“I know you hate her, Kat,” Zach said, “but we don’t know that she’s the killer, so try to keep an open mind, okay?” He smiled, trying to cheer her up. “I’ll go over the Sea Maiden with a fine-tooth comb tomorrow,” he went on. “See if maybe Eddie left a clue to where he hid the treasure.”
“I’ll keep reading his poems,” Caer said thoughtfully. When everyone but Zach turned to stare at her in confusion, she explained, “I found a bunch of silly poems that Eddie wrote. They’re pretty terrible, but I don’t think quality was the point. I think if I can put them together into one long poem, we’ll find a clue to where the treasure is.”
“Well,” Kat said, and stood. “We have a plan.”
That night, when the house fell silent, Zach headed to Caer’s room. When she opened the door, he glanced around quickly to make sure the door connecting her room to Sean’s was closed, then entered.
“What?” she whispered.
He didn’t speak. He just took her into his arms, and when she didn’t protest, he kissed her long and hard, all too aware that he had almost lost her. He kept his hold gentle, afraid to hurt her injured back.
But she was so passionate in return that he forgot that she had just been in the hospital. They made love, struggling to remain silent, and then struggling not to laugh, almost as if they were high-school kids trying to keep it down out in the family car. They made love again, and when they finished, they were both breathless.
“I almost lost you,” he told her.
The happiness faded from her eyes. “You wouldn’t have lost me.”
“Caer…you have to stay. You can’t go home.”
She rolled away from him.
“I have to go home.”
He stroked the satin skin of her arm. “You can’t. We have to take the time to explore this—to explore us.”
She rolled back into his embrace and stared at him. “Zach, don’t you understand? You know the truth. You’ve seen the truth.”
“What are you talking about?”
She stared at him, then shook her head. “How can you even talk like this when there’s still a killer out there? We can’t talk about anything until he’s caught, Zach. We…just can’t.”
“You’re still hiding something, aren’t you?”
“I’m an open book.”
“Caer, I’m falling in love with you. You’ve hypnotized me; charmed me. No, it’s more than that. You’re beneath my skin, in my soul, you’re…I don’t know what, but I know we can’t let what we have slip away. Don’t you feel it?”
“You don’t know how I feel?” she whispered.
“Then it’s easy,” he told her gently. “Just tell me whatever it is you’re hiding.”
“I have told you. I really am an open book. You just have to read the pages and believe,” she said, and then, because she couldn’t bear to talk anymore—to dream anymore—she curled against him again, the softness of her hair brushing his flesh, the whisper of her kiss light against his lips.
When dawn came, he rose, dressed and slipped back to his own room.
He paused in the hallway, looking out the window.
Birds.
There had never been more of them. They were covering the trees as thickly as leaves in summer. So many of them.
As he stared out the window, they let out a horrible cry and, in one violent mass, rose from their perches and soared, a blanket of black to hide the rising sun.
Eight o’clock came quickly, and with it, a call from Morrissey.
“They’ve found a body. It’s with the M.E. in Providence, and we need a family member to identify it. They think they’ve found Eddie.”
Zach flinched inwardly. “If it’s Eddie, he’s been in the water more than a week. What makes them think they’ve got the right man?”
“The remains of a tattoo are visible on the upper left arm. It says Sea Maiden.”
18
Sean was grim, his face set, as they discussed the possibility that Eddie’s body had been found. Sean wanted to go, felt he should be the one to make the identification, but at the same time he dreaded going and didn’t want to do it.
He had accepted Eddie’s death slowly over the days since his disappearance, and he would be glad to know the truth, if the corpse was indeed Eddie’s, but he also knew that then all hope would be lost.
It was a painful emotional tangle.
“I should go,” Sean said. “He was my friend, my partner.”
“You shouldn’t go for that exact reason. I’ve already told Morrissey that I’ll go.”
“Do they know the cause of death?” Sean’s voice was hollow.
“Apparently, nicks on an exposed rib indicate that he was stabbed.”
“A knife. Someone threw a knife at Jorey and hit Caer,” Sean said, then looked up at Zach, his eyes betraying an uncharacteristic vulnerability.
“I should send Kat away,” he said.
“Sean, a bulldozer couldn’t get Kat out of here any more than I could get you to leave. If we could just find some clue…We need to find the killer. It’s the only way any of you will ever be safe.”
“Amanda?” Sean said as if unwillingly.