A Watery Death (A Missing Pieces Mystery Book 7) by Joyce Lavene, Jim Lavene Page A

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    “That was one heck of a morning,” he said with a grin. “Good idea about hiring the students for servers. That kept my cooks working in the kitchen to get the food out. I think everything is going well. Everyone seems happy. Looks like a successful open house.”
    “I met a merman.”
    He was about to say something else, his mouth opened to form the words, but they never came out. “What?”
    “A merman. He said his name is Tovi. I met him last night at the house, but he was naked, and I thought he was just some drunken visitor. He grabbed me and jumped on the sandbar this morning as I walked to town hall. I saw him disappear into the water, Kevin. He had a big fish tail and really strange eyes.”
    “Have you eaten today?”
    “If that’s a nice way of asking me if I imagined the whole thing, I didn’t. He was real. He said his people didn’t kill Captain Lucky even though it might look that way. I didn’t have a chance to tell him that no one would think that. He’s coming back again tonight. I think he might only be able to be out of the water with legs from dusk to dawn—kind of like the old mermaid stories. I’m not sure about that. But he jumped in the water before the sun really came up, and he isn’t coming back until tonight. I think that gives it away, don’t you?”
    “I don’t think seafolk exist, Dae. It had to be some kind of trick.”
    I stared at the man I loved. “You didn’t blink when I first told you about my gift. You were steadfast through a pirate ghost, a ghost ship, demon horses, me being taken over by a witch from the past, and traveling through time. But you draw the line at the idea of seafolk?”
    He smiled and put his hand over mine. “When you put it that way, I suppose it sounds silly. But Anne and I worked through all kinds of supernatural phenomena, and I never heard anything mentioned about seafolk.”
    Kevin had a psychic partner in the FBI that had made his transition here with me easier.
    “But the archives at the museum are full of stories and drawings made from sailors’ accounts. Why doesn’t that make it possible?”
    “I’m not saying it’s not possible,” he explained. “I’m saying no one has ever made contact with another species on the planet, with the exception of Mary Catherine and her kind speaking to animals.”
    “I didn’t imagine Tovi or dream him,” I defended. “He was with me in the Duck Shoppes parking lot when I ran into Peggy Lee and her husband last night. They saw him too. He was real.”
    “But it was at night, so he had legs.”
    “Are you making fun of me?” I demanded hotly. “I couldn’t wait to get over here and tell you about this. I knew you’d understand, but you don’t, do you?”
    He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t know what to say. If you say you met a naked merman and talked to him, I believe you. But you’re the only person in the world to ever do so.”
    “That doesn’t make it impossible.”
    “True. I suppose he knew English too. Or did he have some kind of translator?”
    That was it. Despite my eagerness to see him and eat the delicious lunch on the table, I grabbed another roll and left him.
    “Wait, Dae.” He got to his feet. “Don’t leave. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough morning.”
    “That doesn’t explain you making jokes at my expense. I’m going to make some money. I’ll talk to you later.”
    “Kevin!” One of the student servers called out his name. “Someone upset the soup tureen in the dining room, and there’s soup everywhere.”
    “Wait,” he said to me. “Don’t leave until I get back. Let’s talk about this.”
    But I was already determined to go. As soon as he’d followed the young man toward the dining room, I stalked out the front door. I was angry and embarrassed by what he’d said to me. Kevin never acted that way. What was it about seafolk that was so hard to believe?
    A woman wearing an ankle-length green cotton skirt, her long gray hair