A - Immortal Sea

He squinted against the sun sparkling on the blue water below, free as the gulls soaring against the pale sky.

Of course, his current satisfaction might have had another source.

Elizabeth.

Anticipation hummed in his blood and low in his throat. He thought about her body braced in challenge, her cool control,

that flash of heat. He‟d thought about her quite a lot, in that quiet white room at the inn where he slept alone.

He enjoyed a test of wills almost as much as he enjoyed sex. With her, it would be a pleasure to indulge in both.

He wanted her again, more now than sixteen years ago. And unlike her, he had no hesitation taking what he wanted.

The road from the inn curved uphill and inland past weathered gray houses and small, bright gardens. Following the

innkeeper‟s directions, he found the police department housed in the town hall, a modest brick building overlooking the

harbor.

He went inside. The air was acrid with dust and ink and burned coffee.

The steely-haired woman behind the counter wore her eyeglasses around her neck like a badge of office and looked older

than the building itself. Morgan glanced at the name plate on her desk. EDITH PAINE, TOWN CLERK.

“Chief Caleb Hunter,” he said.

She continued to poke at her keyboard. “In his office,” she said without looking up. “Take a seat.”

Caleb had called Morgan with a request to drop by the police station. Possibly the policeman was following up on the

report of the broken window. More likely, he wanted to keep tabs on the finfolk lord while he was on human turf. Morgan was

willing to oblige in either case. He needed Elizabeth‟s address.

“He is expecting me,” Morgan said.

“Maybe he is.”

“You will tell him I am here.”

The clerk raised her glasses to her nose and looked at him for a moment. As if, Morgan thought, he were a shark on her

fishing line, unworthy of her bait or effort.

He bit back a grin.

“Maybe I will,” Edith Paine said. “When he‟s free. Chairs are behind you if you want to wait.”

He supposed he could wait.

Turning, he surveyed the row of uncomfortable-looking chairs. The one in the middle was already occupied. A small girl

with a halo of soft black curls huddled on the wooden seat clutching a large, pale doll. A candy bar sat on the chair beside her,

unwrapped. Uneaten.

Someone‟s attempt at comfort, Morgan deduced. It was none of his business. Clearly, the child was being cared for after a

fashion. Children had survived on Sanctuary for centuries with less.

She looked up at him, her wide, dark eyes swimming with moisture, and stuck out her chin.

Something stirred in his gut. His memory.

“She seems rather young for a felon,” he said to the woman behind the counter.

She sniffed and tapped the keyboard on her desk.

Morgan glanced back at the child. Her lips trembled. Something about that face . . . That chin . . . He narrowed his gaze.

Pink sandals.

Hell and buggering angels.

He ground his teeth together. “Where,” he said very precisely, “is your mother?”

Edith Paine paused her tapping. “I called the clinic. She‟s on the way.”

So that was all right, then, Morgan thought. He really had no responsibility here at all.

He frowned. “And your brother?” he asked the child.

Those wide brown eyes fixed on his face with a desperate, completely misplaced hope. “He had to go with the policeman.”

“Where?” Morgan asked sharply.

One grubby hand released the doll. The girl pointed one small, nail-bitten finger to a closed door.

“He said he wanted to talk to Zack.” She drew a shaky breath. Hiccupped. “We had to get in his car. I had to wait out here,

he said.”

Morgan‟s cold blood boiled. He strode across the lobby.

“You can‟t go in there,” Edith objected.

He ignored her. The little girl scrambled off her chair and after him.

Morgan opened the door.

Police Chief Caleb Hunter leaned back behind his desk, big and imposing in a wrinkled blue uniform. The boy—Zachary—

hunched in a chair before him, face sullen and eyes miserable.

The chief shot a look at the open door, mild annoyance drawing his brows together. “Morgan. I have to ask you to wait

outside.”

Morgan felt a pressure against his leg and glanced down. The little girl had attached herself to him, one arm clinging to his

knee, the other gripping the doll. Shaking her loose would be undignified and time-consuming, Morgan decided. He could

tolerate her touch for the time it would take him to sort things out.

He locked eyes with the policeman. “What are you doing with him?”

“None of your business,” Caleb replied evenly. “Edith! I told you no interruptions.”

“You want a linebacker out here, call the Patriots.”

Morgan looked at Zachary. The boy slouched deeper in his chair, his mouth sulky, his gaze defiant. Beneath the kiss-myass attitude, he stank of fear and shame, his muscles coiled with animal tension.

“What happened?” he asked the boy.

“That‟s what I‟m trying to find out,” Caleb said. “Now unless you‟re his mother or his lawyer, get the hell out.”

“I‟m his father.”

Silence crashed over the room like a wave.

The police chief rubbed his face with his hand. “Well, shit. That puts a different spin on things. Let‟s see what his mother

has to say.”

Her son had been picked up for questioning.

Her daughter was in the care of strangers at the police station.

It was Liz‟s worst nightmare.

Well, not the worst. She‟d survived the worst three years ago, watching Ben lose his hair, his strength, his voice . . . his life.

But the feeling she was wading through a bad dream, the sick helplessness in the pit of her stomach, the struggle to make

sense of the unacceptable, those were the same.

“ There’s been some trouble .” Edith Paine‟s brusque Yankee voice replayed in her head. “ Chief picked up that boy of

yours down by the ferry . . . Need to answer some questions before you take him home. ”

No one was hurt, Liz told herself. That was the important thing. Whatever else had happened, they would deal with it.

That‟s what she did. Deal with things. She instructed Nancy to reschedule her afternoon appointments and drove to the police

station, a hard ball of panic pounding in her chest.

She was the mommy. She was a doctor. She could fix this, whatever it was.

She parked the car and bypassed the required ramp to march up the town hall steps. In another mood, at another time, she

might have been charmed or at least reassured by the small town vibe of the place, the old-fashioned wooden counter and

modern fluorescent lights, the community bulletin board papered with wanted posters and bake sale flyers, city regulations and

hand-lettered signs: HOUSE CLEANING. PET SITTING. DEEP SEA FISHING. ORGANIC JAM.

Her gaze swept the lobby. A small room housed a coffeepot and a copy machine. A row of straight-backed chairs lined up

against one wall, a discarded candy bar on one seat.

But no Zack.

No Emily.

Taking a deep breath, she approached the counter. She had met Edith Paine before. The town clerk had served on the

search committee responsible for hiring the new island doctor.

Liz struggled to paste on a professional smile, but her lips refused to cooperate. Her hand trembled on the strap of her

purse. “Edith, can you tell me—”