False Mermaid by Erin Hart Page B

he knew he’d already flung himself from that place of safety, metaphorically speaking. He would go to America, just as soon as he could book a flight.
    Cormac wondered whether he ought to tell Nora of his plan. Words—and e-mail most especially—seemed altogether too puny for his purpose. At that moment, the first notes of a sinuous melody began to snake through his brain, beginning long and low, then rocking back and forth, then surging forward with a wild abandon. That was it—he would send her a tune. The idea was beautifully simple—just attach an audio file to an e-mail message. How was it this notion had never occurred to him before?
    The sudden stroke of inspiration absorbed his thoughts the whole way back to the house at Ardcrinn. He wasn’t even aware of the jarring ride along the narrow, crumbling road that went up the mouth of the glen from Teelin. In his head he was already holding the wooden flute, feeling its familiar heft, and thinking how strange it was that a man might pour the breath of his body into a hollow tube, and through a kind of wizardry that breath could be captured—bottled, in a way—and transmitted over vast miles, to any spot on the face of the planet. He tried to imagine where Nora was at this very moment, and how she might react to such a cryptic message. If she listened closely—even if she was unfamiliar with the tune, even if its title was obscure to her—surely she would hear and understand everything he was trying to say.

7

    Nora pushed aside a teetering stack of manila file folders and checked her watch. A quarter to ten. She had only meant to unpack, but had been pulled again into the mystery of Tríona’s death. She’d been going through files for four solid hours. Dusk had come and gone, and the room was illuminated only by the bedside lamp and a shaft of light from the kitchen. She switched on the overhead fixture and studied the wall, now covered with maps and photographs, newspaper clippings, and dozens of index cards, each one enumerating a scrap of physical evidence, a witness, a lead. She had envisioned this wall like an incident room—thinking perhaps that seeing everything laid out would trigger some connection, some logical leap she might have overlooked. It looked more like one of those crazy collages put together by a deranged stalker.
    She had already begun to go back over leads, looking for any loose threads that might begin an unraveling. There were a few facts she had never told anyone—not Cormac, and certainly not her parents. Forensic details that simply didn’t fit. The liquid ecstasy in Tríona’s purse was one. That glazed look in her eyes the night of the museum opening was another. What if pulling on any of these loose threads began to destroy her parents’ idealized picture of Tríona? Wouldn’t that be like killing her all over again? How willing was she to risk putting her mother and father through a second wrenching loss? She tried to summon the resolve she had felt on the plane this afternoon. No stopping this time. No going back.
    A heavy fatigue had begun to settle in her limbs—apart from a nap on the plane, she hadn’t slept in almost thirty-six hours. It wasn’t too late to call her parents or Frank Cordova. What was she waiting for? Digging a small address book out of her bag, she looked up Frank’s home number, but hesitated before dialing.
    He’d been the lead investigator, the person who had pulled her away from Tríona’s body in the mortuary. Two days ago, she had phoned Frank from Dublin to let him know she was coming home, and was relievedwhen the call went straight into his voice mail. She had left a rambling message, promising to call when she got in. He’d rung back the same day, but the conversation had been awkward. Frank Cordova had not forgiven her for running away.
    For three years she’d tried hard not to think about the last time she’d seen him. They’d both been working around the clock, barely eating