“What does that have to do with us?”
“Your son was dating her,” Bel said, annoyed that they couldn’t fathom the connection. “He was also dating Ariella Triton at the time of her disappearance and murder.” She drove the nail home. “Were you aware that both girls were only nineteen?”
“Nineteen is legal,” the man said.
“It is, but your almost thirty-year-old son dated two teenagers who’ve now gone missing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dating younger,” Mr. Prince said. “The young ones are always less opinionated.” He gave Bel a condescending look, and she didn’t need to see Griffin to know his entire body tensed at the insult.
“Their age isn’t our biggest concern.” Bel chose to ignore the man’s crudeness. Like father, like son… and perhaps mother, since she didn’t seem fazed by the comment. “Your son dated Ariella, and he was with her the night she disappeared. Now he’s dating her best friend, who’s gone missing under similar circumstances. Erik refuses to speak to us, and we understand this is difficult, but a girl might be in danger.”
“Our son had nothing to do with this girl’s disappearing act.” Mr. Prince stood up and offered his wife a demanding hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run. We won’t sit here and take this harassment.”
His wife accepted his help, and as she stood, a chain fell from her shirt, the pendant swinging through the air as if begging the detectives to see her. And see her they did, for it was a nautilus seashell… the exact necklace that Ariella always wore.
“What if we’re looking at this all wrong?” Olivia rushed to shut the door behind the irate parents. “We were worried that Erik didn’t seem disciplined enough to be responsible for these deaths, especially since he was a teenager when the first girls went missing, but you heard his father. He clearly holds women in low regard. His wife is noticeably younger than he is, and she wears the same seashell necklace. What if a Prince is the guilty party, just not the son? One of the earlier victims was Erik’s classmate. We’ve always questioned whether someone so young could have such discipline, but what if he didn’t? What if he were merely the path his father took to find his mermaids? What if Mr. Prince senior is the man we’re looking for?”
“A father needs victims, and what better way than to use his son as bait?” Bel said, continuing down her partner’s line ofthought. “Mr. Prince, and possibly Erik, saw the mermaid drown at the aquarium eleven years ago. They got a taste for death, and Erik’s age gave him access to college girls. That would explain why Ariella met him on campus. Then, Mr. Prince senior could justify his presence at universities or their parties with the lie that he was there for his son.”
“So Erik is the lure, and Dad is the orchestrator?” Griffin asked.
“There are so many coincidences involving this family,” Olivia said. “Plus, we’ve seen that necklace four different times this summer. It reminds me of the gum wrapper butterflies you found on your island vacation. They kept showing up, and it wasn’t a coincidence.”
“And this feels the same,” Bel said.
“You listened to those butterflies,” Olivia said, “and it took down Blaubart.”
“So we’ll listen to the necklaces now,” Griffin said. “Look into the Prince family, and for god’s sake, find me something I can use for a warrant before we have another dead girl on our hands.”
“I have an idea.”Olivia twisted her monitor towards Bel’s desk. “Public reviews.”
“Reviews?” Bel hung up the phone. The call had been a waste of time anyway.
“We can’t get a warrant for Prince & Sons’ business or personal records, but businesses usually have public reviews online. I’m sure not everyone leaves one, but it’s a roadmap of every place they’ve worked. We can cross-reference their jobs with the mermaids and see if any overlap.”
“That’s smart.” Bel rolled across the floor to join her partner. “There’s the funeral home’s review.”
“There’s an ice cream shop,” Olivia started reading off the company names while Bel cross-checked them with the victims, but by the end of the list, the results were inconclusive. “So much for that idea.” Olivia’s forehead thudded against the desk as she collapsed like a cartoon princess in despair. “Do you have any ideas, because I’m out?”
“I don’t know.” Bel rubbed her temples to ease the screen headache creeping up in her. “But would a well-respected businessman kidnap victims from where he worked? That would leave a significant paper trail. Blaubart didn’t take girls from his practice, but from the women Jax Frost let escape. He made sure there were no ties. Someone doesn’t accomplish what our killer did at the lake without carefully considering every facet of the crime.”
“These aren’t his first kills,” Olivia said. “These crimes are too precise. Too clean. And regardless of whether Ariella’s murder is connected to the mermaids, her death was clean. No evidence. No witnesses. We wouldn’t have found her if that storm hadn’t been so severe. This isn’t a newbie killer. It’s why I think we should look into Mr. Prince, not his son. I just don’t know where to start.”
“It’s morbid, but do we go back to the lake?” Bel asked.
“Do you really think Ondine is dead?”
“I hope not, but we aren’t dealing with a kidnapping for ransom. We found the mermaids, but murderers like that don’t magically stop killing. They merely change tactics. If we’re lucky, he’s preserving some of his M.O. by tattooing her first. If that’s the case, we have time. Months maybe. But if he’s killing just to make ends meet like Ariella…”
“Then she’s already dead,” Olivia finished for her. “Yeah… we need to go back to the lake.”
“So, what do you think?”Bel asked as she and Eamon picked their way through the trees. Olivia had surprisingly requested that Ewan and Eamon accompany them to the lake, and even more shockingly, she teamed up with her ex-boyfriend to scour their half of the state park. She’d reasoned that the men’s senses were their only hope of finding a burial site, and she’d probably been too afraid to team up with the centuries-old Dhampir, but still. Bel took her willingness to work with her ex as a good sign. Perhaps he would shift for her in the emptiness’ privacy and finally share the last of his secrets.
“I agree that Erik makes more sense from a motivation point of view,” Eamon said. “He has easy access to college students. His life has more connections to the case. He’s directly linked to two dead girls and one missing girl. He fits… except for his age. At twenty-eight, he might have the discipline to kill with such finesse, but at eighteen?” He shrugged. “Logically, the father is the more likely suspect.”
“You’re no help.” Bel sagged against him, their location almost romantic save for their grave hunting. They’d reasoned that the killer’s attachment to the lake would demand he return, but the discovery of his mermaids would alter his plan. He wouldn’t return to the water just yet, nor would he revisit Ariella’s gravesite, but his thought patterns wouldn’t change. He’d select spots with the same consideration that he picked the first, so Eamon and Ewan carved up the map with their best guesses for success.
“Which is why I agree that if they’re guilty, they’re working together,” Eamon said. “You said it yourself. Both fit the profile, yet separately, they leave you with questions. Father and son arein on it together. That’s how some families bond. It’s how my father and I did.”
