Page 101 of Ensnaring the Siren

“Want me to carry you down?”

“Yes.” She nodded firmly, already climbing onto his back, and burying her face in his neck.

Threading his arms under her legs, and readjusting her weight, he couldn’t help but chuckle a little to himself. Damn, she was adorable. He carried her down and over to the gunwale, slow and easy, and was grateful to see that Killian’s fishermen had turned their backs to give them privacy.

“Nireed? Reid?” Someone was calling their names, but it wasn’t coming from anywhere on deck.

Nireed eagerly patted his shoulder and pointed. He leaned over the side.

Four mermaids stared up at them from the water below.

“We’re okay!” she shouted, sagging against him with relief. The other mermaids were too far down for him to make out their expressions, but if Nireed’s response was anything to go by, he’d bet they felt the same.

One by one, Nireed named each of them: Melusina, Delphine, Aersila, and Undine. Friends. Family. Leader. The one who’d called out their names was Nireed’s older sister. Not only did she know his name, she knew enough to recognize him. While Nireed said her sister knew about them, damn, that he’d been important enough to bare mentioning was only just now sinking in.

Nireed slid from his back.

Clambering onto the gunwale, she perched there, gazing down, no doubt preparing to dive. But she didn’t go just yet, and instead, turned to look back at him, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen by grief. There was something warm there, too, something that made his chest tighten and his breath catch. Something he’d seen in himself—unspoken feelings reflected in the shimmering pools of her eyes. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“I’ll always come for you,” he said, stepping in closer. I love you, Starfish. But he didn’t say it out loud, not yet. Not on the heels of the horror she’d seen.

A smile overtook her face, coupled with a happy glow. Had she heard his unsaid words anyway? Threading her claws through his hair, she leaned in, kissing him soft and sweet.

“I’ll see you soon.” Those were her parting words before joining her merfolk kin.

Chapter

Thirty-Five

Reid riffled through the files taken from the factory ship’s captain. Some of the work orders and sales directives contained the CEO’s name and signature, directly tying him to the company’s black market operations. A little dumb to leave a paper trail like this, but Reid wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. This had to be the final nail in the coffin for Nautic.

And then there was the satellite phone. It had called one phone number over and over in the last three weeks. Soon after The Merry Mariner sunk, in fact. If Reid dialed it, who would pick up on the other end? Nautic’s CEO? A frequent buyer?

“Killian, do you recognize the other man in this picture?” Jackie held up her phone, a pair of wire-frame glasses perched on the end of her nose. “I’m trying to figure out if he’s another one of Nautic’s fishermen.”

Killian leaned forward, peering at the screen. “Can’t say I do. Where’d you get this?”

“A friend of The Merry Mariner’s captain. I put out a call for photos when I was working on a story about the crew, and this guy emailed it over—used some nondescript email like ‘flyboy1998.’ Wouldn’t give me his name, but it was more of an obit piece, so I didn’t push.”

“Mind if I show the guys? The independent crews don’t mingle with Nautic’s—you’ll never find them drinking at the same bar—but we work the same docks. Unless he’s brand new, someone will have seen him.”

“By all means.” Jackie passed her phone to Killian.

One by one, he showed his crew, but they all shook their heads.

“Either flyboy1998’s brand new, or he’s not a fisherman at all.” Jackie took back her phone. “I wouldn’t have thought twice about this, if it weren’t for the military haircut, and how cagey he was about identifying himself further.”

Military haircut? Reid had been a quiet observer of the exchange, but this snagged his full attention. There wasn’t a huge Coast Guard presence in Haven Cove, or any other military branch for that matter, so if this guy was one of them, there was a decent chance he’d have seen him in passing, even if he didn’t know him personally. Maybe one of the Yeomen or ITs. “Can I see the picture?”

She held the phone face out for him to see.

A prickling sensation rolled across his skin, all at once numb and tingling. This couldn’t be right.

Flick Rockland, The Merry Mariner’s captain, stood on the left, a lake in the backdrop. And beside him, with his arm across the fisherman’s shoulders, holding up some kind of trout, was Petty Officer Jake Hatcher.

Reid’s crewmate. His friend.

All this time, Hatcher knew Flick Rockland, one of Nautic’s fleet captains, and he hadn’t said a word. Not when they were responding to the boat’s emergency beacon. Not when Reid was in the water. And not when Nireed yanked Flick below the surface, never to be seen again, or any time after that.

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