False Mermaid

She sat up at the noise of twigs snapping underfoot, the random sounds of someone rummaging through the tangled vines and branches that littered the forest floor. Had someone followed her? It sounded like more than one person. She tried twisting around to see who was coming, but with her leg still buried nearly up to the calf, there was no way to escape. She pressed her back to the ground again, watching and waiting for the trespassers to come into view. When they did, the two pairs of plaintive, dark eyes observing her did not belong to anything human, but to a white-tailed doe and her fawn. The young deer, not yet grown out of his spots, had a twist of vine caught on his slender hind leg. The noise she’d heard was the crashing of his hobble through the underbrush. As they passed in front of her, the mother looked straight at her. Nora didn’t dare blink or breathe. The doe stood still, too, sniffing the air as her offspring flailed his leg in an effort to break free. Finally the vine came loose, and they bounded off together, disappearing silently into the undergrowth.

Relieved to be alone again, she tried pulling her foot from the ground, slow and steady, until at last it came free. She started to climb to her feet, considering that if she hadn’t been out on all those Irish bogs she wouldn’t have known what to do—and no doubt would have lost the shoe.

All at once, a slow, horrible knowledge, a formless cloud of recognition began moving through her, thinking about Tríona’s missing shoe. No one had ever thought to dig for it.

She fell to her knees and began to claw at the earth, not thinking, just scrabbling at the soft peat. She stopped suddenly, holding out her hands to find the nails completely blackened, just as Tríona’s had been. Closing her eyes, she saw her sister being chased through these woods, scrambling and falling through brambles and stinging nettles, finally caught and pinned down—

Nora tried to force the images from her head, but they would not leave. She raised her eyes to take in all the loamy ridges and areas of disturbed earth. At least half a dozen within sight, and many more scattered all through the woods. Every one a perfect place to conceal a body. All those missing women in Frank’s files—how many more might be buried here? Tríona’s words came back: There are things you don’t know… about Peter, about me. I’ve done things, too. You don’t know—unspeakable things—

Nora felt a wave of panic beginning to gather inside her. She began to run, but stumbled forward and fell, waiting to be swallowed up.

8

Nora lay on the damp ground, letting the terrible knowledge rise up out of the earth and seep into her. If Tríona had been here, and if she’d been digging, it could mean that she knew where Natalie Russo’s body was buried—

Isn’t it shocking, what you’ll do when you love someone?

To think of all the times she had listened to those words repeating over and over inside her head, never understanding what they could mean.

All at once there was a commotion a short distance away. Without stopping to think, Nora made a lunge for the fallen tree beside the path, leaping behind it just as two figures, male and female, came into view.

The woman spoke first: “Here it is, Rog. Let’s get set up here—and make sure you get that crime scene tape in the shot.”

Nora recognized the voice—Janelle Joyner, one of the local television reporters who had covered Tríona’s murder. Janelle had boasted to more than a few people that Tríona Hallett was going to be her ticket out of the Twin Cities, maybe even her springboard to national cable news. Evidently not everything had gone according to plan.

Janelle must have come here to tape one of her awful teasers for the evening news. Nora couldn’t bear to listen. She looked down the length of the massive tree trunk, hoping to find a way to escape without being seen, and found herself staring into a pair of dark eyes about ten feet away. A slender Asian man of indeterminate age had concealed himself behind the twisted roots of the same fallen tree. He eyed her warily, no doubt hoping that she wouldn’t raise an alarm. He had a basket slung around him, and a fishing pole in his left hand—could this be the fisherman who’d found Natalie Russo?

Nora raised herself to peer over the log, watching Janelle check her makeup in a compact. When the shot was set, the cameraman gave the signal to go, and Janelle’s face was suddenly transformed. If Nora hadn’t watched her put it on, the look of concern might have seemed real.