Max grips my forearm but says nothing as Nic continues.
“My mother used to work here as a cook. After school I would come sit in the corner to do homework and wait for her shift to end. Mr. Smith would come in a few times a week for a drink. He and my mom used to exchange recipes and stories and he would tell me jokes ... really bad ones, but they always made me laugh.”
“He had the worst jokes,” Max says with a smile that doesn’t lift the drooping corners of his eyes.
Nic laughs, but then gulps and her whole face falls. “The last time he came in, though, he was so, painfully sad. He said he had no reason to live anymore...” Tears magnify her eyes. “We tried to convince him to stay until he’d calmed down, but we couldn’t stop him. You said he’s still missing?”
Her voice lifts at the end of her sentence, brittle and high as if barely clinging to hope.
I sigh. “Dead is technically missing when you jump off a cliff and into the sea.”
Nic’s hand moves from her throat to cover her mouth. “I should’ve stopped him. Forced him to stay. I’m so sorry.”
Max rubs his temples, mumbling again. “There wasn’t much you could’ve done.” He walks his fingertips along his brows. “Is there anything else you remember? Like, did he say where he was going or did he leave a note?”
“Oh. Oh yes!” Nic taps the bar top again with both of her hands. “Yes, he left something. I wasn’t working here yet when those others came asking about him. Otherwise, I would’ve shown them too.”
As she digs into her pocket, I press the sole of my shoe into the footrest on the chair and push myself up to see better. Nic pulls out a silver pocket watch at the end of a chain. Prying it open with a thumbnail, she tilts it so we can see inside. On one side is a clock, its off-white face dead still and silent, while on the other, a much younger Iris Smith smiles out at us.
Max and I look at each other at the same time, then back at Nic. The bartender scrunches her shoulders to her ears. “I was told to throw it away after he stopped coming around, but that didn’t feel right. I figured someone needed to take care of it if he ever came back.”
Moistening his lips, Max extends a hand. “Can I?”
“Yes, absolutely.” She presses it into his palm. As he stares at the design, Nic asks. “What will you do now? Tell his family? I know finding his body is probably out of the question, but maybe this can help?”
“We have another lead we need to follow before we go to his family,” I say, pressing a knuckle into a throbbing spot on my left eyebrow. “But it’s probably a dead end.”
Max props his chin on a fist. “Almost definitely a dead end.” He laughs wryly, still examining the watch. “In theory I could drag the ocean for his body, but that might take a while, even with my mad skills. Especially after four years of marinating in salt water.”
“Are you...” Dark eyes darting around the bar, Nic lowers her voice and edges a little closer to Max. “... are you a water spirit?”
His spine straightens in surprise. “How’d you know, little mama?”
“Gift and a curse,” she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Water paranormals almost always recognize each other and I’m particularly good at sniffing them out.”
What are the odds? First a merperson in Panama, now a... “What are you? If you don’t mind my asking.”
Cheeks tinged pink but eyes bright with a smile, Nic plays with one of the beads in her hair. “A siren. Though I only lure sailors to their deaths on high holidays.” She winks. “But in all seriousness, if you need help searching the ocean, someone in the community around here might have seen something. They’re not exactly my biggest fans — silly assumptions about my kind and all that — but they might help the two of you. The mer-folk around here are a little less interested in saving humans in their waters than their African kin. Most prefer not to interfere.”
I drum my fingers on the back of a chair. “The problem is that we’re running out of time. After four years I doubt finding his body is even possible at this point.”
Max groans and drops his head onto his folded arms. “Plan B is probably a waste of time too. My mom’s never going to tell us anything helpful, much less willingly turn herself in.”
He’s stalling and I can’t blame him. From everything he’s told me, his mom is painfully unlikely to come clean, but we can’t waste too much time searching for a body that’s likely nothing more than fish food, not with Amazons and bounty hunters searching for us. For Max’s sake, though, I try one more angle.
“Has anyone in the community ever mentioned an Aline Avila?” I ask Nic.
Her fingers flinch. Two sets of black-painted nails dig into the wood of the bar as the darkness of her eyes expands until the whites are obliterated. “Avila.” The name slides out in a hiss like water turning to steam. “I’m very familiar with that name.”
“How?” Max and I say at almost the exact same time.
“Her antics are the reason my mother left, Brazil.” Nic crosses her arms. “She needed to get as far away as possible before some in our community came after her because they assumed she was up to the same thing as Aline. They almost came after me too, but after I swore never to sing, they relented. Mom and I figured it was safer for us to be apart ... Too many sirens in one place tend to make the locals restless.”
Max laces his fingers together and presses his forehead into his knuckles. “I’m sorry. She has a way of setting
