She turned away from his eyes, kind, sad eyes that had seen too much until Rachel’s death was just one more, among too many.
“We’ll want you to come down and talk to a sketch artist when you’re ready. I don’t mean to rush you. I know how hard this is on you.”
She started to accuse him of not understanding, but his eyes wouldn’t let her. They had seen more death than Adria would ever see, if she was lucky.
“Get some rest, Ms. Reynolds. Use those pills the doctor gave you. That’s what they’re for.”
Adria turned back to the window.
“Let’s go, Frank. We’ve got all we need for a while.” The detective with the gold-framed glasses seemed ready to argue, but he followed his partner.
“We’ll leave a patrol car outside for a day or two. Don’t be alarmed.”
“I’m not.” The thought that the killer might come back to hurt her didn’t seem real or possible, not in the broad light of day.
The door shut, and she was alone. She took a long, hot shower and two of the pills the doctor had given her. Adria tracked water across the carpet. Rachel wouldn’t care. She would never fix her famous apple omelets for them late at night. No more popcorn and sad movies. No more anything.
Adria choked back a sob. If she started crying, she felt as if she would split into pieces and fall down a long black hole. She collapsed on the unmade bed, hair wet, wrapped in towels. A deep, dreamless sleep pulled her under.
She woke to late-day sunlight. She had slept nearly twelve hours. The first thought was, Rachel is dead. The knowledge was a leaden emptiness. It was as if a great hole had opened up inside her. And the hole was full of pain, and rage and helplessness.
Rachel was the third victim of what the newspapers were now calling “The Beach Rapist.” The only thing the victims had in common was where they had been killed, at the edge of the sea. Two victims hadn’t been newsworthy. Three seemed to be the magic number. There was a serial killer loose.
What had Rachel been doing out on the beach? Why Rachel? Adria needed answers, but there was no one to ask.
She checked her watch, not for time, but for what day it was. It seemed like it had taken weeks for Rachel to die, the hospital. Days at least, but her watch said it was Sunday. Only hours had passed. Only hours and Rachel was gone, just like that.
Adria dressed and tried to comb the tangles from her hair, but it didn’t seem to matter all that much. The numbness shredded, falling away. Tears choked at the back of her throat. She took another little pill, just one. She didn’t want to sleep, but she wanted the pain to go away. Had she really told the detective the murderer was a triton? Had she really seen a tail? Adria closed her eyes and saw it, flashing in the moonlight, wet and slick, and attached to the man. Could she have made it up, to make the brutality more understandable? Like a child, saying a monster did it, instead of Daddy.
Adria shook her head. It didn’t help to call the man a triton. It raised more questions. Why would she hallucinate the man was a merman?
Co-workers from the health club came in the next few hours, to cry, offer comfort, and be comforted. Adria didn’t want any of them, didn’t want to grieve in a group. It cheapened it to share memories and sob on each other’s shoulders. None of them had really known Rachel. She refused to exercise. She was five-nine and had never gained weight. Adria was nine inches shorter. Adria had to work at staying in shape. She could never convince Rachel to go to the club.
Adria asked all the people to go away. Their kind intentions, their helpfulness, their sorrow, it was all more than Adria could deal with. She needed to be alone, wanted to be alone. She wasn’t ready for company, no matter how well intentioned.
Adria told no one about her delusion. There was no such thing as mermaids, or mermen. She didn’t want to see pity and knowing looks among their friends.
When the flock of mourners had been chased away, Adria lay down on the couch and waited for the tranquilizer to give her sleep.
She woke, gasping in the darkness, strange dreams vanished. Nightmares fading. She had vague images of ocean and strong hands trying to drown her.
Darkness lay pressed against the sliding glass doors. Moonlight shivered through the closed drapes. Adria sat up, abrupt, and felt dizzy and awkward. She couldn’t remember closing the drapes. Her head felt like cotton, her throat horribly dry. Too many pills, she felt detached, the rush of fear dying under the dregs of the tranquilizer.
A shadow fluttered against the drapes. Adria stood, a little unsteady. Was it a man’s shadow? She touched the drapes, soft, cool. Fear was back, adrenaline chasing the tranquilizer away. The sound of her own heart was obscenely loud. Adria shoved the drapes back, sudden, and he was there. He stood naked and beautiful on the other side of the glass. She tried to scream but couldn’t, not while looking into his eyes, dark and peaceful.
He put a hand against the glass, spread it flat. There was webbing between his fingers like a frog’s. Adria touched fingertips to the glass. The webbing began to shrink, smaller and smaller, until it melted away, like a moonlit dream. He smiled then, and she felt his need like a physical touch. His hand touched the door lock. Adria jerked back, startled, frightened, awake. The drapes fell shut—the moonlight gleamed empty.
Adria peeked round the drapes, hand shaking. There was nothing there. Had she dreamed it? She had been dreaming of him, of strong hands pushing her under the water. Adria stared at the empty deck. Moonlight glittered off something. She knelt against the glass and stared. There was a puddle of water on the deck. There was no rain this time of year.
Adria was halfway to the phone to call the police when she stopped. What could she say? “I saw webbing between his fingers, and it melted away.” They wouldn’t believe her, and he had known they wouldn’t. He had come to taunt her, or to kill her. Adria remembered the feel of him inside her mind, slick, and cold and warm, like nothing she had ever felt. She wondered what he could have done if she hadn’t been on the pills, half dead to the world. If he had opened the door…
Adria knew now how he had gotten Rachel down on the beach. He had called her, lured her, with himself as bait. The police wouldn’t find him, because he could go places they couldn’t, places they would never dream of going.
Adria knew the truth, but no one would believe her. It was crazy. If she’d had her gun tonight she could have given him a surprise. Would bullets hurt a triton? They didn’t hurt vampires, did they?
Adria couldn’t remember any stories about how to kill a mermaid. Just fairy tales.
The morning paper showed another victim, miles from Adria. Adria drank morning coffee with a gun lying on the table. She had bought it years ago when her ex-husband had traveled a lot and left her alone. It was cleaned, oiled, and loaded. The hammer rested on an empty chamber. If five bullets weren’t enough…well, Adria didn’t think it would matter.
The triton didn’t come back, but he killed two more women. The police were baffled, looking for lifeguards, triathletes. They weren’t even close.
Adria stayed safe and warm and dry. And another woman died. He was killing almost every other night. The police were frantic; everyone on the beach was terrified.
When Rachel had been dead almost four weeks, Adria dreamed of the triton again. Strong webbed hands caressed her skin; she swam under water and breathed. She woke halfway across her bedroom floor. Her feet were tangled in a pair of discarded old jeans. Almost tripping had woken her. Adria swallowed, tried to breathe, tried to think. She heard his song then, inside her head. Music that cried and wept, that rolled and roared, lonely as the sea, vast and deep, promising miracles. She stood frozen for a moment, listening.
Adria stumbled back to her bed and sat on the edge of the rumpled sheets. She could not go to him, should not, would not. The song sighed and eased her mind, until she was standing. His need was in the music, strong and deep, careless as the ocean itself, and as unstoppable. She picked up her robe from the floor and slipped it on. It felt real and soft. She picked up the gun from the bedside table and put it in the robe pocket. It hung heavy and awkward, bumping her leg as she walked. She could not deny him, but she might be able to surprise him.
The moon rode high and almost full, shimmering silver on the rolling waves. The sea whispered, adding to the triton’s song. Music and ocean hissed and roared until Adria could not be sure who was singing to her. Was it the sea? Did the sea itself want to touch her, to hold her? Yes, the sea wanted her. It was not love the sea offered, but violent need, a need so great it filled the world with crying.