Cleo, Emma, and Rikki could hear the blaring music from the street. They entered the Sertori house to find Kim and a couple of her friends dancing to music videos and singing their hearts out, no doubt pretending they were rock stars playing to a crowd of thousands. The music was so loud it rattled the windows slightly.
Despite herself, Cleo stifled a smile. It was good to see Kim have fun and friends, and it wasn't like Cleo hadn't done the same thing, herself, a hundred times.
Even so.
Kim protested as she saw Cleo grab the remote off the couch, but the younger sister was too slow. Cleo muted the TV.
"Okay, girls," Cleo said. "Dance your hearts out, but this is our living room, not Carrara Stadium."
"Killjoy," Kim said. She tried to snatch the remote but Cleo easily held it out of reach.
"Volume at a reasonable level, or not at all," Cleo said. "You have no third option."
"You don't make the rules!" Kim said.
"I have ears I'd like to keep intact, and neighbors I'd like to remain on friendly terms with," Cleo said. "That gives me all the authority I need. If you don't like it, you can tell Dad all about this little incident. Be my guest." She held the remote out.
Scowling, Kim snatched it.
"Now," Cleo said. "Put the music on whatever volume you decide is reasonable." She stood there, watching Kim.
Kim unmuted the TV and adjusted the volume down.
"Now take it ten notches below that," Cleo said.
"Why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?" Kim snapped.
"Because you and I both know that you would have started ten notches higher to begin with, just to get it down to where you wanted. Ten more notches."
Fuming slightly, Kim did as instructed. This put the volume at a level most people would have considered reasonable. Everyone in the room could hear the TV just fine.
"Great!" Cleo said with a smile. "Any idea when Dad will be home?"
Kim tossed the remote onto the couch. "Nope. But I am supposed to tell you he went out to dinner, so you're fending for yourself tonight. There. Having executed that duty, we have nothing more to discuss."
"Thanks," Cleo said with a bright smile and a bounce of her ponytail. "Continue having fun."
Cleo exchanged secret grins with Emma and Rikki as she rejoined them, ignoring the glare she knew Kim was burning into her back. The three older girls trotted upstairs and plopped themselves comfortably in Cleo's bedroom.
Cleo made two calls. The first for pizza, the second for Lewis. She requested both arrive as soon as possible.
An hour later, the four friends were extremely comfortable and well-fed.
"So what can you tell the police?" Lewis asked, munching on his final slice. "That you saw some men throw a car part off a cliff, and a trawler was out with a fake net."
"It's highly unusual, and more than enough to get them investigating," Rikki said. "One squad car at that old junkyard, and bam, they're history."
"But how do we report what we know?" Cleo asked.
"They have an anonymous tip line," Lewis said.
"They're not anonymous!" Rikki said. "They say they are, but I've heard the stories."
"Urban legends," Emma said.
"I don't think so," Rikki said. "At least one story was from someone I knew personally. About five years ago. We were living in a small town up country. She called in a domestic violence complaint against a neighbor, and the police told the scumbag who called, even though they weren't supposed to! She was scared!"
"That's just the police screwing up," Emma said. "I think most of them follow proper procedure." She suddenly looked doubtful. "Don't they?"
"Doesn't matter how it happened," Rikki said. "But I don't trust those anonymous lines. Some computer, somewhere, knows who called."
"I don't know whether I trust those anonymous lines or not," Cleo said. "But I do know one thing: we keep a secret so dangerous that our lives would be destroyed if it got out. If we'd seen what we did while we were out sailing or something, that would be one thing. I'd take a risk then. But we weren't out sailing, we were out mermaiding. If the police come talk to us, we have no way to explain how we know what we know! I want the thieves to go to jail, but I don't want to risk my life to do it. Especially when they'll no doubt be caught eventually, anyway."
Emma looked glum. "As much as I hate to say it, I agree. Our secret's too big to risk just for some car thieves."
Rikki nodded. "And it's like you said. It's only a matter of time until they're caught, anyway."
Cleo let out an enormous sigh and rolled over on her bed. "Oh, I'm sooooo glad we got to swim today! I have to work tomorrow. If I'd had to go into work all cranky and cooped up, I'd have been miserable!"
"What's your shift?" Emma asked.
"Eight to three."
"Well, while you're working at your job, I might as well work at home," Rikki said. "Now that the sun's out, I can do laundry. It's been piling up."
Cleo gave her a quizzical look. "What does the sun have to do with laundry?"
"No dryer," Rikki said. "We hang our clothes on lines like nature intended."
"Ah," Cleo said.
"Now that the sun is out, Mom wants me to help her with some more plants," Emma said. "Like she doesn't have enough already. So I can knock that out in the morning."
"I'm touched, but you don't have to do chores just because I'm at work," Cleo said. "You all could go see a movie or something on your own. I wouldn't be jealous."
"Yeah you would," Rikki said.
Cleo thought a moment. "Yeah...I guess I would." She snorted. "But it still feels wrong for my schedule to dictate your fun."
"It's all right," Emma said with a smile. "These are things we really need to do."
"So I guess we're meeting around 3:30," Rikki said. "We'll have to think of some amazing, blowout finale to our magnificent three-day weekend."
"Oh, I'm sure we can come up with something!" Emma said with a smile.
As they all came downstairs a couple hours later, Rikki said, "Sounds like the concert's over."
The concert was indeed over. In its place was Don Sertori watching TV, feet up, remote in one hand, his other arm stretched along the back of the couch. Kim was nowhere in sight, probably in her bedroom.
Cleo walked her friends and boyfriend to the front door as they prepared to leave.
"Hey girls, Lewis," Don said amiably. He suddenly wondered if Lewis knew the girls' secret. He'd be amazed if he didn't.
"Hi Daddy!"
"Hi, Mr. Sertori," Emma said. Rikki and Lewis waved.
"Mr. McCartney," Don said grandly. "Are you continuing to treat my eldest daughter with all the propriety, respect, and decorum she deserves?"
"That and more, sir."
"Thaaaaat's what I want to hear!" Don said with a grin. "You live another day, Lewis."
Lewis grimaced and gulped. "Good to hear, sir. Your goodness confounds me."
Rikki grinned and pointed at Lewis, as if to say, I see what you did there!
"Rikki, I'm told you live with your dad, yes?" Don asked.
"That's correct," she said, a little puzzled.
"Are you and your dad available next Friday night?"
"Why?" Rikki asked.
"Well, Emma's parents and I got to talking, and we realized that you, Emma, and Cleo are quite the trio nowadays."
"The Cleo Trio?" Rikki asked with a smile. "Yeah, I guess that's true."
"Well, we wanted to have a big dinner with the families of our daughters' friends. We were hoping you and your dad would join the Sertoris for a nice dinner at the Gilberts' house."
Rikki was floored. "Uh...wow! Sure. Yeah."
"If you and your father are both available on a Friday night. What does he do for a living?"
"He works the service desk at Main Motors Towing. Puts up with all the angry, hungover people who wake up wondering why they're suddenly missing a car. A job made of pure joy and sunshine."
"Ha!" Don said. "I'll bet." She really is an engaging, quick-witted young woman, he thought. "He work the day shift?"
"Eight to five every weekday."
"So Friday night wouldn't be a problem then?" Don asked.
Rikki shook her head. "Shouldn't be. We'd love to come. That'll be great. Thanks! Do we have to dress up?"
"I hope not!" Don said, sounding horrified. "I'm not dressing up."
Emma smiled at Rikki and said, "You'll be fine."
"What about Lewis and his mom, Daddy?" Cleo asked. "He's part of our group, too."
"Lewis is the boyfriend," Don said, and looked at her meaningfully. "He and his mom get a separate dinner date. With me." He winked.
Cleo shrugged at Lewis, who just shook his head in amusement. He quickly whispered to Cleo, "I'm not sure I'd want to be there, anyway."
She mock-scowled at him.
"All right, good night everyone," Emma said, opening the door. "Juicenet at 3:30. Be there or be rectangular."
"Good night, Mr. Sertori," Rikki said.
"Good night, sir," Lewis said. He managed to get a kiss with Cleo in the doorway. It lingered just the way a goodnight kiss should.
"Good night," Lewis whispered with a smile.
"Bye," she said softly, shyly smiling. "See you tomorrow." She gently closed the door.
The next day, at almost 3:30 on the dot, Emma, Rikki, Cleo, and Lewis settled around a table at Juicenet with their drinks. None of them could think of any particularly novel way to blow out their weekend, but it quickly became a moot point when life punched them in the gut.
"Around ten o'clock this morning, authorities began searching for a family believed to be missing at sea," the news anchor said, on the cafe's TV. The screen showed a photo of a nice-looking couple, holding each other and smiling. "Lalo and Sefina Lavea went boating yesterday afternoon with their three children, in a small watercraft, towing a jet ski. The family, who are visiting Gold Coast, rented the boat and the jet ski from WaveCrest Adventures, and set out from Ashton Beach around three PM yesterday. Friends and family alerted authorities this morning, saying the Laveas stopped responding to texts and calls around eight last night. Police say the boat and jet ski have not been returned to WaveCrest despite being just one-day rentals, and the family did not return to their hotel room last night. Police also say they've had no luck pinging the Laveas' phones."
The four friends looked at each other in horror, dread settling in their stomachs like lava.
"Maybe it's a coincidence," Cleo said quietly, with a hint of desperation.
"Keep telling yourself that," Rikki said. She didn't say it cruelly, but she was grim.
"They're car thieves," Emma said. "They wouldn't escalate to..." She had trouble even saying it. "...murder, would they?"
"I dunno," Rikki said. "If that family went south from Ashton Beach and saw something they shouldn't have..."
"You really think the thieves would cross that line?" Cleo asked. She thought about Eddie. He'd always seemed nothing but a rough loser with a temper, not a cold, calculated murderer. But she'd also hardly known him, so she could be dead wrong about that.
"We've got to call the police now!" Emma said. "No matter the risk." She pulled out her phone.
Rikki reached out to stop her. "If they're already dead, it's too late. If they're still alive, we've still got a chance to do something without exposing ourselves."
"So let's go check out the Otter Way again!" Cleo said.
"We've seen the Otter Way!" Rikki said. "I think we'd be better off checking out that junkyard."
Lewis said, "It's surrounded by forest, with only one road leading to it, and only one way in when you get there. They'd see you coming, easily."
"Then we get in the back way," Rikki said. "We hit the shore about half a mile from Dead Man's Cliff, where it's a lot easier to climb. A short hike through the woods, and we're there."
Emma chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I don't know. I like your idea, but my instinct is also to check out that boat!"
"Then let's do both," Cleo said. "We can split up. But we need to do it now!"
"There are some coves just north of Weylan Beach," Lewis said. "I don't want to just park there all afternoon, in case the thieves see me. But three hours from now, I'll be in one of those coves. That way I can offer whatever support I can, the best I can, if you need me, while giving you enough time to find out what's going on."
"All right," Rikki said. "Let's move!"
The girls quickly handed their phones, plus one purse (Emma was the only one who had brought hers), to Lewis for safekeeping. Then the four friends rushed for the door.
A guy who felt like being snarky called, "Hey, Lewis, love the purse!"
"Matches your eyes!" another wiseass shouted. Laughter rolled around the cafe.
Lewis ignored them all. He barely even heard them.
Once out the door, Lewis took off for the marina, while the girls turned left and ran across the lawn beside and behind the cafe. They made sure no one was looking, then dove into the canal.
The marina was emptier than Lewis had ever seen it. Half a mile to a mile off shore, every fishing boat, yacht, small watercraft, and police cruiser scoured the sea, looking for the Laveas. The common assumption was that the family wouldn't have gone far from shore.
Lewis made sure he had plenty of fuel and his fishing gear (because fishing was his cover story for when he reached the cove), and set out. He had three hours before he needed to be at the rendezvous, so he might as well spend that time searching, also. It was always possible that the Laveas' disappearance had nothing to do with the thieves, in which case, one more boat and one more pair of eyes would always be welcome.
Rikki accompanied the others to the Otter Way's expected position before heading to the junkyard, since it would only take a few extra minutes, and she needed all the information she could get.
The fake fishing boat was there, trawling the same route as the day before. But even from a distance, the girls saw a distinct difference, and their hearts sank.
They confirmed it when they reached the Otter Way. A second vessel was rafted to its starboard side: a small boat with WaveCrest Adventures painted on its sides, towing a jet ski. The Otter Way struggled to maintain its course, having to fight the drag of all the extra weight tied to its side.
The thieves had thrown tarps over the other boat and over the jet ski. Then they had thrown nets, hooks, and tools onto the tarps to make them look vaguely like a fisherman's extended work area. Unusual, but probably good enough to fool a helicopter pilot. The rescue teams were searching for wreckage, not tarps with fishing tools on them.
As best the girls could tell, the Otter Way's crew consisted of the same three men as the day before. The girls could barely glimpse a fourth man, and a woman, inside the Otter Way's cabin, but only from the neck up, as if they were kneeling. They looked similar to the photo shown on the news. The man and woman didn't speak much, but when they did, they seemed agitated. The girls saw no children aboard, at least at the moment.
Other boats could be seen at various points further from shore, probably three quarters of a mile to a mile away, all searching for the Laveas. Their proximity could only be making the thieves – kidnappers, now – sweat with anxiety.
The girls surfaced next to the hull of the Otter Way, out of sight from anyone aboard.
Rikki spoke in a whisper. "The rip tides along these cliffs are the obvious place to search for a missing family, especially since they're right next to Ashton Beach." She nodded toward the boats further out to sea. "So why are they searching all they way out there?"
"They probably did search along these cliffs," Cleo said. "Remember, the news said they've been searching since at least ten. I'm betting they moved further out when they didn't find anything here."
Rikki nodded at the boat covered with a tarp. "And they didn't think this was suspicious?! A fishing trawler with a side car?! They must have passed within a hundred yards of this boat!"
Emma shrugged. "They were looking for wreckage. It wouldn't have occurred to them to look for evidence of a kidnapping, especially from something as innocent as a fishing boat."
Cleo said, "Especially if the thieves took the Otter Way further out to sea this morning, and only brought it back here when the other boats moved out."
"That's probably what they did," Emma said.
Rikki grimaced, but couldn't counter any of that.
The girls listened intently for any clue of the situation above them. For several minutes, all they heard were intense mutterings. They couldn't make out any words. Then, just for a moment, they heard what sounded like the babbling of a toddler, and the sound of a woman shushing the toddler.
The girls looked at each other with amazement and hope. Perhaps those sounds meant the entire family was alive!
An argument on the boat erupted so suddenly it made the girls jump.
"Eddie, you can't be serious!" The voice came from directly above the girls. It was a man speaking.
"Does this look like a joke to you, Mason?" Eddie asked, an edge to his voice. Hearing him made Cleo's soul curl.
"I'm beginning to wonder what it looks like to you!" a third man said. "I don't know if you're delusional or what, but the law comes down a lot harder on murderers than thieves!"
"Burt's right, Eddie!" Mason said. "We can't do this!"
"Look, lamebrains, it's a foolproof plan," Eddie said. "We drug the family, so they're barely awake, but they can't move. We fix the bomb to the underside of their boat and set it adrift. The bomb's got a timer, so we're nowhere near when it goes off. They sink. Their bodies have no ropes, no chains, no sign of struggle. The drug vanishes from their systems when they decompose. If anyone ever finds 'em, they obviously hit a reef. They die by drowning, perfectly natural cause. We're in the clear!"
"They're children!" Burt ground out, his voice full of anguish. "One of them's a three-year-old boy! Does this matter to you?!"
"Not! One! Whit!" Eddie snapped. "I'm not doing twenty years behind bars just for some snotty little brats, and neither is the boss! And if either of you had any brains, you'd get that! But you don't have ten brain cells between you, which is why I'm in charge of this boat!"
"This wasn't the plan last night!" Burt argued. "When we tied these people up, no one said anything about killing 'em!"
"What did you think we were gonna do with 'em?" Eddie asked snidely, his voice dripping with contempt. "They saw the guys make a drop!"
"Yeah?" Mason asked. "And whose fault was that?"
Eddie ignored Mason, and continued to chastise Burt with pure sarcasm. "Did you think we were gonna let 'em go after a day, with a strict warning? Make 'em sign a pledge? Ask 'em pretty please? Sing "Kumbaya" around a campfire?" Eddie's voice grew hard. "This was always their fate! The only reason we didn't off 'em last night is the boss had to get hold of the drugs, and the only reason we haven't offed 'em already is now we got too many boats searching too close!"
A moment of silence passed, then Mason asked, "What about this bomb, eh? What if it fails, or gets damaged?" The girls sensed that Mason cared less about the bomb than about appealing to something – anything – Eddie might actually care about, in a desperate effort to reach him somehow.
"The bomb's state of the art," Eddie said. "Look at it!" The girls heard the sound of objects scraping across a surface, as if Eddie had reached for something. "Does this look like something some whackjob put together with duct tape and a digital watch in his basement? This is military grade hardware, and don't ask how we got it!" The girls heard the sound of an object being casually tossed back onto a surface. "This isn't some two-bit back-alley operation we're running, here. This is the big leagues! That bomb could be hit by a baseball bat and stepped on by an elephant, and it'd still work just fine! Don't you worry about that."
"And when's all this supposed to happen?" Burt asked. His voice was tight and full of emotion. He was obviously deeply unhappy about all this.
"As soon all those search boats clear off!" Eddie said. "The boss says they're too close, and I agree. They might see something, or even hear the bomb. Eventually, when the searchers don't find the family, they'll head to deeper water. Then we pull the trigger. We just have to sit tight 'til then."
"Eddie-" Burt said, almost pleadingly.
"Shut it!" Eddie almost screamed. "This isn't a democracy! Here's how it goes down: when I say do something, you do it! You're both making better money than you ever have, so I don't know what you're whinging about! Now get back to your posts! Stop trying to think, just do what you're told, and everything will be fine. Got it?"
The girls could feel the sullenness in the silence which followed. They looked at each other grimly.
Emma stuck her head out a tiny bit and peered upward.
The three-year-old boy was standing next to the rail, near the cabin entrance. He grasped the boat's lower rail and looked overboard. He saw the mermaids, and eyed them curiously.
Emma smiled at him, and put a finger to her lips in a shhh gesture.
The boy gave her a tiny smile. Then what looked like a man's hand gently pulled the boy back from the edge.
The girls heard a new voice. A woman. Her voice was a bit more distant, as if she was in the cabin instead of on deck.
"Please!" she said. "We promise we won't say anything ever! Just don't kill our children!"
"Shut your yap or I'll shut it for you!" Eddie snarled.
Something snapped inside each girl.
They looked at each other. In that moment, they knew this ring of thieves was going down, and no one was harming this family.
"I'm going inland," Rikki whispered, her voice set with a determination such as she had never known. "I'll bet you anything, this boss is at that junkyard! If I can get to him before he gives the order, this whole thing ends! You two stay here, see if you can come up with something clever."
Emma and Cleo nodded, their faces reflecting the same cold determination.
Rikki took a deep breath and was off in a flash.