“I’ll be back.” She waved at their retreating forms. “I’ll go get us coffee.”
After being trapped in the car for most of the day, Bel opted to walk to The Espresso Shot. The July afternoon was gorgeous yet humid, meaning the line for the shop’s iced beverages wound through the eclectic store, so she passed the time scrolling through her phone’s camera roll. The mermaids’ friends and families had shared their memories of the victims, many of which were accompanied by photos. Bel had taken pictures of anything of interest, from bedrooms to the family portraits hanging on the walls, and while she’d scanned everything during the interviews, it didn’t hurt to study the images with a critical eye.
“No way…” Bel trailed off in disbelief when she saw it. Her eyes were playing tricks on her because how had she missed this? She’d snapped a shot of the photo frames on the mantel in Pearl Conway’s family home. Her parents kept their daughter’smemory alive with photos of her spread about the house, and Bel had stood in front of this photograph just hours before, yet she’d missed the necklace hanging from Pearl’s neck. The same nautilus seashell pendant that Ariella Triton never took off.
“A vanilla latte for the?—”
“Oh god!” Bel jerked at David’s unexpected presence, her finger jabbing her phone screen as she recoiled, and after startled seconds, she burst into laughter. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on a cop?”
“You must be working on something important.” He handed her the steaming coffee cup. “You didn’t hear me say hi.”
“Sorry.” She pressed her cheek to his in a friendly kiss. “This case is going nowhere, so I’m grasping at straws.”
“Are you planning a visit to the aquarium?” David asked.
“Huh?” Bel pinched her eyebrows at him. How did he get aquarium from her answer?
“The mermaids.” He pointed at her phone. “Did they bring them back?”
Bel glanced at her cell and saw a snapshot of the glass mermaids that had entombed the sunken victims. Her finger must have sent her camera roll scrolling when he startled her, and she thanked her luck that she hadn’t accidentally swiped to a mermaid with a dead body still inside. This image was solely of the glass sculpture.
“You’ve seen these before?” She couldn’t hide the excitement in her tone.
“Yeah, maybe like ten or so years ago at the aquarium,” David answered.
“Since when does Bajka have an aquarium?” Bel asked. She’d officially lived in Bajka for a little over a year, and she’d yet to find such a place.
“It’s about thirty-five minutes from here in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “It’s not really close to anything, but it’s bigenough, especially for being in a non-tourist location. That’s probably why they were able to build such a nice facility. Nothing else is there.”
“But you’ve seen this mermaid?” Bel asked, not interested in the aquarium’s location in the slightest. “Not something similar. These.”
“Yeah, I’ll never forget them. My daughters were obsessed. Once a year, the aquarium used to do Mermaid Week. They erected these glass statues everywhere, and sometimes they’d put seasonal décor inside them. They even sank a few in the show tank. That was the real attraction. They hired professional swimmers to play mermaids. They had ambiance swimmers, but they also had shows with choreography and plot. Those women were really talented, and to little girls, they were magic.”
“Mermaid performers?” Bel repeated, her eyes so wide that despite his efforts, David couldn’t hide his confusion.
“Yeah… they were great, but then about ten years ago, the aquarium canceled their yearly exhibit. My girls were devastated.”
“Why?” Bel was internally salivating at his words. Was this the answer they were searching for? Was this their smoking gun?
“No idea.” David shrugged. “They canceled Mermaid Week and never reinstated it.”
“And you said this happened about ten years ago?”
“I think so, yeah.”
Bel forced herself not to whoop in triumph at this unexpected breakthrough. Ten years ago, Erik Prince was eighteen and finally old enough to grace the halls of a college campus. Ten years ago, the first mermaids went missing, and something prompted this aquarium to forever cancel a popular exhibit for no apparent reason. Ten years ago, something happened that drove a serial killer to steal these glass structures and murderover a dozen women, and Bel would bet her entire bank account, and some of Eamon’s, that whatever shut down mermaid week also inspired their killer’s need to sink tattooed girls in the lake.
“I’m Sam Flot,the aquarium director.” The rail-thin man in a suit extended a hand to the detectives as he hastened to where they waited by the ticket booth. “How can I help you, officers?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Bel asked as she introduced herself with a firm handshake.
“My office.” Flot shook Olivia’s hand before retreating into the vast building back the way he came. “Is something wrong?”
“We just had some questions,” Bel said. “But we’d prefer to ask them in private since it’s related to an ongoing investigation.”
“Ongoing investigation?” The man glanced over his shoulder with saucer eyes. “You don’t mean…” He trailed off when he realized the case that he was about to mention was exactly whatthey meant. He grunted instead of finishing his sentence and picked up his speed until they arrived at his office.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Flot gestured to the chairs opposite his desk as he shut the door behind them.
