CHAPTER 97
She could not help but laugh again for surely it must be a jest. Just this morning, Mr. Runington had had a gun to her head; nothing could be worse than that man.
But her smile faded as quickly as it had formed. Why did it not look like he was joking?
“I am serious, Miss Wains,” he confirmed. “Perhaps we should spare you. I can have men collect the body so he will not have to go there. Though he might regardless, for it is his lighthouse and his son who was murdered there.”
“He was not murdered.”
“Killed then. But I doubt the man will think of the two as much different.”
“Mr. Runington shot first! Without any warning!”
That was clearly news to the old man, and his eyebrow rose but he said, “All the same, I can’t imagine him taking it well.”
No parent would likely take their son’s passing well, but the way he said it suggested something altogether different.
“I will keep that in mind,” she said. “But I make no promises of bodies. Last I saw, he was in the water. He fell out of the boat after, and I was too concerned with Mr. Wilson to even think of retrieving his body—and of course, he was clearly dead or I would not have left him.” She added that last bit hastily.
The last thing she needed was anyone suggesting she could have saved him.
No, if she had gotten anywhere near him, she could have killed him herself.
And who knew where the body was? Kallias had pulled him under, but she knew not how far or how deep.
“I will talk to my boss,” she said, “to figure out such things and to see if I can come visit Mr. Wilson and assist you.” They had allowances for ailing family but none for something like this. She hoped since she could claim he had gotten hurt saving her, they would make an exception.
To those things, the doctor only nodded.
Mr. Wilson had fallen asleep when she went back to the other room, so asking the doctor to tell him she would be back, she left. Permission or not, she would be back. Of that, she was sure.
Then she went to the trading company’s office and told their official story. The manager easily gave her permission for day leave for the week to check on Mr. Wilson and aid the doctor, and he sent three men to go with her back to the lighthouse to at least try to find the body.
Not surprisingly, they never did, and when the sun started to set, they headed off back to town and she went back to tend to her lighthouse, sure that once she was done, she would have a mermaid waiting for her.