Spindrift

Chapter Twelve

1368

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Marisol shook off her shoe as she stepped into the house, having paid the driver for the ride.

"Where were you?" Nua asked, emerging from the shadows.

"We didn't have a meeting planned, not beyond getting you the jewels this afternoon," Marisol said, setting her clutch on the side table.

"Where were you?" Nua asked.

Marisol rubbed her lips together and slowly turned to him.

"My husband sprang dinner on me with that pilot and his woka wife," Marisol said. "Do you remember Ariel Azure?"

Nua's gaze drifted away. Then he clicked his tongue and nodded, once.

"She went away for murder," he said. "Tried, convicted – all the while confessing her innocence."

"And she should still be in HellGate for what the judge gave her as a punishment. By my count, at least for another ten years," Marisol said.

"And you bring her up, why?" Nua asked, following Marisol through the house to the library.

"I found out today that Ariel's sentence was communicated – apart of a large bunch of prison sentences that were looked at again about five, six years ago. Mostly Nereids, who were unjustly put away for crimes or had been over charged for their crimes. She got out five and a half years ago, give or take. Certainly, long enough to have a son and get married."

Marisol shrugged, uncapped the decanter, and tossed the jeweled top to the couch cushion.

Nua crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe, suddenly interested in the tail Marisol told.

"Where is your husband?" Nua asked.

"My temper got the better of me," Marisol said. She shrugged again, moving with the filled glass in her hand to the chaise lounge. "Forgive me, while I enjoy all this before my husband sends me divorce papers."

"Why?"

"One word," Marisol said. She swallowed, the lump in her throat starting to make her grow numb. "One name, really."

"Ariel."

"No. Lino," she said. She leaned back, setting the glass down beside her on the relatively hard cushion, stretching her toes.

Her scales were starting to itch. She needed a good bath in salt water, but if she went out to the pool right now, what would happen?

If – when Kent came back she wanted to be here to try and explain her position. Marisol did doubt she would see him tonight.

After all, he didn't rush after her from the table. He was likely still there, listening to some more of Ariel's sob story. Poor, abandoned girl, raised by a man who she was never really sure was her father. Framed for murder – so she claimed.

"For Lino?" Nua asked. "You gave up our cash cow for a man who never really wanted you? For a man who never really loved you?"

"He wanted me. He wanted me. He WANTED me!" Marisol said, slamming her hand repeatedly into the arm rest. "The whole world around us thought he and Ariel were the perfect pairing, but how can you be the perfect pairing when one of you is a fecking mistake?"

She knocked over her drink, and in her disgust, picked up the glass and threw it across the room. The glass shattered on impact and left a nice scare in the stone wall.

"For all the friend she claimed to be when we were younger, she had the nerve and gull – the audacity to go after a man who should have been mine."

"And now she is with a human," Nua said. "I remember the case well. It never made sense what the police said the motive for murder was. Lino and Ariel were nearing the time to make their relationship official, to put it before our people for a true engagement."

"And it would have been a mistake. Lino didn't love her; he didn't want her. He wanted me."

"Yet, Lino is the one that is dead and Ariel is the one who went away to prison. Apparently, with enough holes in the police case that a higher power took it upon themselves to look the case over again."

Nua grabbed the ottoman and straddled it. He made sure he faced Marisol, staring at her hard as he gripped the cushion beneath him.

"I am curious, Marisol Harvetti. Who really did kill Lino Sorrel?" Nua asked. "Come, come. I am not a good man in the eyes of the law. If you truly know, I won't judge. I won't use the knowledge in any way to harm the person. I barely knew Lino – knew enough of him to know that he didn't deserve to be strangled the way he was."

"What do you know?" Marisol asked, having regained some of her composure.

"I know from what I see before you that you are still broken up over Lino's death. Something about this death – this murder upset you enough that all these years later you haven't put it behind you and you. Just. Put. All. Of my hard work in jeopardy," Nua said.

He scooted closer.

"You just cut off all our funding, putting at risk nearly a decade of work for the advancement of our people. And for what reason, Marisol?" Nua asked. "A grudge against a woman who paid the price for someone else when her love was murdered."

"How could she love him. She's neither human nor Nereid," Marisol said. "How can she even have a heart – she's nothing but a woka sami and her child with her. How dare she even bring to birth a monstrosity as that boy."

Nua looked away, and Marisol turned her back on him.

Suddenly, she felt his hands on her biceps, pulling the whole of her body close to him.

"Let me get something very clear, Marisol," Nua said, his mouth very close to her ear. "My people watch you. Not all the time, but we do. We watched you that very first day when you and Kent Harvetti went for your flight out over the island. We heard your words – don't even bother looking for a bug, because you won't find just one.

"You, just like the money, are merely a tool for me to accomplish what I am heart set to accomplishing for my people," Nua said. "Now I understand this is hard to believe, but I know Ariel, in passing. Not like I know you, Marisol.

"I remember her as a little girl, when her human father would drop her off on the docks among her mother's people and would just leave her. She worked, even from a small age, with my mother and grandmother, my aunts, their husband's families, on the docks learning the old ways. I never held a real interest in her, as a friend or a wife."

"You -."

"Listen," Nua hissed, shaking Marisol violently. "Listen, and you will hear what I saw from afar, about Lino and Ariel Azure. Even as I fell into the lot I did, I still went to the docks, especially at the good times, to help my family make the money to put the food on the table. Both of them worked hard – Lino as pure blood a Nereid as you or I, and Ariel, half filled with human blood as she was, but filled with the spirit of our people."

"You cannot honestly say that, now when we have to work for racial purity as well as keeping our ways alive," Marisol hissed back.

Nua twisted her hair around his fingers and pulled.

"Ariel doesn't chase after material things – never has. As far as I am concerned, she is more Nereid than you will ever be, and the ways are alive in her heart more than they are alive in yours."

Marisol broke free, turning to slap Nua in the face.

"Get out," Marisol said.

"Or what?" Nua reached to rub the spot where his flesh still stung. "Continue to spew your lies when you know I speak the truth about Ariel Azure."

"Get out," Marisol said. "And don't you come back, Nua. There isn't anything here for you."

Nua turned. "You will see me again," he said. He turned back, smiling at her. "You will."