SeaChange (6 page)

She’d actually held up well, he mused, better than most
people would under the same circumstances. She’d kept it together later too,
when she’d spoken to a friend at the University. Afterward, she’d told Jake
that someone had been in her department office asking about her today. He’d
have to check that out with Marinucci tomorrow, but something in his gut said
it wasn’t the good guys.

He climbed down to the swim deck and lowered himself quietly
into the dark waters of Mission Bay, careful not to make any noise to attract
attention from any of the other boats moored nearby. During his full moon
cycle, he usually anchored well out to sea, but rescuing Heidi had put a
definite kink in his schedule. The polluted, oily waves lapped at his skin as
he slipped under the dock for the change. As soon as his transformation was
complete, he filled his air pockets and dove deep, propelling himself out of
the marina and away from shore before surfacing again. It was the work of
minutes to leave the bay and enter the open ocean, and he swam hard, putting himself
through a strenuous workout. He’d sleep well after this. Somewhere along the
way he’d remembered that he hadn’t slept last night at all, but then he never
slept much during the full moon. Too much adrenaline or something in his
system.

He spotted a lone dolphin breaching and swam toward it,
chirping a welcoming message. He couldn’t turn into a dolphin anymore, but it
was still fun to swim with them. This one made straight toward him and Jake
picked up the excited chitter from several yards away.

The prince! I found you!
Dolphins were excitable and
tended to speak in exclamations.

Jake stopped in his tracks, smacking the water with his tail
flukes. Prince? No one had called him that in a very, very long time.

I’m here, friend. Why do you search?

I have a message. From the princess.

This was a common dolphin, not one of the white-sided
variety that normally swam with Jake’s family at home. Still, it would be like
his impulsive little sister to try to sneak a message out with a passing
animal.
I’m listening
.

The princess. Wishes to see you.

His stomach leapt. To actually see his sister after all this
time! Of course, his elation was short-lived as fear twisted into his gut,
edging the joy aside. Something had to be wrong if his family was seeking him
out after so many years of silence. He forced down the panic as well. Then
again, Leta was a bit of a drama queen. Her idea of a crisis might be as simple
as a fight with their mother.

The dolphin went on.
She will meet you tomorrow night. I
am to take her directions on where to find your boat.

No!
The last thing he wanted was to get his baby
sister involved with this drug-smuggling mess.
Tell her it isn’t safe
.
I’ll send a message when the danger is gone
,
but right now
,
she
must not come here
. The nearest mer settlement was in a series of hidden
caves under the Catalina Islands, off California’s southern coast. She must be
there to be able to meet him in just one night. Jake felt a powerful pang of
homesickness. He’d traded away his right to go home when he’d been granted the
ability to walk as a human. Now he had to stick it out. And hope that in
twenty-two more years, the environment wouldn’t be so fucked up that he wouldn’t
have a home and family to go back to.

I’ll take her the message
,
prince
. The dolphin
turned and swam off into the night, leaving Jake feeling old and tired. Had it
really been more than seventy years since he’d seen his family? Leta had been
just a teenager. She was probably married by now, with babies of her own.
Babies who might not even know they had an uncle.

He swam back to the boat, waited for the change, and climbed
aboard. The message had also reminded him of why a real relationship with Heidi
was impossible. She was twenty-nine. He was two hundred and eight. Talk about
May-and-December. In the merfolk settlements there were spells in place that
would slow her aging process to keep pace with his. But by the time he could
take her there, he wouldn’t have aged much at all, and she’d be fifty, well
into her middle years. Of course, she’d still be gorgeous, but he didn’t think
she’d like having people assume he was her boy-toy.

Because of her concussion, he needed to check her, to wake
her every hour or two tonight, so after pulling on his shorts, he went back
down into the cabin. She looked so sweet, so vulnerable lying alone in his bed
that he couldn’t resist. He pulled back the blanket and climbed in beside her.

Heidi stirred when Jake climbed out of bed, but she dropped
back off to sleep almost immediately, being just too physically exhausted to
worry about it. She didn’t sleep well, though. Her dreams were fractured and
restless. When she woke again, the covers were tangled by her feet, and Jake
was sliding into bed beside her, warm, slightly damp and smelling of the sea.

“Did you go for a swim?” she asked sleepily. What time was
it, anyway?

“Just a quick dip to cool off,” he assured her, drawing her
back against his chest and spooning around her. “Go back to sleep.”

That sounded like a good idea. Something was weird, niggling
at her brain, but she refused to dwell on it. Right now she was curled up with
Jake, and it felt too damn good to ruin by overthinking things. She’d never
felt so cherished and protected in her life. “Okay. G’night.”

“Good night, Freya.” Hearing his voice as she drifted off
made her feel warm inside.

She went back to sleep. And this time she didn’t dream.

The next time she caught him trying to sneak out of bed it
was only a few hours later.

“Where are you going this time?” she asked with a yawn. “Don’t
you ever sleep?”

“Not so you’d notice in the last day or so,” he returned
with a grimace.

“Sorry,” she grunted, hating that it was her fault. She
shook her head to clear the cobwebs and stifled a groan. All her aches and
pains were making themselves known, especially her headache. “So why are we
awake at…?” She forced her eyes to focus on the clock in the bookshelf
headboard. “Three-thirty in the morning?”

“Gotta meet someone,” he told her, dropping a kiss on her
hair. He paused, looking as though he’d like to linger before pulling back. “You
can go back to sleep.”

She sat up, shaking the hair out of her eyes. “Uh-huh. Meet
who?”

“An old friend. He has interesting contacts in interesting
places. I want to see what he knows, or can find out, about drug dealers in
Ensenada.”

“Must be some kind of friend,” she muttered. She swung her
legs over the side of the bed, stood, and stretched. That cracking sound in her
neck couldn’t be good, could it? “Okay. I can be dressed in five.”

“Did I invite you?” He stood as well, but his side of the
bed was farther from the head, so she beat him to it.

“This whole thing is my problem. Of course I’m going with
you.” She ducked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

As soon as she came out, he stared her down. “You hired me,
remember? That puts me in charge of the investigation.”

She rolled her eyes, which were several inches lower than
his, but she glared anyway and poked him in the chest. “You wouldn’t let me
hire you. You said you’d be happy to help. Help, not take over.” Sitting down
on the side of the bed, she washed down three ibuprofen with a swig of water
left in a mug beside the bed from the night before.

He stood there and glowered while she tugged on clean
underwear, shorts and tank top from her shopping bag. “Are you getting dressed,
or were you planning on meeting your friend naked?” That brought up an image
she hadn’t considered, one that could explain a middle-of-the-night meeting.
She stopped with her shorts half-zipped. “You did say this friend was a
he
didn’t you?”

“Yeah, why?”

She wasn’t about to admit she’d been jealous. Since he was
pulling on shorts and a T-shirt himself now, she didn’t think it was an issue,
anyway.

“Just curious,” she replied. She hadn’t had time to wash her
hair, so she brushed it quickly, then gathered it into a ponytail. Thank god
she’d picked up some elastics when she’d bought her clothes. The heavy mane
would be impossible on a boat otherwise, with all the wind and spray. She was
also glad to have flip-flops that actually fit her feet. Wearing an old pair of
Jake’s sandals yesterday had worked, but they sure hadn’t been comfortable.
Even though she wore a size twelve, his feet were still way bigger.

She slid the flip-flops onto her feet and blinked back an
unexpected tear. She was used to dealing with minimal possessions while camping
out on research projects, but it felt weird and frightening to know this was
all she owned in the world.

“Wen’s a man.” Jake tied the laces on a pair of battered
canvas tennis shoes, the same ones he’d worn the day before. Living on a boat,
he probably didn’t have a huge wardrobe either. For some reason that made her
smile. She almost didn’t hear him when Jake muttered under his breath, “More or
less.”

She pondered that as they walked down the beach. The meeting
was at the public pier, meaning they wouldn’t have to catch a cab. Jake didn’t
seem like the type to be homophobic. Having hung around Brad for as long as she
had, she’d gotten pretty good at recognizing the symptoms of that. Maybe this
was one of Jake’s government contacts, someone who could go undercover as
either gender. It wasn’t important, as long as they could trust him, and for
that, Heidi was surprised to discover that she had absolute faith in Jake’s
recommendation.

The pier was dark, lit only by the moon and surrounded by
the sounds of waves slapping on the pilings and rocky breakwater. Jake clung to
the shadows in a way that told her he’d done this before. Just how much work
had he done for the government, and in what capacities? There were layers to
this man, layers that made her shiver with more than just lust. But holding his
arm in the dark, she felt confident, protected. Even though they’d just met,
she couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have at her side.

“Delos.” One of the shadows detached itself from a piling
and she jumped at the unexpected whisper.

“Wen.” Jake’s hand on her elbow steadied her, held her in
place.

“We usually meet alone,” the shadow mused. The voice was
rich and deep, and oozed masculine confidence. The moon had set, the sun not
yet risen, so the only glow was from starlight reflected off the water. Heidi
could just barely make out the shape of a man, shorter than Jake and slimmer,
but with no other discernable features. As he stepped closer, she could make
out enough of his face to tell he was male and Asian, but that was about it.
Still, something about him radiated a sense of raw, untamed power.

“I’m Heidi Eriksen,” she interjected, cutting off Jake, who’d
started to speak. “I asked Jake to bring me.”

“A pleasure, Ms. Eriksen.” She sensed the bow more than she
actually saw it. “You may call me Wen. And how may I be of assistance?”

There was something so courtly and formal in the words and
stance that Heidi was certain this man hadn’t grown up speaking English.

“Heidi was attacked by drug smugglers in the waters off
Ensenada,” Jake explained in a low, hushed tone. They’d moved deeper into the
shadows, and they were all alert, though there seemed to be nobody else
anywhere near the pier. “She was left for dead and her partner was killed.”

“I see. I assume this has all been reported to the proper
authorities?”

“It has,” Jake confirmed.

“So why come to me?” Yeah, somehow Heidi didn’t think this
man had much in common with the so-called
proper
authorities. There was
a vibe of danger emanating from the shadows that made the hairs on the back of
her neck stand straight up. The only thing that kept her from running away as
fast as she could was an utterly inexplicable certainty that, at least for the
moment, all that danger was directed at someone or something other than her.

Jake explained the basics of the situation, including the
part about the Zodiac registration and the destruction of Heidi’s apartment.

The stranger stood in silence for a moment, and then turned
toward Heidi. She still couldn’t see his face, other than as a paler oval in
the darkness, slashed by dark brows, a hint of an epicanthic fold over his eyes
and a beaky nose, but she got the sense that he was studying her as carefully
as she watched her dolphins. “And what do you want to see happen, Ms. Eriksen?
Are you seeking revenge, or justice?”

Heidi shrugged. “Is there a difference?”

Silence.

Right, she wasn’t going to get away with the short version.
She took a deep breath and tried to explain her tumbled thoughts. “Okay, in all
honesty, I’d prefer that the bastards were caught, tried and convicted. But if
something went wrong and they wound up dead, it wouldn’t break my heart. Better
them than me or Jake.”

If either man was surprised at her bloodthirsty answer, they
didn’t show it.

“I may be able to help,” Wen said with a nod. “I believe
that I still have some useful connections in that part of Mexico. I will call
you soon, Delos, to let you know.”

“Useful connections in Mexico, my ass, Wen.” Jake’s snort
was definitely one of amusement. “You probably have a finger in every criminal
and dissident organization in the world. And what are you doing in the States,
anyhow? I was surprised when you said you could meet tonight. I didn’t think
you guys were allowed to operate this side of the border.”

“We are not.”

Heidi couldn’t see his smile, but she somehow knew it was
there, chilly and wry but a smile nonetheless. She didn’t know how she could
tell, but she got the impression that the two men were actually fond of one
another.