Free Murder Hooks a Mermaid by Christy Fifield

reminded him. “You probably have some books with pictures from when the mermaids were here.”
    “I probably do,” he said.
    Jake angled his chair slightly so that he could look at the fish tank. “I’m trying to imagine you in one of those mermaid tails, swimming around and flirting with all the guys at the bar. Probably have to cut your hair, though.”
    I raised one hand and smoothed it over my long, dark-blonde hair. I’d clipped it back and let it hang loose down my back. “Oh no! The girls all kept their hair long. That way it swirled around in the water.”
    Our dinners arrived and we ate quietly for a few minutes, watching the fish schooling in the tank and the tourist singles schooling in the bar. It was a reminder of all the reasons I didn’t much like the dating pool.
    I was sure I hadn’t spoken out loud, but Jake broke into a few bars of a Jimmy Buffett song, and I nearly fell off my chair.
    “How did you know exactly what I was thinking?” I asked.
    “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he answered. “The sharks are circling.”
    “Which is why the locals pretty much avoid the place.”
    “Then where do the locals go?” he asked. “I need to know the best places to see and be seen.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, there’s such an amazing nightlife in Keyhole Bay,” I said drily. “But we can’t let just anybody find out about our special locals-only in spots.”
    Jake did his best to look lost and brokenhearted.
    “Okay,” I said. “But just this once. You can’t go telling people I let you in on the secrets.”
    “Cross my heart.” He made a broad gesture, looking serious. But the effect was spoiled by the breadstick in his hand. It looked more like he was waving a magic wand.
    “I suppose we should start with this place,” I said. “It’s always been a tourist attraction, but it was also the place where you took a date for special occasions. A lot of marriages in my parents’ generation started with a proposal in front of the mermaids. I remember hearing about a couple of guys who even got a mermaid to ‘find’ an engagement ring buried in the sand.”
    I didn’t mention that one of those guys was my father. I’d been embarrassed by how corny it seemed when my mother first told me about it. After their deaths, I couldn’t bear to think about it, the tragic romance story resonating with my inner teenage drama queen. Now it was something I tucked in a back corner of my memory.
    Jake nodded, and I went on. “By the time I was in high school, though, it became very uncool to come here. It was that place your parents went when they had a birthday or anniversary with a zero in it. No one under thirty would be caught dead in here.”
    I took a long look around. The restaurant had changed very little since then. Most of the decor would look right at home in my store, or in Carousel Antique Mall, Felipe and Ernie’s high-end shop.
    The dark paneling and tall leather booths represented the height of sophistication at the time they were installed, and the ironic hipster everything-old-is-new-again vibe had made it popular with the young crowd once more.
    “But the high-rise condos and big hotels were goingin on the beach, and there were new restaurants for all the people who stayed in them. If you really wanted to celebrate—and you could afford it—you’d go to the beach and spend a night or two.”
    Jake poured me another glass of wine from our shared carafe. “So, I better take it off my list if I want to hang around.” A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I hope you won’t tell anyone I was here.”
    I grinned at him. He’d been here almost a year, but he had quickly recognized that many of us came from families who measured their lives in Keyhole Bay in generations rather than years.
    “I won’t tell, if you don’t,” I said.
    “Deal.”
    Jake reached across the table to shake my hand. After we shook he didn’t let go, letting our clasped hands rest on the