Dark Water: A Siren Novel Read Free Page A

other logical explanations, they’d been willing to chalk up the strange events to moody Mother Nature.
    Had they changed their minds?
    “They did believe that,” Paige said, answering the question I was too scared to ask out loud. “For a while anyway. But Grandma B and Oliver told me last night that people started to grow suspicious—and freak out—when similar things started happening in Boston last fall.”
    Images flashed through my head. Colin Cooper, the Hawthorne Prep student, drifting down the Charles River. Matthew Harrison, the Bates College alumni interviewer, floating in the Hawthorne Prep pool.
    Parker King, Hawthorne’s water-polo superstar, standing by my locker, running across the Common, leaning toward me …
     … kissing me.
    I took the saltshaker from the table, unscrewed the top, and poured half its contents into my coffee. Then I held it up and motioned to Paige’s cup. When she nodded, I dumped the rest in hers.
    “But the weather was fine in Boston,” I said, after taking a big, long gulp. “A little rainy every now and then, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
    “Which was why people were extra concerned when the victims there resembled the ones here.”
    I was glad she was vague. Chowder House employees didn’t need to be reminded that the lifeless men had been found with their blue mouths lifted in permanent smiles.
    “How did they know?” I asked. “We both read the
Globe
every day. There was never any mention of what the victims looked like when they were found.”
    “Does it matter? Word spreads—and fast. Someone from Hawthorne probably told someone at another school and it went from there. The majority of Winter Harbor’s summer visitors have always hailed from Boston, and once they put two and two together, or tried to, they probably decided to spendtheir vacations somewhere else this year. Because it’s not just us. The whole town’s hurting.”
    My appetite now nonexistent, I absently pushed my eggs around the plate as I thought about this. If what Paige said was true, this summer was off to a very different start from last summer, when business was booming and the tourist population multiplying. And even though my involvement had begun only after the sirens had made their first kill, I couldn’t help but feel responsible.
    “Ms. Marchand!”
    My head snapped up. A young waitress stood at the top of the stairs, wringing her hands and glancing down at the kitchen like someone was about to charge after her.
    “Louis—he made this thing. With, like, special peppers? Only I didn’t know? And so a customer ate it and practically choked—and now he’s threatening to sue!”
    Paige tilted her head. “Louis is threatening to sue?”
    “No, the customer—” The waitress gasped, peered down the stairwell. “Oh no. He’s in the kitchen. He’s in the kitchen and yelling at Louis.” She looked at Paige, lips trembling and eyes watering. “I can’t be sued. I don’t have any money. That’s why I got this job. And it’s my first day and I’ve only made two dollars in tips and—”
    Paige raised one hand. The girl stopped.
    “See that dock?” Paige motioned toward the harbor.
    The girl nodded.
    “Why don’t you take your break down there?”
    “Now? But I’ve only been here an hour. And Louis said we—”
    “Louis cooks,” Paige said. “I manage. Take fifteen minutes to relax. When you come back, everything will be under control.”
    I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t there to witness it, but at Paige’s assurance, the waitress bowed. She literally put her hands together, lowered her head, and tilted forward.
    “Thank you, Ms. Marchand. Thank you so much,” she said, and disappeared down the stairs.
    I turned to Paige. “Ms. Marchand?”
    “I told her to call me by my first name, I swear.” She took a grape from her plate, popped it in her mouth. “But I guess I just demand respect without even trying. The whole staff’s actually been