Turning Tides (5 page)

“What’s the plan for today, Aidan?” Lana asked, hands clutched around my cup. Without a word, I refilled the kettle and dropped a teabag into a second mug.

Lana was kind, gentle, and more than a little annoying. Some elementals reached centuries of age roughly the same person they’d always been. Others, particularly those who lived alone, tended to go just a little bit weird. Lana fit squarely in the second category.

One more reason to be grateful Sera saved me from my hermit ways.

“What brings you to the island, Lana?”
And more to the point, when do you plan to leave?
I added silently.

“Oh, David and I are traveling the country this summer. This island isn’t far from David’s home, so we decided to pay your family a visit.”

“You two are that serious?”

“Mmmm,” she said, a wordless reply that nonetheless managed to be quite eloquent. Lana was a goner for her stone boyfriend, that much was clear.

“David’s coming over soon, isn’t he? With the camera?”

Lana smiled and poured the now boiling kettle into the second mug, which she proceeded to claim as her own. I did not attempt to set her on fire, which I thought said loads about how my emotional control was developing.

“He’s already texted me five times this morning. He’s so romantic that way. He said he couldn’t sleep without me, so he was on the plane first thing this morning.”

I did some quick math in my head. The flight back and forth would take just over an hour. Add in the time needed to purchase the camera in Bellingham and the travel time to get back across the island, and I was looking at another hour alone with Lana. I had the distinct feeling that, so long as the other woman remained in our living room, Sera wouldn’t make an appearance.

“Once he arrives, I’m going to head over to my mother’s, to learn as much as I can about what happened to that councilwoman.”

“The poor thing,” she murmured.

“Indeed. You should come.” I was sure my mother wouldn’t mind getting stuck with Lana babysitting duty.

I didn’t give her a chance to come up with some daft reason why she needed to stay at the cottage. Instead, I disappeared into the bathroom and showered for the next forty-five minutes. The islanders piped in their water from the canals and never bother to heat it, so I didn’t even need to feel guilty about the waste. Instead, I reveled in the privacy.

When enough time had passed, I dressed for the day in a clean pair of jeans and a blue tank top. I combed my hair into a neat ponytail. I was almost desperate enough to start applying makeup when I heard the stone’s low voice in the other room.

I rushed out, barely remembering to offer David a civil greeting in my hurry to get out of the cottage. I taped a note to the coffee maker, where Sera would be sure to see it, then dragged Lana away from her boyfriend.

“I’ll be back soonish. Let me know if you have any problems with the camera.”

He nodded, unperturbed, as he removed each item from the box and lined them up on the kitchen counter. David was a stone. He’d read the instructions from beginning to end, then reread them to make sure he understood. He would be there for a while.

At last, with Lana at my side, I stepped out into the bright light of morning, bound and determined to prove my best friend innocent and get the hell off this island.

Chapter 5

The island hadn’t been so
much planned as built around hundreds of years of various Brooks planting a stake and declaring the land theirs. There weren’t property lines, just canals that ran between houses, and not a single home was built along a straight line with another. The gravel walkways zagged in every direction, often doubling back on themselves when they encountered a large fountain or random building. Even so, it never took more than thirty minutes to walk from one end of the island to the other.

The unprotected west shore belonged to the guest cottages. The east held the pier, where the seaplane and all the island’s boats rested when not in use, tucked into a small cove and hidden by the tall fir trees that lined the shore. The south shore was the calmest of the lot, and the only part of the island that had a true sandy beach we would lounge on during the warm summer months. Our version of a town center was plopped in the middle of the island.

There were houses scattered all over, in every possible style. The younger elementals favored the Craftsman and Art Deco styles, while the older ones built Colonials and faux Tudors. Nothing matched, not in color or style or size. The first time I’d seen a planned development in the human world, I’d stood on the sidewalk for a full five minutes, unable to imagine the mind that could produce such order.

The northeast shore belonged to my nearest relatives. The house I’d grown up in was furthest west, a simple white Cape Cod home with green shutters. Grams lived to the east in a large brick two-story Georgian that was completely dwarfed by its proximity to my great-grandma’s house. Hers sat between the other two homes, a neoclassical monstrosity complete with columns and a curving driveway, despite the island having no cars.

Great-grandmother was the oldest resident of the island and its proud matriarch, and her home was more than a house. It was where the island gathered for companionship, entertainment, and news. Despite her absence, the house maintained its role as community center, and the porch and living room were crammed full of people looking to relive the scandalous trial and murder. My aunts, who lived in matching bungalows close to town, had appointed themselves hostesses, keeping the gathered masses content with food, gossip, and mimosas.

My mother was already there, working on damage control. When I entered, she was patiently suggesting to two distant cousins that it was perhaps overkill to require all members of the Blais family to register themselves as deadly weapons.

There were too many people around for an open conversation, so I stayed just long enough to suggest she entertain Lana for the day, then rushed out the door before she could protest.

Alone for the first time since landing on the island, I headed for the transportation center on the eastern side of the island, hoping to convince Robin to lift the travel ban just long enough for me to pop into Seattle and meet up with Simon and Mac.

On a whim, I detoured through town. It wasn’t much of a town, at least according to most definitions of the word. There was a general store that stocked basic necessities and a private post office that delivered mail whenever someone bothered to take a trip to Friday Harbor and collect from the island’s P.O. box. There was one coffee shop and a restaurant with three tables, both run by people who liked to cook and thought it seemed like a fun way to pass the time. The stores were only staffed for an hour or two a day, as more often than not the proprietors didn’t feel like coming in. People would take what they needed and leave an IOU behind, which the owners never bothered to collect.

Today, most of the island was at Great-grandmother’s, leaving the town center nearly silent. I stopped at the empty coffee shop to make myself a cup of tea. While it steeped, I dialed Simon, hoping for news that would lessen the ball of anxiety taking root in my stomach. The call went straight to voicemail.

I muttered a few uncomplimentary things about black cats who weren’t nearly as forthcoming as they ought to be, then stretched my magic toward the canals, seeking balance in the water. When I felt ready to face the day, I headed east.

After the silence of town, the transportation center was surprisingly busy. At least ten people struggled with large suitcases while arguing with the pilot, who was trying to explain that he had as much money as they did, thank you very much, and would not be bribed into taking them off the island so long as a travel embargo was in place.

I sidled over to Robin, a third cousin who’d been tracking everyone coming on and off the island for as long as I could remember. It was a volunteer position, one I thought she chose because it allowed her to spend all day with her feet on the desk, a romance novel in one hand and a never empty mug of coffee in the other. As she was one of the few waters capable of keeping detailed records, everyone was grateful for her dedication.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She grinned at the sight of me, the smile cutting across slightly weathered skin. She was a quarter elemental—strong enough to live on an enclave, but still prone to a few human weaknesses, like aging. She was blond like the rest of us, but a slightly darker shade, and I thought she might be the only water on the island with hips worth noticing. There was a medium-sized shed behind her that doubled as an office, but I’d never seen Robin sitting anywhere but her outside desk.

As I approached, she bookmarked her place in her latest novel and set it aside. “Aidan! Glad you stopped by. I was hoping to see you before you left for good.”

“It looks like I’m here for three more days. Still no flights out?”

She made a face. “Unfortunately. These fools here seem to think they’re in danger, and they’re acting like such idiots I’d be plenty happy to get them off the island. I know we’re supposed to assume everyone’s a suspect until your friend is convicted, but that seems like a lot of bother to me. No offense.”

I offered a noncommittal noise. I wasn’t offended, but I didn’t welcome the reminder that most weren’t viewing this as an “innocent until proven guilty” situation.

I studied the panicked waters and saw no familiar faces. At least it wasn’t my relatives trying to flee for their lives. Visitors, then, come to witness the trial. “They know how elemental magic works, right? Sera can’t stretch her murderous claws across the island.”

“I’m not sure there’s a lot of thinking going on at the moment. Still, you how how waters are. As unpredictable as they are fickle. They’ll find something new to panic about in an hour or two.”

I wasn’t so sure. This wasn’t a typical situation, and I didn’t think we could count on normal behavior.

As if to prove my point, three people decided arguing was getting them nowhere and dropped their suitcases, rushing up the stairs and into the plane. It was the possession is nine-tenths of the law approach to winning an argument.

The pilot rolled his eyes and left the pier, the plane’s keys presumably safely on his person.

Robin shook her head and sipped her coffee. “If they want to sit and try to will the plane to take off, I’m just going to leave them be. Now Aidan, what can I do for you?”

As I watched, five more people pushed their way onto the six-seater plane. “I was hoping to get on that plane this afternoon. That’s not going to happen, is it?”

An emphatic snort was my only answer. “What’s your hurry? You’ll be gone soon enough.” She actually sounded sad about it.

“Oh, people to meet, more unbreakable elemental laws to flout. You know how it is.”

“You shouldn’t joke,” she admonished, though she didn’t seem offended.

“I shouldn’t have done a lot of things. That’s why I’m in my current situation.” I glanced at the neat pile of paperwork on her desk, kept from flying loose by a heavy black rock. “Hey, could I get a copy of the flight list? Everyone who’s on the island right now. Boats, too.”

“Sure thing.” She rifled through the papers, pulling out the records from the last week. She disappeared into the shed, and I heard the groan of an ancient copy machine being summoned to life. A minute later, Robin returned with a thin folder in hand. “This should do it. You really think someone else killed Edith? Not your friend?” She sounded more curious than disbelieving.

“I think it’s worth looking into all options.” I tucked the folder into my bag. “Thanks for the help, Robin.” She smiled, eyes already darting back to her book. I left her to her tale of rugged and misunderstood Highlanders.

I had eight hours before I was supposed to be in Seattle, no idea how to get there and even less idea how to begin clearing Sera’s name. During my brief time working with Carmichael and Johnson, they’d taught me a thing or two about how to approach an investigation. List the suspects. Gather facts. See the big picture. I hadn’t done any of that yet.

The folder in my bag was a place to start, at least. I could return to the cottage, share it with Sera, and attempt to form an actual plan.

Five hundred feet from our cottage, I passed one of the guest houses that had been emptied the night before. Though travel was limited to the other side of the island, where Robin could track it, this house reached far enough into the ocean to double as a dock. A decrepit rowboat and a modest ho
useboat were tied to its stilts. The houseboat looked new, and I wondered if it was intended as an additional guest accommodation.

I stared at the dock, a truly terrible idea forming.

“Planning your prison break?”

I turned to see David at my side, the empty camera box in one hand.

“What gave it away?”

“Something about the longing look and evil grin. Gives it away every time.” He glanced to his left and right, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Also, I know how you feel.”

“What, an island full of drunken waters isn’t your idea of a good time?”

He shook his head in disbelief. It was the standard reaction when someone met my aunts for the first time. “I noticed you weren’t partaking much last night. Are you sure you’re related?”

“When I drink, I tend to miss things, and that’s not an option right now. When this whole thing is over, I’ll down a glass or ten, I promise.”

David handed me the empty box. “Speaking of not missing things, the camera is up. Sera won’t be able to step outside without it being captured. I set it to wide angle, too, so the windows are in the frame. If anything else happens, she’ll have an unbreakable alibi.”

I took the box and studied the image on the front. It was your bog-standard motion sensing camera, the kind I’d become all too familiar with recently. “Thanks. Where does the footage go?”

“There’s an SD card in there, and if something happens to that, there’s a wireless backup drive. Who should have access to that?”

“My mother. Fiona.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re being so helpful. Like you think Sera might be innocent.”

“Is that a problem?” His brows knit, and it wasn’t a rhetorical question. I hadn’t known many stones in my life, but they rarely wasted words.

“No. It’s just unusual in the current climate.”

David stared at the ocean, and I waited. Okay, I bit my lip, counted to ten, and forced myself not to speak before he replied, but I also waited.

“I’ve known fires,” he said at last. “They’re hot-headed, but they also have tremendous control. I can’t see one of them losing it and causing an explosion in front of dozens of witnesses. It just doesn’t feel right.”

Something inside me unknotted at his words. It wasn’t much support, but it was more than I’d had five minutes ago. “I appreciate you doing this,” I said, holding up the box.

He shook his head, waving off my thanks. “It’s good to be useful.”

“Are you and Lana planning on staying long?” I worked hard to keep the hope from my voice, and when he shook his head I worked even harder to keep the smile from my face. Lana—or what she knew about me—was simply too dangerous to be around the old ones. The sooner she and David were off the island, the sooner I could relax and just worry about little things like my best friend’s murder charge.

“A few more days. We’ll leave once the embargo is lifted. I’m eager to get some rocks under my feet, but Lana’s enjoying herself too much. I can’t blame her, I guess. There aren’t many places in the world like this.”

“Someday, you’re going to have to explain how a calm, staid stone ended up with a flighty water.”

He gave me a small, close-mouthed smile, but it was genuine. This crazy man truly liked Lana. “I’ll tell you as soon as I figure it out. Maybe over one of those ten glasses of wine.”

“Deal.”

He kept staring at the water. With no warning, his placid stone expression distorted into shock and confusion. “What the…?” He took long strides to the water, face darkening with every step.

I walked after him, my gaze following his own.

Then, I started running.

A black speedboat pulled away from the rear of the house. There were two figures in the boat. One was Sera, struggling to free herself from the driver. He steered with his left hand while keeping his right arm locked tightly around her waist. It was a familiar figure, a man with an average height and build that belied the power he wielded. A man with the same bronze skin and dark hair and eyes as the woman in his arms.

Josiah Blais. Sera’s father—and mine.

I didn’t think. I didn’t give the anger time to build and interfere with my water magic. I gave into the fear instead, the panicked certainty that I would lose my best friend if I didn’t act. Our father loved us, in his way, but his pathological need to protect both his daughters meant Sera would be locked in a chamber somewhere on her family’s Hawaiian compound and not released until Josiah had eliminated everyone who dared threaten his daughter’s life.

It wasn’t the first time he’d tried that maneuver.

They were moving fast. In a matter of seconds, they’d be out of range.

I flung the magic from my body. It flew toward the boat, grabbing molecules of water as it rushed toward the target. I didn’t bother with finesse. I just needed enough power to force an enormous wave into the escaping boat, and I had more than enough control to do that.