Cord Graeson was a warg, a dominant one to hold the position of second-in-command to a man like Bessemer. And he knew I had lied to him. That decision would bite me on the ass sooner or later, maybe even in the literal sense.

Mindful of the debris one would expect to find in sediment—Christmas trees, license plates, beer cans, fishing line—we picked our way toward the mile-wide stretch of gray-green water cupped in the remaining depression.

As I studied what remained of the pond, faint ripples arrowed from its center outward. Something was down there, and it was headed our way. Fast. A sharp twist in my gut had me tasting strawberries for the second time that morning, but Comeaux swatted a fly, and I forced my jaw to unclench.

The cloudy depths parted over a young woman’s cotton-candy-pink head, and my lips opened with surprise. Shocking indigo eyes framed by black lashes beaded with moisture studied me. A purple neoprene suit hugged her body and accentuated her slight curves. The outfit belonged on a diver, but I didn’t spot a scrap of equipment on her. No mask, no regulator, no tank. Nothing to indicate what the hell she was doing bobbing like a cork in the middle of a crime scene when she looked like she ought to be planning a homecoming dance or rallying votes for class president.

“Find anything?” Comeaux called to her.

“A barrette.” She held a blue plastic bar molded with bows aloft for our inspection. “Hardly worth getting my hair wet.”

Forget her hair. The girl had been swimming bare-faced in the same stagnant water as the corpse. I wanted to shower and scrub my skin pink just thinking about it. “How can you tell it belonged to the victim?”

“She was wearing the matching clip when her body was fished out of the pond this morning.” She snapped the closure shut. “I assisted.”

Well okay then.

The girl sliced her willowy arms through the water. As she swam closer, I noticed robin’s-egg-blue nail polish flashed on her fingertips. When only a swath of muck separated us, she spun around, winked at me over her shoulder and began hauling herself out of the water backward by walking on her palms.

“Do you need…?” I strangled on the word help.

Gradient scales in sunset hues covered her from the pronounced dimples bracketing her spine down as far as I could see. Sunlight glinted off each scalloped disc, and I squinched my eyes but couldn’t look away. “You’re a mermaid.”

“Are you a detective? If not, then you should be.” She settled three feet in front of me and twisted so her tail bent where knees would be on a human. Pink fins the same shade as her hair curled around her. “Your powers of observation astound.”