Bethany Masone Harar Voices of the Sea (epub)

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.James showed her a family picture he kept in his wallet, probably to distract her.Movement from the road caught her eye and Lora saw two police cars approaching.They parked, and several men emerged from the vehicles, hurrying toward her and James, hands on their holsters.One gentleman reached them first, but he did not wear a police uniform; his brown suit had frayed pockets and she could see his shoes were old and scuffed.He did not extend his hand, but instead surveyed them with an expression so deadpan, Lora had a difficult time discerning his emotions.“I’m Eric Stone,” he said, “a detective with the Pacific Grove police department.Which one of you made the call?”James raised his hand, an uncertain gesture, as if he were a little boy in class who’d been called upon to answer a difficult question.“Come with me,” the detective said.He moved Lora and James up the path to where it met the road, away from the dead girl.Lora glanced behind her to see the other officers descend upon the body like circling birds.Shivering, she turned back to Detective Stone, who pulled out a pad and pencil and regarded them with dark, tiny eyes.“Who found the girl first?” he asked in a deep voice, heavy with years of smoking.“I did,” Lora said.Her voice cracked as she spoke.She worried it made her sound as though she were guilty of something, so she cleared her throat and tried for a second time.“I did.” This time she sounded more confident.The detective frowned at his pen, then tapped it against his pad of paper.He moved his mouth back and forth in a chewing motion while he furrowed his brow.“And what were you doing out here so early in the morning?” he asked.Her mind searched for the right answer.She obviously couldn’t tell him she lived the secret life of a Siren who had been unable to resist the call of the ocean.I’m sure you understand, Detective Stone.I couldn’t ignore the beautiful music this morning.Care for me to sing a tune for you? Lora tried her best to control her voice.“I went for a bike ride and decided to take a walk on the beach before school,” she said.Her voice quaked at the lie.“Mmph,” the detective mumbled.He saw through the lie for sure.“She’s telling the truth, detective,” said James, much to Lora’s relief.“I went jogging on the beach and saw her away from the water, up on the path.That’s when she found the.the body.” His voice caught when he said “body,” and Lora couldn’t stop herself from shuddering as well.His story confirmed her song’s magic had enchanted James.He had no memory of her singing.The detective asked question after question, to which Lora gave monotone answers, emotionally drained from the morning.Eventually, he separated her from James, and opened the back seat of his police car so she could sit down.Lora peeked inside the car, but decided instead to lean against the trunk while she waited for the entire horrible experience to end.Sensing her anguish, the ocean let out a slow song of sorrow, causing Lora to close her eyes to keep from singing along.She needed to keep control, but found the task difficult.The deepest part of her wanted to unleash itself from its cage, to run wild across the sand and plunge into the ocean, weeping.Part of her innocence had died with the slain woman.“Miss Reines?”Lora shook her head and turned back to the detective, who squinted his eyes with a concerned expression.“Have you?”“Have I what?” she asked, pushing the ocean’s song from her mind, trying her best to concentrate on the detective’s words.He sighed in annoyance.“Have you called your parents yet? I think one of them needs to be here while we talk.”“No,” she said.“It’s just me and my dad.My mother is dead.” Those words still gave her a hollow feeling in the center of her heart, even after so many years had passed.“I’ll call him now.”Instead, she pulled her phone from her back jean pocket and sent him a text message, hoping to avoid a fight.Her father’s anger would border on wrath.Lora shouldn’t have left the house.She should have instead suppressed the desire to be next to the ocean, like so many other members of her clan seemed able to do, but she couldn’t.She could no more ignore the ocean than she could her own soul; too bad her father didn’t have those same longings.The detective, who continued to watch her, frowned.“You aren’t going to call him?” he asked, gesturing toward the phone.“If you were my daughter, I’d want more than a text message.”Lora hesitated at first, but then shook her head.“No,” she said, placing the phone back in her pocket, and rubbing her temple with the palm of her hand.“He’d just start yelling.”The detective shrugged his shoulders and turned away, walking back toward the crime scene.Lora continued to rub her forehead, trying to stave off the headache which threatened to torment her.How did this happen? All she wanted to do was sing with the sea before school, and now? Well, now a member of her clan lay dead, and she had been the one to find her.Victoria.The woman’s face finally became clear in her mind [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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