Castro
Castro answered his phone and needed more effort than usual to utter, “Yeah.”
“Is it done?”
He didn’t even want to answer. He’d missed the mark yet again. He’d never in his career had such a hard time with a job. He considered himself a superior killing machine. His work was usually spotless and untraceable…and it was untraceable because it was spotless. But he listened to them and changed his plan, and the results were less than perfect. He cleared his throat twice, took a long pause before he answered. “Not done.”
“What?” The anger over the phone was palpable. “I’ve paid you a ton of money to do your job.”
“I know what you’ve paid me for.”
“I don’t think you do, because so far you’ve accidentally killed an innocent man, and missed the mark twice.”
“Hey, we’re on the phone.”
“I don’t care. You’re screwing up and I don’t have time for this.”
“I’ve missed the mark once. The first time was an unforeseen complication.”
“It’s still an excuse for incompetence. I don’t like complications.”
“Neither do I, but sometimes they cannot be avoided. The world is an imperfect place.”
There was a long grunt. “Now what? How are you going rectify the situation?”
Castro fixed the collar of his ugly Hawaiian shirt. “Don’t worry.”
“I am worried. You’ve not exactly instilled me with confidence. Do I have to find someone else?”
Castro cleared his throat. “That will bring more complications. When you start contacting multiple people that do what I do, you increase the chances that someone out there will talk. If someone talks, you’re going to be unhappy, very—very unhappy with the results.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. “Fine. Just get it done and make sure it—”
“I know what to do.”
“Then do it.” He hung up the phone.
Castro lit his cigarette and took a long drag. It did bother him that the last detonator didn’t ignite. The house was supposed to have been engulfed in flames long before those two were able to jump through that glass. The only explanation was that the pop detonator was defective. It wasn’t the first time one didn’t light. Fire was not his preferred means as a killing agent. He didn’t mind using it as cleaning agent. Even so, usually the marks were caught enough by surprise that it didn’t matter. He had to hand it to those two; they were quick thinkers. But more than that, they were lucky, and their luck was going to run out. Everyone’s did.
* * *
Jake
Jake kicked at some of the burnt ashes left from his latest personal disaster. The fire department had just rolled away. The police had asked all the pertinent questions, what happened next was out of his hands. They knew it was arson, but knowing and doing anything about it were two different things. The police force on the island was small, and unless this turned into a serial case, chances are they weren’t going to get much more help than the county sheriffs.
Ashley gave him an unexpected, hard hug, which forced an, “Oh!” to escape him.
“I’m sorry, Jake.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, but I’m still sorry.”
“At least my car survived.”
She eased her way out of the hug. “Yeah, but they sprayed so much water on it I wonder if it will ever run again.”
Jake went over to the old Volkswagen and opened the door. When he twisted the key he didn’t expect it to start, but it did. After a few coughs and sputters, the old horse was running perfect. “Hey, she’s a runner.”
Ashley got in. “Good, let’s get out of here. I can’t stand this smell anymore.”
They headed down the road. Jake started laughing.
Ashley looked at him oddly. “What’s so funny?”
“We’re both homeless. We both technically own houses and we’re homeless.”
“That’s not funny.” Then Ashley joined in on his laughter. “Okay, it’s kinda funny.” She ended her tired laugh and said, “Mine is still a crime scene.”
Jake’s laughter sucked away. “When can you go back in?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t want to go back. I’m just going to put it on the market and get rid of it. I’m sure Leo will sell it for me. He’ll probably take over all of Mike’s clients. He’ll be ecstatic to sell it. It’s probably worth twice what we paid for it.”
Jake sighed. “I guess we could go to my house…but it’s empty. There’s no place to sleep and I don’t have a key.”
Ashley laughed again, longer than she should have. It turned into an uncontrollable laugh. It was so infectious that Jake started to laugh for no reason other than the fact she was laughing.
With laughter-drenched words, Jake managed, “Why’re we laughing?”
She replied, barely able to get the words out, “I—don’t—know.”
Finally after the hysteria wound down, Jake said, “Let’s just get a hotel for tonight. I can’t think anymore.”
She let out a long raspy groan. “Agreed.”
As they headed past the huge oceanfront Marriott, Ashley pointed. “There, let’s stay there.”
“That place is out of my budget.”
“It’s on me. I think we deserve it.”
They checked in, and had another good laugh when the clerk at the desk asked them if they had luggage. They didn’t want to get into it, but he looked like he wanted an explanation. He didn’t get one.
They headed through the spacious lobby to the elevators, and up to the eighth floor room. After walking through the suite doors, Ashley immediately stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the ocean. “Wow, this is amazing. No matter how many times I’ve seen this view, it’s still amazing.”
“How many times have you been up here?”
“Several times. When I was doing real estate, I used to bring the high end clients up here and pay for them to stay a night while they were thinking things over.”
“Why did you give up the real estate game? You were really good at it.”
“Too good.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, Mike didn’t like me showing him up. His fragile male ego couldn’t handle it.”
“Is that why he went out on his own?”
“Initially yes. But it still didn’t help because then we were competing for clients.”
“But you were married. What did it matter?”
“My argument exactly. But he was always my money and his money, it was never our money.”
“That’s neurotic.”
“Well, needless to say, I decided it was best to step away and just find something else to do. I had my broker’s license, so I started teaching other agents and eventually the real estate consulting business was born. I didn’t have to compete against Mike, but I could still stay in the game to some extent.”
Jake stepped to her, leaning on the railing. “The sunrise is going to be spectacular from up here.”
“I imagine. Just look at the sky.”
A nearly full moon swayed over the ocean like one of those old garage light bulbs that hung from the ceiling. A shimmering white glow seemed to spill out from the dark all the way to the sand below. “It’s amazing.”
He looked at her. The moonlight on her face made her look even more beautiful than she already was. She must have felt him staring, because she met his eyes.
He blew a breath. “I’m trying really hard not to kiss you right now.”
“I feel like we’ve been here before.”
“Different time, different place, same dilemma.”
“There was a good reason not to kiss me last time.”
“Two good reasons.”
“There isn’t one now.” She reached up and put her hand on his cheek. “There won’t ever be one again.”
Jake could feel his heart clacking like a diesel engine. He didn’t want to resist her perfectly curved lips. He’d had countless dreams of kissing Ashley, dreams that felt so real he’d wake up thinking it had happened, dreams where he chose Ashley over Cassie when given the opportunity, dreams he didn’t want to be dreams, but they always were. They were dreams, until now.
He leaned in and tasted her for the first time. Years of anticipation culminated into the most amazing kiss he’d ever experienced. Every part of him started to tremble until he sank deeper into the kiss and let go. The vibrations that ran through his body settled into something both exciting and natural. He wanted to make love to her right on that balcony. His hands fished up her shirt, feeling the curve of her back, the tightness of her waist. He wanted to feel all of her, but he pulled his lips away and just hugged her tightly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. “My God, Jake,” she whispered. “Why did we wait so long to do that?”
“I guess the best things take time.” He didn’t want her to let go. He just wanted to stay embraced forever. It just felt so right to have her in his arms. Their bodies just seemed to fit together so perfectly. It was like they were once part of the same mold that had been broken apart and the two pieces finally reunited.
It seemed like the hug went on forever until Ashley finally slid away from him. “I really need to shower.”
“Me too, I smell like fire.” As he watched her walk toward the bathroom, he never wanted anyone more in his life. Her body just looked so perfect. But this was not the time for such things. He would not even try. Still, part of him wished she’d offer for him to join her in the shower. After about three minutes of the water running, however, he knew that wasn’t going to happen and the moment of passion had siphoned away from his body and mind.
With nothing to occupy his thoughts, he took out his phone and started reading some of the pages they’d found on Dr. Shepard. It seemed like an exercise in futility. They’d combed over hundreds of pages between the two of them and nothing really stood out. The doctor was up to something, there was no doubt in his mind. What could be proven, on the other hand, was another thing entirely.
The words on the page seemed to blend into a giant block of babble. Then the link to an article intrigued him so he followed it, mostly because it was a different color than the rest of the text.
It seemed that Dr. Shepard had taken part in an experimental procedure to help a young boy who had been badly burned in a chemical accident. The article went on to talk about an experimental skin grafting procedure. At first, this didn’t really mean anything to him, but then something about it made his skin crawl.
Ashley must have read something on his face, because when she stepped out of the bathroom, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
Jake looked up, taking in her toweled form. “Maybe nothing…probably maybe.”
“Looks like something.”
“Well, it might be nothing, but it might be something.”
“You’re talking like a broken moron. Lay it on me, Sherlock.”
“Dr. Shepard assisted in an experimental skin grafting operation. They were trying to save a little boy who’d been burned.”
“Did it work?”
“Huh?”
“Did the kid make it? Did it work?”
He scanned the article. “No, it says the procedure was somewhat successful but the patient passed away due to complications of the procedure.”
She toweled her hair. “What else does it say?”
He shrugged. “Not much.”
“And you think this is significant because…?” She dragged out the word.
Jake threw his hands up. “I don’t know. But maybe Ariel’s existence has another explanation besides supernatural.”
She laughed uncomfortably. “What, you think he grafted some dolphin skin onto a little girl?”
Jake winced at both the absurdity of that concept, and the fact that it felt less absurd than the reality of an actual mermaid existing. “I don’t know. I guess that’s as stupid as a mermaid really existing.”
Ashley issued a mock whistling noise. “Jake, you’ve gone around the bend, I think.”
He stood. “Have I really?” He started to pace. “I mean, think about this. What’s more likely, that some crazy Dr. Frankenstein mutilated some little girl for the sake of medicine, or there really is a supernatural creature roaming the waters off the coast of North Carolina?”
Ashley shrugged. “What do you want me to say here?”
“I want you to say what you think.”
“I think this whole thing is crazy.”
Jake stepped to her. “I’ll give you that. But seriously, which of the two scenarios are more likely?”
A sudden consternation befell her face. “Jake, I don’t know. I guess they’re both crazy in their own unique and terrifying ways.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t answer the question. If you had to believe…if you had to give in and believe one or the other? Which would be easier?”
“Well, before I’d seen her, I would have believed the Frankenstein thing. But now that I’ve seen her, I’m not so sure. I mean, that girl, she’s real. She doesn’t move like a person, she doesn’t move like someone who is just in a fake tail. She moves like she was born to move in the ocean. She has an ethereal quality, something unnatural to this world.”
Jake knew exactly what she meant. He’d thought those exact things when he’d first started seeing Ariel. “I’ll give you that too, but consider that she’s been in the water her entire life. She’d be more natural in there than anyone you or I had ever seen. She’d be as natural as a dolphin, or a seal.”
“True, but I don’t know, Jake. I really don’t know what to believe. I mean, you know me. I’m as opinionated as anyone. But in this case I have no clue.”
He blew out an audible breath. “I have to shower.”
As he stood under the stream of warm water, he had a hard time wrapping his head around things. It took him a long while to understand he wasn’t crazy and suffering from hallucinations. But he had to wonder if his crazy conspiracy theory was even crazier than an actual mermaid.
After toweling off, he went back into the room. Ashley was fast asleep on the bed. He wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t want to wake her. He quietly clicked off the lights and slid into the bed next to her.