Chapter 43

The ride out to Elizabeth Island was marginally smoother than the last one I’d taken, but this time my anxiety was way higher. There was also a minor storm brewing. Perfect.

I kept an eye on the threatening clouds as the sky lightened into morning and clutched my daylight charm anxiously. ‘How will we find Sidnee?’ I asked anyone who would answer. My gut was churning, and not from the rough seas.

Soapy answered. ‘I’ll dive down and check the cave that’s still holding the drugs. If Chris really was seen around here, that’s where he’ll be. If we don’t find him there, we’ll circle the island and look for him or Fletcher.’

The disdain in his voice when he said Sidnee’s surname took me off guard. I knew she had issues with the other mermaids, but Soapy wasn’t a mer so what was his problem? Was he annoyed that her impulsiveness had brought us all out here?

I looked over the vastness of the cold blue sea. My friend could be literally anywhere. One searching salmon-shark shifter wasn’t going to be enough. Try saying that five times fast.

‘And while Soapy checks the caves, we’ll check out the island and then go from there. We’ll find her,’ Gunnar sounded calm, but I suspected he was trying to reassure himself as much as me. ‘Everything will be fine.’ His fingers were tapping anxiously on the handrail; the body rarely lies as well as the mouth.

The five-mile ride seemed to take forever. By the time we were nearing the island the sun was fully up, though thankfully mostly obscured by thunder clouds. I looked up and shivered; I still remembered the first time I’d been burned by sunlight after I was turned.

As I fingered my daylight charm again, Connor noticed and wrapped his arm around my waist. He kissed my head and watched with me. Once we were close enough, I scanned the beach and cliffs for anything that would indicate Sidnee was there. Nothing. Dammit – would it have killed her to fire a flare or wave a giant flag or something?

Stan anchored near the sea cave. I looked over the side into the clear deep water but I couldn’t see anything, not even the flash of a silvery fish. I turned around to see Soapy removing his clothing. Oh boy, I didn’t want to see that because Calliope struck me as the jealous type. I closed my eyes tightly until I heard the splash as he dived over the side.

Stan put his skiff in the water. It was slightly larger than the Nomo skiff but it still only held three people at a time. Stan ran Gunnar and Thomas over first, then came back for me and Connor. He dropped us on the shore then returned to the boat to wait for Soapy.

I consciously drew up my memories of our previous walk on the island and skimmed through them. There were short beaches in both directions, both ending in a jumble of rocks that forced you to either go up into the island’s interior or stop and turn around.

Thomas took the lead, and I’d never been happier to have an expert tracker beside me; he was almost as good as Fluffy at locating people. I wished I’d brought my dog; not only was he a comfort, but we could have used his nose. I wondered if it was a mistake to send Stan back to the boat. I bet polar bears had good noses. Though I was pretty sure I’d create a political gaffe if I suggested using the shifter-leader as a sniffer dog.

We went up the beach and turned to the left where we’d walked before. Thomas checked carefully then declared, ‘No new tracks here.’ My heart sank. If Sidnee was in the sea we’d never find her, alive or dead. It was too vast and I wasn’t sure I trusted Soapy after hearing his tone when he’d said her name.

We turned back in the opposite direction and walked along the beach. Same result: nothing. We went back to our starting point. To do a real search, we’d have to split up and cover the interior of the island, which was three miles in diameter. Panic threatened to grip me; I pushed it down and looked inland.

Past the small strip of beach, a large grassy area with a stream in the centre offered an easy walk. However, the low flat area swooped up on both sides to tree-covered hills and beyond those were rocky cliffs. The other side of the island was mostly exposed rock, pounded by storms and surf. If Sidnee was anywhere it would be on this calmer side.

‘She’s got to be close to the beach,’ I said desperately.

Connor looked at me gently; he didn’t agree but he was afraid of breaking it to me. Patkotak had no such compunction. ‘Not if she was chased out of the water. She’d be hiding in the trees or the rocks.’

I grimaced. Strong and tough as Sidnee was, Chris was bigger and stronger – plus he was a selkie. I wasn’t sure what type of seal he turned into, but it could be larger than Sidnee. ‘Does anyone know what kind of seal Chris is?’ I asked.

Thomas grunted, ‘He’s a Steller sea lion.’

Everyone looked at him. Connor asked, ‘How do you know that, Patkotak?’

Thomas winked but didn’t elucidate and that sent a chill down my spine. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew what everyone was; did he have a file on me somewhere? Bunny the vampire that isn’t? ‘Okay, pretend I’m British,’ I said. ‘What is a Stellar sea lion? And please tell me it means he’s really good at studying the stars.’

Gunnar gave a hollow chuckle. ‘Not Stellar – Steller. It’s one of the largest sea lions. Ten feet long, weighs a tonne.’

‘Fuck.’ I bent over and tried to breathe slowly to push down my rising panic. Chris could kill Sidnee without even trying. I told myself that she was fast, though, and he’d tried to protect her when the general had wanted to wipe out her memories. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt her. It felt like a big maybe.

‘How does Soapy compare?’ I asked. ‘Could he help her against something that big?’

‘Soapy’s maybe five hundred pounds in his salmon-shark form. But he’s fast, and so is Sidnee,’ Gunnar said.

I thought back to the first time we’d been here when I’d caught a glimpse of brown fur in the trees. Gunnar had brushed it off as a moose or something. Could it have been a selkie skin waiting for its master to return? I shivered. ‘Are Steller sea lions brown?’ I asked.

Gunnar gave me one of his looks, but I was always spouting weird shit and he was used to it. ‘Yeah, mostly,’ he said.

I looked around, trying to remember where I’d seen the flash of brown fur, but this time I saw nothing. It felt like the motto of the day: nothing, nothing, nothing.

Probably the brown fur was that of a moose, like Gunnar had said. Why would Chris have hung his skin here? And maybe the tales of selkie skins were way off base. Maybe they didn’t leave their skins at all in real life.

Connor placed his hand on my lower back and suddenly I could breathe again. I needed to let my anxiety fall away and focus on finding Sidnee. I gave him a grateful smile. ‘We’ll take this side of the stream.’ I strode purposefully to the left bank and he joined me.

‘We’ll take the other side,’ Thomas said.

‘I’m an okay tracker but I’m nowhere near as good as Patkotak,’ Connor said, once we were out of earshot of the other two men.

‘If she’s here, she’ll want us to find her. She’ll leave something we can follow,’ I tried to sound optimistic but we both knew that if she were truly hiding, she wouldn’t have left anything that Chris might find.

Think, Bunny, think. Where would she go if Chris had chased her out of the water?

If she’d gone to the cave to see if he was checking on the fisheye, what could have happened? The stash had been immense and he couldn’t have retrieved it alone, plus it was wired to explode. We’d searched several paranormal towns before we’d found someone qualified to disarm it, and he wasn’t due in until the following week. We had people primed to retrieve the stash after the explosives had been defused but it would take several people and a large boat.

‘No way,’ I said aloud and stopped.

Connor turned to look at me. ‘What?’

‘He wouldn’t be here alone,’ I said.

‘Chris?’

‘Yeah. If he was seen here, he’d be here for the drugs. Why else would he come back? And he couldn’t manage that huge stash alone, not in a sea-lion body.’ If my theory was right, there would be a bunch of tracks, not just Sidnee’s.

There was a shout and both of us whipped our heads around. Gunnar and Thomas had found something.

We ran.