Page 56 of The Mermaid Murder

She crooked one eyebrow like she knew I was full of shit. But it wouldn’t be PC to voice her skepticism about my religion aloud. Thank goodness for the woke mind virus. I lowered my head and closed my eyes.

It slammed into me like a tsunami, the same as before. Eva, as Mermaid Esmeralda, was banging on the front of her tank. But I saw more this time, because I was seeing her from the outside, this time. There was a dark trickle of blood following her hairline, from the center, down the left side, down past her ear in a red-black strand. A droplet pulled free and floated upward along with the bubbles of her last breath, all the way to the black, closed ceiling atop the pool.

And then I saw the life leave Eva Quaid’s eyes.

My phone pinged, my eyes snapped open, I sucked in a breath, because I hadn’t in far too long. Mason’s hand closed on my shoulder. It felt like he was flowing steadiness down my spine to my liquid knees.

I glanced at my phone.

Jeremy: Christy is OK. Minor injury. In ER.

“Something happened to Christy!”

“He says she’s okay.” Mason had received the same text. He was looking at his phone.

“People who are okay do not go to emergency rooms.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dr. Sharpe began, but then she bit her lip, nodded once and pointed through the open door and down the hall. “ER’s that way. Follow the signs. I hope everything’s okay.”

I sped out the door and heard her call after me. “When you see her, tell Detective Scott to get this tail thing out of my morgue.”

* * *

RACHEL

Christy was sitting on a stretcher with her legs over the side, holding an ice pack on top of her head when Mason and I got to her. Jeremy and a woman were in with her, far more people than were allowed. Mason said, “Detective Scott. I wondered where you went.”

“Yeah I saw Jeremy with your niece and got distracted.” She nodded a hello to me, and I nodded back, but went straight to Christy, and hugged her hard, then pushed the cold pack away so I could see beneath it. There was a dark trickle following her hairline from center down the left side past her ear in a red-black strand. Exactly like the one on Eva’s head. Exactly like I’d seen in the vision.

I went icy inside. I saw a little droplet float upward from Christy’s head toward the ceiling. But it wasn’t real.

“It was the stupidest thing.” Christy’s voice pulled me back. “Apparently the cover was never opened all the way, and nobody noticed. I swam up fast near the side, smashed my head.”

I blinked and looked at her. “The pool cover? The Jimmy-Stewart-Wonderful-Life fucking pool cover? I’m going to kill somebody,” I said in the presence of three cops.

“It was an accident, Aunt Rache. Kind of my own fault. I got pissed off?—”

“Pissed off at what?”

“I’m pretty sure one of the gawking owners was tugging his pug while he watched me perform.”

Everything in me went cold.

Mason said, “Oh, shit.”

I cracked my neck and said, “Mason and Jere, take care of Christy. I forgot something at the club.”

“Rache—” Mason began.

“I did, too,” Jen Scott said. “Forget shit at the club.”

“You weren’t at the club,” I said.

“Sure I was. Just not today. I’ll drive.”

* * *

RACHEL

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