Free Immortal Sea by Virginia Kantra Page A

at all.
    He frowned. “And your brother?” he asked the child.
    Those wide brown eyes fixed on his face with a desperate, completely misplaced hope. “He had to go with the policeman.”
    “Where?” Morgan asked sharply.
    One grubby hand released the doll. The girl pointed one small, nail-bitten finger to a closed door.
    “He said he wanted to talk to Zack.” She drew a shaky breath. Hiccupped. “We had to get in his car. I had to wait out here, he said.”
    Morgan’s cold blood boiled. He strode across the lobby.
    “You can’t go in there,” Edith objected.
    He ignored her. The little girl scrambled off her chair and after him.
    Morgan opened the door.
    Police Chief Caleb Hunter leaned back behind his desk, big and imposing in a wrinkled blue uniform. The boy—Zachary—hunched in a chair before him, face sullen and eyes miserable.
    The chief shot a look at the open door, mild annoyance drawing his brows together. “Morgan. I have to ask you to wait outside.”
    Morgan felt a pressure against his leg and glanced down. The little girl had attached herself to him, one arm clinging to his knee, the other gripping the doll. Shaking her loose would be undignified and time-consuming, Morgan decided. He could tolerate her touch for the time it would take him to sort things out.
    He locked eyes with the policeman. “What are you doing with him?”
    “None of your business,” Caleb replied evenly. “Edith! I told you no interruptions.”
    “You want a linebacker out here, call the Patriots.”
    Morgan looked at Zachary. The boy slouched deeper in his chair, his mouth sulky, his gaze defiant. Beneath the kiss-my-ass attitude, he stank of fear and shame, his muscles coiled with animal tension.
    “What happened?” he asked the boy.
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Caleb said. “Now unless you’re his mother or his lawyer, get the hell out.”
    “I’m his father.”
    Silence crashed over the room like a wave.
    The police chief rubbed his face with his hand. “Well, shit. That puts a different spin on things. Let’s see what his mother has to say.”

    Her son had been picked up for questioning.
    Her daughter was in the care of strangers at the police station.
    It was Liz’s worst nightmare.
    Well, not the worst. She’d survived the worst three years ago, watching Ben lose his hair, his strength, his voice . . . his life.
    But the feeling she was wading through a bad dream, the sick helplessness in the pit of her stomach, the struggle to make sense of the unacceptable, those were the same.
    “ There’s been some trouble .” Edith Paine’s brusque Yankee voice replayed in her head. “ Chief picked up that boy of yours down by the ferry . . . Need to answer some questions before you take him home. ”
    No one was hurt, Liz told herself. That was the important thing. Whatever else had happened, they would deal with it. That’s what she did. Deal with things. She instructed Nancy to reschedule her afternoon appointments and drove to the police station, a hard ball of panic pounding in her chest.
    She was the mommy. She was a doctor. She could fix this, whatever it was.
    She parked the car and bypassed the required ramp to march up the town hall steps. In another mood, at another time, she might have been charmed or at least reassured by the small town vibe of the place, the old-fashioned wooden counter and modern fluorescent lights, the community bulletin board papered with wanted posters and bake sale flyers, city regulations and hand-lettered signs: HOUSE CLEANING. PET SITTING. DEEP SEA FISHING. ORGANIC JAM.
    Her gaze swept the lobby. A small room housed a coffeepot and a copy machine. A row of straight-backed chairs lined up against one wall, a discarded candy bar on one seat.
    But no Zack.
    No Emily.
    Taking a deep breath, she approached the counter. She had met Edith Paine before. The town clerk had served on the search committee responsible for hiring the new island doctor.
    Liz struggled