Read On Deadly Tides (A Wendover House Mystery Book 3) for Free Online

through the centuries and laid a chill on my heart, forced a hole in the shield of contented good sense, and let in this idea that wormed its way inside to incubate and probably eventually hatch into some lunacy that would haunt my dreams.
    The last page had a tiny scribble in the margin. Different ink, smudged. Not an original illustration. But it bothered me more than the words had done. It had a caption: Terryble Bane .
    Thanks to a steady diet of horror films and a passion for Jules Verne novels, when I thought of sea monsters, I thought of krakens, giant squids that pulled down ships and the occasional bridge. But this little inch-long squiggle was of something very different, something almost human. Actually it looked a lot like a close-encounter kind of alien with giant eyes. Except it had webbed hands and feet and a finned tail. And twin air holes that were spraying water. Or something.
    And teeth. It had giant bristled teeth that would make a dragonfish proud.
    According to this drawing, it had legs. It could walk on land.
    I looked up, feeling a little dizzy.
    The clock on the mantle was ticking. In the painting above the fire, my ancestor’s ship was still sinking in the gray waves. Barney snored on the hearth and Kelvin watched me with unblinking eyes from atop a stack of art books on the desk. Everything was the same as always.
    Except it wasn’t. Everything felt slightly off, like I was wearing someone else’s glasses, seeing with someone else’s eyes.
    “Why am I so upset?”
    It wasn’t that the damned book said anything I hadn’t conjectured—and it was just a collection of superstitious rubbish anyway. And the drawing meant nothing. It was just someone’s nightmarish scribbles.
    I stopped my thoughts and reconsidered. Okay, sea monsters and banes were nonsense. But the legend did mean something after all. Because Kelvin had left it as an explanation—or warning, or apology—for whoever came after him.
    For me.
    And I didn’t understand the message. Had he left by stealth because of a sea monster? Had he feared the islanders would actually kill him if they knew his plans to escape? But why leave at all? And why not head for Nebraska on the first available flight once he made it off the island?
    Or had he tried to escape and been caught and murdered by some superstitious neighbor? Was the first body really Kelvin?
    “No, surely not.”
    Could anyone be left in the twenty-first century who really believed in a Bane?
    I looked down at the book. I wanted to deny the idea, but of course there could be belief. There were credulous people who would believe anything. Just ask the tabloids who routinely printed stories of Elvis sightings and green alien babies and werewolves. Why not believe in a land-walking sea monster?
    Taking a deep breath, I forced myself back to the book. The section on the Wendovers was nearly done. I needed to finish it, but then I wanted to put the revolting book away forever.
     
    Most Wendovers abided by the agreement, but every third generation the Bane came for tribute and knowing that he would be taken before the fullness of his days, some men would attempt to flee the island. If he were captured by the other islanders, he was thrown into the sea. If he escaped the islands, some other family member died in his place.
    And thus the islands have endured in peace and bounty.
     
    Chilled, and angry at myself for being frightened by a fairytale of mythical sea monsters, and angrier at the thought of living in a town with people so superstitious they would kill to appease some ancient legend, I put the book aside. But I couldn’t as easily shake the feeling that everything that had happened, every interaction I’d had since I reached the island, had hidden meaning.
    Or nothing did.
    Was I ready to go all the way with this notion, to embrace signs and portents, fey feelings, superstition?
    Did my cat understand me, or did he just like to stare at my face? Had I seen a ghost in my