The Midnight Lullaby

by Cheryl Low

  Calvin was fit, and he was the kind of bastard that walked around like he didn't know it. Val, of course, didn't mind because, aside from being pleasant to look at, Calvin was a smug, funny, cocky sort of person who did amazing work filming in the water.

  Lochner, on the other hand, she had never once seen off his boat. Not even in the water. In fact, Val was fairly certain she had never even seen him out of a thick sweater. He was a big man with large brown eyes and a beard that was very close to being too much. He wore a knitted ski cap all of the time, but Val could vaguely remember seeing sun-bleached curls sticking out from under it once before. While Calvin could talk for hours, Lochner kept his sentences short and rare. It insured that, when he did give a command, it got attention.

  She supposed they were a lot like their mugs. Different, but both on this ship, day after day, traveling the oceans like it was all home to them.

  Val looked Calvin in the eye and put another spoonful of sugar in her cup before defiantly stirring it into a thick sludge.

  He smiled, sunglasses clipped to the collar of today's t-shirt—vintage X-men. "Found out about the ex coming aboard, did you?"

  Val frowned deeper.

  Calvin shrugged and picked up his coffees. "All passengers had to be cleared with Loch," he explained his know-how and turned away from her, heading toward the narrow stairs that led above deck.

  "You could have warned me." She was sure he was still smiling.

  "Could have," he agreed and then disappeared, an expert at carrying multiple full cups up the stairs of a swaying ship.

  Val leaned her hip into the linoleum-coated counter and took a sip of her sweet fuel. She could hear the voices above deck. Henry had caught sight of Calvin on his way up and tried to stop him for an interview, but based on the awkward way his words dropped off, Calvin hadn't stopped in his route to the wheelhouse.

  She took another sip, wondering already what she was supposed to tell those cameras. The same old stuff, she guessed. Who she was, where they were, what they were there to do, and why her. Why her was a good question. She smiled and put the lip of her mug to her mouth again. The answers were always the same. It was her job to be here because she knew the ocean and the things living in it. She was also here because her sister was the one obsessed with the island and couldn't have gathered the funding for an island expedition that may turn up nothing unless she'd promised the sure bet of shark footage for the channel. Most of all, Valarie DeNola was here because she was the fool willing to get into the water every time they gave her a chance.

  One of the cabin doors opened, and Oliver Camden walked out. His short coppery hair stuck out on one side, and his skin was shaded in deep tans, hinting at the shapes of shirts he wore when sunburned. Despite bedhead, he appeared bright-eyed and ready for the day. In fact, he looked like he'd been up for a while—freshly shaven and dumping an armful of maps, rulers, pens, and a tablet onto the communal table. Val frowned because she was pretty sure he wasn't going to move that shit anytime soon by the way he immediately started spreading it all out and used cups for weights at the corners of maps.

  She took another deep swallow of caffeine and sugar and watched him. He didn't look her way or say anything to acknowledge her. At least three minutes of silence stretched out between them while Val stared at his profile, trying to decide if she was being ignored or if he was just oblivious.

  At last, he looked up. But not at her. Oliver swiveled around in the tight space and noticed for the first time that something was missing.

  He marched three steps and pounded his fist against a narrow cabin door. "Maeko!" he shouted through the thin wood. A grumbling came from inside. "Get the fuck up, girl!" he hollered, Irish accent thick. "I'll leave you behind if you're not ready to go in an hour." His eagerness looked greedy, and he hadn't even gotten into the water yet. Val already hated the idea of him actually finding anything worthwhile but was also pretty sure he'd make for a great show. Cameras love douchebags.

  Maeko Watanabe practically stumbled out of her cabin, scrubbing her face to try to convince herself she was awake.

  "Coffee?" Val suggested.

  Maeko scrunched her face as though offended by the idea, but shuffled closer, drawn by the gravitation of caffeine. She pushed up the long sleeves of her tight shirt and clawed fingers through her long black hair, dragging the mess back from her pale face and binding it with one of the hair ties around her wrist.

  Val scooted to the side to let the shorter woman by. She fumbled for a mug, eyes still blinking a little too slowly. Val tried not to smile.

  "Get me a cup," Oliver said in that casual way, completely certain one of them would do it. Val stood there long enough to see that Maeko pretended successfully not to have heard him, filling her own cup and drinking it on her way to the bathroom.

  Oliver looked up from his maps when he realized he still didn't have his coffee, and for the first time that morning, his blue eyes landed on Val. She did smile then and took a sip from her cup before turning away from him. It was going to be a long week. She climbed the narrow stairs back into the rising daylight while he grumbled a curse and got his own coffee.

  "I killed my parents when I was thirteen years old."

  And now, with the murder of Missy Blake twenty-two years later, it's time for Jack Greene to finish what he started.

  When the co-ed's mutilated body is found, the police are clueless, but Jack knows what killed the pretty college student; he's been hunting it for years. The hunt has been going on for too long, though, and Jack wants to end it, but he can't do it alone. The local police aren't equipped to handle the monster in their midst, so Jack recruits Major Kelly Langston, and together they set out to rid the world of this murdering creature once and for all.

  A lost child.

  A marriage shattered beyond repair?

  John Baxter doesn't think so, which is why he has planned this weekend getaway with his wife. He expected a lot of shouting, a lot of tears, but in the end, he hoped to have a stronger foundation upon which they could start rebuilding what they had once had.

  What he wasn't expecting was the home invasion…and the hell that awaited them beneath the rented cabin.