Sea Witch (19 page)

serious green eyes.

“I do,” she said.

As much as she was able, she amended to herself.

Caleb reached across the table and clasped her hand. His hand was

firm and steady. The mer were sensual creatures, but they rarely touched

outside of mating or nursing offspring. That warm, strong clasp was

oddly . . . comforting. “Then I need you to tell me the truth.”

“The truth,” she repeated cautiously.

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“Tell me what happened the other night.”

“I don’t remember.”

The cool disappointment in his eyes was worse than a slap.

“No, really,” she insisted. With an effort, she forced her mind to go

back. Selkies lived immersed in the sensation of the moment. It was not

their way to dwell on past unpleasantness. But for Caleb’s sake, she

would force herself to recall.

“I had just . . . arrived on the beach when I was attacked. Struck.”

Her lip curled in self-disgust. “I must have made it easy for him. I am not

usually so unaware.”

“Him.”

“My attacker.”

“You’re sure it was a man, then.”

She frowned. “I assumed . . . There was movement.” She flapped her

left hand in the air just behind her head to demonstrate. “Above and

behind me. I thought . . . It would have to be a man. Or a very tall

woman.”

Who smelled like fire spawn
.

Best not to tell him that.

“Okay, that’s good,” Caleb said. She blinked. When had he pulled

out his notebook? “So, you never saw him. His face.”

“No,” she said definitely.

“But you can guess who it was.”

What
. Not who.

“No.”

Caleb’s eyes, green and steady, held hers. “You notice anything

else? A sleeve, maybe. A shoe. Anything.”

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She shook her head. “I was stunned. I fell. I do remember—”

Caleb’s attention sharpened. “What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“A smell,” she admitted reluctantly.

“A smell,” he repeated. “Can you describe it?”

A demon smell
. No, she couldn’t say that. But she had promised to

tell the truth. “It was . . . very pungent. A burning smell. Like sulphur.”

“The bonfire maybe,” Caleb suggested.

She shrugged.

“What was he burning?”

“What?”

“The other night, you said . . .” Caleb flipped pages in his notebook.

“ ‘I need what he took from me . . . in the fire.’ What did he take from

you, Maggie?”

“I don’t—”

—remember
.

But she couldn’t say that, she had promised not to say that, they had

a deal. “I can’t say.”

“You weren’t wearing anything when I found you.” Caleb’s voice

was gentle.

She bit her lip. “No.”

“You want to tell me about that?”

She had stepped out of her pelt. She remembered folding it, hiding it

in a recess in the cliff. Heart quickening in anticipation, she had

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approached the curve of the rock, when she heard—felt?—the attack

explode out of the dark behind her, slamming her onto the rocks. Pain

burst in her head. She crumpled. And felt the fierce, consuming will of

another licking at her flesh, rolling over her like smoke. She fled its

possession into unconsciousness.

Shuddering, she pressed her fingers to her head.

“Can I get you anything?” Caleb asked, his voice gentle. Inexorable.

“More coffee. Water, maybe.”

She swallowed. “No. No, I am fine.”

“Your clothes,” he prompted. “What happened to them?”

“I took them off.”

“Why?”

“I was . . . swimming.”

“You took your clothes off to go swimming,” Caleb repeated

without expression.

She raised her head. “Yes.”

“Did you plan on swimming?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Is that why you went to the beach that night?” He rephrased the

question. “You wanted to go swimming?”

“No, I told you. I wanted to see you.”

“After three weeks, you suddenly decided—what? You had to see

me?”

She felt the dangerous shift, like the warning tug of the tide, and

reacted instinctively to protect herself. “Poor Caleb. Did you wait for me?

Were your feelings hurt?”

“Maggie—”

153

“I was there. What more do you want me to say?”

His mouth set in a firm, flat line. “So, you arrived at the beach. What

time?”

“The sun had just set,” she offered. “The tide was almost at the full.”

“I’ll check the tide tables. You didn’t happen to look at your watch?”

“I was not wearing a watch,” she said with perfect truth.

“What time did you leave your house?”

She was silent.

“Maggie?”

She did not, could not, answer him.

Caleb sighed. “Okay, we’ll let that go for now. How did you get

there?”

“I don’t understand.”

“We didn’t find a car. Did you walk?”

“I . . . may have.”

“So, you came through the trees . . .” He paused expectantly.

“From around the rocks,” she said. “Where we—where you climbed

down the other day.”

“Good. You came down the path?”

“No.”

“How did you get to the beach, Maggie?”

You can trust me
, he’d said.

He wanted the truth
, he’d said.

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So she gave it to him.

“I swam.”

His palms slapped the table. “Damn it, Maggie, we have a deal. No

games, no lies. Remember?”

Margred’s indignation mingled with regret. So much for telling the

truth. If he could not handle “
I swam
,” he was not likely to deal well with

“
I am an immortal selkie trapped in mortal form—oh, and your mother

was, too
.”

She settled back in her chair, arching her eyebrows. “The deal I

remember is, no games, no lies . . . and no badgering. Or have you

forgotten that part?”

“I’m trying to help you,” Caleb grated.

“Then respect that I might have reasons—good reasons—for what I

say or do not say.”

“I can’t protect you if you won’t talk to me.”

He could not protect her in any case, Margred thought with a tear at

her heart. But she knew him well enough now to realize he would never

accept that answer.

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Twelve

"THIS ISN’T CSI: AUGUSTA,” SAM REYNOLDS told Caleb

three days later. “These things take time. You know that. If you’re

looking for the presence of an accelerant—”

“I’m not.” Caleb sat at his desk, Maggie’s file open on the desk

before him and the receiver tucked under his jaw. He needed the state’s

resources. He respected Reynolds’s expertise. But this was still his case.

His woman. “The evidence was recovered from a bonfire. The debris

could be soaked in lighter fluid and it wouldn’t tell me a thing about the

assailant except he sucked at starting fires. I need a biochemical analysis

of anything he could have used as a weapon.”

“Basically, all your fire debris. Which, like I said, is going to take

time.”

Donna Tomah had said the same thing when Caleb saw her

yesterday. “
Recovering memories takes time
.”

Caleb stared down at Maggie’s photo: the ugly gash on her forehead;

the wide, exotic mouth; the dark, unfathomable eyes. How could he

protect her when he didn’t know who she was? Or what she was running

from?

“What about the rape kit?” he asked Reynolds.

“Results won’t do you any good without something to compare them

to.”

“You can run them through the criminal databases.”

“Assuming her assailant has priors,” Reynolds said.

“That’s why I want results on the debris. If we can identify a

weapon—”

“Or a suspect.”

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Frustration jabbed Caleb. “I don’t have a suspect. I have jack shit.”

“Sucks for you,” Reynolds said. “Look, this case may be big news

where you are, but it’s not a priority here unless—”

“It’s a homicide,” Caleb finished grimly. “Got it. Thanks.”

“At least your victim is still alive.”

More alive than anyone he’d ever known. She burned with life like a

fever. Even her body temperature was hot.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“She talking yet?”

“Nope.”

“She’s not a fugitive, is she?”

It was a reasonable question. Caleb had asked himself the same

thing. “Not according to NCIC. Her fingerprints don’t match anything on

file.”

“So, no criminal history. You check Missing Persons?”

“I’m telling you, she’s not in the database. There’s a sixteen-year-old

girl went missing downstate twenty years ago, no fingerprints on record.

But the profile doesn’t match—wrong age, wrong eye color.”

“You could put out a press release,” Reynolds suggested. “Appeal to

the public. You know, ‘Police seek help identifying beautiful naked

woman,’ that kind of thing. You’d get a lot of responses.”

“From every crackpot and crazy within five hundred miles. No,

thanks.”

“How do you know
she’s
not crazy?”

Tension lodged at the base of Caleb’s skull. He massaged the back

of his neck with one hand, holding the phone in the other. “She’s not.”

“Just forgetful,” Reynolds said dryly.

157

“She has a concussion.”

“She bumped her head. Doesn’t mean she’s telling you the truth.”

Suspicious bastard.

But he was right. Caleb didn’t know what troubled him more—that

Maggie could be lying to him or that he wanted so desperately to believe

in her.

“I’m trying to talk her into seeing a neurologist on the mainland. Get

a CT scan, do some memory retrieval techniques, ” he said.

“Right,” Reynolds said. “Pump her with enough amobarbital, she

might relax enough to answer a few questions. ”

“I was thinking hypnosis.”

“Sure. If you want the DA to throw out her account in court.”

Caleb’s jaw tightened until his back teeth ground together. “You got

any better ideas?”

“Not really. Have you considered maybe your Jane Doe—”

“Her name is Maggie.”

“Right. Have you considered maybe she doesn’t
want
to be

identified?”

“Hiding from somebody.”

“That, or somebody’s already caught up with her, and she’s

protecting him.”

Caleb had considered that, all right. Maggie was living with him.

Sleeping with him. He knew she liked her coffee sweet and her sex fast

and rough. But how well did he really know
her
?

He had a sudden, vivid memory of Maggie smiling and playing with

the cat under the table. “
It suffers me to touch it, to pet it
.
But they do not

own the cat
.” Her gaze met his. “
Any more than you would own me if I

choose to stay with you.
”

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“Just see what you can do to move things along on your end,” he

told Reynolds.

And he would do the same, Caleb thought, hanging up the phone.

Maybe Maggie didn’t want to remember. That’s what amnesia was

all about, wasn’t it? The mind protecting itself against things too terrible

to recall.

He pushed away the memories of Iraq, of Jackson’s boot, of Danny’s

face . . .

Hell, he’d like nothing better than to forget himself.

As long as Caleb was prepared to ignore his job, forget his

responsibilities, he could play house and pretend. Pretend that his leg

wasn’t held together with screws and scar tissue, that he didn’t withdraw

into his work as surely as his old man had retreated into a bottle. Pretend

Maggie was free to be with him, in his house. In his bed.

It wasn’t just that she was available for sex. He’d had that with

Sherilee, at least in the beginning.

Maggie enjoyed life. She savored every meal, every morning, every

shift in the weather.

And sex. God, she loved sex. The things she did with her hands and

with her mouth . . . Those noises she made in the back of her throat, like

she loved what she was doing . . . what he was doing . . .

Yeah. That was different. She was different.

She never complained. Not about her head or her feet, the trauma of

the attack or the strain of her new job. Not about the odd gaps in her

knowledge that made Caleb wonder if her assailant had hit her a little bit

too hard. Not about his scars or his nightmares or his lack of progress on

her case.

Maybe she liked playing house, too.

Not that Maggie was what Caleb would call domestic. Regina

reported she was almost useless in the kitchen.

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But somehow his house felt more lived in with her there. He liked

the way she opened the windows, security risk or not. He liked the way

the bathroom smelled after her shower, the bottles she left on his sink, the

sugar bowl open on the kitchen table.