The Mermaid and the Murders Read online

  Then I heard it. The perfect feminine giggle. It could only come from one person: Ashley.

  My eyes weren’t the greatest out of the water like this, but once I heard her, I could pick her out. In the center of everyone else (of course) wearing almost nothing for a bathing suit, Ashley was holding court with half a dozen jock guys along with Jennifer and, her third in command, Alexis.

  I sank down to the bottom of the ocean. I’d gotten popular through a stroke of dumb luck. Ashley got an ear infection and had to sit out swimming in our sophomore year. I couldn’t go anywhere near a pool without giving myself away, so I sat on the bleachers with her. We spent weeks sitting there. It wasn’t until junior year that we started bonding. Ashley’s dad was super strict, and only let her go on double dates. She was dating Ryan’s best friend, so the four of us went out a lot. Even then, I’d expected to be punted out of her club when I dumped Ryan this summer. My place in Ashley’s life, and therefore the social pecking order of school, was pretty tenuous.

  I’m not shallow. I don’t care about being popular because I like the attention or anything like that. I care about it because if you’re popular, people let you get away with stuff, like not giving blood during the blood drive or being picky about your lunch. If I turned into some social pariah, people would pick on me until they found out how different I was. Then they’d turn me into a science experiment.

  Still, I looked over at the dead girl, and knew I couldn’t risk letting her drift out to sea. Maybe it was a onetime thing, some dog grabbed her throat, tore it open, and its owner freaked out and dumped her by my place. But then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this person would come back, find me on the reef and tell the world what I was, or worse dump another body. I needed this person, whoever they were, whatever their reasons, out of my ocean. The fastest way to make that happen was to get the police involved, so I pretty much had to make sure the dead girl was found.

  I shook my head, getting water into my gills again. I would have to swim really close to the beach, and let go of the body there. If I was fast, and I took off my blue bikini, they might confuse the dead girl and me. If they saw me, they’d think it was her. That could happen, right?

  Yeah, sure it could, and the girl next to me might grow gills of her own and swim away. I would just have to swim super-fast and count on the hazy water to hide me.

  I grabbed the girl and held her above me, then sprinted with all the speed I had. I got to six feet of water, waited for a wave to come in, and pushed her in to it. I didn’t stay to watch her go; I darted back out into the ocean. By the time I stuck my head up again, I was a hundred feet off shore and panting. Even with my mouth open and my gills working overtime I couldn’t get enough air. I didn’t keep my head up for long though, just long enough to hear Alexis scream.

  ****

  I swam back to my beach slowly, contemplating it all as the color drained out of my world. I liked to swim right around twenty feet, enough pressure on my skin that it felt like Mother Ocean was hugging me, but shallow enough for sunlight, so there were colors. But even at that shallow depth as the sun set the colors fled. Soon the water looked like my mother’s home, dark blues everywhere. I hadn’t felt traumatized when I found the body, but now I did. I swam in stupid Z-shaped patterns, worried someone would throw a body on me. When a shadow passed over me, I almost freaked out before I realized it was only a dolphin. I followed him for a while, holding on to his tail, letting him pull me. Dolphins always cheer me up. They seem happy. I bet they could find half a dozen dead bodies and not be freaked out.

  But the dolphin knew me, knew where I belonged, and soon I was back there, in front of my house, floating in the water. I waved thank you to him, never sure if dolphins understood what mermaids said. If he did understand, I hoped he didn’t realize how much I was faking my gratitude.

  Without a single light on, my house didn’t look very welcoming. No Mom in an apron cooking me dinner, no dinner, nothing. I dove back down and snagged a snapper. I munched the fish the way my mother taught me when I was three: raw, using only my teeth. With the fish almost gone, I didn’t want to go inside yet. I killed some time trying for shrimp, but only got a couple. Knowing it couldn’t be put off any longer; I swam up to the beach and stayed out on the rocks until I got my legs back. Five minutes later, no one would know what I was from the way I walked up the beach, clad in a bikini like everyone else.

  I showered, then hit the books. Mom was content to swim all day but I wanted knowledge, book knowledge, something she never cared about having. So I cracked open the books and got to it. Mom didn’t want me to stay on dry land for long, definitely not long enough to go to college, so AP classes were it for me. I wasn’t going to waste the chance to learn something, even if all I ever did with it was impress other mermaids.

  I stayed up late studying, letting myself escape into schoolwork. Thoughts of Sam came back to me, and I spent a couple of hours on the Internet reading everything I could about salt golems. I turned out my light just after midnight. Something out on the ocean bothered me for a few minutes until I pulled my curtains tight. Normally I slept with them open, but something…

  I was half-asleep when I realized what the something was: a boat, not far from my house out on the water. Almost exactly over the spot where I’d found the girl.

  ****

  Less than twelve hours after I’d carried the dead girl to shore, it felt strange to squeeze into the car the next morning, smelling Sarah’s perfume and squishing my backpack by my feet, as if everything was normal. I wanted to say something, but I knew I shouldn’t. I needed to know what had happened, if anyone saw me, but I couldn’t ask. I had to depend on Ashley’s need to be the center of attention and tell the story.

  “So what’s the latest?” I asked the car. “Anything going on?”

  “I snuck into a club downtown and got digits from a college hottie,” Sarah bragged.

  “Nice.” I gave her a grin.

  “What about you?” Sarah replied, but Ashley cut her off.

  “Whatever Danny did, it’s nothing compared to our night.” Ashley checked her face in the rearview mirror. She’d done something with her makeup, some weird raccoon eyes thing. I’m sure it was meant to be subtle. Instead, she looked tired.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  “We had a back-to-school party on the beach,” Jennifer started, but Ashley cut her off right away.

  “Well first, I called up that new boy, Sam, and invited him out to the party.”

  Without Heather, there were only two of us to make jealous noises. Mine came a little late. I knew Ashley was going to make her move, but I didn’t realize it was going to be so fast. For a minute, I felt sad about it, about Sam falling under her spell so soon.

  “And he turned me down flat. Told me he’d already met someone, but thanks for asking.” Ashley pouted in the most artistic way possible.

  “That’s the worst,” Sarah declared.

  “Oh no, that’s not the worst. Not by a long shot. When I finally got to the beach, there was a dead body on the shore.”

  Sarah gasped and I did the same. In the front seat, Jennifer didn’t react. I tried to catch her eyes, to see if I could catch a clue to what she felt or saw but she was hiding behind heavy sunglasses. Now that Ashley had pounced on her once, I figured she wouldn’t say anything for the rest of the ride.

  “O-M-G! What did you do?” Sarah said, sounding like a fool. She was trying to make it up to Ashley for being wrong a second ago. I knew she needed a comforting squeeze or something, but I cared more about leaning forward to hear everything Ashley had to say.

  “I panicked. I mean, I lost it. She was beaten up, she looked terrible. Her nails were chipped and everything. Thankfully, Justin was there. He called the cops.” Ashley turned the car into the school parking lot. “I’m so glad Justin took care of me. It makes me realize how some people just aren’t worth it.”

  Her eyes were on Sam,
who was walking into the building.

  “Don’t you agree, Jennifer?”

  Jen did, and then the back seat agreed too.

  “So is that why Heather’s out? Was she at the party too?” I asked as we all climbed out of the car but Ashley was already walking away from me.

  “She went to the club with me,” Sarah said, her voice quiet. “She left with some guy. She’s been texting all morning about how awesome his hotel room is.”

  Sarah waved and went into the building, Jennifer lingered though, letting the crowd of people put some distance between her and Ashley.

  “You okay with last night?”

  “No. Not at all. The body that Ashley’s so broken up about was a girl named Tiffany. We had classes together. She’d gone on to Community.” Her voice became empathic. “I knew her. She deserves better than to be Ashley’s excuse to gossip for a day.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s more than that. The police wanted to keep everyone there, but Ashley didn’t want to bother. Alexis was there, and you know her dad’s all high and mighty. So, the next thing you know, the cops are driving us home. I think I saw someone else in the water, though. I’m not sure, but they needed to stay and check, not drive us around. We could’ve gone home with the guys or in the same cars we used to get there.”

  “Someone else in the water?” She’d probably seen me. Oh man, that wasn’t good at all.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Jennifer chewed at her bottom lip. “But I know someone should’ve checked it out.”

  The bell rang in the building warning us we had five minutes to make it to our desks.

  “We should go.” I put my hand on Jennifer’s arm and she nodded.

  “I think I might find another way to get home tonight, another way in tomorrow.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “You know what Ashley would do?”

  “The same thing she does to anyone who pisses her off: she’ll ignore me completely and then turn the school against me.” Jennifer seemed to accept her fate, but the idea scared me.

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  She didn’t even pause to think before she said, “It’s better than what happened to Tiffany.”

  I watched her walk away for a second, admiring her bravery. After another two steps, I decided Jennifer could afford to be brave. I couldn’t risk the whole school turning on me. If they did, and I somehow managed to escape being dissected, I’d end up permanently underwater with Mom. I didn’t even want to think about it.

  News of Tiffany’s body washing up during a beach party was all over school. I spent seven classes thinking I was sick of hearing about it, only to get into the car in driver’s ed desperate to talk to Sam about it.

  “Heard you skipped one heck of a party last night,” I started before he got his seat belt clipped.

  “We’re parallel parking. Have you ever done that?”

  “Never. Don’t you want to talk about the party?”

  “Line the middle of the car up with the first cone, then reverse with the wheel turned toward the curb. Halfway there, cut the wheel back the other way.”

  “Great advice, but the party?” I gestured for him to go on and tell me while I lined the car up with the cone like he’d said.

  “A girl is dead. That isn’t some rumor everyone should be talking about. She deserves some respect.”

  “Funny, Jennifer said the same thing to me this morning. It’s probably going to make her an outcast by tomorrow afternoon.” I drove over the cone behind the car, flattening it.

  “You disagree with her?”

  “Oh no.” I put the car in park and went back to retrieve the cone. When I got back to the car, I continued, “I just think it isn’t as easy as that.”

  “As easy as defending what you believe in?”

  “You know, this isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”

  “Really? Because everyone else does.”

  “No, I wanted to talk about what you said to Ashley, about how you couldn’t go to the party because…” I left the sentence for him to finish.

  “Oh.” He flushed, his neck turning an adorably pink shade under his tan skin. “I can see why you’d want to talk about that.”

  “So…?”

  The corners of his mouth pulled up but he didn’t quite smile. “I didn’t want to go out with your best friend before I got to know you.”

  “Yeah!” I gave a tiny cheer, then blushed myself. “That was stupid, wasn’t it?”

  “It was cute.”

  “But stupid.”

  “Maybe a little bit.”

  I wanted to lean over and punch him on the arm, do something to keep the perfect flirty vibe going, but I’d once again hit a cone, the one in front this time, so I had to get out of the car.

  “Next time, I’ll get the cone,” he said.

  “Maybe there won’t be a next time.”

  “Maybe, but you aren’t really concentrating.”

  “It’s hard to concentrate when you know a boy said no to Ashley, The Ashley, because of you.”

  “The Ashley? Like there’s only one?”

  “Well, there was another one, but Ashley made her give up her name.”

  “Give up her name?”

  “Uh-huh,” I nodded and concentrated on lining up the car just right. “We were all in fifth grade. Before that it was Ashley H. and Ashley W. Then Ashley, the one and only Ashley, decided she didn’t want to share any more. She threatened the other girl, who decided it was easier to go by Lee.”

  “Ashley sounds like a bully.”

  I would’ve shrugged but I had to turn the wheel too much. “How about we don’t talk about her anymore?”

  “I think that’s a good idea. But then, I’m the one who turned her down.”

  “That you did. And for me, too. We should talk about that some more.”

  He laughed, and it made me smile. His laugh sounded natural and it didn’t come at anyone’s expense. “Okay, let’s talk about it. I’m an old fashioned guy.”

  “Goes along with the salt golem thing.” I tested the waters to see if he would tell me that was all just a joke. Instead, he nodded.

  “Exactly. So I think if I’m going to date you, I shouldn’t be going to beach parties with another girl.”

  “I like that idea.”

  “Dating, or not going to parties with another girl?”

  “Both, actually. Are we going on a date?”

  “Did you just ask me?” He laughed, and this time I joined him. I laughed so hard I ran over another cone.

  “I got it.” He hopped out of the car and jumped back in a second later. “Danika, would you like to have dinner with me sometime?”

  It sounded oddly formal, but of course I said, “Yes.”

  “Good. Now that it’s settled, you should really work on parking.”

  “We haven’t decided when or where yet.” I eyed up both cones. “How about tonight?”

  “A school night?”

  I ignored his question and turned the wheel, then gently rolled backwards.

  “Friday night, and how about seafood?”

  “It’s a date.” And with that, I drove over the cone in front of me.

  Chapter Two

  I swam that night, hanging out in my spot, following fish around the reef. I didn’t stay long. There was homework and texting with Ashley and the rest of the gang. Jen not riding home with us caused a bit of a stir.

  I had lots to do, but mostly I thought about Sam. I thought about him all night and most of the next day at school. Getting into Ashley’s car, I kept coming back to the things I didn’t know about him, like if the salt golem thing was real. If I told someone I was a mermaid, they’d think I was lying. But that didn’t mean Sam was lying. Just like being cute and nice didn’t mean he was telling the truth. After obsessing about it for hours and nearly blowing up the room in chemistry, I realized all I could do was ask him during drivers’ ed. It took forever, but eventually I sat
in the car ready to ask him everything. But I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t want him to feel trapped.

  “You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts,” he said.

  “You could say that.”

  “I hope you don’t want to cancel our date.”

  “And miss my chance at moving to the number one spot on Ashley’s hit list? Never.” I took a breath and then took the risk. “So are you willing to talk about this vampire thing?”

  “I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But use the right word: salt golem. Vampire is so cliché. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Okay. How’d it happen? How’d you become a salt golem? Some girl bit you and…”

  “It’s not like that. It’s genetic. I was born this way.”

  “Really?” Now that was an interesting departure from all the movies.

  “Both my parents are like this. And we don’t live forever; that’s a myth. It just takes a really long time to age.”

  “Oh, like—” I clamped my mouth shut before the word slipped out, because it was right there on the tip of my tongue. Like me, like mermaids.

  “Like what?”

  “It’s stupid. From a movie. Ignore me and go on.”

  “Yeah, the movies get everything wrong. Sunlight doesn’t bother me at all.” He wiggled his fingers in a shaft of light coming through the car’s window to demonstrate. “I don’t mind garlic. And it’s not blood I need, but salt.”

  “Any particular flavor of salt? Black? Pink?” I tried to think of all the salts I’d seen on TV.

  “Sea salt. The cleaner, the better.”

  “Good to know. Got anything more to tell me about how it all works?”

  “There’s folklore out there that says we were formed from sea salt. Any cuts I get, I put salt on them and they heal. I’m not demonic. There’s nothing in the Bible that talks about us; just the legends we have and some stories.”

  Mermaids were the same way. We had our songs about creation, and our own belief system. The Bible never even mentioned Mother Ocean. I nodded.