Gray triangular dorsal fins. Sharks. His heart nearly flat lined. Miranda had just plunged headfirst into a swarm of sharks.
***
As the cold, salty water enveloped her, Miranda felt a powerful sensation ripple through her body, right from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. Not feet. Eyes wide with shock, she did a quick underwater somersault so that she could see her lower body. She gasped. Her feet were gone. She flicked her fin several times. Where were her legs? And a more pressing question, how was she going to get them back?
“Hi Miranda,” a loud voice boomed from behind her. “Nice of you to dive into our little melee.”
At the sound of her name, Miranda whirled around. Actually, with a tail and fins, it felt more like swirling around. She looked at the three sharks hovering around her, and then she looked up toward the surface. There was no sign of the humans or their annoyingly loud jet skis.
“Gus, where did the humans go?” The suspicion that something was wrong, that she’d just dove headfirst into a set-up, flowed through her. What was going on? “Don’t tell me that you ate them because there wasn’t time.”
The shark named Gus looked around, up, down, and anywhere except in her direction. So she was right. She hadn’t broken up a fight. She should have stayed on the yacht with Justin. “Who put you up to this?”
If sharks could shrug, these three would have. Instead they all maintained an eerie silence, which told Miranda all she needed to know. “So you were sent to bring me back to my Uncle Seamus?” she demanded. “Isn’t that right?”
The shark she thought was named Tank responded first. “Actually, it wasn’t your uncle that sent us.”
“Then who did?”
“I did.” The sharks moved aside so that Chelsea could swim forward. “It’s time for you to come home Miranda.”
Miranda could only stare. She and Chelsea had been the best of merfriends forever and always. Theirs was a friendship that could have easily been a sisterhood. But something in the way that Chelsea spoke, looked, and acted was off. Way off. “What’s going on, Chelsea?”
The pink mermaid flicked her tail several times, and as a result, began to drift backwards. She motioned for Miranda to follow her. “We should discuss this where no one can overhear us.”
Miranda looked around. Not so much as a single marlin was around. “We can talk here.”
Chelsea shook her head so vehemently that it caused little ripples as she continued to move away. “No, we can’t let a human see us. They’re going to come looking for you, you must realize that.”
But Miranda hadn’t, and the realization made her want to sink like a stone. Justin. He’d just watched her dive into what he thought was shark infested water. Of course he’d sound the alarm. If he hadn’t fainted first.
Poor, poor Justin. His fear of shallow water was real enough. To let him think she’d drowned or been attacked by sharks was cruel. She told Chelsea so.
“We need to move away from this spot,” Chelsea urged her. “Come with me so we can talk.”
With one last glance up toward the surface, Miranda reluctantly flicked her fin and swam after her friend. While being back underwater was like coming back home, she was still painfully aware that each stroke she made took her further away from Justin. And that was the last thing in the ocean, on earth, or in heaven, that she wanted to do.
She turned to find Chelsea studying her.
“It’s happened,” Chelsea said, as somberly as if she’d just announced that the oceans had all dried up. “I never imagined that you would willingly swim into such dangerous waters.”
“What?” Miranda cried, but she knew she sounded defensive. Because she was. Defensive and guilty. It had happened, at least if the ‘it’ Chelsea referred to meant that Miranda had allowed herself to grow overly fond of Justin Lockheed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you’ve just gone and done the worst thing a mermaid could ever do.” Chelsea turned her back to Miranda. “I can’t even say it.”
“Well you’re going to have to.” Miranda swam swiftly around so that she faced her friend. “I’ll admit I’ve taken a bit longer than we thought to get the dirt on-”
Chelsea groaned. “Oh, it’s so much worse than I thought. Miranda, this isn’t about our project. It’s about you and Justin.”
Miranda’s eyebrows rose. “Cross my clamshells, I haven’t done anything wrong or anything inappropriate. Or, for that matter, I haven’t done anything to warrant you sending those gray goons to lure me into the water.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Chelsea cried. “Since when does a mermaid have to be lured into the water? You make it sound like you’ve been caught in nets and dragged underwater.”
Miranda opened her mouth to protest but the echo waves of a boat with an off-board motor interrupted her. By the sounds of it, there was more than one. They were looking for her.
“Miranda, we’re not safe here. Come on.” Chelsea swam over and grabbed ahold of Miranda’s wrist. “Do you have any idea what the humans would do if they ever found one of us? Even if they just think they’ve seen a mermaid there would be a massive influx of people.”
With one last glimpse up toward the surface, Miranda allowed herself to be led away. As she fell in behind Chelsea, Miranda wiped away the tears that she didn’t want her friend to see.
Once they’d swam deep enough that the sun didn’t do more than dapple the water with light, Miranda finally convinced Chelsea to slow down. As their speed decreased, Miranda prodded Chelsea for details about the staged shark attack intervention. “Whose idea was that?”
“Let’s just say that we’re all concerned about you, Miranda.”
“But there’s no need to be,” she protested. “Everything was going along swimmingly-”
Chelsea held up a hand. “Let me just stop you right there, because not only did I hear different, but I just saw you and that human with your arms around each other.”
She frowned. “Don’t call Justin ‘that human’. It sounds derogatory and it’s completely unfair. He was very good to me.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear any details.” Chelsea shook her head. “Besides, we heard from Goldie-”
Miranda came to an immediate halt and began to flick her fin furiously so she could stay in place. “Goldie? You’ve taken me away from Justin, I mean from my assignment, because of something that loud mouth bird said?” She stared at her friend as if she’d never seen her before. “Did it ever occur to you or to anyone else to send a message through Summer?”
“Well, actually, my mother had similar concerns.”
“I haven’t seen or heard from Summer since the first day.” She narrowed her eyes. “What could she possibly have to be concerned about?”
“You and Justin.”
Ah, so that was it. A flash of anger eroded some of her earlier confusion. “Summer has never seen us together.”
“Perhaps not, but she has had a few phone conversations with him. And both times that she called to check in on how you were doing, he assured her that you were working out fabulously.” Chelsea shook her head. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the man didn’t mind that his new maid can’t cook or clean? At all?”
Miranda hesitated. The image of Justin painstakingly collecting his socks from the oleander hedge flashed through her mind. He hadn’t been angry then, and he’d been a good sport when she’d used olive oil to polish the marble floor. He’d assured her that he fell all the time and that his elbow would feel fine in a day or two. The thought of him made her heart feel warm and she smiled. “We didn’t have that kind of relationship. I mean, Justin saw beyond what I couldn’t do. We were good together.”
“Snap out of it, Miranda. We, together, relationship…do you hear yourself? Justin Lockheed is human. H-U-M-A-N. I don’t know how you lost sight of that.” Chelsea shook her head. “For your sake, I’m relieved it’s all over.”
Chapter Ten
“L
et’s go over this again, Mr. Lockheed. You say that you don’t know your maid’s last name, or anything about her. Is that correct?”
Justin looked at the police officer standing in front of him. His mind worked furiously to make sense of the officer’s words. “I do know her last name. It’s De La Playa.”
The officer wrote that down. “What else?” He waited for a long moment. “Home town, last known employer, a family member’s name, age, I need some place to start. Give me something so I can find her next of kin. They’re going to need to know.”
“I don’t know any of those things. The only thing I can tell you is her name and that she was placed here through some cleaning company called Mermaid Inc., a woman named Summer owns it.”
While the officer radioed that information to headquarters, Justin paced the length of the dock. The port authority boats were out in search of the sharks and any sign of Miranda. So far they’d come up with nothing. He felt like he was going to be sick again. Miranda was gone. He quit walking, unable to move his feet, it was as if his heart had dropped anchor.
“Mr. Lockheed,” the police officer called as he walked toward Justin. “Are you certain about the name of that cleaning company?”
Justin nodded. “Yes, it was printed on the owner’s van with a green and blue logo of a mermaid. Why?”
“There’s no record of any such company.” He glanced down at this notebook. “Nothing for a Miranda De La Playa in the state of California either.” He gazed at Justin thoughtfully. “Did you check her references or research the company before you hired her?”
“No, my regular housekeeper is away for a few weeks. All I know was that Miranda was the replacement.”
“Paperwork with the agency?” the officer prodded. “Any paper trail?”
Justin shook his head. Where was all of this going?
“You speak any Spanish, Mr. Lockheed?”
What an odd question. Again, Justin shook his head. “Why?”
“De La Playa is Spanish for ‘from the beach’.” The way the police officer was staring at him unnerved Justin. It was almost as if he was waiting for Justin to put two and two together.
“So why is that significant?”
“It may not be but we’ve got a cleaning company that doesn’t seem to exist, a woman we can’t seem to identify who you say you first saw on the beach, and she tells you her last name is De La Playa. It makes you wonder.”
“About what?” Justin was rapidly losing patience. “What are you insinuating?”
The policeman shrugged. “Nothing exactly but I just wonder if you’ve been had.” The incredulous expression on Justin’s face prompted the officer to add, “You know, set-up, duped.”
Justin shook his head. Miranda, his Miranda, was the most genuine human being that God ever put on the earth. He may not be privy to her social security number, or be able to recite a litany of what she had been doing since she finished college, but he did know she was not a con woman. “Not Miranda,” he told the officer. “She’s incredibly kind and isn’t capable of being that duplicitous.”
The police officer’s expression made it clear just what he thought of that sentiment but he left it unsaid. “C’mon, you’re not in any shape to drive. I’ll give you a ride home and I’ll take a quick look at your maid’s things to see if we can find any contact information for her family.”
“No, I don’t want to go.” He gestured toward the water. “I want to wait here until they find her. She’ll need me.”
“Look, Mr. Lockheed, I’m sorry about your maid, I really am. But the chances of her being found alive, or found at all, are next to none.” He removed his sun glasses and Justin could see the sympathy in his eyes, which only made him feel worse. “Harbor patrol is out there looking but they’ve not found a single trace of anything.”
Something in his voice, an uncertain hesitancy, gave Justin the chills. “What aren’t you telling me?”
The officer grimaced. “About a hundred yards from where Miss De La Playa entered the water, they found a small area with what appears to be relatively fresh blood in the water.”
“But that could be-”
The officer shook his head, discouraging Justin’s protest. “She’s gone.”
Heartsick, Justin started to follow him toward the patrol car but he stopped at the top of the stairs that led to the parking lot. He turned back to the ocean and his eyes gazed out over the water. Miranda. Beautiful, kind, passionate Miranda. How could she be gone?
***
By the time Miranda arrived at her uncle’s underwater cave, she was beyond angry. Reluctantly, she’d allowed Chelsea to drag her away from the surface. The human search and rescue team had created an absolute commotion, all of which made Miranda feel guilty for the man hours being put into the search. She felt positively heartsick that Justin would think she’d gone to an underwater grave.
“I’ll just leave you here,” Chelsea told her. “I know your uncle would like to speak to you.”
“How brave of you.” Miranda pulled back when it looked like Chelsea wanted to hug her. “I suppose he’s got his tail all in a twist too?”
Chelsea frowned. “He’s worried, if that’s what you mean. You know, Miranda, you’re like a different person than you were a week ago.”
As she watched Chelsea swim away, Miranda realized how true her friend’s words were. She was different. Her time on land had changed her. And although her tail was now back, scales and all, her insides hadn’t made the same transformation. She desperately wanted to swim away to a secluded cove and weep but first she needed to face the inevitable. Uncle Seamus.
With a deep breath for fortification, Miranda swam into her uncle’s cave. This time she didn’t need to look around for him. With his arms crossed over his chest, and a ferocious frown, he was waiting for her.
“Hello, Uncle Seamus.”
“Miranda.”
The silence that followed his terse greeting was deafening. But Miranda was just angry enough that she refused to rush into a defensive explanation.
“What have you done?” her Uncle finally demanded.
“Fallen in love,” the words tumbled out, seemingly without her permission. But she knew it was the truth, even if no one wanted to hear her say it.
Her uncle shook his head. “How could you?”
How indeed? Over little boxes of food they’d shared intimate moments of conversation, it had all just happened so quickly. And so naturally. How could she ever possibly explain it? She raised her chin defiantly. “I don’t know, but it’s true. I love Justin Lockheed.”
Her proclamation caused her uncle to groan as if he’d just been sucker punched.
“And I want to go live on land.”
Just as she’d expected, her uncle looked stricken. “Never. Not in a million underwater years would I ever give you permission to do anything so foolhardy.”
“Uncle Seamus, you don’t understand. You can’t possibly know what happened up there.” She began to swim around the cave, too full of restless energy to stay in one place. “It’s Justin. He’s just so amazing, so handsome, so kind, so sweet, and so-”
“Human,” her uncle interjected. “He’s human. And that is what this comes down to, young lady. You’ve made a mistake, taken a foolish misstep, but this will pass. You’ll forget him.”
Miranda’s response was swift and defiant. “I won’t. Ever.”
“You feel that way now but one day this will all be a memory.” He swam toward her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “No one is upset with you. I’m just worried for you.”
“What about Chelsea?” Miranda’s irritation was so great that if it were a grain of sand, it would be a pearl by the end of the day.
Uncle Seamus apparently took her query as an effort to be conciliatory, which was most definitely not how Miranda meant it.
“You needn’t worry, my girl. Chelsea was just shocked when word reached us that you’d, you know, made an error in judgment.”
“What about the members of the Undersea Rescue Society?” Miranda prodded. “They can’t be pleased about this.”
“Not pleased, no, I can’t pretend they are. I’d say they were befuddled as much as anything. It just doesn’t make any sense to any of us, Miranda. But in fairness, none of us have spent any time on land. We’ve never been cursed with legs either. So we can’t completely understand the pressure you were under.”
“What about my mission? I didn’t finish what I set out to do.” Miranda watched her uncle’s face carefully. His anger was weakening. Her resolve was strengthening. “The one thing we’re all in complete agreement about is that we need to do what we can to stop commercial whaling.”
“Of course, Miranda, you’re right. We’re proud of what you tried to do.” By now her uncle’s tone was soothing, as if she were five years old and he was coaxing her to put away her clamshell collection before bed. “Chelsea’s mother said that if she can recover your cell phone then it’s possible that she can finish up the editing herself.”
“So if she gets the photos and video from my phone she can put together footage that is anything but flattering of Kenji Morimoto.”
Seamus nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right. So, you see, you were successful. Most importantly, you came home just in time, before you were any further ensnared into the human world.”
Except that she hadn’t come home willingly. She’d unwittingly dove headfirst into a trap, foolishly thinking the sharks needed help getting away from the jet skis. It had all been a set up. But why did it have to be the end of the journey for her? The decision about where she wanted to live was hers to make.
Miranda mulled over her options as she swam toward the grotto she shared with Chelsea. Her heart was a whirlpool of conflicting thoughts and emotions, but her mind was clear on her intent. She was going back to land. To Justin. What would happen then, she had no way to know. But she had to find out.
But first, she needed to get her legs back. And that’s where Chelsea came in.
Mermaid Inc. Page 8
