False Mermaid

Nora looked up to see whether they’d sent a patrol officer or a detective to take her statement. The one person she didn’t expect was Frank’s partner, Karin Bledsoe.

“Hello, Dr. Gavin. The ER docs said you kept telling them the crash wasn’t an accident.”

Nora tried to keep her voice calm. “It wasn’t. Somebody jammed the brakes in my car.”

“And who would have any reason to do that?”

“The same man who murdered my sister—Peter Hallett.”

She walked Karin Bledsoe through the events of the previous night, from the time she arrived at Peter’s house to the time she woke up in the ER this morning. There were a few gaps, of course.

Karin Bledsoe listened, and jotted down a few notes. “Do you mind telling me what you were doing parked outside Mr. Hallett’s residence?” she asked.

Nora took that question—and the skeptical look that accompanied it—to mean that Karin Bledsoe had run her name through the computer and come up with the restraining order Peter had filed against her four years ago. Once again, she was coming across as the lunatic stalker, and Peter Hallett as long-suffering victim. “If you just look at my car, you’ll see that somebody jammed the brakes—”

“We checked the vehicle. There was a water bottle rolling around on the driver’s side floor. Is it possible that your own bottle accidentally got stuck under the pedal?”

“It was in the cup holder.”

“And you didn’t notice it missing when you returned to the car?”

“I can’t remember—I wasn’t thinking about water bottles. I was thinking about the person who murdered my sister. What about all those runners and dog walkers along the river road? One of them could have seen something—”

“We’ve got officers working on that. We’ll let you know.”

“And in the meantime, Peter Hallett is about to leave the country tomorrow. I really need to speak to Frank. He doesn’t answer his phone. Could you let him know that I need to talk to him? Please—it’s important.”

“I can pass along a message—but I can’t promise that he’ll get back to you right away.”

“Why—what’s happened to him? Where is he?”

“Detective Cordova is on leave. That’s really all I can say… Thanks for your statement, Dr. Gavin. Here’s my number—” She handed Nora a card. “Call me if you think of anything else, or if you need anything. We’ll be in touch again soon.”

When Karin Bledsoe closed her notebook and stepped away, Nora knew she was on her own. Did the woman seriously think she would drive off an embankment and crash a car, just to implicate Peter Hallett? How could she be sure that Karin Bledsoe would send someone to Peter’s house, check on his movements last night?

Just then, a familiar voice cut through the chaotic noise of the ER. “She’s here, Tom.” Eleanor Gavin pushed back the curtain, taking in the bandage on Nora’s head, the bruises, the IV drip. “Oh, Nora—we’ve been trying to find you all night. We didn’t know where you were.”

Her father stood at the foot of the bed, lack of sleep evident in the dark circles beneath his eyes. “What’s happened, Nora?”

She couldn’t tell them the car wreck wasn’t an accident. “It was stupid—I took a curve too fast, went off the road. I’m all right, really. Nothing broken—just a few bruises. Why were you trying to find me?”

Eleanor Gavin broke down. “Oh, Nora—”

“What is it, Mam? What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone, Nora. Elizabeth’s gone. Peter’s taken her. We were going to go away, the three of us—”

“What happened, Mam?”

Her father said: “Let me, Eleanor. It’s all right, Nora. I know everything. Your mother had just brought Elizabeth back to our house. It was just after nine. We were loading our bags into the car when Peter and Miranda drove up in a limousine, saying they’d talked it over, and decided that Elizabeth was coming along with them after all. They were on their way to the airport.”

Nora looked at her parents in turn. “No—no! They weren’t supposed to leave until Saturday.”

Eleanor seized her hand. “We had to let her go, Nora—what else could we do? What could we have told the police? And Peter saw our bags; he knew what was happening, I’m sure of it. Oh, Nora, I’m so afraid we’ll never see her again.”

4

Cormac watched his father’s eyelids flutter. Surely that was a good sign. Dreaming—if that’s what it was—meant brain activity, at least. The afternoon crawled by as they waited for a sign—any evidence to indicate how much damage the stroke had done. At this point there were no external symptoms—no drooping face, no apparent weakness in his limbs, but the brain controlled all other functions as well: language, sensation, personality. Damage to any of those mysterious bundles of cells could wreak swift havoc.

Roz dozed in the chair beside the window. She was putting a good face on it, but he knew she was confounded. Bollixed before she ever had a chance. They were a strange trio. Anyone looking in might jump to completely erroneous conclusions. Several of the nurses had already taken himself and Roz for a married couple, and he hadn’t the heart to correct them.