Stolen Dream

Chapter Fourteen

Yvonne Whittaker watched from her porch as Doctor Herbert Grey pulled on his diving gear and dropped off the edge of his dock and into the murky depths of the lake.

It was becoming quite the nightly ritual for her to watch him go into the water. It was so strange, his continual foray into the lake. There wasn't that much in it. She couldn't imagine why he kept going in, time and time again.

He wasn't just going in to keep his skills sharp either, despite what he'd told her at their initial meeting. Not when he was often out there for several hours at a time. Besides, it wasn't that far of a drive to the coast. Why didn't he just go into the ocean once in a while rather than constantly diving in the little lake?

It was a puzzle that had been nagging at her since she'd first spotted him.

Yvonne tapped her fingers on her porch railing in agitation. She just couldn't figure out what he was doing. If she had the gear, she'd go in after him to try to find out what could possibly be so interesting.

It was also bothering her that he hadn't called her.

He was alone and, from the background check she'd run on him, single. There was a work partner, a woman, but she didn't seem to be very stable. There'd been an article in a recent paper about how she'd gone off her rocker and had been raving about finding a mermaid, of all things.

Ridiculous.

The paper had gone on about how there was absolutely no proof of her wild claim and they touted her as having lost her mind in the ocean. The paper went on to theorize that she hadn't gotten enough oxygen on one of her dives and had hallucinated the entire thing.

Her fingers stopped their tapping as a thought occurred. What if the lunatic was right and the Doc had a freaking mermaid hidden in the lake?

She immediately dismissed the notion as ridiculous, but it kept nagging at the back of her mind. It fit. It couldn't possibly be true, but it fit.

The nightly trips into the water, the furtive way he always looked around first, the giant bin of water in the backseat of his car she'd spotted when she'd pulled him over the other day. Even his sudden appearance at a cabin he hadn't been to since he was a kid all made sense if he was hiding something big.

Her fingers started tapping again. What if he found a mermaid with his partner and she wanted to publicize their discovery? The Doc wanted to protect the mythical creature they'd captured and keep the secret. The partner made threats, swore she'd go to the press and the Doc whisked the mermaid out of harms way, dropping her in the lake where she would be contained well enough for him to keep an eye on her without actually losing her while also keeping her safe from prying eyes.

Perhaps he went in night after night looking for her.

Yvonne shook her head, disturbed by the entirely too possible thoughts going through her head. He couldn't. Could he? No. Not a chance. Mermaids weren't real. They were a myth, a legend, a completely made up story to entertain children based on actual hallucinations of sailors who thought they saw a woman in their most desperate hours.

They weren't real.

They were a story based on some drunken sailor lusting after a manatee or something.

Yvonne frowned as the Doc emerged from the water so soon after going in. He made those huge, hilarious steps in his flippered feet until he was clear of the water before stripping off his gear.

She had to know for sure.

Yvonne got up and wandered down off her porch, making a show of casually strolling towards him. "Hey, neighbor," she greeted, watching in interest as his head shot up in the sort of guilty reaction people had when they were caught doing something they shouldn't. "Out diving again, I see."