Free On Deadly Tides (A Wendover House Mystery Book 3) by Melanie Jackson Page B

I had never revealed what I knew about his and Everett’s smuggling activities. His eyebrow was up again and I picked my words carefully.
    “Sometimes life demands it. We aren’t human if we can’t—in certain circumstances—show compassion. Mercy. Or adapt to different cultural situations. And the only punishment that is supposed to be eternal is Hell—which God decides, not society. I don’t believe the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children. They sometimes are, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.”
    I was speaking of Kelvin then and allowing him to walk away from his old life of imprisonment. If that was what he had done. I was pretty sure he had. The more I thought of the nasty little room, the less I believed my great-grandfather had ever been there, but that did not preclude him escaping from the island.
    Bryson nodded.
    “It wasn’t that I didn’t sympathize. Kelvin was old and growing bitter. We’ve all wanted to walk away from something at some time in our lives, and it wouldn’t have been humane to stop a friend—and he was a friend—from having a last bit of peace.” He shrugged. “But sometimes an act of compassion leaves trouble behind for everyone else. I didn’t realize how much. Didn’t reckon on how alive the old beliefs still are.”
    He was talking about the islanders’ fear that their homes would be destroyed if there was no Wendover on the island.
    It was my turn to nod.
    “It’s annoying when an act of kindness turns on us. When irrational people discover things and panic. It’s good that Harris found me in time to avert a full-scale disaster.”
    He smiled a little at my guess.
    “Some people are crazy,” he agreed. “Some people might even go to an extreme—if they were frightened enough. And there are still some of your kin around. Ones from the wrong side of the blanket that no one acknowledges, but everyone knows are there.”
    “The family resemblance is amazing,” I agreed wryly. “People everywhere know me.”
    “The features always breed true. I don’t think they are very smart though, these cousins of yours.”
    Tom. He was speaking of Tom Fischer. We were getting close now. I tried to quell my nervousness. Someone or something had killed Fischer, ending everything—good and bad—that he had ever been. And that wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. But….
    Checking my own moral compass, I was a bit dismayed to find it was no longer pointed to magnetic north. I was coming to accept the islanders’ lopsided view of the world. People would do almost anything to protect their prosperity, their children, their homes.
    And, truth to be told, wouldn’t I prefer that the dead man be Tom Fischer rather than my great-grandfather?
    Of course I would.
    “Not if they stay here, no. But since I am on the island now, why go after Tom?” I asked, finally being as direct as Bryson.
    “Tom?”
    “Tom Fischer. At least I assume that’s who it is. He went missing at the right time and he was definitely a relative.”
    Bryson nodded. It was apparent that he hadn’t been searching for the corpse’s identity.
    “He died because having a Wendover on the island on New Year’s is only part of the … bargain.”
    The book had warned me, but I wasn’t prepared to hear Bryson speak of the Bane.
    “So, someone actually gets drowned every third generation to appease some monster?” I could feel the blood draining from my face. Was there a name for ritual murders committed by different people in different times, but for the same reason? Oh, right. Religion. Screwy, bloody religion.
    “So far, yes.” The smile was gone.
    “And someone made that happen to Tom because Kelvin left?”
    “Maybe. And maybe it was the Bane after all. Or just rotten luck. He drank—couldn’t hold a job and often went out fishing in bad weather. None of that lot in Derrymoor has ever amounted to anything. No way to prove what happened one way or the other. Not without bringing in