Page 44 of Sirens
As McGarvey had done, Maggie quickly rearranged herself, willing theI just came hard enough to permanently alter my brain chemistryscarlet to recede from her cheeks.
“Finish waiting for the cable guy, did you?” Sheriff Forrester asked in a smoky voice that she could probably charge men $2.99 a minute to listen to.
“Yes—no—I mean, they rescheduled,” McGarvey sputtered.
The sight of him, normally so composed and self-assured, tripping over his words like a teenager caught jerking it in the back row at church was downright unsettling.
Only when his tackle was fully stowed did McGarvey address her.
“Gotcha.” Kiki wandered further into the basement, boots clicking on the concrete floor. “Now if I could only figure out what you’re doing in the basement of this building despite not having the owner’s permission or any understandable legal purpose, we’d really have something here.”
Maggie glanced at Trent, who had sprouted a sheen of sweat on his smooth brown forehead. Surely, as they apparently had a working relationship, he would offer up some plausible explanation any second now.
Or minute.
Or—
“Mermaids!” Maggie blurted.
Both McGarvey and Sheriff Forrester turned to look at her—McGarvey concerned, Sheriff Forrester amused.
“That’s right,” Trent said at last, gesturing vaguely at the dusty shelves. “So, uh, I was accompanying Miss Michaels on a tour of the Palace Hotel for a journalistic endeavor that she’s currently pursuing, documenting mermaid motifs in Townsend Harbor’s historic buildings.”
“I see,” the sheriff said, the lines of her probably yoga-toned forearms flexing as she crossed them over her chest and made a show of looking around the basement. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we don’t currently seem tobein the Palace Hotel.And though I know Miss Michaels is an employee of Sirens, she’s not currently on shift.”
Maggie’s heart began to thump harder, and clammy sweat coated her palms.
So, Sheriff Smoke Show not only knew who she was and where she worked, she knew her schedule as well?
Why this rankled her so when they’d never even met, she wasn’t certain. But she suspected itmighthave something to do with the fact that the woman standing before her had the power to turn McGarvey into a stuttering, foot-shuffling schoolboy.
McGarvey lifted a hand and scratched the back of his neck.
“Yes, well—” Trent shifted his weight, avoiding Kiki’s gaze.
“What’s it to you?” The words snapped from Maggie’s mouth like the crack of a whip, sharpened by the edge of the East Coast burr she’d tried so hard to lose after leaving Deer Park for Boston.
McGarvey’s head swung toward her, his eyes telegraphing something like censure. Or panic.
Which only served to augment Maggie’s irritation.
The sheriff, on the other hand, remained cool and even, authority radiating from her carefully neutral expression. “To me, it’s nothing whatsoever. To Kurt, who called to report a break-in and possible assault, it’s a lot.”
Fucking. Kurt.
“Possible assault?” Maggie scoffed, crossing her legs as she sat up straighter on the freezer. “Where the hell did they get that idea?”
The sheriff cocked her head at an angle of birdlike curiosity. “According to dispatch, the caller heard what they thought was a woman scream and thought whoever broke in might have assaulted someone who surprised the intruder in the act.”
Maggie felt her face blanch, and her insides turned to rocky ice. A scream? She hadn’t screamed. Had she? No, no. It hadbeen more of a whimper, really. Or maybe a moan, but definitely not a scream. And surely it hadn’t been that…loud?
Or had it?
If her vocalizations were in any way proportionate to the intensity of the pleasure McGarvey had coaxed from her, she’d have shattered every single one of the small rectangular windows at street level.
The sheriff’s knowing gaze met hers, and Maggie swallowed around what felt like a wad of cotton jammed down her throat. “As part of my investigation, I reviewed historical renderings for the original structure and found an inconsistency with the blueprints provided with the renovation permission from the Townsend Harbor Historical Society.”
“You’re investigating Madame Katz.” The sheriff pronounced this like a declarative sentence rather than a question.
