Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

in the gravel parking lot under the circle of light from a security lamp mounted on an electric pole as Mahon’s body was transferred from the wagon pulled behind Malachy’s SUV to an ambulance. He’d be transported to Dr. Caldwell’s morgue.

Uncle Sean approached, hiking up his uniform pants; he appeared to have lost weight in the weeks since Fia had seen him. “I got one officer willin’ to stand watch over the scene overnight, Fee, but I’m worried about him bein’ in there alone, I am, considering the circumstances.”

As he spoke to her and Glen aloud, the police chief tried to communicate telepathically to Fia.

She blocked his thoughts. Not now, Uncle Sean. Not here.

“But a couple of boys from the volunteer fire company are willin’ to stand shifts with him,” he went on. “What do ye think?”

She rubbed her eyes. With the coming of dusk, the no-see-ums, tiny black gnats, had appeared and were more annoying than the dive-bombing mosquitoes. “Just make the rules clear. They’re there to protect the scene until Special Agent Duncan and I can get back at daybreak. I don’t want them touching anything. I don’t even want them taking a leak within a hundred yards of that spot. And I don’t want anyone else there, except those you’ve assigned to the watch.”

“Ye got it, gal.” He hitched up his pants and hurried toward his car where several of his officers waited.

The volunteer EMTs closed the doors on the ambulance.

Fia turned to Glen. “We’ll get some sleep at the motel, come back in the morning.” As she spoke, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a figure standing near her car. She walked toward him. “Meet you there, Glen?”

“Fee,” her father called out of the darkness. His cigarette glowed. “Your mother says you should come stay with us. Bed and breakfast is practically empty.” He didn’t look at Glen still standing under the street lamp. “Room for you both.”

“That’s okay, Dad. We’ve got reservations at the Lighthouse.”

“She won’t charge you for the rooms. Just what meals you eat. She says she can bill ’em or put it on a MasterCard or something.”

“Tell her thanks, Dad. It’s nice of her to offer, but—”

She felt Glen’s fingertips brush her shoulder blade. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” he said quietly, coming up behind her.

“Excuse me a minute,” she told her father, walking away from the car. Glen followed.

“We should stay at the motel, out of the fray,” she said. “Her kitchen is like Grand Central. Everyone in the town stopping by for coffee. Talking, conjecturing.”

“Could be a good thing.”

She could hardly see his face in the dark, but she knew he was watching her. She glanced away. Her father’s cigarette grew brighter then dimmer as he puffed.

“People coming and going,” he continued. “We might overhear something pertinent to the case. Let’s face it, two beheadings in a town this small, Fia. Someone has got to know something.”

“My mother’s nosy. She likes to get into my business.”

“So keep your briefcase and your overnight case shut.” There was a hint of amusement in his tired voice.

He was probably right. At the motel, they were isolated. No one there but a couple of tourists and old Mrs. Cahall who owned the place. With word of Mahon’s murder hours old, the bed and breakfast would be as packed as the pub tonight. Busier tomorrow morning, as the first coffee pot percolated.

Of course, staying at the B and B would mean taking more chances with Glen. Her parents were pretty good around humans; they’d had a lot of years of tourist trade to practice. But with the end of the season in sight, and with what was happening in the town, Fia wasn’t sure how well they were keeping their guards up.

As she stood with her hand on her hip, vacillating, the decision came sauntering their way, hips swaying, cherry-cheesecake lip-gloss mouth pursed.

“Special Agent Duncan,” Shannon cooed. She was wearing a tight pink T-shirt and denim shorts that appeared to be without an inseam. Her pale, untanned butt cheeks glowed in the dark. “I was hoping you’d be back in town. Not that I would wish such a thing on anyone, God forbid.” She giggled. “But you know what I mean.”

Glen barely glanced at Shannon, but there was no way a human male couldn’t notice her. Be attracted to her. It was chemically impossible, and Shannon, of all people, knew that.

“Okay, we’ll have it your way,” Fia said to Glen, walking back toward the car. “Shannon. Go back to work.”

“It’s my night off,” the blonde called after her.

“We’ll follow you into town, Dad,” Fia told the glowing cigarette. “Special Agent Duncan, you coming?”

“Right behind you.”

As Fia guessed, the kitchen of her mother’s place, the Sea Horse Bed and Breakfast, was packed. The good citizens of Clare Point mulled around, helping themselves to coffee and iced tea and her mother’s famous pecan sticky buns. They spilled out of the kitchen and dining room onto the wide veranda that circled the rambling Victorian home Fia had grown up in. Twice.

It would have looked like a party except that there were few smiles. Even less laughter.

“Special Agent Duncan, I’m so glad you could join us.” Mary Kay Kahill, who was actually Mary K., to keep her straight with the other Marys in town, met them on the veranda’s wide front steps.

“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.” Glen passed his small duffel bag from his right hand to his left so he could shake her hand.

“Mom.” Fia passed her on the steps.

“Fee.”

“Which rooms?”

“The Starfish and the Blue Gill. There’s only two other rooms occupied so you both get your own bathroom.”

Fia had always thought the Blue Gill was a silly name for one of the rooms; after all, bluegills were not saltwater fish. Her mother insisted it didn’t matter; most tourists didn’t know it and didn’t care. Mary Kay, forever the pragmatist, said it beat calling the room the Oyster Cracker Room. Looked a