Sea Witch (13 page)

themselves or their abusers. If Maggie knew her attacker . . .

Caleb shook his head. He wanted to trust her. More, he wanted her to

trust him.

“The doctor suspects concussion,” he said. “She may never

remember. Which is why I’d really appreciate your help.”

Reynolds shrugged. “I’m here. I’ll transport your boxes for you. But

I can’t promise we’ll find anything.”

They hauled cartons in the rain, in and out of Caleb’s Jeep, down the

dock and onto the ferry. By the time they were done, Caleb was sweating

under his yellow police slicker and his leg felt as though he’d gone three

rounds with Vlad the Physical Therapist. But it was worth the pain to

save half a day traveling to the crime lab in Augusta.

99

Caleb signed off on the evidence log and drove the two blocks back

to town hall.

“Edith.” He greeted her as he passed her desk.

The town clerk looked up from her filing. “Antonia Barone is

waiting for you.”

Caleb stopped. “In my office?”

Edith looked down her nose at him. “She’s not out here, is she?”

“Right. Thanks.”

Shit.

At least Edith had warned him. Caleb had been a cop for nine years,

a detective for six of them. He knew community relations were as much a

part of the job as public safety. But when he was a kid, Regina’s mother,

Antonia, had scared the shit out of him. Even now, she was intimidating.

She was also his boss.

He limped to his office and found her fidgeting in front of his desk,

wearing an oversized jacket and a red slash of lipstick.

“Mayor.” He greeted her cautiously.

She snorted. “Let’s cut the mayor crap now. The only reason I took

this job was because Peter Quincy wouldn’t serve a fourth term and the

council couldn’t find anybody else to put up against that asshole

Whittaker.”

Caleb’s lips twitched. “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out the ugly molded

chair and gestured for her to sit. “What can I do for you?”

She plopped down, fixing him with hard, dark eyes. “You can tell

me what the hell is going on. Every idiot who’s dropped by the shop for a

cup of coffee is saying some woman from Away got herself raped up at

the point last night.”

Caleb clamped his jaw. “There was an assault, yes. The nature of the

woman’s injuries hasn’t been determined yet.”

100

Antonia scowled, clearly unsatisfied.

“Summer girl?”

The island population consisted of year-rounders; summer people,

who came back to the island year after year; and tourists. Time and

community service sometimes blurred the divisions, but they were still

felt among the island natives.

“First-timer,” Caleb said.

Antonia nodded once.

“Well, that’s something.”

Caleb swallowed his anger. Antonia didn’t know Maggie, he

reminded himself. An attack on a tourist struck at the islanders’ sense of

safety and their wallets; an attack on one of their own struck at their

hearts.

“But it still doesn’t make us look good,” Antonia continued darkly.

“It doesn’t make us look
safe
.”

And public safety, her tone suggested, was his responsibility.

He happened to agree with her.

“I’m working on it,” Caleb said.

“Hm. I heard you shut down half the island.”

Caleb leaned back in his chair, refusing to be baited. “I limited

access on Ocean View and Old Wharf Roads and the north hiking trail.

Hardly half the island.”

“I had some tourists from the ferry in the shop this morning

complaining they couldn’t picnic on the point.”

He raised his eyebrows. “It’s pouring rain. Sell them some breakfast

and send them to the gift shop until it clears.”

Antonia barked with laughter. “Already did.”

101

He stood again. “Then, if that’s all—”

Antonia didn’t budge. “I like you,” she said unexpectedly. “Didn’t

think I would. I don’t like your father, and I never had much use for that

mother of yours. But at least you understand how we do things around

here.”

“I understand,” Caleb said dryly. Too well to take offense anymore

at comments about his parents. “That doesn’t mean I’ll let it interfere

with how I do my job.”

“Fair enough. What are you going to do next?”

Was she asking as mayor of World’s End, trying to stay apprised of

a troublesome investigation? Or was she merely curious?

“I need to canvass the houses in the area, ask if anybody saw or

heard anything on the point last night.”

“Last night everybody was at the school assembly.”

Not everybody. Not Maggie.

Not the son of a bitch who had attacked her either.

“You could help me out,” Caleb suggested. “Make a list of who was

there that you remember.”

Antonia studied him. “I guess I could do that. You should come by

the restaurant later. Talk to Regina.”

He intended to. He intended to talk to a lot of people. “Did she see

something? Say something?”

Antonia snorted. “You think that girl talks to me?”

“Then—”

Antonia’s face turned an uncharacteristic red. “I just thought maybe

you’d like to see her.”

Was she matchmaking? The possibility left him amused and maybe a

little flattered. Embarrassed.

102

“I do need to talk to her. To one of you,” he amended.

“Are you still hiring for the summer?”

“We’re always hiring. Kids around here can make more money

fishing for lobster, and the ones from Away don’t know how to work.

Lucy looking for a job now that school’s out?”

“Not Lucy, Maggie. The woman who was attacked last night,” Caleb

explained. “She might need something to tide her over for a while.”

“She have any experience?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

He knew too damn little about her.

“Hm.” Antonia got to her feet, gathering her jacket around her.

“Well, bring her by. Reggie can talk to her.”

Caleb wasn’t sure if Antonia was pushing off the new hire as a way

of throwing him together with Regina or as a form of punishment.

Antonia had never forgiven her only daughter for leaving the island and

the restaurant. Or maybe she hadn’t forgiven her for coming back

unmarried with a two-month-old son in tow. Either way, Maggie had a

job interview. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, it’s business. Speaking of which, I need to get

back to my kitchen.”

“I’ll see you out,” Caleb said.

Antonia waved him off. “Don’t bother. It’s raining.”

“I’m going out anyway. Those calls,” he reminded her.

At least the rain would keep people home, where he could find them.

“You’ll get soaked,” Antonia predicted with dour anticipation.

Caleb locked his office door. “I don’t mind a little rain.”

103

In Iraq, he’d lived with dust. Dust and heat. From May to September,

the shamal blew from the northwest, kicking up clouds of sand that found

their way through every chink into every crease and canteen. Each day

he’d felt his soul dehydrating, bits of himself withering and blowing away

like dust. At night he had dreamed of the rain. Of the rain and the sea.

Caleb grimaced as he descended the town hall steps. So pulling

twenty-four-hour shifts hadn’t been part of his dreams. He was back,

wasn’t he? He was home, doing the job he was trained to do in the

community he was sworn to protect.

He just hoped it was enough.

* * * *

He wasn’t coming.

Margred ran her hands over her hips, chafed by the elastic of her

unfamiliar undergarment and an even more unfamiliar disappointment.

He was coming
later
. Because it was
raining
. She sneered at her

image in the mirror. As if a little rain would make him melt.

“Don’t you like it?” Lucy asked beside her.

“It” was the dress Lucy had pulled from her closet for Margred to try

on.

Margred smoothed the blue material over her thighs, inspecting her

reflection in the glass above the bedroom dresser. She had washed the

blood and sand out of her hair last night. Her face was pale, her eyes

looked bruised, and the swollen purple bump on her head was bisected by

a line of ugly stitches.

Still, if she must wear clothing, this garment was certainly more

flattering than the oversized shirt she had worn all morning.

She offered the girl a smile. “It fits. The other—those jeans—made

me look like a haggis.”

Lucy picked up the discarded jeans from the floor and folded them.

“That’s because I’m tall and skinny and you’re, um . . . you’re—”

104

Margred narrowed her eyes. “Short and fat?” she inquired sweetly.

Lucy exhaled on a laugh. “No! God, no. It’s just that you have, you

know, a figure. Curves. Anyway, you look great in that dress. A lot better

than I do.”

Very likely. On the hanger, the simple sleeveless dress had

resembled a sack. It probably hung from Lucy’s angular shoulders the

same way.

Margred eyed her consideringly. “You are attractive. You look . . .

strong.”

This time, Lucy’s laughter bubbled out. “Yeah, that’s what I always

wanted to hear. I ran track in college,” she volunteered.

“Ah,” Margred said, as if she had the faintest idea what the girl was

talking about.

She turned back to the mirror. The blue fabric poured over her

curves like water over rocks. Only the elastic cutting into her hip spoiled

the flowing line. Reaching under the skirt, she tugged the panties down

her legs.

“Much better,” she pronounced.

Lucy goggled. “Yes, but—”

“What?”

“Don’t you feel a little, um . . .”

“Comfortable?”

“Naked.”

Margred looked in the mirror again. She didn’t see the problem. All

the parts that humans kept covered were covered. “No.”

“Well . . .” Lucy’s grin transformed her face. “Caleb’s going to

swallow his tongue when he sees you.”

Margred tossed her head and then winced. “If he ever gets here.”

105

She was not accustomed to waiting, for Caleb or any other man. She

was not used to depending on others for clothes, for food, for

transportation.

For survival.

“It’s not like you could go to the beach now anyway,” Lucy pointed

out in a reasonable tone that made Margred’s hackles rise. “Not in this

rain.”

“I do not mind the rain.”

Water was her element. She could turn the current and control the

waves. She could warm the surface of the sea to create fog or cool the air

to make the rain fall. She could . . . The possibility bloomed and quivered

inside her like a pink sea coral.

She could make it stop raining.

Or not.

What else had she lost, along with her pelt?

Her head throbbed.

“Are you all right?” Lucy asked.

“I . . . yes,” she said slowly.
Maybe
.

Tentatively, she sought the glimmer deep within her, sinking down

through levels of awareness like a shell tumbling to the ocean floor, gold

to blue to green to gray. Her breathing slowed. Pressure built in her chest.

Maybe there . . .

Or there, a buried gleam gone too quickly to identify. She opened

her eyes to find Lucy staring at her with worried gray-green eyes.

Caleb’s eyes
, Margred thought. Her breath hitched. “I need to be

outside.”

“I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “It’s raining. And your head—”

“My head is fine,” Margred said firmly.

106

Her pulse pounded behind her eyeballs. She dismissed the pain. Her

head was probably going to hurt a lot worse before she was done.

She descended the narrow stairs, one hand on the banister for

balance.

Lucy trailed behind her, complaining. “My brother told me to take

care of you.”

“Your brother is not here.”

That was the problem. Part of the problem.

One she intended to remedy.

Margred had never been much of a weather shaper, any more than

she was a magic handler. Why bother? As she had told Lucy, she did not

mind a little rain. And messing with the water cycle was generally not a

good idea.

But if she could . . . Her heart beat faster.

She had to try. Not simply because Caleb refused to take her to the

beach, but because she needed to know her own limits.

Downstairs, the house felt even darker and more cramped. Unlike

the tourist boxes built along the beach with wide windows to admit the

view, this cottage had been constructed and positioned to withstand the

worst that winter and the sea could throw at it. The darkness did not

bother Margred. Even in human form, her eyes adjusted easily to the