Free The Twice Lost by Sarah Porter

interpret the law in her favor. After all, she technically isn’t even . . .”
    “Isn’t even what?” Andrew snapped.
    “Human. She isn’t human. Not at the present time.” They were staring fiercely at each other, the kettle still shrieking behind them. “Of course you aren’t surprised to hear this, either.”
    “Who cares? Whatever kind of . . . whatever she looks like now, she’s still my
daughter,
and she’s still a . . . barely more than a child, really
.
A juvenile, anyhow. Look. If somebody was trying to hurt her—”
    “Can you contact her? Do you know where she’s going? That photo was taken off the coast of Washington, and at the time she was heading south. She was seen the next day not far from the Oregon border.”
    “And if I did know that, you think I would
tell
you?”
    “There are quite a number of people who are determined to catch her, and they’ll shoot her on sight.” Ben Ellison paused to let that sink in. “If you have some way to communicate with her, you’d be well advised to urge her to surrender before that happens. And if I’m involved in the process, I promise I’ll do whatever I can to ensure her safety.”
    “Was it your people who tore up her ear like that? If you did . . .”
    “That wasn’t us.” Ben Ellison was looking toward the window now, then abruptly he walked to the stove and snapped the kettle off. His expression was morose. “Mr. Korchak, the fact is that I think Luce has been . . . unfairly singled out. But she’s also been behaving in a way that is guaranteed to attract negative attention when she should be doing whatever she can to keep a low profile. That video, for example.”
    “What video?”
    “Check the Internet. Search for ‘mermaid.’ You might be the last person in America who
hasn’t
seen it.”
    Andrew considered that. Things were starting to make a bit more sense. “So she’s in some video. But then how did you know it was her? You see a mermaid, you don’t go and spontaneously say, ‘Oh, I bet it’s that Lucette Korchak girl who everybody thought jumped off a cliff up in Pittley.’”
    Ben Ellison wasn’t looking at him. He kept his eyes pointed at the sea.
    “Somebody rat her out, Ben? Who’ve you got?”
    No reply.
    No reply in a way that told Andrew Korchak exactly what the situation was: not only was there an informer, but it was someone this FBI guy didn’t trust. Someone who was lying up a storm, talking all kinds of smack. Firing off ridiculous accusations, like . . .
    “Who you all think Luce
murdered,
anyhow?”
    “Five men, actually, in total. Special operations.” Ellison sounded remote, maybe sad.
    “A fourteen—fifteen-year-old girl? You think she’s some kind of goddamned ninja?”
    “She’s not technically
a girl
at all any longer. As we’ve discussed. And there’s no question at all that she can be dangerous.” Ellison looked away from the sea long enough to gaze bleakly into Andrew’s eyes. “The prevailing opinion is that she—and all the creatures like her—are nothing but monsters. Regardless of the fact that they were human at one time. I realize this isn’t something a parent wants to hear about his child, of course.”
    “The ‘prevailing’ opinion,” Andrew growled.
    “Yes.”
    “Does that mean it’s the one prevailing in your head? ’Cause if it is, that just shows how damned ignorant you are.”
    “I’m . . . suspending judgment. About all of them, but about Luce in particular. Clearly there have been situations where she’s made a deliberate choice
not
to kill, and where I’d imagine the temptation must have been intense.” Ben Ellison’s voice was grim and drowsy.
    “You said . . . those special operations guys . . . it was self-defense.”
Maybe they’d forced Luce to kill,
Andrew thought.
Maybe.
    “They were firing spear guns at her, in fact. And they will again.”
    “Can’t blame the girl for that! If she was just trying to