detective mumbled. He saw through the lie for sure.
“She’s telling the truth, detective,” said James, much to Lora’s relief. “I went jogging on the beach and saw her away from the water, up on the path. That’s when she found the . . . the body.” His voice caught when he said “body,” and Lora couldn’t stop herself from shuddering as well. His story confirmed her song’s magic had enchanted James. He had no memory of her singing.
The detective asked question after question, to which Lora gave monotone answers, emotionally drained from the morning. Eventually, he separated her from James, and opened the back seat of his police car so she could sit down. Lora peeked inside the car, but decided instead to lean against the trunk while she waited for the entire horrible experience to end. Sensing her anguish, the ocean let out a slow song of sorrow, causing Lora to close her eyes to keep from singing along. She needed to keep control, but found the task difficult. The deepest part of her wanted to unleash itself from its cage, to run wild across the sand and plunge into the ocean, weeping. Part of her innocence had died with the slain woman.
“Miss Reines?”
Lora shook her head and turned back to the detective, who squinted his eyes with a concerned expression. “Have you?”
“Have I what?” she asked, pushing the ocean’s song from her mind, trying her best to concentrate on the detective’s words.
He sighed in annoyance. “Have you called your parents yet? I think one of them needs to be here while we talk.”
“No,” she said. “It’s just me and my dad. My mother is dead.” Those words still gave her a hollow feeling in the center of her heart, even after so many years had passed. “I’ll call him now.”
Instead, she pulled her phone from her back jean pocket and sent him a text message, hoping to avoid a fight. Her father’s anger would border on wrath. Lora shouldn’t have left the house. She should have instead suppressed the desire to be next to the ocean, like so many other members of her clan seemed able to do, but she couldn’t. She could no more ignore the ocean than she could her own soul; too bad her father didn’t have those same longings.
The detective, who continued to watch her, frowned. “You aren’t going to call him?” he asked, gesturing toward the phone. “If you were my daughter, I’d want more than a text message.”
Lora hesitated at first, but then shook her head. “No,” she said, placing the phone back in her pocket, and rubbing her temple with the palm of her han
d. “He’d just start yelling.”
The detective shrugged his shoulders and turned away, walking back toward the crime scene. Lora continued to rub her forehead, trying to stave off the headache which threatened to torment her. How did this happen? All she wanted to do was sing with the sea before school, and now? Well, now a member of her clan lay dead, and she had been the one to find her.
Victoria. The woman’s face finally became clear in her mind. Victoria Thanos lay beneath the memory of blood stained clothing and blond hair.
Lora whispered the name through trembling lips, releasing it into the air so it could travel to the sea. If the detective asked her if she and Victoria were acquainted, Lora had a conditioned response ready. Yes. We attended the same church. Everyone in her clan told the same lie when asked how they knew one another.
Victoria was, or had been, several years older than Lora and still lived with her parents in a small cottage on the beach. Though they didn’t speak beyond clan meetings, Lora remembered her voice, her face, her essence.
Twenty minutes passed and Lora watched while the detective and other police officers continued to mill about the scene. She heard the ocean singing a death ballad for its fallen sister. Though she hadn’t recognized it as such before, she became completely in tune with its grieving now. For the first time in her life, Lora wished she could escape the music which tormented her, but she couldn’t leave. The detective kept one eye on her they whole time.
As Lora waited, still leaning against a police car, she saw Victoria’s parents apprehensively approach the scene. She gazed at them as they passed, memorizing the grief on their faces, which stood starkly against their aged wrinkles and soft skin. Neither noticed her. Mrs. Thanos sank to the sandy path, her tears falling into her daughter’s green death-bed. Victoria’s father stood behind her mother. Neither parent could tear their eyes away from their dead child. Sirens themselves, they did not once glance at the sea, though Lora was certain it called to them as it did her; even in this moment, where death surrounded her, the ocean wanted her near.
“Loralei!”
Lora turned to see her father beyond the orange police tape which stopped curious people from tampering with evidence. He wore faded jeans and a windbreaker, which surprised her because he had to go to work. His graying hair plastered itself to his head, wet from the moisture. As he tried to cross the barrier, a police officer stopped him, shoving him backwards.
“Dad!” she called back, and the relief on his face comforted her. She’d told him not to worry in her text message, but didn’t want to go into too much detail. He would be understandably upset, and not only over her gruesome find.
The officer next to Lora gave his okay with a brisk nod and curt motion of the hand, allowing her father to pass through. He ran, feet pounding on the path, and for a moment Lora remembered her own hurry to pass this point only an hour earlier, her hunger to join the ocean’s song, a longing she’d been unable to fulfill.
He hugged her, fright more than relief spurring the rough movement, and Lora felt a rogue tear drop from her face onto his shoulder. She wiped her nose on his blue windbreaker as if she were a young child.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a tired voice. His arms moved to her shoulders and he held her away to stare into her eyes. Outwardly, he appeared calm, but the tension in his grip indicated otherwise.
“I told you I was all right in my text.”
Her father sighed. “You made a poor decision this morning.”
Lora clenched her teeth. “Answering the call is not a poor decision,” she said in a low voice, pulling away from him. “And I didn’t tell you because I knew you would . . .”
“I’d what?” he said in a threatening tone.
“You’d do this! Completely overreact,” she said, and several onlookers turned away from the carnage to stare at her. “Just because you’ve decided to ignore who you are doesn’t mean I should,” she continued, whispering angrily. Lora’s control waned, but she didn’t care. She’d been through so much already this morning, and she couldn’t take much more.
Her father took a step toward her and leaned forward so only she could hear. “We’ll discuss your decision-making at home,” he said, then glanced over her shoulder. His eyes moved to stare at the dead woman’s parents, who still sat on the sandy path. “Wait here,” he murmured, moving her to the side as he strode toward the grieving couple.
The clouds above were thick and the wind increased, whipping the windbreaker around his torso. His hair appeared disheveled, but not from the wind, and with long legs, he covered the distance quickly to place a hand on the father’s shoulder. She noticed he leaned in close, whispering in the bereft man’s ear. Detective Stone, who’d been traveling back and forth between Victoria’s body and her anguished parents, approached, and Lora watched as her father talked to him. When their conversation ended, they made their way toward her, both staring at her with a grim expression.
“I think we’ve asked you all the questions we can for now,” Detective Stone said, placing his large hand on her shoulder. “You can go home with your father.” His hand felt heavy, and she sighed in relief when he removed it. The detective shook her father’s hand. “Robert, we’ll be in touch soon.”
Her father thanked him while the ocean crashed behind them, singing in low octaves, almost like the lingering sound of a drum. The tune made Lora’s pulse quicken, along with the anger she harbored at her father’s inability to understand her, anger toward his own self-hatred. Didn’t her father notice the song as she did? His hardened demeanor surrounded him at all times. Long ago he’d changed, become fearful, and chosen to ignore the sea’s invitations. And now he wanted her to do the same.
Her father moved slowly, staring ahead with weary brown eyes, carrying her bicycle. “The Detective has agreed to let you leave, for now. Consider yourself lucky he didn’t suspect your connection with Victoria,” he said, and she followed him like a broken toy, her head bent, consumed in her own preoccupations. Lora helped him put the bicycle in the back of his SUV before trudging to the passenger seat. Just before he got into the car, she thought she saw him glance back at the ocean.
Chapter Three
Her father barely spoke to her on the way home. Lora glumly stared out of the rain-splattered window, for the clouds had opened and unleashed their sorrow onto Pacific Grove minutes after they left the crime scene. She pulled her damp, brown hair into a messy ponytail and glanced in the rear-view mirror. Although her cheeks were a bit pink from their tryst with the cold air outside, the rest of her face was a milky white. She frowned. Lack of sun had made her skin even paler than usual.
Her father broke the silence. “The detective mentioned he’d contact you soon,” he said, more of a statement than a question.
“Yes,” she answered, and reluctantly glanced his way. Her father didn’t appear pleased. No doubt his main concern revolved around keeping the Clan a secret. It would be ridiculous to think the police would link the mutilation with the legends of Sirens from centuries ago, but her father would worry regardless. His nature demanded it.
He drove home using main roads, avoiding the neighborhood streets she had so enjoyed earlier in the morning. A growing sense of foreboding crept over Lora, and she regarded each stranger they passed as a potential threat. Every unfamiliar face seemed ominous, the pleasant expressions of the morning gone, and Lora stiffened when a car passenger or pedestrian made eye-contact with her.
A Siren killer stalked the streets of Pacific Grove. The killer had viciously cut out Victoria’s vocal chords. The signs were unmistakable. Devin, her grandmother, might be the only person who would understand, who might actually listen to her.
Tearing herself from window-gazing, Lora glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. Nine-thirty. School started two hours ago.
She hadn’t planned on stum
bling upon a dead body. How could she have guessed the beach would be dangerous, especially when her song usually protected her from people with ill intentions?
The call of the ocean resurfaced, too delicious to ignore, and Lora welcomed it, for it was her truest companion, her closest link to her ancestors. Lora could never reject the sea. Her father should understand this. He was a Siren, too.
“I need to go to school,” Lora said as the car pulled into the driveway. She huffed out and slammed the door. “I have a test in history.” A lie, but a necessary one.
Her father trudged up the short brick staircase to the front door and paused, his hand on the doorknob. The raindrops hit his jacket with small splats and the water weighed down his dark hair like paste. Sculpted cypress on either side of the steps dripped water, like weeping widows, and her father’s shoulders slumped. “If you think it’s a good idea,” he said. “But you will come directly home after school.”
“But I’m supposed to see Devin!”
Her father’s face darkened. “Devin will understand. I don’t think I need to explain why. We need to protect you now more than ever.”
“No,” she said, her voice hard. “You don’t.”
He opened the door, his back still to her, and shut it behind him, leaving Lora behind in the rain. His gesture and indifference wounded her. But she didn’t want him to see her disappointment, so she straightened her shoulders and strode up the steps to the front door. She hurried inside long enough to grab her backpack, which lay on a small wooden stool in the foyer. Lora couldn’t see her father, so she paused long enough to glance at her mother’s picture on the wall, the first thing she saw each day when she entered the house. Usually it gave her comfort, but her mother’s expression appeared sad today. Lora paused at the door to glance back at her mother’s face and wondered if the turmoil in her family caused the sorrow emanating from the photograph.
Voices of the Sea Page 2
