The Accidental Mermaid (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 16) Read online

Detective Johns sat forward, taking a sip of his tea as he watched her. “Yet, you went to his funeral.”

  She looked back at him, unflinching. “Of course I did. Whether he was close to us or not, my grandfather loved and respected him. I went out of respect for my grandfather. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

  But he didn’t answer her; he simply asked another question. “So, he never spoke to you about his depression? Never hinted he’d thought of taking his own life?”

  “What about this shit don’t you get, Starsky? She said no. She told you she hadn’t talked to him. Like, what are you fishin’ for here?” Nina asked, her tone full of barely contained anger.

  But Esther wanted to know the same thing. She sat forward on the cushions and asked, “Listen, what’s going on here? I was told his death was a suicide. Are you suspecting foul play? Because if this is about money or the research he’s done or whatever, I didn’t get a single penny from him, and I have no idea what he was working on. He left everything to science and his funeral was prearranged and paid for. All I did was show up.”

  Detective Johns tucked his pad back into the pocket inside his wrinkled jacket. “No, ma’am. I’m just tying up loose ends.”

  Loose ends? Interesting. “So you drove all the way here from the city to ask me things you could have asked me over the phone? Is this an official investigation?”

  “No, it’s not, but we like to be thorough,” was all he offered before he was up and moving toward the door, his large body quicker than one would anticipate.

  “Wait!” Esther said, sliding off the couch, where she sat between Tuck and Wanda, the latter of whom was dozing beneath a blanket Esther’s grandmother had crocheted. She strode toward the door. “Can you tell me what was in the emails he sent? I know it sounds macabre, but now, since you came all this way to ask me questions about something I thought was pretty cut and dried, I’d like to know why he committed suicide. How he was feeling before he…”

  His eyes scanned the room for only a second before they settled on her. “I can’t reveal that information, Miss Sanchez. It’s classified.”

  What an odd word to use about a suicide. Unless her scientist uncle was involved in something bigger than she was aware. “Classified? You’re an NYC detective, not some FBI agent. How can it be classified?”

  Detective Johns looked over her shoulder when he said, “I meant private. I can’t show you an email he sent to other people. It’s against regulation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a long trip back to the city. Have a nice day, folks.” And with that, he popped her front door open and left.

  Esther turned to face the group, each of whom had the same expression on their faces she was sure she had on hers. “Did that seem odd or is it just me?”

  Nina popped her lips, setting Marsha on the ground with a scratch between her ears. “Dude, fuck yeah, it was odd. I don’t know what, but I can tell you, some shit ain’t right.”

  Then Esther turned to Tuck, who sat very quietly on the couch. “You seem to have known my uncle better than I did, even if it was just through email. Care to tell me if he seemed depressed?”

  Tucker rose from the couch, removing Mook from his lap and setting him next to Wanda, who was lightly snoring. As he approached, his tall frame looming over her, he said, “Actually, in all truth, I was going to ask you some of the same things the detective did, Esther. But you’ve made it clear you didn’t know Gomez well enough to know his state of mind.”

  “Why were you going to ask me if he was depressed? What do you care if he was depressed? Am I missing some kind of link here? You said you’d never met and only shared work emails. I don’t know about you, but when communicating in a professional capacity, I don’t usually go deeper than common courtesies. Also, I’m pretty sure you can find someone new to test your water, can’t you? What made my uncle so special?”

  Tuck looked past her and shrugged. “He’d been with us for years, we trusted him. It was so sudden.”

  “But it’s like you said, he approved a test on some water that killed someone and made a bunch of other people sick. That he was depressed, and feeling responsible for someone’s life because of his tests, doesn’t make it seem so sudden. It means he had a heart, even if he didn’t show it to his family.”

  Which stung a little, in light of the fact that her grandfather loved him so much.

  His expression went stony. “That’s a fair assessment.”

  But Esther waved her finger under his nose. “Nuh-uh. Don’t give me six syllables and call it a day. You know something, Tucker Pearson. You know something, and I want to know what it is. The fact my uncle killed himself would kill my grandfather if he were still alive. He loved Gomez, made excuses for his absence in our family all the time. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on here? Because I don’t believe it has anything to do with your respect for his work as a scientist. You may well have respected his work, but because he approved some tests for your bottled water, he killed someone. That makes for bad PR, buddy. What are you after? And you’d better quit skipping around the mulberry bush about it or I’m going to lose my shit all over you!”

  Nina slapped her on the back and grinned. “Proud of ya, Guppie—way to sniff out a snake. I think our work here is done, ladies. Looks like the newb’s got a handle on this all on her own.”

  Esther would take pride in the compliment, coming from a woman so fierce, but she wanted answers right now. So she lifted an eyebrow at him. “Well?”

  And he refused to bow down. “I think it’s best we stick to mermaid lessons for now.”

  Nina set Esther behind her and jammed her face in Tucker’s. “I don’t give a shit what you think is best, Flipper. If she’s in some kind of danger, which I’m suspecting she is, because every fucking newb we’ve ever come across always is, I wanna know now. I’m not fighting paper dragons, buddy. I’m here to look out for her, just like I said I would. Now spit this shit out!”

  As much as she appreciated Nina’s protection, because really, a vampire on your side can’t be a bad thing, she was no slouch when it came to sticking up for herself.

  She stepped in front on Nina and gave Tucker the stink eye. “What she said.”

  Tucker ran his hand through his thick hair, no worse for the wear after all that saltwater. When he finally spoke, his words chilled her to the bone.

  Gripping her by the shoulders, his expression became grave. “I don’t believe your uncle committed suicide, Esther. I think someone killed him.”

  Chapter 8

  Hashtag mind blown.

  Killed. Someone had killed her uncle?

  Why would someone kill her uncle? According to her family, a meek, mild-mannered scientist? Had Tucker sucked the air from her lungs, she couldn’t be more breathless.

  Her heart began to pound in her chest with a heavy thud. “But why? Why would someone kill him? Do you think it was the family of the man who died? Because they were angry his tests failed to catch something in your water? What the hell was in the water, anyway?”

  But Tucker shook his head with a firm movement in the negative. “No. No one knew the identity of the scientist who did the tests other than the police. We did everything we could to prevent his name being released, and we took full responsibility for the illnesses and the death of that man.”

  “And he died of what?” Marty asked from the couch.

  Tucker’s face went grim, his eyes distant, almost sad. “A deadly bacteria. Due to his age and a heart condition, it killed him.”

  Esther reached for Nina’s hand, needing something to hold to keep from trembling herself right out of her fuzzy slippers. “Then who? Why? Why would you think he was killed?”

  “To shut him up,” he literally ground out, as though he were angry with her because her uncle was dead. His jaw twitched and his teeth clenched, yet still, she didn’t understand why her uncle’s death or alleged murder made a difference to Tucker if he didn’t really know him.

  “Okay, enou
gh with the small sentences, Tucker,” Marty said angrily, hopping up off the couch and throwing her finger in Tucker’s face. “Spill the whole story and spill it now. My head is killing me. I’m tired. I’m trying to merge two businesses from a goddamn phone via text message and Facebook. Stop with the song and dance and get to the fucking point!”

  The last words roared from her mouth, and one of her incisors elongated, dripping with a gleaming drop of spit.

  Nina, the easily ruffled, was suddenly unruffled and cool as a cucumber as she grabbed Marty around the waist to keep her from going for Tucker’s throat. “Werewolf, chill. What the fuck’s gotten into you? Nobody’s got their head on straight anymore. Wanda’s either crying about absofuckinglutely nothing or drooling while she’s passed out in a corner somewhere, and you’re either full of sage wisdom and advice or on GD fire. Your pendulum swings fucking wildly, werewolf-san. Everybody, chill the fuck out! And you, Fish-man, talk or I’ll let Blondie here loose. You do not want me to let her loose!”

  Marty tried to struggle out of Nina’s grip, but Nina gave her a good shake. “Promise me you won’t eat the man, Marty. At least not until he spits out whateverthefuck the problem is.”

  But Marty grabbed at Nina’s hands with angry swipes, trying to pry them from her waist, her cheeks beet red, her face furious. “Get off me, Dark One, and put me down!”

  Nina pulled her close, her lips at Marty’s ear. “Not until you promise you’re going to get a grip on your shit and turn down the volume. You know I can kick your ass—don’t make me do it in front of people and embarrass you. Now…breathe, baby, or I’ll take your ass outta the game.”

  Marty surrendered, her lightly tanned skin going pale as she sank back against Nina. “I’m breathing. Put me down. Please. I have a massive headache and your death-breath isn’t helping it.”

  Nina nodded, seemingly not offended at all by Marty’s poke. “Better. Go get some aspirin and a cold pack and sit this one out. Maybe go find Carl and have him read you a story or something. He’s in the backyard with Mook. But we’re not going to get anywhere with everyone at each other’s throats. And that I’m the one to tell you people that should scare the fuck out of you.”

  Marty shook Nina off and took her leave, her pear-scented perfume wafting to Esther’s nose as she huffed her way out the back door of the kitchen.

  Nina turned to Tucker, planting her hands on her hips. “Speak. Tell us what’s going on, and tell us this fucking instant, or I swear to Jesus, I’ll make you beg for your life. If Little Fish here is in some kind of danger because someone thinks she might know something about her uncle’s death, you can’t keep hiding it—because if you want anyone in your corner, it’s us.”

  Then she looked to a sleeping Wanda, sprawled out on the couch, and Marty in the backyard, massaging her temples.

  “Okay. It’s good to have me in her corner. Just me. Do it. Now. Why do you suspect someone murdered Gomez?”

  Tucker ran a hand through his hair again, then over his chin covered in dark stubble. “Because Gomez was accurate. He was always accurate. I can’t tell you how many times he did testing for us—how many disasters he saved us from because he was meticulous. And I don’t use that word lightly.”

  Esther rocked from foot to foot, crossing her arms over her chest. “So that to you means murder? Because he made a mistake? Everyone has one to their name, Tucker. At least one.”

  “No. Not because he made a mistake, but because those tests weren’t just done by him, but approved by me. Allegedly approved by me, that is. Everything about this new bottled water we’ve developed has been a disaster from the start. From the difficult location we culled it from, to the testing, to production, and whatever else came in between.”

  “Swear on Mook and Marsha’s lives, if you say you culled whatever you put in the water from Atlantis, I’ll die. Right here before your eyes,” Esther threatened, and she wasn’t even joking.

  Tucker actually smirked before he covered it up with another serious expression. “Not Atlantis, exactly. Australia, actually.”

  Interesting… “So how do you guys manage to live with people and still be mermaids? How do you keep from being caught?”

  “Have you heard of Atargatis Lake?” he asked.

  “The private lake community with security guards at the gate?” She’d driven past it a million times and just assumed rich people lived in row after row of the gorgeous houses.

  “That’s the one,” he confirmed, his gravelly voice low.

  Her mouth fell open. “Shut up! You guys own that lake, don’t you? OMG—so everyone in that community is a mermaid? Like right here in Staten Island?”

  “Named after a Goddess, and yes, right under your cute noses,” he confirmed, finally smiling again. “And we didn’t cull the water from the lake—that’s a manmade body of saltwater. It was done in Australia, taken from a reef one of our divers discovered. But regardless, it was all wrong from the word go.”

  “Okay, so you’re claiming you didn’t give the green light to this water that my uncle said was good? Am I getting that right?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Okay, so what does ‘sort of’ mean?”

  Tucker rasped a sigh, but he was finally forthcoming. “What I’ve been accused of is simple. They claim I gave the green light to the water, knowing it was bad, and sent it into production anyway because it meant millions of dollars lost if we didn’t and the risk factor was low. In fact, they have an email from me to production, stating I gave it the thumbs-up and passed off the poor results from Gomez as minimal collateral damage compared to the bigger picture. Also, there’s over a million dollars missing from H2O-Yo, and it all points to me skimming and hiding it in offshore accounts in the Caymans. But as I stand here before you, Esther, I’m telling you—I’m telling you all—I would never have endangered lives had I ever sensed even a hint of an issue. The only test results I saw said everything was a go. The water was good. And those were the tests from your uncle that I received in an email—which have mysteriously disappeared into thin air.”

  His face was so sincere, his eyes boring holes into her. If he was lying, he was either the best actor ever or a total sociopath.

  On impulse, Esther reached out and grabbed his wrist. She couldn’t explain why, but she believed him. “So, you think you’ve been set up?”

  “That’s exactly what I think. I don’t know by whom or even why, but someone wanted me out of the company, and they did a fine job of getting me gone.”

  “You got fired from your own family’s company?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I didn’t just get fired from the company. I got booted out of my pod.”

  There was that crazy word again. Pod, pod, pod.

  Nina narrowed her gaze at him and sucked her teeth. “What you’re saying is, her uncle probably knew the water was bad and he said as much, but some greedy fuck got ahold of those tests and changed them to look like everything was okay, so you’d sign off—which you did. Shit went into production as planned, and then when that guy died and people got sick from the water, this greedy fuck showed up with the email from you and the real test results, which said the water was shit? So, like a whistleblower kind of thing?”

  Tucker’s face went hard, the lines around his mouth deepening. “In a roundabout way. When my father—who’s not Poseidon, by the way, but a distant relative—and his team researched the trail of paperwork leading up to production, he found the alleged test results from Gomez, and someone anonymously sent him the email I supposedly sent to production, telling them the risks weren’t worth halting production. My father, being the man he is, honorable if not stubborn as hell, banned me from the company and the pod until further notice.”

  She’d gone from outraged on his behalf to frightened in the matter of just a few minutes. “You think my uncle found out someone changed his tests, and he was going to tell you or your father, and got himself murdered because he knew the truth?”

 
; “I absolutely do,” he said, his words tight.

  Now she had to lean against the wall, bracing her body from the trembling. “That’s horrible.” Even though she hardly knew her uncle, to find he quite possibly had been killed scared the hell out of her.

  Nina slapped Tucker on the back, her face full of sympathy. “Fuck, dude. That sucks. Does this mean you’re banned from the mermaid Slip ’N Slide, too? Like, do you live in this community where all you guys hang out?”

  Tucker grimaced. “Fortunately, I don’t. I live closer to the office complex for obvious reasons. The gated community mostly houses married mers and families.”

  Her ears perked up. So did that mean the hot fish wasn’t married?

  Oh, bad, Esther. Bad! What do you care if he’s not married? Hysterical bonding is real, Esther Sanchez. You’d do well to remember that.

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had a girlfriend.

  But she didn’t have to ask. Nina took care of that for her. “So, no kids? No girlfriend? Wife?”

  “No.”

  “Good thing, seein’ as you were porking Esther with your scales at a funeral because you thought she was hot, huh?” Then Nina laughed at her joke.

  But Esther wasn’t laughing. If someone had killed her uncle, if for nothing else other than the memory of her grandfather, she wanted justice. It would have killed Salvador Sanchez to think his son had been so unhappy he’d killed himself—even if the alleged suicide was over a mistake.

  Someone needed to get to the bottom of this. Now.

  But then she remembered Jessica. She didn’t seem upset with her brother at all. So he wasn’t totally alone. “Your sister seems supportive, though.”

  Tucker gave her a glimmer of a smile then. “She is. She’s tried reasoning with my father, but if you knew Getty Pearson, you’d know once he’s made a decision, especially if it involves the company he worked day and night to grow himself, you’d know there’s no changing his mind.

  Esther blew out a breath of pent-up air. “Any thoughts on a suspect? Someone who was holding a grudge? A jealous colleague who thought he should have your position?”