The Twice Lost

To the fact that you didn’t stay lost?”

It was a strange line of reasoning, unless this Ben Ellison knew a lot more than he ought to. “Knowing she’s alive? It’s connected to the fact that I saw her a few weeks back. She wasn’t banged up like that then, though.”

“But I imagine there were other changes in her that you might have noticed,” Ben Ellison said. His tone was sardonic, but there was another suggestion in his voice at the same time, a definite hungry sharpness. Was it envy?

“What do you want with her?” Andrew’s heart was racing and his knees wavered, but even so he was starting to feel some humor in the situation. Whether your kid got caught swilling vodka in a cemetery or shoplifting or turning into a mermaid, it was all the same. You still had to talk to the cops.

Ben Ellison hesitated. “I’d like to help her. I’m afraid it might not be possible, but—”

“Help her how?” Andrew found himself feeling defensive suddenly. “Far as I can see my girl is doing pretty good, considering.”

“She’s wanted for murder.”

“She’s what?”

“Arguably it was self-defense.”

“This is garbage. She’s only . . . she’s a kid. A good kid.”

“Given her current situation, it’s unlikely that constitutional protections apply, and I doubt anyone will go out of their way to interpret the law in her favor. After all, she technically isn’t even . . .”

“Isn’t even what?” Andrew snapped.

“Human. She isn’t human. Not at the present time.” They were staring fiercely at each other, the kettle still shrieking behind them. “Of course you aren’t surprised to hear this, either.”

“Who cares? Whatever kind of . . . whatever she looks like now, she’s still my daughter, and she’s still a . . . barely more than a child, really. A juvenile, anyhow. Look. If somebody was trying to hurt her—”

“Can you contact her? Do you know where she’s going? That photo was taken off the coast of Washington, and at the time she was heading south. She was seen the next day not far from the Oregon border.”

“And if I did know that, you think I would tell you?”

“There are quite a number of people who are determined to catch her, and they’ll shoot her on sight.” Ben Ellison paused to let that sink in. “If you have some way to communicate with her, you’d be well advised to urge her to surrender before that happens. And if I’m involved in the process, I promise I’ll do whatever I can to ensure her safety.”

“Was it your people who tore up her ear like that? If you did . . .”

“That wasn’t us.” Ben Ellison was looking toward the window now, then abruptly he walked to the stove and snapped the kettle off. His expression was morose. “Mr. Korchak, the fact is that I think Luce has been . . . unfairly singled out. But she’s also been behaving in a way that is guaranteed to attract negative attention when she should be doing whatever she can to keep a low profile. That video, for example.”

“What video?”

“Check the Internet. Search for ‘mermaid.’ You might be the last person in America who hasn’t seen it.”

Andrew considered that. Things were starting to make a bit more sense. “So she’s in some video. But then how did you know it was her? You see a mermaid, you don’t go and spontaneously say, ‘Oh, I bet it’s that Lucette Korchak girl who everybody thought jumped off a cliff up in Pittley.’”

Ben Ellison wasn’t looking at him. He kept his eyes pointed at the sea.

“Somebody rat her out, Ben? Who’ve you got?”

No reply.

No reply in a way that told Andrew Korchak exactly what the situation was: not only was there an informer, but it was someone this FBI guy didn’t trust. Someone who was lying up a storm, talking all kinds of smack. Firing off ridiculous accusations, like . . .

“Who you all think Luce murdered, anyhow?”

“Five men, actually, in total. Special operations.” Ellison sounded remote, maybe sad.

“A fourteen—fifteen-year-old girl? You think she’s some kind of goddamned ninja?”

“She’s not technically a girl at all any longer. As we’ve discussed. And there’s no question at all that she can be dangerous.” Ellison looked away from the sea long enough to gaze bleakly into Andrew’s eyes. “The prevailing opinion is that she—and all the creatures like her—are nothing but monsters. Regardless of the fact that they were human at one time. I realize this isn’t something a parent wants to hear about his child, of course.”

“The ‘prevailing’ opinion,” Andrew growled.

“Yes.”

“Does that mean it’s the one prevailing in your head? ’Cause if it is, that just shows how damned ignorant you are.”

“I’m . . . suspending judgment. About all of them, but about Luce in particular. Clearly there have been situations where she’s made a deliberate choice not to kill, and where I’d imagine the temptation must have been intense.” Ben Ellison’s voice was grim and drowsy.

“You said . . . those special operations guys . . . it was self-defense.” Maybe they’d forced Luce to kill, Andrew thought. Maybe.

“They were firing spear guns at her, in fact. And they will again.”

“Can’t blame the girl for that! If she was just trying to survive—”

“Mr. Korchak . . . I’m afraid it’s worse than that. You say you’ve seen Luce quite recently. How much did she tell you about her life after she changed form?”

Not much, Andrew thought. “Enough.”

“She was a member of a particularly vicious mermaid tribe. It’s possible that she’s had a change of heart since that time, but it’s extremely likely that she was at least complicit in far more deaths than the ones I’ve told you about.”

“Like . . .”

“Hundreds. Probably hundreds. More. One ship last year had almost nine hundred passengers on board when it sank. And Luce was there. That I know for certain.”

“Luce wouldn’t . . . No way I’ll believe . . .”

“Tell her to turn herself in, Mr. Korchak. It’s the best I can do for her. Special Ops are out to avenge their own. If I’m there first, there’s a chance I can get her into some form of safe custody before anyone blasts her to ribbons.”

“Don’t you talk about my girl like that! My God, after everything she’s been through . . . me and her mom both gone, my loser brother beating her and— You’re talking about just slashing up a teenage girl like it means nothing.”

“I’m trying to prevent precisely that from happening. I sincerely want to help her. Luce rescued someone I care about, and I don’t believe she deserves . . . Can you find her?”

“I want to find her. She fished me off that island where I was stranded, but then she just zoomed off and vanished.”

“And? Do you know where to look for her?”

Andrew groaned. He was doing his best not to break down, but it kept getting harder. “I’ve got no clue where to even start.”

6 Dead Zones

Now that J’aime had taken over the mission Luce had assigned herself, there wasn’t the same desperate