Chapter 15: Tank Twelve

At one in the morning I cut the back fence of Moss Tide Yard with Aggie's bolt cutters.

The hooded man's truck was parked at the front gate with the window down.

I could see the orange tip of his cigarette.

I crept along the tank row with my boots in my hand.

Every cage I passed had eyes in it.

Nobody made a sound.

Tank twelve sat at the end, under a bare bulb.

The silver-tailed mermaid hung in the water with her palms on the glass, waiting.

"The grate," she breathed. "It's behind the pump housing."

I found it, a square of rusted iron set in the concrete.

From underneath came a soft knock, three times.

I knelt and pulled, and it slid up, and a wet black head came out of the dark.

Lachlan looked up at me with water running off his face, and his legs were bare to the thigh.

"The pipe was narrow," he said.

"You said your shoulders would fit."

"They did. Barely." He glanced at the dark corner. "Someone is coming."

Boots crunched on the gravel behind the pump house.

The hooded man had finished his cigarette.

I flattened myself against the housing, and Lachlan sank back to his chest in the drain.

The man walked into the tank room with a flashlight.

"Hello?" he said. "Somebody there?"

The beam swung across tank twelve, and the mermaid dropped out of sight with a flick of silver.

Then it crossed the pump housing and landed on my face.

He stared at me.

I stared back.

Lachlan rose out of the drain behind him, soaking wet, and put his hand on the man's shoulder.

"Marnie," he said calmly. "May I?"

"May you what?"

"Use it. The song is yours. I will not unless you say."

I looked at the hooded man.

He had broken my door and gaffed my husband.

"What do you want, Lachlan?"

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