Книга - The Forgotten

The Forgotten
Heather Graham


www.TheOriginalHeatherGraham.comMurdered by a dead man? A woman named Maria Gomez is murdered in Miami, apparently by her husband–who'd been presumed dead, slain by a crime boss. FBI agent Brett Cody can't believe it; dead or alive, the man had loved his wife. He also can't help feeling guilty, since he was responsible for protecting Miguel and Maria Gomez.A few miles away, Lara Mayhew has just begun working at a dolphin research facility. She loves her new job–until a dolphin brings her something unexpected from the deep. A human hand. More body parts show up, and when Brett looks into the situation, he discovers that the dismembered corpse is Miguel's.Soon, rumors of crazed zombies abound in the Miami media, and the Krewe of Hunters, an elite FBI unit of paranormal investigators, is called in. Brett and Lara find themselves working with the Krewe–and working closely together. An elderly crime boss who's losing his memory seems to be key to solving this case, but…there's no motive. Unless Brett and Lara can uncover one in the Miami underworld. And that means they have to protect themselves. And each other.







Murdered by a dead man?

A woman named Maria Gomez is murdered in Miami, apparently by her husband—who’d been presumed dead, slain by a crime boss. FBI agent Brett Cody can’t believe it; dead or alive, the man had loved his wife. He also can’t help feeling guilty, since he was responsible for protecting Miguel and Maria Gomez.

A few miles away, Lara Mayhew has just begun working at a dolphin research facility. She loves her new job—until a dolphin brings her something unexpected from the deep. A human hand. More body parts show up, and when Brett looks into the situation, he discovers that the dismembered corpse is Miguel’s.

Soon, rumors of crazed zombies abound in the Miami media, and the Krewe of Hunters, an elite FBI unit of paranormal investigators, is called in. Brett and Lara find themselves working with the Krewe—and working closely together. An elderly crime boss who’s losing his memory seems to be key to solving this case, but…there’s no motive. Unless Brett and Lara can uncover one in the Miami underworld. And that means they have to protect themselves. And each other.


Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham (#ulink_433b84cb-c1e9-5664-8ef3-05ddca1f8219)

“[Waking the Dead is] not to be missed.”

—BookTalk

“Dark, dangerous and deadly! Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life, using exceptionally vivid details to add depth to all the people and places.”

—RT Book Reviews on Waking the Dead, *Top Pick*

“Murder, intrigue…a fast-paced read. You may never know in advance what harrowing situations Graham will place her characters in, but…rest assured that the end result will be satisfying.”

—Suspense Magazine on Let the Dead Sleep

“Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killer’s evil.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Unseen

“I’ve long admired Heather Graham’s storytelling ability and this book hit the mark. I couldn’t put The Unholy down.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Suspenseful and dark.… The transitions between past and present flow seamlessly, and the main characters are interesting and their connection to one another is believable.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Unseen

“Graham does a great job of blending just a bit of paranormal with real, human evil.”

—Miami Herald on Unhallowed Ground


Also by HEATHER GRAHAM (#ulink_05bbae0a-f117-5486-89ad-5a7f0dd7d47a)

THE SILENCED

THE DEAD PLAY ON

THE BETRAYED

THE HEXED

THE CURSED

WAKING THE DEAD

THE NIGHT IS FOREVER

THE NIGHT IS ALIVE

THE NIGHT IS WATCHING

LET THE DEAD SLEEP

THE UNINVITED

THE UNSPOKEN

THE UNHOLY

THE UNSEEN

AN ANGEL FOR CHRISTMAS

THE EVIL INSIDE

SACRED EVIL

HEART OF EVIL

PHANTOM EVIL

NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRES

THE KEEPERS

GHOST MOON

GHOST NIGHT

GHOST SHADOW

THE KILLING EDGE

NIGHT OF THE WOLVES

HOME IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS

UNHALLOWED GROUND

DUST TO DUST

NIGHTWALKER

DEADLY GIFT

DEADLY HARVEST

DEADLY NIGHT

THE DEATH DEALER

THE LAST NOEL

THE SÉANCE

BLOOD RED

THE DEAD ROOM

KISS OF DARKNESS

THE VISION

THE ISLAND

GHOST WALK

KILLING KELLY

THE PRESENCE

DEAD ON THE DANCE FLOOR

PICTURE ME DEAD

HAUNTED

HURRICANE BAY

A SEASON OF MIRACLES

NIGHT OF THE BLACKBIRD

NEVER SLEEP WITH STRANGERS

EYES OF FIRE

SLOW BURN

NIGHT HEAT

Look for Heather Graham’s next novel

THE HIDDEN

available soon from MIRA Books




The Forgotten

Heather Graham







www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


Dedicated with sincere appreciation to Dolphin Research Center, Grassy Key, Marathon, Florida, and to all the people who work with love and care to make it such an exceptional facility, especially Rita Irwin, Mandy Rodriguez, Linda Erb,

Emily Guarino and Loriel Keaton.

To Jax, attacked by a shark and alive because of DRC. I don’t pretend to know about all sea mammal centers; I do know that this one is wonderful.

And to my very dear friend Mary Stella, DRC, who introduced me to Jax and Tanner and all!


Contents

Cover (#u3d306ef9-2f65-57a5-ba82-4743797c31ad)

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Praise (#ulink_19f7b641-8d46-5768-9eb6-097d43d0d04b)

Also by HEATHER GRAHAM (#ulink_71bd5aeb-bb9d-5f11-997a-4ca03fcc4c88)

Title Page (#u73475ba1-a708-50de-bcd1-1c23df51b16d)

Dedication (#uf45f3a89-f073-5518-8120-d0736ee63aaf)

Prologue (#ulink_483d0fa6-a207-5466-9417-ba019a949a9f)

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Extract from The Hidden by Heather Graham (#litres_trial_promo)

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Prologue (#ulink_003e86cc-1472-5fa1-a2dd-b9a641515c14)

“Maria.”

Maria Gomez started at the sound of her name.

She’d thought she was alone.

She had been sitting in the darkness, just staring out at the night, when she’d heard her name spoken. She didn’t even turn at first. She was certain she had imagined it. Her name, spoken so softly, with such affection—by him.

Because all she did was think about Miguel.

She was so numb. She knew that her children worried about her, that her friends and family worried about her, and yet she could do nothing but stare out at the night. Her balcony was beautiful; she looked out over the walled and tree-laden backyard of the beautiful home she and Miguel had built together in Coconut Grove.

In doing so, she looked out over her life. The children had climbed the great banyan tree that grew so close to the house, just beyond the balcony. She and Miguel had hosted pool parties for Little League teams, for the Brownies and Girl Scouts. They’d hosted Michelle’s engagement party and a shower for Magdalena when little Sophia had been due.

But the past was gone. The night was quiet. Only the mental echo of haunted laughter remained of the happiness that had once lived here. She knew that it was time for her to leave, too. Join the children up north, where none of them would be happy—but where they would be safe.

Miguel was gone. He had been the great force in the family. She was empty without him, empty of all the things that made a family strong. She hadn’t even been eighteen when she had married him; they’d had nearly twenty-five years together. She had always trusted him.

He’d always been honest with her.

Some said that he had been a very bad man; Maria knew that wasn’t true. He had gotten swept up into bad things with bad men, but he had never hurt anyone himself; he had simply been born at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It had felt like a knife in her heart when she’d read the reports of his death in the paper; he had died as such a man might, the press—apparently desperate to be as dramatic as possible—had reported. His death had been accompanied—literally—by the same searing flame of violence with which he had lived. Doused with accelerants and burned beyond recognition, burned to cinders. Maria didn’t even know if he’d been killed before the fire—she prayed he had been.

Those reporters! Even they claimed it was a heinous end, despite whatever deeds he had allegedly committed. He’d been involved in the drug trade, and everyone knew the drug trade was filled with cold-blooded killers.

But she knew that Miguel had never done anything but own land.

Most certainly his killers had known that he had gone to the American government.

That was the reason he’d been killed, of course. And the FBI man who had come to the funeral, the one Miguel had gone to, Agent Brett Cody, had been visibly distressed by that knowledge. Agent Cody had been pulled off the case shortly after he and Miguel had spoken, because other agents who specialized in the drug trade had been assigned to work with, to look after, her husband. Maria had told Agent Cody that she did not blame him for Miguel’s death; after all, he hadn’t gone to Miguel—Miguel had gone to him.

Miguel had been foolish; the government hadn’t worked very hard for him. Protection? He hadn’t been protected for a second. The men watching over him hadn’t even found him until the fire had ravaged his body and rendered it unrecognizable.

She didn’t entirely blame the agents, though. Those in the drug trade knew what they were up against if they tried to leave. Those who weren’t in the trade didn’t know that protection might not be possible—even agents who were assigned to the trade didn’t always know that. No one could be watched every minute. And there was still someone out there—watching her.

“Maria.”

She heard her name again. It was Miguel’s voice. She missed him so badly that she could still hear him. It was almost as if she could breathe in his scent.

“Maria.”

His voice seemed to be coming from behind her.

She turned. Her heart slammed to a stop in her chest, and she jumped to her feet, astonished.

There was Miguel. He was standing just inside the double doors that led from the patio back into their bedroom. He looked to be real, flesh and blood. He was there...

Just as quickly as it had ceased to beat, her heart took flight. They’d been wrong. The bone fragments found in the fire had not belonged to Miguel.

Because Miguel was standing right in front of her.

She raced to him, throwing her arms around him. He barely moved in response. She drew back, staring at him. It was Miguel. But...

Something was wrong with him. Something was really wrong.

“Miguel, what—what have they done to you?” she asked.

His eyes were blank as he stared back at her. Then, to her astonishment, he picked her up.

And he walked back out to the balcony without saying a word.

He spoke like Miguel, he smelled like Miguel, he looked like Miguel, but...

She was confused, but her confusion cleared in a split second when she realized his intent, and started to scream.


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A bottlenose dolphin leaped majestically out of the water, crystal droplets raining down around it in the morning sun. It splashed as it landed, then appeared almost to fly as it raced around the lagoon, thrusting itself out of the water with the power of its fins and flukes, all the while staring straight at Lara Mayhew. The dolphin emitted a chattering sound, something delightfully akin to laughter.

Lara smiled at the sight and sound of the dolphin, a beautiful female estimated to be about ten years old and named Cocoa. Rick Laramie, the head dolphin trainer, had told Lara on an earlier visit that Cocoa was performing for her and “speaking” to her simply because she had chosen to, that she’d decided she liked Lara. That was fine with Lara. She liked Cocoa, too, and was fascinated by her. Cocoa was one of the facility’s rescue dolphins. She’d been attacked by a shark and been near death when she was brought to Sea Life. Now it seemed she knew she owed her life to the facility. She was as friendly as a family pet. Today Rick was taking her for her first dolphin swim and training experience, and she was glad it was going to be with Cocoa.

Rick hadn’t shown up yet, but Lara knew she was early. She was delighted just to be there, enjoying the sunlight beneath a beautiful blue summer sky, feeling the warmth of the day heat her skin. No one at the facility was up yet, in fact. It was just after six thirty. In another half hour the cooks and cashiers who ran the small café would arrive, and a few minutes after that the rest of the staff would come wandering in. The facility opened to the public for seven hours each day, but the crux of the work here was research and education, not entertainment. They didn’t study dolphin disease and physiology, or perform necropsies or anything like that; they focused on training, learning more about dolphin habits and intelligence with each passing season.

Which, of course, was expensive. And why Grady Miller, one of the three founders of the Sea Life Center, had decided that, like other sea mammal research facilities, they would educate the public on dolphins, arranging for playtimes, dolphin swims and other trainer-conducted interactions. While Rick was the head trainer here, Grady was managing director. The facility had been a nonprofit research institute for years, and Grady was loved and respected by the dolphins as well as all of his coworkers. She’d seen him in the water with the dolphins; they had all rushed to him like giant wet puppies, eager to greet him, eager to have him stroke them along their backs and fins, eager for his kind words. He’d purchased the property and the docks from the previous owners—filmmakers who’d trained dolphins to perform for the camera—and continued working with the dolphins they’d left behind, simply loving and being fascinated by the creatures. That had been almost thirty years ago. He’d started with two partners. Willem Rodriguez had provided financing, and Peg Walton worked with him day-to-day. Peg had passed away a few years ago, and now Grady essentially ran it on his own. The facility was now far larger than when it had been founded, and it was thriving, with its research featured in the most influential scientific publications.

They were supported by people from around the world, rich and poor alike. Their contributors included people who “adopted” a dolphin for a small donation and “sustainers” who, in return for their substantial support, were allowed to see some of the research as it was being conducted and were invited to attend a picnic-style fete each year, as well as being welcomed to various small meetings where the center’s newest findings were presented. There was, in fact, a dinner planned for that evening. It would be Lara’s first chance to attend such a special occasion, because there weren’t many of them, and as a new employee she was lucky to find one happening so soon after she was hired. At Sea Life, every contributor was appreciated, and with nonprofit enterprises continually reliant on the philanthropy of others, it was important to always let all their contributors know how much they were valued. And tonight a few of their major supporters would be on hand. Lara didn’t know much about Grant Blackwood of Eden Industries or Ely Taggerly of Taggerly Pharmaceuticals. She did know that Mason Martinez, CEO of Good Health Miami, had a nationwide reputation for his healthful lifestyle clinics and the preventive medicine practiced there. She was also familiar with Sonia Larson of Sonia Fashions.

In fact, she owned a number of Sonia’s pieces, trendy business fashions that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. She was anxious to meet the woman, along with all the others, of course.

Lara’s job tonight was to seat everyone and see that they were happy with the food and everyone had a good time while the trainers and scientists talked about their research and results. It hardly seemed like work.

And then there was the day-to-day here at Sea Life. Always time to walk around the lagoons and talk to the dolphins.

Lara felt she’d truly found a haven. She loved all the dolphins—but especially Cocoa.

Cocoa was in the front left lagoon that day, her usual location, though occasionally she was shifted to a different lagoon for training purposes. There were six underwater enclosures for the dolphins at the facility, front, right and left, and then two more behind each of those, with a sandbar-like island at the rear that more or less created a back street to approach the lagoons. The last two were the largest, where the adolescent males were kept. They could be rough when they played, just like teenage boys, and since two of the females had calves that were just a few months old, they were happiest away from the antics of the “boys.” The lagoons were all connected via underwater gates so the dolphins could be moved around for training and medical purposes.

Each lagoon had a floating dock for trainers, medical personal and the visitors who were part of a swim program, as well as a floating platform farther out in the water.

Lara sat down on the dock. “Good morning, Cocoa!” she called.

The dolphin made that clicking sound again, disappeared for a minute, then came up near Lara in a magnificent leap and welcomed her with a showering spray of seawater.

Lara laughed. “Yes, yes, you’re lovely and talented, and that actually felt very good. Love the sun, but it is warm. That water felt great. This is such a beautiful day,” she said.

And it really was. Stunningly beautiful. The sun was shining, making the water sparkle. A breeze was drifting in off the bay, rustling the palms and sea grape trees that grew along the stone paths and by the docks. By afternoon it would be hot, and they might be caught by one or more of the torrential storms that could hit the area in the summer and into the fall. But right now, it was simply beautiful. The sky was a true bright blue; the water was like a sea of diamonds.

The move to Miami had been a good idea.

She was actually living in Coconut Grove, an area of the city that was historically artsy, with a “downtown” that was hopping until what seemed like all hours of the morning. It was a ten-minute hop over to the research facility, which was situated on a small private road off one of the bridges that connected the city with Miami Beach, which meant it was near other attractions, such as downtown Miami, the Art and Design District, South Beach, the Port of Miami, Jungle Island and the Children’s Museum. While the area surrounding Sea Life was busy and modern, the facility itself had an old-time charm. The foliage was a little wild and ragged, iguanas roamed freely, and birds were everywhere. The best of both worlds.

And I so desperately needed the change, she thought.

Yes—a complete change. She had even started going by her mother’s maiden name, Ainsworth. The trauma she had fled had been one thing; she was strong. The constant publicity had been another. Ironic, since media was what she had done as a congressional assistant—and was mainly what she was still doing now. Of course, her boss, Grady Miller, knew who she was and what she had fled from. He was supportive and wonderful, and she trusted him completely.

And why wouldn’t she? Grady was friends with Adam Harrison, executive director of the Krewe of Hunters, her best friend’s unit at the FBI. Without Meg Murray and her unit, Lara wouldn’t have survived.

“Hey!” Rick called to her, heading from the service building with a cooler filled with fish. “You’re here bright and early.”

“I understand that this is very special. That even employees don’t get free swims all that often,” Lara told him, grinning.

She liked Rick; he was probably about fifty, weathered from years in the sun, slim and fit. He was married to Adrianna, another of the trainers. She had actually met Adrianna first, right here, just two years ago when she had been at her previous job, doing media for then-congressman Ian Walker. Due to a series of murders in Washington, DC, with which Walker had been involved—indirectly, or so he alleged—he was no longer a congressman.

Murders—and Lara’s own kidnapping and imprisonment, naked and starving, in the dank underground of an abandoned gristmill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

But she had survived, and now she was here, building a new life. Rick knew all about her past; he also knew that she’d survived mainly because of the ingenuity of a friend who worked for the FBI, and that she’d received extensive therapy since. To be honest, she hadn’t felt that she’d needed all the therapy; she’d come out of the experience grateful for her life, and furious with anyone who would commit atrocities and murder for personal gain. The henchman who had actually carried out the vile acts was, she was convinced, truly certifiably crazy, but that didn’t mean she was unhappy about the fact that he was going to rot in jail for the rest of his life, or that the woman whose manipulative will had set him on his murderous course would rot along with him.

“Well, Lara, you should definitely be in the water with these babies,” Rick said. “There’s nothing in the world like getting to know Cocoa and her buds. We bring in wounded soldiers, autistic kids—you name it. This interaction is good for whatever ails you.”

“Rick,” she told him firmly, “I’m absolutely fine, and I don’t want people tiptoeing around me. I’m here to do a bang-up job with Sea Life’s PR. Not that I’m not beyond excited to get to know Cocoa better.”

“Okay, we’ll start our training session on the platform,” he told her. “And then we’ll get in the water. No bull, though. I’ll kick you out in two seconds if I don’t think you’re going to be a good fit with the dolphins, okay?”

“Okay.”

From the platform, Rick began to teach her the hand signals that Cocoa knew. Lara dutifully imitated every sign Rick made, and Cocoa responded like a champ. She learned from Rick about the vitamins they gave to their dolphins to compensate because they didn’t hunt their fish from the wild, and how they were given freshwater, too, something they usually got from their fish—and still did—but this ensured that their intake was sufficient, and they loved it. The biggest issue was trust, Rick told her. No dolphin was forced to perform or work—ever, under any circumstances.

“How on earth do they learn what a hand signal means to begin with?” Lara asked. “I mean, it’s not like you can explain, ‘Hey, when I raise my hand like this, I want you to make that chattering noise while you back up on your flukes.’”

Rick grinned. “We use targets, and it’s a long process—except for sometimes when we work with the calves and they just follow their moms. Dolphins are social creatures, and they’re curious about us, too. They like interaction, and they love learning. When the trainer blows a whistle after a task, it’s to tell the dolphin that he, or she, did it properly. It’s called positive reinforcement, and I don’t know of any facility that uses anything else. When the dolphin hears the whistle, he knows to come to the trainer for a reward. It may be fish, like we’ve been using today. Sometimes it’s a toy and sometimes it’s a lot of stroking. Dolphins are mammals. They’re affectionate. Oddly enough, a lot like aquatic dogs, but even smarter. Smart as all get-out. I love working with them. I’d honestly rather be doing what I’m doing than be a millionaire working on Wall Street. I wake up happy every day, and I get to work in paradise, with my friends and these amazing creatures. You’re truly going to love it here.”

“I already love it,” she assured him. “I knew I would.”

She did love what she was doing. The first week she’d started, half of her media work had been planning out her own press spin, getting the media to get past her move to Miami and the Sea Life Center and concentrate on the dolphins and the work being done here. She thought she’d handled it very well. The “news” was always fickle; a high-profile celebrity had been involved in a sex scandal, a policeman in Oregon had been accused of taking bribes from prostitutes and the world had quickly begun to forget her. In the past three weeks she had been able to work with a society that arranged dolphin interactions for autistic children, adults and children with Down syndrome and an organization involved with veterans’ affairs and helping wounded servicemen and women. Writing press releases that dealt with the good things going on in the world wasn’t like working at all.

It was a bit more of a challenge to politely fend off reality-show producers or convince the rich and famous that they had to go by the same rules here as everyone else. No one was allowed to just hop in and play with the dolphins; trainers always called the shots. And, of course, no one bossed a dolphin around; if a dolphin didn’t want to play, it didn’t have to play. Each animal could escape human interaction if and when it chose to do so. There was no drama. No one interviewed anyone without the express permission of Willem Rodriguez, who had provided Grady with the financing to buy the place a quarter of a century ago. Willem had used his business savvy in the years since then to make Sea Life what it was now: an excellently run nonprofit with a top staff of trainers and veterinarians. It was one of the most important aquatic mammal centers in the States, possibly the world.

“Ready to get in the water?” Rick asked her.

“You bet!”

Lara slid in; Rick stayed on the dock.

“You’re not coming in?” she asked him.

“No, I’ve had all kinds of dorsal tows in my day. I’m going to teach you how to get one when you need one, though, whether you’re in the water or you’re on the platform, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Swim out into the center of the lagoon,” he told her. “You’ve seen this done, so you know the hand signal. Give that signal and Cocoa will come get you. Just grasp onto her dorsal fin and go for a ride!”

Lara swam out. The day was heating up; the water was still deliciously cool. This was so entirely different from what she had left behind.

Life was good.

* * *

There was something strangely but beautifully surreal about the sight of Maria Gianni Gomez in the banyan tree.

It was almost as if she’d been posed.

Her arms were spread out almost gently, forming a casual arc over her head. Her face was turned slightly to the right.

Her eyes were open.

She was dressed in a flowing white robe. A small branch lay over her lower body, as if set there by a modest and benign hand that might have reached down with ethereal care. The great banyan with its reaching, twisting roots had grown in such a way that the center, where Maria lay, might have been scooped out to create a bed for her.

If it weren’t that death was so visible in her open eyes, she could have been a model posing for any one of the sometimes very strange commercial shoots that took place in the notoriously and historically bohemian section of Miami.

Brett Cody was standing next to his partner, Diego McCullough, and looking up at the tree, studying the body where it lay.

“Ladder?” he asked Diego.

“One of the Miami-Dade cops went to get one. He’ll be right here, along with the medical examiner,” Diego said. “You got here fast,” he noted.

“We’re not all that far from Virginia Street,” he reminded Diego. He lived right down from the mall that was more or less central to the area, almost walking distance to this North Grove area of nicer homes. “You got here pretty quick yourself.”

Diego nodded. “I was at the coffee shop,” he said glumly. “This is just...so wrong.”

“She should have been protected,” Brett said, a feeling of deep anger sweeping over him. But someone out there had killed Miguel—who, after all, had made his living in the drug trade, where violence was common—and now had come after his widow, it appeared.

But how?

“She had a state-of-the-art alarm system and steel bolts on the doors, and there’s no sign of forced entry,” Diego said.

“We need to talk to the fed who was duty in front of the house when it happened,” Brett said. “We knew Miguel’s killers might think she knew too much, so we were keeping a watch on her.”

“He thought she jumped,” Diego told him. “She was deeply depressed, devastated, after Miguel’s murder. You don’t think that’s possible?”

“No,” Brett said quickly. Too harshly. He understood how the officer might have gotten that impression; the tree was fairly close to the master bedroom balcony, which overlooked the pool and the patio area.

But, Brett was certain, no matter what kind of an athlete she might have been when she was young, there was no way she could have jumped from the balcony and wound up where she was.

It would have been possible, however, for someone to throw her over and cause her to land exactly where she had.

“Hey, I know how you feel about this one, how much you wish you could have seen it through,” Diego said quietly. “But if you want to keep the peace, don’t tear into the officer on duty.”

“Sorry,” Brett said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bark like that. And I don’t blame the agent. He didn’t see anyone go by, and should someone have gotten past him, the house has alarms and a top-of-the-line security system. No one broke into that house. How the hell she was killed, I can’t begin to imagine. Unless Miguel has a clone running around somewhere—a clone with his fingerprints and his memories.”

They were both quiet for a minute, looking at one another.

“He was burned beyond forensic recognition,” Diego reminded Brett. “No DNA left, even in the teeth or the bones.”

“Identified by the melted remains of his jewelry, and the fact that we saw him get out of his car and go inside, the only person in there,” Brett said thoughtfully.

“Maybe Miguel wasn’t killed in that oil-dump conflagration,” Diego suggested.

Brett shook his head thoughtfully. “Those were definitely Miguel’s things forensics took from the fire. And Miguel truly loved Maria. There’s no way on God’s earth that he would have killed his wife. Even if he didn’t die in the fire,” he added.

They both turned at the sound of footsteps. A uniformed police officer was hurrying over with a ladder. Dr. Phil Kinny, medical examiner, was just behind, followed by two forensic teams, one from the local Miami office of the FBI and one from the Miami-Dade homicide division.

“Let me get a quick look up the ladder first, okay?” Brett called to Phil.

“As you wish,” Phil told him. “I’m here, ready whenever. I can only tell you how she died. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure out how she got in that tree.”

“Thanks,” Brett said.

The ladder was set carefully next to the tree; Brett nodded his appreciation to the young officer ready to steady it. Brett could have climbed the tree without it, but he was trying to maintain a level of professionalism. Once he had studied Maria Gomez in situ, photographers would chronicle everything before Phil started his exam and told them the preliminary time of death and whatever he could about the injuries that had presumably killed her.

Studying the woman, Brett felt again the terrible pang of guilt about the entire Gomez affair. He hadn’t been assigned to the Barillo crime case; other agents and officers—both the feds and local law enforcement—had worked it for years. When Miguel Gomez had come to him, he’d made a point of going undercover to meet the family and find out what was going on, what Miguel had done and what he could give the authorities.

Basically, Miguel had been like a slave laborer, doing whatever his boss told him to do, letting them use his property, forced into the crimes he’d committed. He’d been minding his own business in a family where distant relatives had fallen prey to the lure of money and rewards. It wasn’t always easy for newcomers to trust in the United States government. Miguel’s son had been approached leaving school by a couple of Barillo’s toughs and warned about what happened when the “family”—meaning Spanish-speaking immigrants—didn’t work together.

Nothing had happened to the boy, but Miguel had known that his son being threatened meant that he was supposed to play the game. Only later had he learned that Barillo prided himself on never going after innocent family members, and by then it was too late. He was in too deep.

He had done so for years. Then he had seen a friend who had avoided running “errands” for the family wind up in a one-car fatal crash. Miguel had realized that he might be doing as he was told, but it was impossible to know when you might do the wrong thing, even by accident, and wind up in a car crash—or worse, have one of your children wind up dead, despite the fact that word on the street was that Barillo prided himself on “taking care of” only those who were guilty of betraying the family, never wives or children.

Oddly enough, rumor had it that Barillo’s own children weren’t part of the family. He had two sons and a daughter. They were all seeking advanced degrees at some of the best schools in the nation.

He wanted a different life for them.

Miguel had found Brett by accident; he’d seen him in the street when the FBI had busted a small crew who had dumped five Cuban refugees off the coast in a rubber tube. Miraculously, the refugees had made it. Diego and Brett had been watching the group, and they had talked a terrified mother into identifying the suspects who had taken their life savings and then deserted them to die at sea. Brett and Diego had found the perpetrators because of her tip and taken them down. The United States Marshals had stepped in; the Cuban mother was now living safely with her family in New Mexico, all of them under new government-supplied identities.

Brett had liked Miguel, who’d stopped to talk to him after the takedown, and he’d known that the Barillo cartel had been a thorn in the side of South Florida law enforcement for a very long time, but he wasn’t himself involved in the investigation. The case, and responsibility for Miguel’s safety, had gone to Herman Bryant, head of the task force pursuing Barillo and his “family,” a large group of Central and South American, island and American criminals whose cunning and power rivaled those of the Mafia in its heyday. Herman had a task force of two units, twelve agents, working the ongoing investigation, two of those men undercover. The Barillo family was extensive and dealt with human trafficking, illegal immigration, prostitution, firearms and drugs. Every federal, state, county and city law enforcement agency was kept alerted to their movements.

The frequent discovery of the family’s victims’ mutilated remains reminded them all that Barillo and his crew stopped at nothing to reach their goals, following up threats and intimidation with stunningly effective violence. The men who had infiltrated had reported back that loyalty to Barillo was all. Traitors were executed; the rule was immutable and simple.

But though Special Agent in Charge Herman Bryant was good at his job, and had managed to prevent murders, drug sales and more, so far they had been unable to crack the back of the giant beast. Bryant was a veteran of drug wars around the world; he’d dealt with cases from Brazil to the deepest sectors of China, interacting with local law enforcement agencies along the way. Brett had been certain that Miguel had been in good hands.

After Miguel’s murder, Bryant had urged Maria to make an excuse to leave Miami, or to move in with her children. When she’d refused, he had kept men watching her house. He had done all the right things.

Even though it didn’t really fit the Barillo methods for family to be killed—especially not with Miguel already dead.

Miguel had worn a wire the day he’d been killed.

Despite that, when he’d headed into his own warehouse before meeting with members of the Barillo family, he’d been killed. When—supposedly—he’d been early and alone. None of the officers watching had heard anything—no voices other than Miguel’s—before the warehouse had burst into flames so strong and high that the conflagration had been visible miles away. Clearly his boss had suspected he was a traitor and had taken care of things in his own violent way.

Miguel had been seen entering the building; no one else had been there.

It hadn’t seemed much of a question that the remnants of bone that had been found had belonged to Miguel Gomez. Melted fragments of the man’s watch had been found mixed in with the charred remains along with his signet ring, the initials still partially visible. There had been no reason to doubt that the man was dead.

But there must have been someone else in the warehouse who the officers hadn’t seen, who had, perhaps, been there waiting, staying when others had left for the day. Someone who was already there when Miguel first arrived and who had then set off a detonator to ignite the fire, and then had escaped unseen in the chaos.

That person had never been found, though, nor had he left any clues they could trace. The most logical conclusion had been that Miguel had been killed. After all, he certainly hadn’t come home after the fire.

It must have been that person who was killed, though how Miguel’s effects had come to be there was still a mystery. It would have been easy to misidentify the body, though, since there truly hadn’t been anything useful left for the medical examiner to work with.

And now Maria, too, was dead. Brett had liked her. She’d been a slim, fit, energetic woman in her late forties; there had been nothing plastic about her. Miguel had loved her with all his heart. He’d told Brett once that they’d met, dated about two weeks, then eloped. So quickly? Brett had asked. And Miguel had told him, “I knew—I just knew. And it didn’t matter how long we’d been together or what others thought. I knew that I would love her forever.”

Maria had been wonderful. She’d had warm brown eyes and a few wrinkles, no doubt the result of her quick smile, and a great heart. From the ladder, Brett observed her and made mental notes to help in his investigation. Her head was at an angle, and he had a feeling her neck was broken. One arm looked broken, as well.

There was nothing in her hands, as far as he could see. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup; it appeared she had been just about to go to bed when...

She looked so alive—except that she was dead, of course.

Instinct told him that she had seen her killer coming.

Her open, glazed eyes showed disbelief and pure terror, and he couldn’t help wondering just who she had seen before she died to put that look in her eyes.

“Anything?” Diego called to him.

“Looks as if she was tossed off the balcony like a rag doll. As if she died when she hit the tree,” Brett said.

“We’ll scrape beneath her nails,” Phil said. “If we’re lucky, she got a piece of her attacker.”

Brett climbed down from the ladder.

Diego set a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t take this on yourself, mi amigo,” he said. He had been born in Miami and grown up with English as his first language, but he liked to switch to Spanish when he thought the Spanish words sounded more “real” or appropriate. “Mi amigo,” he had once told Brett, was warmer than “my friend,” with more real meaning.

“I’m not,” Brett said, but he knew that he was lying. “Diego, her eyes—you should see the look in her eyes.”

“She was murdered, Brett, of course she has a look in her eyes.” Diego was quiet for a minute. “We’re lucky we got here before the birds,” he added softly.

Brett had to agree. He’d come across victims who had been hidden by nature before. Nature wasn’t gentle on a corpse.

“There’s just something disturbing about her,” Brett said.

“Yeah, she’s dead.”

Brett looked at Diego, trying not to show his aggravation at his partner’s callous comment, but then he saw that Diego was staring up at the tree, obviously upset by Maria’s death himself.

Diego looked at Brett. “So we’re going to be lead on this? Despite Bryant and his crew having been on the Barillo thing so long?”

“Bryant himself suggested to the powers that be that we take this on. I have to keep him advised, of course. He felt I deserved in on it. His team wouldn’t have had a lot of the information they used to bust a number of Barillo’s underlings if it hadn’t been for Miguel. They were all upset when he died, and not only because they lost a source, though I know that this will really affect Bryant and the team professionally, too. They were really hoping Miguel’s info could give them enough to arrest Barillo, or at least his immediate lieutenants.”

“We will find who did this,” Diego assured him.

Brett nodded. “Yes, we will. I’m going to speak with the agent who was watching the house.”

Diego nodded back. “I’m going to step out on the street, see if I can find anyone who saw anything odd, do a bit of canvassing.”

“Great. By the time we finish we can see if the forensic teams came up with anything.”

“I think we know who did this—the same people who murdered Miguel Gomez.”

Diego was probably right. But it was impossible to just go and arrest Barillo or his people. Barillo himself usually kept his hands clean. The man had been trained as a doctor in his native country, but he’d found crime far more profitable.

Brett followed Diego to the front of the beautiful old deco house. Some of the places around here were surrounded by big wood, stone or concrete walls. Not the Gomez home. The sides were fenced, as was the rear, but the front was open to the street.

Agent Bill Foley, who had been on duty in his car watching the house, was still by his car and staring up at the place. When he saw Brett coming toward him, his ruddy face grew even darker and he shook his head in self-disgust. He started speaking without even pausing to say hello.

“I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t on the phone, texting or even listening to music, Brett. I was watching that house. I don’t know how the hell anyone got inside. I tried to reach her on the phone for a prearranged check-in, but she didn’t answer. I went in and did a quick sweep and...no one. When I got upstairs and couldn’t find her I looked out, and I thought she’d jumped. She loved Miguel. She’d been depressed. Brett, I don’t know how the hell anyone got in there. If you don’t punch in the alarm code, a siren loud enough to wake the entire peninsula goes off.”

“Someone knew the password,” Brett said. “All we can do is theorize right now. Someone had the code—somehow. I don’t know. We’ll check into the alarm company, make sure they don’t have someone on the Barillo payroll. Someone could conceivably have come over the gate in the rear, lipped around through the foliage to the front door and then keyed in the entry code.”

“I don’t know how they got by me,” Bill told him.

“We’re canvassing the neighborhood,” Brett told him. “We’ll see if we can find anyone who saw anything unusual.”

Diego, he saw, was down the street, speaking with an elderly man who was walking a small mixed-breed dog. Diego motioned to him and he excused himself to Bill to join his partner.

Diego looked at Brett with a grim smile. “This is Mr. Claude Derby,” he said.

Brett nodded. “Special Agent Brett Cody, Mr. Derby. Thank you for speaking with us.”

“Of course,” the elderly man said.

Diego cleared his throat. “Mr. Derby says that he saw Miguel Gomez.”

Derby strenuously nodded. “It was right around dusk last night. I was out walking Rocko here. I saw him and said, ‘Miguel! Thank God—we all thought you were dead.’”

“Are you sure it was Miguel?” Brett asked.

“Of course I’m sure!” Derby said indignantly. “I’m old, but I’m not senile, at least not yet! And my eyesight is probably as good as yours, especially when I was standing as close to him as I am to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Brett said. “What did he say?”

“Well, he didn’t,” Derby told him. “I’ve never seen anyone act so strangely in my life. He just stood there, as if he was completely unaware of me. Like...like a zombie.”

“Like a zombie,” Diego repeated.

“Did he shuffle when he walked? Was his flesh rotting off?” Brett asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Derby said indignantly. “I’m not a fool, and you’ve seen too many movies. He just wasn’t right. It was as if he didn’t even know I was there, that I was talking to him. I’d say he totally ignored me, but I don’t think he really even saw me. It was weird. I figured maybe he was heading home, except he didn’t head for the front door. I thought maybe he was going around to the side door, that he wasn’t dead and the papers had had it all wrong. I figured he could be on some kind of medication that was making him spacey. Anyway, I figured he’d get home and his wife could deal with him. Rocko and I, we just kept walking.”

“Thank you, Mr. Derby, thank you very much,” Brett said, but some of his skepticism must have been evident.

Derby wagged a finger at him. “Listen, Mr. Whatever Special Agent, I’m telling you God’s truth. I’m as sane as you are, and I’m not in the habit of seeing zombies around every corner. I saw Miguel Gomez, and he was not himself, not to mention the fact that someone who was supposedly burned to ashes would have a hard time coming back as a zombie.”

“I agree with you completely, sir,” Brett assured him. “And I thank you for your help. I would like to ask you, though, not to speak with the media.”

“Not a problem,” Derby said. “Well, not for me, but I did tell my wife when she was headed to bingo, so I’m not sure who else knows that I saw Miguel by now. If you have any more questions, I live catty-corner across the street.”

Brett thanked him again and looked at Diego.

“Miguel Gomez is alive after all,” Diego said.

“And he killed his wife?” Brett said, puzzled. “I just can’t believe that Miguel Gomez would have killed the woman he loved so much.”

“Zombies kill anyone,” Diego said lightly.

Brett looked at his partner.

“Sorry,” Diego said. “But you know it’s going to hit the news. By now everyone at bingo knows that one way or another, Miguel came back from the dead, and if they don’t know by now that his wife’s been killed, they will soon. I’ll go try a few more houses, find out if anyone else saw Miguel.”

* * *

Being in the water with Cocoa was an incredible high. Lara couldn’t remember when she’d felt quite so exhilarated. She’d done “flipper shakes,” dancing, dorsal pulls, splashing and more. Now they were playing with toys.

First she threw balls and rings. Then Rick told her that Cocoa was great at diving and finding things by sight, so they often sent her down to find anything someone had accidentally dropped.

“Guests use their phones and iPads as cameras on the docks and sometimes even on the platforms,” he told her. “But whatever they drop, Cocoa will find it. Not that your average cell phone still works after a dip in the lagoon, but Cocoa will bring them back up. Here, I’ll show you how good she is.”

“You going to sacrifice your cell phone?” she asked skeptically.

“No,” he assured her. “I have some little boxes that sink, same general size as a phone or a small camera. Cocoa has picked up lots of cameras, and a purse or two, as well. Here, I’ll show you. Take the box. Drop it, and then twirl your hand like this—” he demonstrated “—and say, ‘Cocoa, will you get that for me, please?’”

Lara did as Rick instructed. Cocoa was great, chattering her pleasure each time she made a retrieval.

“Shouldn’t I be giving her a fish?” Lara asked. “She’s done all her tricks, so doesn’t she get a reward?”

“Do you give a dog a treat every time you see it? Or do you let it know how much you care by petting it?”

“So I should just stroke her?”

“Yes, give her a nice stroke along the back, and then, when we’re finished, we’ll give her some fish.”

Lara tossed the boxes, first one, and then another. Rick told her to give specific vocal commands, asking Cocoa to get the big box or the little one.

It was amazing the way the dolphin responded.

“She’s brilliant!” Lara told him.

“I agree. She’s my girl, but she sure likes you.”

So I actually have a real friend in Miami, Lara thought wryly.

She happily tossed boxes and asked Cocoa to bring them up, and Cocoa kept complying.

Then she went down and came up with something else. It was on the tip of her nose, and she nudged it toward Lara.

“Not a box,” Lara murmured. “Cocoa, what did you find down there?”

She accepted the pale sticklike thing Cocoa gave her. She looked at it, confused for several seconds.

Then she screamed and it flew from her hand.

Back into the water.

She’d realized what it was.

A human finger.


2 (#ulink_df345abc-7fc2-53f2-b2e1-c65bfd75a1db)

Brett stood glumly listening to Dr. Phil Kinny explain that Maria had died sometime between ten and twelve the previous night. She’d died quickly, at least; her neck had been cleanly snapped on impact with the old banyan tree.

“Didn’t it take a lot of strength for someone to toss her that far?” Brett asked.

Kinny shrugged. “Yeah. But I’ve seen people do amazing things under certain circumstances. Adrenaline is something we have yet to fully explain. I’ve seen a tiny woman lift a three-hundred-pound man once. It was a kidnapping attempt. He was lying on top of her baby.”

“But did a zombie do it?” Diego asked. Brett glared at him, and Diego shrugged. “Hey, I’m friends with the cops who were first on-site the night of the latest ‘zombie’ attack. They told me the guy had bullets in his head and kept moving. That’s pretty incredible.”

“Incredible, yes—but he did go down,” Brett said. “Miguel is not a zombie. Someone died in that fire. We assumed it was Miguel, but apparently it wasn’t. Because if you try to tell me that ash can reconstitute itself into a zombie, I’ll tell you that you’re full of crap.”

“Maybe Miguel’s ghost is walking around,” Kinny said.

“Do you really believe that?” Brett asked.

“No. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, ghosts don’t kill anyone. They’re ethereal, ectoplasm or whatever.”

“You’re a scientist and a doctor—and you believe in ghosts?” Brett asked him.

Kinny brushed back his hair, watching as his assistants carefully removed Maria Gomez’s body from the banyan tree. “It’s because I’m a scientist—a doctor—that I said what I said. Energy never dies. Where it goes, we don’t know. I’m a skeptic with an open mind, how’s that? Also, I’ve been in rooms with the dead when I’ve felt something. Call me a hopeful believer. But in this case I’m with you, Brett. Miguel Gomez may well be alive. There wasn’t enough left to get DNA. That warehouse burned hotter than hell itself. Everything we have is essentially circumstantial, so who knows?”

Brett’s phone was vibrating in his jacket pocket. He quickly answered it to discover that it was his supervisor, Special Agent in Charge Marshall. “We’ve gotten a curious call. I know you’re at the Gomez house, but I thought you two might want in on this. A human finger was found at the Sea Life Center. One of the dolphins picked it up.”

“A finger?” Brett said. The population in South Florida had exploded in the past several decades, and with the higher population came a higher crime rate. That meant that far too often bodies—and body parts—were found in unexpected places.

He wasn’t sure why he and Diego were being called to investigate a finger. Not that a finger was a good thing to find.

“You want us to check out a finger?” he asked.

“Yeah, check it out. With Miguel and now Maria dead, I think the Barillo family is sending out lots of warnings. I want you to find out who that finger belonged to, and I want to know if there are more parts to go with it. You’re scuba certified, so I want you in the water. I’ll get dive equipment out to you. You and Diego are on this now, too, and I want you taking lead.”

Brett was silent.

He’d wanted in on Miguel’s case before. He’d felt he’d owed the man because he’d brought him to the Bureau, and now Maria was dead, too. Now he owed them both.

But his boss wasn’t taking him off the case, he reminded himself. He could still help find them justice. He was just taking on another case, too.

He wasn’t sure about how a finger in the water was connected with Barillo, Miguel and the dead woman in the banyan tree, but he was going to find out. He had worked with dive units before, so he supposed it was a good call.

“Dr. Kinny, we’ll see your full report later,” he told the ME. “Right now we need to go.”

Diego arched a brow at him.

“We’re going diving, my friend,” Brett said.

Diego looked surprised, but he only shrugged and said, “Where you lead, I follow. Only ’cause I’m paid to, of course.”

“Hey, when you’re lead, I follow,” Brett reminded him.

“And you make a very good follower, too,” Diego said with a grin. “Now lead on. I’ll follow.”

* * *

“It’s a big city,” Meg told Lara over the phone. “Miami is a major metropolis, and that means there are murders. It’s terrible and, I admit, pretty weird that a dolphin gave you a human finger, but sad to say, things like that happen.”

Lara had called Meg as soon as she could. She was amazed by how quickly after her first hysterical reaction everything had changed. She had calmed down in just a couple of minutes and managed quite well, she thought.

Rick had figured out that the object was indeed a human finger at the same time she did. To her relief, she had actually thought to ask Cocoa to go back for the finger before Rick did. Once Cocoa had retrieved it again they’d called the police. Now there were police divers in the lagoon and more cops all over the place.

The finger itself was already on its way to a lab. Sea Life had been closed for the day, and the conversations she’d overheard earlier had been surreal. Some of the officers were speculating that the finger was all there was to find, that its removal had been a punishment, a lesson to do better next time, and that the owner was out there somewhere, alive and well, but minus the forefinger of his right hand.

Others were speculating about where the rest of the pieces of the body might be.

And everyone was wondering who had lost his finger and maybe his life.

Somewhere along the line, Lara had realized that she was angry. Whoever had done this deserved to be incarcerated and maybe boiled in oil. She had survived being kidnapped by an insane killer; she wasn’t going to be terrified into leaving the new job she loved because of another criminal.

It just wasn’t happening, and she had told Meg as much.

“Lara, are you okay?” Meg asked over the phone. She was at her office in Virginia. It had only been a few months back that she had graduated from the FBI academy at Quantico and become an agent—a very special agent, going right from the academy to be part of Adam Harrison’s Krewe of Hunters, special units dealing with crimes that crossed the boundary between everyday reality and what could only be called the paranormal. And if it hadn’t been for the Krewe Lara wasn’t sure that even Meg could have found her where she’d been imprisoned in the old gristmill.

“I’m okay. I’m furious that someone killed someone or mutilated him or whatever, and then dumped the remains in our dolphin lagoons. I just called you because...because you’re my best friend and an FBI agent.” She hesitated. “I’m just venting. Really.”

As she spoke, looking out the window from the second-floor lounge in the small house where the Sea Life staff had their offices, Lara saw that still more law enforcement officials were arriving.

“This place is crawling with cops, and I think more have just arrived,” Lara said. “I think these guys must be FBI. They’re in suits,” she joked.

She realized that if the two men who had just arrived looked up, they would see her. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt her face grow flushed.

“They really might be FBI,” Meg told her. “Miami has a large field office. And what with the immigration situation and the drug smuggling, they might be looking for a missing informant or a low-level criminal who’s disappeared from their radar.”

Lara saw Rick standing by the newcomers and beckoning to her. “I’ve got to go. Whoever they are, I’m guessing the Men in Black want to talk to me.”

“Hang on a second,” Meg said. “Matt wants to talk to you.” Matt Bosworth was both her partner and her fiancé.

“Hey, Matt,” Lara said when he took the phone.

“Who’s there? Can you describe them?”

“Tall, fit guy who looks Hispanic and another tall, fit dark-haired guy who may or may not be Hispanic.”

“Most of our guys are fit,” Matt said. “The Bureau kind of insists on it. And down there, about half the people we work with have dark hair and tons of our agents are Hispanic,” Matt said. “Whoever they are, I’m sure they’ll take good care of you.” His voice grew more somber. “Meg and I can be down by tonight if you want us.”

“I know, and thank you.” She hesitated. The Krewe units came in when something about a situation was unexplainable, otherworldly. Lara had known all her life, throughout their long friendship, that her friend spoke with the dead. At times when she’d been with Meg, she’d believed she saw ghosts, too. Lara had never known if she really did, or if she somehow saw what Meg saw because she was with her friend. The friend whose talents had been crucial in saving her life.

Sometimes she forgot what it had been like—kidnapped and cast into a dark, watery pit. After just a few days she’d been on the edge of death; she’d been barely able to move when Meg had found her.

But that had been life or death.

While this...

This was no threat to her.

“Really, guys. No need for you to get on a plane. I’m surrounded by cops with guns. I just called because it was so bizarre and I wanted to talk to my best friend. Trust me, Rick Laramie, the trainer who was with me at the time, was as freaked out as I was at first. But I’m fine, honestly. Don’t go crazy and turn your lives upside down.”

“We never go crazy,” Matt told her calmly.

She smiled, because she believed that. She’d seen Matt Bosworth under pressure. He was a good man to have around at a critical moment.

“I know that,” Lara assured him. “I’ll keep you up with what’s going on,” she said. “But really, I’m good. Besides, I’m sure Grady Miller, who founded this place, will wind up talking to Adam Harrison, because they’re friends. Anyway, the locals have it covered. And now I’d better go. Your fellow suits are on their way up. Tell Meg I’ll talk to her soon. And thank you both for listening.”

She hung up quickly and stood, waiting, as she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Rick had been joined by Grady and the two FBI agents.

“Lara,” Grady said the minute he walked in, “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

Grady Miller was the perfect grandfather. He had thick silver hair and a lined face, but he was very fit for his seventy years. He could still swim like a dolphin himself and was often in the water with the trainers, entertaining visitors with antics only he could manage with the creatures that behaved like beloved puppy dogs around him.

“I’m fine, really, but thank you for being so concerned.”

“Lara,” Rick said, “these are Agents McCullough and Cody.”

She wondered which man was which.

One was quick to smile and very good-looking. He reminded her of Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride, though with shorter, but still curly, hair. The other had even darker hair and equally dark eyes, and he didn’t smile. He had a ruggedly sculpted face and looked as if he should have been commanding a Roman legion.

“Hello,” she said, accepting a powerful handshake from each man.

“They want to know exactly what happened today,” Rick said.

She glanced at Rick, frowning. He had been there, too. “You didn’t tell them?”

“We’d like to hear about it from both of you,” the friendlier man said. “I’m McCullough, by the way. Diego McCullough. Strange name, I know, but this is Miami. Lots of mixes, you know?”

“Looks like a great mix to me,” Lara assured him.

The other man didn’t speak. He watched her—waiting. He seemed grim—or maybe even suspicious of her. He had a face with features so perfect and classic—and stern—they belonged on a marble bust.

She glanced at Rick, who shrugged, and then she said, “Rick was teaching me some of his training techniques. Part of training is play. Cocoa was fetching different-size boxes for me, and then she came up with the finger. She had it on the tip of her nose and nudged it toward me, so I picked it up. I didn’t know what it was at first. I think Rick and I realized at the same time. We both screamed, and without thinking I tossed the finger back into the water, then sent Cocoa to fetch it again, and we got out of the water and dialed 911. The police came, and as you can see, they already have divers in the water searching for more...more body parts.”

“You’re sure it’s the same finger you had the first time?” the second man, the one named Cody, asked. He still hadn’t cracked a smile.

The question surprised her.

“Uh...no, actually,” she said. “I didn’t inspect either of them. I just assumed she picked up the same finger the second time.”

Agent Cody turned to Grady. “Sir, I know you already have some of Miami-Dade’s finest in the water, but my partner and I would like to get in there, as well. One of our agents is on the way as we speak with dive equipment for us.”

“Of course,” Grady assured them. “We closed the facility immediately. We’re at the disposal of law enforcement, so just ask for whatever you need. One of our trainers—Adrianna, Rick’s wife—is out there now, keeping the dolphins occupied so the police can work.”

Agent Cody headed for the door and then paused, as if remembering some form of social grace was necessary to get what he needed from people.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding briefly to Lara and then to Rick. He was so brusque that she was surprised to feel a little tremor when he spoke. But of course it was impossible not to notice the waves of unconscious sexuality pouring off the man.

“Of course,” Rick said.

Lara didn’t have to speak—Cody was already gone.

* * *

The Florida Keys offered fabulous diving with excellent visibility. But here, the dolphins were in a lagoon. Much of the area off the docks was fairly deep—a good forty or fifty feet—and there were the same sea grasses and silt normally found around docks. The water was kept free of refuse, but the nature of the habitat kept it from being as clear as the local reef.

Brett wasn’t sure himself just why he felt so determined to find more of the person to whom the finger had once been attached. He knew he was frustrated and angry about Maria’s murder, and at least this was something active that he could do. He also knew they might not find anything; he might be on a wild goose chase.

He spent a good thirty minutes underwater with Diego. He used his underwater light as he swam by the foundations of the docks and every platform in every enclosure. The problem was, he might be looking for small body parts. Not easy. There were too many places that something that size might have ended up wedged.

The local cops, working in three teams of two, had worked even longer than he and Diego had.

Between them all, they’d found nothing. And he’d just about gone through his tank of air.

It made sense to come up—and give up. It was more than possible that the owner of the finger was still alive and well, except for a missing finger. More people than just the Barillo family plied the criminal trades in the area. Florida had almost one thousand two hundred miles of coastline, making it ideal for modern-day criminals, drug runners and smugglers, just as it had been a haven for pirates and blockade-runners in the past. For those bent on illegal enterprise, Florida offered nooks and crannies in abundance.

Brett loved his state; he’d always wanted to work just where he was working. He considered himself well qualified, since he’d been born in Gainesville—as had his parents. His dad’s parents had been born in St. Augustine and his mother’s in Jacksonville. All his life, he’d heard their fascinating tales about the past; to him, the state was unique and incredibly special—though of course it faced plenty of challenges, too. He’d attended the University of Miami and worked in the Keys on weekends, and during summers he’d been hired on the charter boats that were so prevalent around the state. He knew the mentality of the Deep South stretch of the panhandle, the theme-park wonderland of the center of the state and the varied mix—Caribbean, South and Central-American, now with a growing Eastern European component—of the southern half of the state and the Keys. He’d made a point of learning Spanish and Portuguese and the Haitian patois that was spoken in some areas of Miami. Few people, he thought, knew the state and its inhabitants better, with all the quirks and oddities to be found in such a diverse population.

And he’d learned to care about people the rest of the world judged simplistically, people like the Gomezes. While Miguel hadn’t shared the bone-deep goodness and tenderness of his wife, at his core he’d been a decent man caught between a rock and a hard place. He’d tried to make things right; he’d come to Brett and offered his help.

Brett surfaced and saw that the Miami-Dade teams were already up, and so was Diego, who had slipped out of his buoyancy control vest and was sitting on the dock speaking with Adrianna Laramie. She made a good match for Rick; they were both attractive in a real-world way and bronzed from their years in the sun. She’d been fully cooperative, talking to the dolphins and getting them to retrieve all kinds of anomalous objects. They had brought up bits of coral, a deflated beach ball, a pair of sunglasses and a watch. But no more body parts.

“Think we’re done here?” Diego called to him.

Brett was just about to agree when he saw the CEO of the place, Grady Miller, hurrying along the dock with a cell phone.

“It’s your supervisor. He wants to speak with you,” Grady told them.

Diego took the phone and listened gravely, then turned to Brett. “You’re going to want a new tank,” he said.

“Why?” Brett asked.

“They’ve got an ID on our body part. And you’re not going to believe it.”

“Miguel Gomez?” Brett asked incredulously.

“Yup. Miguel didn’t burn up in that fire. Whether he did or didn’t kill his wife, he really could have been in his own neighborhood, and now he, or at least part of him, was here.”

* * *

Lara spent the afternoon working on a series of press releases in tandem with a public information officer from the Miami-Dade police. She’d been going back and forth with the young officer on email for what seemed like forever when Rick suddenly appeared at her door.

“They want you,” he told her.

She carefully hit the send button before looking at Rick curiously.

“They want me? Sorry, who are they, and what do they want me for?”

“They want you in the water.”

“I’m not a trainer,” she said. “And ‘they’ as in the cops?”

“‘They’ as in the FBI guys,” Rick said. “More particularly, dark and brooding FBI guy.”

Lara thought about asking him which dark and brooding guy, except that she knew. It had to be Agent Cody.

“Why do they want me? I don’t know what I’m doing unless I’m with you or one of the other trainers.”

Rick made a face. “Well, you can thank Grady for this one. He says that Cocoa feels you’re her special friend. They think that if you’re in the water, she’ll get into the mood and help.”

Lara stood up awkwardly. She’d changed out of her suit and into dry clothing for work, but if they wanted her in the water, she would be happy to change again and get back in.

“Okay, give me five minutes. I’ve got to put my suit back on.”

Rick nodded. “I’ll wait and go down with you.”

“Thank you.”

Lara started to put on her suit and water shirt, but they were still damp, so it was a struggle to get back into them. She realized she must have taken longer than she realized when she heard footsteps and Rick called to her from outside the bathroom door and told her to hurry up. One final tug and she joined him.

“Cocoa did really take to you,” he said as they started walking. “Maybe you’re just both good-looking girls of the same age. I mean, in dolphin years, she’s in her mid-twenties, too,” Rick said.

“Maybe she’s blonde at heart, huh?” Lara asked.

Rick grinned and led the way back down to the water.

Agent Cody was still in the water, but his scuba equipment was on the dock, which meant—she assumed, since all she really saw was his bare chest—that he was wearing a pair of swim trunks and nothing else. He was muscled like steel, but she’d expected no less. His partner was standing on the dock in swim shorts, as were the police divers. Grady was there, too.

Cocoa wasn’t alone in the lagoon. Several of the “girls”—as the young females were called—were there with her.

As soon as Lara arrived on the dock, she heard Cocoa let out one of her little chattering sounds in greeting. Lara flushed; she did seem to have a bond with the animal.

“I’m not sure how I can help,” she told Grady. “If the pros have come up empty and the girls haven’t found anything for you or Rick...” She paused, aware that Diego was looking at her understandingly, while Cody was just staring at her with unreadable dark eyes.

“I had a German shepherd once, great dog,” Grady told her. “He was nice to other people, but he’d only play fetch with me. Only me, no one else—not even if the best dog trainer in the world was around. Dolphins are very bright animals, and Cocoa’s attached herself to you.” He pointed toward her where she was floating beside the dock, eyes intently focused on Lara. “Hop on into the water, greet her, give her back a stroke, then ask her to fetch for you.”

Lara sat on the dock and slid into the water. She felt the dark eyes of Agent Cody on her all the while. Once in the water, she talked to Cocoa. The dolphin swam by Lara, allowing her to stroke her long, sleek back. Then she raced out to the center of the lagoon and did a fantastic leap before coming straight back to Lara.

“Do I need some fish?” Lara asked, looking up at Grady.

He shrugged. Rick, standing on the dock, reached into one of the coolers and pulled out a fish.

Lara swam over to him, reached for the fish and turned. Cocoa was already there, her mouth open in anticipation. Lara tossed the fish to her.

“Try now,” Agent Cody told Lara.

She nodded, stroking the dolphin.

“Cocoa, fetch, please,” Lara said, treading water and giving the dolphin the hand signal.

Cocoa disappeared under the water. Everyone fell silent. Not even the police divers, who had broken off to chat, spoke.

Nor did any of the other staff—trainers, educators, even the café crew—who had crowded around to watch the proceedings. Lara noted that coworkers seemed to be clustering together. Dr. Nelson Amory, head of research, stood with Cathy Barkley, his assistant, and Myles Dawson, their U of Miami intern. Frank Pilaf and the café staff stood together, while the other trainers, Sue Crane and Justin Villiers, were watching from beneath the bountiful leaves of a sea grape tree.

Cocoa returned, bringing Lara a long stalk of sea grass.

Lara thanked her and stroked her back.

“Tell her that’s not it,” Agent Cody said.

Lara ignored him; she wasn’t about to tell the dolphin that she’d failed or disappointed in any way.

“Cocoa, thank you. And now, please, fetch again, will you?” she asked.

Cocoa went down again. This time, she returned with a pair of sunglasses that had obviously been entangled in sea grass for a very long time.

“These are great,” she told Cocoa. “Thank you.”

Cocoa chattered and went back down. She was obviously enjoying the game.

Agent Cody was just staring at Lara, waiting. Uncomfortable under that probing gaze, she turned around to face Grady and Rick.

“I’m not sure what you thought I could do,” she said by way of apology.

“You never know,” Grady said.

But then Lara felt a bump as Cocoa pushed her from behind. She heard a massive, collective gasp—almost as if all those gathered around the lagoon were actors creating a scene on cue—as she turned around.

Cocoa had something for Lara. It was balanced precariously on her nose.

And Lara had to choke back a scream, had to steel herself to remain still...

This time it was a human foot.


3 (#ulink_cf4d6a1b-5dbb-5946-815e-95d0d248c221)

“It’s kind of like Mike, the headless chicken,” Diego said gravely.

They’d showered at the Sea Life Center and were now on their way to the medical examiner’s office to see Dr. Phil Kinny, the ME, who had possession of the foot.

Brett glanced questioningly at Diego, then went back to driving as he waited for his partner and friend to elaborate.

Diego nodded at him somberly. “I swear this is no lie, Brett. You can look it up. There was a chicken by the name of Mike. Had his head chopped off, but they missed something at the brain stem. He lived for eighteen months.”

“That’s some kind of hoax,” Brett said.

“No, it happened in 1945. I know because I thought it was a hoax, too, so I checked it out. The guy who owned Mike made money touring him around. They also brought him to the University of Utah so that researchers there could document what had happened.”

“His head was chopped off and he lived?” Brett asked skeptically.

“The ax missed the carotid artery or something like that, and a blood clot kept him from bleeding out. The head was gone except for one ear. Mike even tried to peck and eat grain. It’s a bizarre story. Supposedly he made the farmer like forty-five hundred dollars a month, which would be close to fifty thousand now. They fed him with an eyedropper, gave him milk and stuff. I don’t remember exactly. I think he finally choked to death, but the point is, he lived for eighteen months without a head.”

“So you’re telling me that Miguel Gomez might have had his head chopped off and then been programmed to kill his wife?” Brett asked.

“No. I’m just saying there’s something weird going on.”

“I agree. But Miguel couldn’t have killed Maria. I don’t think that I ever saw a man and woman married so long who were still so deeply in love,” Brett said. He paused for thought. Actually, he saw the same love and respect in his own parents. They’d married practically as children and were still married—and bugging him for grandchildren. Luckily his sister had provided them with a boy and a girl, and they lived in Jacksonville, near his folks in St. Augustine.

“Miguel loved Maria. So what? Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have become a zombie, until someone did him in for real, then chopped him up and threw him in Biscayne Bay. All we need is another zombie story around here,” Diego said.

Brett agreed. In 2012, a young man had gone crazy, stripped naked and attacked a stranger on MacArthur Causeway, claiming the older man had stolen his Bible. He’d chewed off half the face of the victim, who had miraculously survived, before being shot by police. Brett knew a few of the officers who had been among the first responders. They’d told him that the attacker had been so revved that he hadn’t fallen immediately, actually growling at the officer who had demanded he cease and desist. The first bullet had done nothing; four more had been needed to bring down the attacker. The media, naturally, had seized on the event, which quickly became known as the Miami Zombie Attack or the Causeway Cannibal Attack.

They didn’t need the media seizing hold of this situation—especially when years of work by a half dozen law enforcement agencies might well be at stake.

And especially when Miguel and Maria had left behind a loving family who didn’t need that kind of story marring the memory of their loved ones.

“With any luck, we’ll avoid the zombie stories,” Brett told him.

Diego snorted.

He was right, actually. A zombie story was inevitable, unless they managed to gag the press and anyone who might have seen Miguel before Maria’s death.

And now, of course, they had body parts that proved Miguel hadn’t died in that fire. They were going to take some major-league credibility blows from the local, county and state police, not to mention every federal agency out there.

They arrived at the medical examiner’s office on Northwest 10th Avenue. Brett sighed. He’d been there far too many times—but none quite like this. The gurneys were sized to hold bodies, but the one today held nothing but the severed foot.

The ME was waiting for them and started right in after a quick hello.

“Here’s what I can tell you. Yes, the foot goes with the finger goes with the DNA of Miguel Gomez. We’re dealing with body parts that have been compromised by seawater, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a certain amount I can tell you. First, this foot wasn’t in the water more than twenty-four hours—I’d say more likely around twelve to sixteen. Gomez was already dead when his foot was removed. It was anything but a precision operation. You’re not looking for a surgeon. You are looking for someone capable of swinging a blade. That foot was removed by something like a large hatchet or an ax.”

“How did Miguel die?” Brett asked.

Phil Kinny stared at him. “Brett, I’m looking at a foot and a finger. I’ve sent out tissue samples for analysis, in case that can tell us anything, but all I know so far is that a seemingly healthy man was dismembered after death. If he had drugs or alcohol in his system, the tox screen will tell us that. When I have anything more, I’ll call you.”

“How long?” Brett asked.

“I marked this as top priority,” Kinny told him. “But this is Miami,” he added drily. “So no guarantees.”

“Thank you, Phil,” Diego said.

Brett quickly echoed his words.

“If I only had a head,” Kinny said.

Brett felt as if he’d stepped into a bizarre version of The Wizard of Oz. He understood what Kinny meant, though. Unraveling the mystery of death was Kinny’s passion; his determination to know the truth had helped them many times.

“Unfortunately, it’s probably in Biscayne Bay—somewhere,” Diego said.

“But maybe near Sea Life,” Brett speculated.

“We searched Sea Life. More than a half dozen divers and as many dolphins searched Sea Life,” Diego reminded him.

“But if you had the head, you could tell us more?” Brett asked Kinny.

“The brain is complex,” Kinny said. He looked at the two of them. “True story—and bizarre. Police were called to a home where the husband and wife had been attacked, shot several times. The husband was found at the foot of the stairs. He’d brought in the paper, set up his cereal bowl and then died at the foot of the stairs. The wife was in bed—alive, but just barely. She came to enough to say the name of one of their sons. When she came out of the coma, she denied she’d ever said her son’s name, but consequent investigations proved that he had come down the tollway, his car had been seen—and he had ditched the gun.”

“I’m lost. What are you getting at?” Diego said.

“The son finally confessed. He was mad at his father and wanted his parents’ money. But here’s the thing—he got to the house and shot them both in bed around 2:00 a.m. Apparently, he wasn’t much of a shot, though. His mother survived, and his father... The kid shot him in the head. The father was doomed, but despite that, a portion of his brain was untouched—the portion that dealt with mechanical memory. He rose, got the paper and set up his cereal before dying, and without any idea at all that he’d been shot and was dying and needed medical attention.”

“Mike the headless chicken,” Diego breathed.

“Is that possible? Are you making this up?” Brett demanded.

Kinny looked almost hurt. “Have you ever seen me joke in this office?” he demanded.

“I’ve got to find Miguel’s head,” Brett said.

* * *

The night was beautiful. It might be summer in Miami, but as if ordered by a celestial being, the breeze coming off the bay was exquisite, Lara thought. Like many attractions in the South—and even the North in summer—Sea Life was equipped with a number of spray stations where fans were set with water pumps to send a cooling mist into the air. Now she walked out from beneath the massive roofed-but-open dining area at Sea Life to cool off in the fine spray.

As decked out as many of the guests were that evening—mostly the women, because most of the men had opted for lightweight tailored shirts and trousers—they weren’t about to get their clothing or their hair wet. Lara didn’t care. Her hair was down, and her white halter dress, sandals and a shawl could handle a little moisture.

Lara had discovered that Miami was most beautiful by night. Darkness hid the seedy faults of certain areas, while the lights highlighted the shimmer of the water and the many fantastic skyscrapers downtown. Lights on the many causeways and bridges created a stunning combination of dazzling colors.

So much here was so beautiful—until a body part showed up.

She gave herself a shake, trying not to think about what had happened earlier. They’d kept Sea Life closed throughout the day while the authorities had done a thorough search of the facility, but the police had assured them that they could go on with tonight’s gala and open the following day.

Which was good, since they were fully booked for every swim and encounter, many of those reservations made after word had leaked of Cocoa’s discoveries.

Apparently the public was slightly ghoulish.

And since the news was out, they’d decided to bite the bullet and answer any questions honestly, giving what information they could, which wasn’t much. A finger and a foot had been found in the lagoon. The police and other agencies had conducted a thorough search for additional body parts but had found nothing else. More information would be forthcoming pending the investigation.

It was easy for Lara to say that she didn’t know anything, because she really didn’t.

Now she looked around and took time to really appreciate everything that had been put together to make the evening special. The interns had done a fabulous job of arranging colorful plants around the open square, decorating the tables—each one held a vase filled with shells and a candle—and creating an elegant ambiance by the sea. Rain might have ruined everything, but they’d lucked out. No rain that night. Just the perfect breeze, the moonlight and the occasional sound of a dolphin calling from the nearby lagoon. Lara had worked on the menu to make sure there were delicacies for everyone. Sonia Larson was a vegetarian, Mason Martinez lived a gluten-free lifestyle and Ely Taggerly was in his early seventies and on salt restrictions, while Grant Blackwood was a forty-year-old Texan who had made his millions in the oil industry and still liked a good steak.

Rick and Adrianna Laramie were pescatarians, eating fish but nothing warm-blooded. As they said, fish ate fish, and so did their dolphins, so they had no problem eating fish, too. Everyone else—both guests and staff—ate just about anything.

Lara was proud that she’d managed to create a gourmet menu that accommodated everyone there—and cheaply. She had enlisted an up-and-coming Key West chef who had just won a cable-series cooking challenge. He and his family would enjoy a special day with the trainers and Grady Miller, and the meal would be compliments of the chef, who, as an added bonus, was featured in all their PR material.

She looked over to see what was going on in the dining area. A local jazz trio was providing free entertainment. Sonia Larson—petite, dark haired and gorgeous in a teensy-tiny black dress that probably only she could wear—was holding a wineglass in her delicate fingers as she laughed at something Ely Taggerly had said. Grant Blackwood, standing next to Sonia, let out a deep bellow of laughter. Dr. Amory was with them, being his suave and charming self. Grady Miller and the rest of the staff were circulating, making sure every guest felt special, valued. Rick and Adrianna were chatting with Kevin and Diana Valentine, locals who owned a chain of drug and convenience stores, and sponsored their special events for veterans and their families. The café staff were supposed to be guests, but she’d noticed that they were still picking up empty plates and cups when they found them. That made her smile. Everyone here loved the place.

Everything appeared to be going exceptionally well. Both Ely Taggerly and Mason Martinez had shown themselves to be interested not only in the center’s general research but in what research into dolphin physiology and health could carry over into the field of human health, where both men made their living. EEG research had shown that half of the dolphin brain slept while the other half remained awake, seeing to it that they continued to surface as necessary to breathe.

She decided to take a moment longer and enjoy the caress of the mist blower. Closing her eyes, she let the fine droplets and the gentle breeze wrap her in cool comfort.

She loved her new world, despite the trauma of the day.

There had been so many law enforcement personnel on site that she hadn’t even met them all, but everyone had been nice, except for Agent Cody. And it wasn’t that he’d been rude or anything. He’d just been so...intense. As if what had happened was a personal affront to him. Brusque. That might be a way to describe the man. Curt, or maybe tightly wound. Kind of a shame. Both he and his partner were certainly striking looking, the kind who made you look when they walked in. One had asked that she call him by his given name and not Special Agent McCullough. He’d grinned when he’d told her that his name was Diego and explained that his mom had been a Cuban immigrant at the tender age of two. She’d grown up in Miami and married the Anglo doctor she’d met when she broke her foot playing soccer her senior year of college. “That’s Miami for you,” he’d told her with another smile.

She’d liked that. And she liked him.

As to his partner...

The man hadn’t had two words to say to her that weren’t directly concerned with the case. His features seemed to be composed of granite, totally immobile and incapable of expression. His eyes were almost black, they were so dark a brown, and while he ticked her off to no end, she couldn’t help but feel something like a warm charge suffuse her when he gave her his intense stare.

“Stick up his butt,” she muttered softly to herself.

Time to get back to work. The day was almost over. Cocoa’s discovery would be the talk of the town for several days, and then something else would capture the public’s imagination. And as far as she was concerned, that was a very good thing.

She opened her eyes. And started.

He was there. The agent. Not Diego, but stick-up-the-butt Agent Cody.

She wondered how long he had been standing there right in front of her.

And she wondered just how loudly she had spoken.

She flat-out stared at him for several seconds, stunned to see him.

“Agent Cody,” she said finally. “Well. How nice. You’re back. Just in time for the fund-raiser.”

“I’m not here for the fund-raiser,” he told her.

“That’s a pity. The food is excellent,” she said, and then shook her head. “Look, Agent Cody, this place readily turned itself inside out for you today, and we’re willing to do anything to help. But tonight’s event is very important for us.”

“I’m not here to bother you or break up your party,” he assured her.

She just stared back at him. He definitely had a blind side. It was tonight, and he was here.

And he was definitely a bother.

“I need you and your dolphin tomorrow,” he told her.

“First, I’m working tomorrow. Second, I don’t have a dolphin. I don’t own any of the dolphins, and I’m not a trainer. I’m pretty new to the facility, as a matter of fact,” she told him.

“I’ve already spoken with Mr. Miller, and he says that he’s willing for you, Rick and Cocoa to participate in what I propose, as long as we record the process for research purposes.”

“In what you propose?” Lara echoed slowly. She turned to look toward the dining area. Grady Miller was still standing by Sonia and Ely, but he was looking at her and Agent Cody. And when he caught her looking at him, he nodded gravely.

When had all this happened? How long had she been standing there in the mist?

“I’m leaving,” Agent Cody assured her. “I really just interrupted you in your—your moment of whatever—to let you know about tomorrow and to thank you. You were a tremendous help today, and I’m hoping that we fare better tomorrow.”

She hoped she wasn’t staring at him quite as blankly and stupidly as she had a feeling she was.

“You’re welcome,” she told him. “As Grady told you, we’re more than willing to help. Whoever did...that needs to be brought to justice. I have absolutely no idea what you’re proposing. I’m sure I will tomorrow, though.” There. Hopefully she sounded semi-intelligent.

“We’re going to search the bay,” he told her.

“For?”

“More of the victim.”

She was no cop, but she knew enough to know that what he was proposing was like seeking the proverbial needle in a haystack. He was crazy.

“In all of Biscayne Bay?” she asked.

“We’re researching online tonight,” he told her. “We’re going to track the tides and the wind patterns, try to pinpoint where more body parts might have ended up, where someone might have dumped them so that the foot and finger ended up here.”

Lara blinked. “Someone might have spent hours—maybe days—dumping body parts in all different places,” she said quietly.

“That’s true. We’re going to assume that the plan was to have them end up spread out, but we also believe the killer was in a hurry to get rid of the evidence and wouldn’t have taken any more time than necessary.”

“I’m really sorry, but I don’t know how much help I can be. I’ve tried explaining. I’m not—”

“You’re not a trainer. I know. But Grady believes that like dogs and cats, dolphins pick who they like. Cocoa likes you. And Rick Laramie will be helping us, too. Do you dive?”

“Dive? I— No.”

“You do swim. I know because I’ve seen you in the water.”

“How observant. Yes, I can swim. But I’m from Virginia, Agent Cody. We didn’t do a lot of diving in Richmond, not in my family, at least. If you need a diver—”

“According to Grady Miller, I need you,” he told her. “Thank you so much, Miss Ainsworth. Enjoy your party. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Lara watched him go, still feeling stunned. She’d only been working here three weeks. Tonight’s party was taking place on the Monday of her fourth week. It was an annual event, and most of the planning had already been underway, but she’d worked hard on it after taking over, wanting it to be as special as possible.

Her days here were usually all about happiness, watching both children and adults who were thrilled to enjoy the dolphins, laughing at their antics, anxious to break the communication barrier between animal and man.

It was putting words together to fight for positive press coverage, for funding, sharing facts and figures with anyone who thought what they did here was cruel. It was writing press releases about dolphins like Cocoa, who wouldn’t have survived without people’s help.

But tomorrow would be...

A search for more body parts.

Enjoy your party.

Grady wouldn’t insist that she go. He knew about her past and how traumatic today had been for her. But he had given Agent Cody’s plan his blessing.

Maybe she’d insisted a little too strongly that she was all right.

But if she was needed...

Well, hell. It would only be one day.

Right now she needed to rejoin the party and mingle. She’d discovered that she liked their sponsors, especially Sonia Larson. And it was Sonia she bumped into first.

“In Miami less than a month and it appears you’ve met some very intriguing people,” Sonia said, nodding toward the path Agent Cody had taken when he left. “Where did you meet him? Somewhere dark and dangerous, I bet. What does he do for a living? Let me guess. Soccer player! And he’s—Argentine. Oh, dear, I’m sorry—too many questions.” Sonia sighed softly. “Forgive me?”

Though the woman’s name was Sonia Larson, Lara had caught the faintest hint of an accent and was pretty sure that she came from a Slavic country.

Lara managed a smile. “He’s not actually a friend at all. I met him here earlier today. He’s with the FBI. And you’re not asking too many questions at all.”

“No, I do ask too many questions. I’m...awkward.”

Lara looked at Sonia. Despite her beauty and vivacity, it was true. She did seem a bit awkward, as if she was uncomfortable in a crowd. As if all that vivacity was an act because she wasn’t sure how else to behave. She was a self-made millionaire. Her clothing line consisted entirely of her own designs. She’d begun selling in some of the high-priced shops on the beach, and around Aventura and the Bal Harbor area before expanding to other cities, other states and then around the world. But Lara suspected she was happiest and most comfortable when she was on her own, designing the clothes that had brought her such success.

“It’s okay. You’re fine,” Lara said reassuringly. Then she smiled. “My turn. Russia? Maybe the Ukraine?”

“Close. Romania,” Sonia told her. “Larson was once Lungo. My father changed it when we came to this country. I’ve been here since I was eight. Not everyone hears the accent.”

“I worked in DC for a long time,” Lara told her. “I got good at recognizing accents.”

“Yours is very nice. Soft and so clear, and yet...”

Lara laughed. “I’m from Virginia. Richmond. Very cosmopolitan now. But I guess we still have a bit of a Southern touch.”

“I like the Southern touch. Like Florida. This is my home now. I love it—everyone is here! I meet with Russians in the morning, Venezuelans in the afternoon and Cubans or Germans, or maybe someone Jamaican or French, at night. I love the salsa—that’s Brazilian, yes? Everyone comes together here. And thanks to the night life, my shoes and short skirts are popular, eh?”

“I love your clothing. I have some of your Biz-Wear line,” Lara told her.

“Yes?” Sonia might be a fashion mogul, but she seemed like any normal person, pleased by the compliment. “I must bring you some things.”

“Oh, that’s sweet, but really—”

Sonia waved a hand in the air. “You will hurt me if you refuse them.”

“Please don’t feel that way, it’s just that it’s not really appropriate for me to accept such an expensive gift,” Lara said.

Sonia waved a hand dismissively. “Just think of it as a welcome-to-Miami gift. I’m in Rio next week for a fashion show, but I’ll send some things over.” She smiled, then said, “And now you can’t argue with me, because we have company.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Watch out for him. His hands like to wander.”

Lara turned to see Grant Blackwood headed their way.

He was a good-looking man in a rough-cut kind of way—one that he probably took great pains to achieve. He played the Texan, the cowboy, to the hilt, right down to addressing Lara as “little lady” several times. He had two homes in Florida, one on Star Island and one in Key West, a mansion in Houston and several small “cottages” around the country.

His wife was currently at their “little place” in the Hamptons.

“Ladies! How cruel of you to deprive the rest of us of your company,” he said, his drawl booming, rich and deep.

“I’m so sorry, but this lady has just received a call from her chauffeur. I told him he must get me out of here and home to bed at a reasonable hour,” Sonia said, followed by a yawn. “I promise you, it’s not the company. It’s too many flights in too few days, and I’m off again soon.”

Blackwood sighed elaborately. “We’ll miss you, Sonia. Until the next soiree, then.”

“Always such a pleasure, Grant,” Sonia said.

He turned to Lara. “What about you, little lady? How about a walk down to the docks to fill me in on anything new with our wonderful dolphins?”

Lara wasn’t new to his kind of game; she’d worked in the media after all. She was good at handling herself. But before she had a chance to put him off, Sonia leaped to her rescue.

“I think that Lara needs to be very careful about walking on the docks with any man,” Sonia said.

“Why’s that?” Grant asked.

“Didn’t you see her boyfriend?” Sonia smiled. “He’s a very handsome man—and a government man, at that.”

“You’re dating a fed?” Grant said, turning to Lara.

She had seldom felt put on such a spot, but since Sonia had only been trying to help her—and since she was clearly right about Gerry—she phrased her answer carefully. “Well, we haven’t known each other long,” she said. “But he is...quite a man.”

“I wonder if he’s part Latin?” Sonia said. “He looks as if he could be quite passionate.”

“Oh, yes, he’s very passionate,” Lara agreed drily.

“I imagine,” Grant Blackwood muttered, looking over her shoulder.

As he did so, Lara knew—just knew—that she had stepped in it now. Why in God’s name he was back again, she didn’t know.

But he was back. The stick-up-the-ass agent was back. And this time he’d undoubtedly heard her.

“Miss Larson, Mr. Blackwood,” he said. He looked at them and nodded, and though he said nothing else, his nod clearly indicated that they should leave.

They took the hint. Sonia waved goodbye and headed for the exit, and fell into conversation with Ely and Dr. Amory. They were lucky to have Nelson Amory, Lara knew. He’d received degrees in both veterinary science and marine biology. He was considered one of the top scientists working in the fields of marine mammal behavior and physiology.

Lara didn’t even want to look at Agent Cody. She had to, of course. He was standing right in front of her, waiting for her attention.

“What now?” she asked with a wince.

“I wanted to let you know that we’ll be heading out early. I need you to be at the end of the dock by seven.”

“Seven. After today and tonight. No problem,” she said drily.

“Thank you. And good night.”

“Good night,” she said.

He took a step away, but then he paused and turned back. She could almost have sworn that he nearly cracked a smile. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“What?”

“Feel free to use me. To protect yourself from Blackwood’s advances, I mean. His Lothario tendencies are well-known. Thinking of me as your boyfriend will probably keep him from bothering you. Even if I do have a stick up my ass.”

He turned and was soon swallowed up by the shadowy path to the parking lot.


4 (#ulink_c0010f0d-4919-513c-ae02-1bd0fd91c655)

As he drove home, Brett was surprised to find himself actually smiling.

So he had a stick up his ass.

Well, the woman he suspected was his key, however unwilling, to finding what he sought was abrasive, annoying and a pain in the backside herself. Self-assurance was an asset, however, and she possessed plenty of it. She was beautiful in a fairy-princess way, long blond hair, beautiful sky-blue eyes with a hint of green and a body that didn’t quit.

Speaking of bodies... He couldn’t really blame her for being upset at being asked to continue the search for more body parts. Most people never found even one in their lives, and she’d already been the unwilling recipient of two.

His smile faded as he thought about Miguel and Maria. He knew that it was contrary to everything in his training to feel so guilty over what had happened. It wasn’t that any agent was ever supposed to forget his or her humanity, but getting too close to an informant was definitely a job hazard. Empathy was great; becoming obsessed was not.

And he had to admit it: he was obsessed.

What plagued him was the discovery that Miguel had been alive when they thought he’d been dead, and that he’d been seen by his home right before Maria was killed.

Brett just couldn’t believe that Miguel had killed his wife. Even if ordered to kill her on penalty of torture or death, Miguel would have borne any pain, any degradation, even death itself, rather than do anything to hurt Maria.

Brett pulled into his garage, closed the door with the remote and sat for a minute. It was after nine; morning was going to come quickly. Hopping out, he saw that he’d locked Ichabod—the neighbors’ cat—in with him. Ichabod was a great cat, mostly Maine Coon with whatever else thrown in. His eyes were orange, and his huge furry body was pitch-black.

Brett had always figured it would be cruel to keep an animal himself, since he was often away from home. But he lived in a strange cul-de-sac in an old area of West Miami that bordered the Gables and South Miami. For being in the city, it was oddly remote. Ichabod had always been free to roam the neighborhood, and somehow he always seemed to know when Brett was home.

“You know I’m just a sucker who keeps cat treats, right?” he asked the animal.

Ichabod meowed loudly and followed him as he entered the house through the garage door.

Shake it off! Diego had told him earlier that evening. Do something else, think about something else. Start with a clean slate in the morning.

His partner was right. After obliging Ichabod with a handful of treats, he tossed his jacket and tie over the back of a chair, then threw himself down on his sofa. Ichabod hopped up beside him, and he rested one hand on the cat and used the other to feel around on the side table for the remote. It wasn’t there; he really had no idea where in hell he’d left it. He wasn’t a bad housekeeper. He was just rarely there.

He liked his old house. It had been built just off a small lake in the late 1940s, and the builders had given it a bit of retro deco styling. Rounded archways led gracefully between rooms, and the stairway to the second floor curved in a handsome C shape. He’d been able to buy when the market had been low. He liked the house’s style, and despite the busy city, he felt as if he lived in a little enclave of privacy. Greater Miami was made up of over thirty municipalities, some of them old, some of them recently incorporated. He was within minutes of downtown South Miami, downtown Coral Gables, the Coconut Grove area and downtown Miami itself.

He didn’t, however, spend enough time at the house. He realized that it really needed something resembling decoration and style. It had almost had style once. That was when Bev had lived with him. She’d suggested drapes and art. But then she’d decided that living with a man who was only home to sleep—and not every night, even then—wasn’t what she’d been looking for. Maybe she’d wanted to prod him into promising more, but if so, she’d failed, because he hadn’t been able to.

She’d moved to the Orlando area, he’d heard. He honestly hoped she was doing well.

He realized that was the last time he’d had a woman in his house for more than a few hours.

Brett stroked the cat. “I wonder if that’s why I’m obsessive, Ichabod. Yeah, I’m obsessed with this case—just don’t tell that to Diego. Somehow they found one another, Maria and Miguel. They were good together. You don’t get to see love like that too often, you know?”

Ichabod meowed. Brett was pretty sure it was in appreciation for the petting, not his words.

He rose and looked around for the remote, found it and turned on the television. It was already tuned to one of the national news stations.

He winced. There was no way to gag the public. The death of Maria Gomez and the news that Miguel Garcia had been seen walking around alive after he was supposedly dead and buried had made it to the big time, along with joking speculation that zombies were roaming Miami once again.

Next up—national news again—was the discovery of body parts at a dolphin facility in South Florida. As yet, no information on the victim was known. The anchor in Atlanta switched to their local correspondent, and an image of Lara Ainsworth flashed on the screen. She was cool, smooth and likable as she spoke to a sea of reporters, telling them that the facility had closed for the day but would reopen, that law enforcement had scoured the lagoons with the help of Sea Life’s dolphins and that they were always willing to help in any way.

One idiot asked if it was possible that the dolphins had committed murder.

She kept her cool as she told him no, that dolphins might be aggressive at times, but they weren’t capable of dismembering bodies. The picture cut to scenes of the dolphins with handicapped children and wounded servicemen and women; it was some of the best PR spins Brett had ever seen. Ms. Ainsworth wasn’t only an extremely attractive woman with an easy way when she was on camera, she was damn good at her job. She’d been filmed soon after they’d gotten out of the water, he realized. Her hair was still damp, and she was in casual shorts and a polo shirt.

She cleaned up nicely, too, he thought, thinking back to the party earlier. Her halter dress had been stunning on her. He chastised himself for not noticing more, but he’d been too focused on the case. He realized, though, that part of her beauty came from her animation. Her smile was sincere and her movements fluid.

He smiled briefly, thinking of her stick-up-the-butt comment; he knew she’d been referring to him. Maybe he’d deserved it. He’d been a lucky man most of his life. He was generally well liked. Relationships—though most were merely casual—came easy for him. But this woman really didn’t like him. And she was, at the moment, according to Grady Miller, the one woman he needed on his side. He’d been sure he would be best off enlisting the help of the head trainer, Rick Laramie, and Laramie would certainly be on hand. But according to the facility founder, Cocoa wanted to work with Lara. It was as if she had found a best friend. If Cocoa were human, Miller had explained, she would want to hang out with Lara to hear a new band, or enjoy a movie or an art show—or go shoe shopping.

As long as Lara came and helped, as long as everyone tried, he would be happy. He knew he was looking for a damned needle in a haystack.

But Phil Kinny had seemed sure that if he had Miguel’s head, he might be able to figure out what had happened.

Brett knew the waters around Miami; he loved boating, fishing and diving, and had since he was a kid. But he didn’t really understand the science of what the office techs were doing. By charting the tides and the currents, they believed they could follow the flow of body-part dispersal, using the dolphin facility as a starting point and working backward. He hoped they were right.

Restlessly, he flicked off the news. “Ichabod, you’re the best company ever,” he told the cat. “But I don’t want Jimmy or his folks waking up and thinking you’re missing. So, sad to say, out, my friend.”

The cat seemed to understand him. He wound between Brett’s legs and headed for the door. Brett let him out, climbed up the stairs, stripped down and headed toward the bed.

He paused, though, and went to his desk to click his computer on. Someone might have gotten back to him with some kind of a map or a plan for the morning. They would be working with the Coast Guard, and he had faith that those guys could read what they were given, but he wouldn’t mind looking for himself. And while he wanted to sleep, he still felt restless.

His emails popped up, a few from fellow agents offering off-duty help. Nice. Nothing yet from the tech people, but he wasn’t worried. They would work all night if they had to and make sure they had what he needed in the morning. He started to turn away from the computer when a message suddenly popped up on the screen.

He stared, stunned at first, and then disbelieving.

Miguel did it. It was Miguel, but it wasn’t Miguel.

The words were then gone as quickly as they had come. Brett felt as if every hair on the nape of his neck was standing up.

He gave himself a mental shake. He must have imagined the message. He started hitting keys, slowly at first, and then more quickly, trying to ascertain if someone had hacked into his computer somehow.

Eventually he determined that had to be the case. But even though he didn’t have the skills to do it himself, he would make sure the hacker got caught. They had some of the best computer geeks known to man in the Miami office, so all he had to do was take his laptop to work and let them have at it.

That decided, he rose to go to bed at last.

And it was then that his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number; it wasn’t a local exchange. He thought about letting the caller leave a message, but in the end he answered. “Cody,” he said briefly.

“Brett Cody?” asked a deep, slightly accented voice.

“Yes.”

He wasn’t sure how he instantly knew who it was; he had never been assigned to the Barillo case. He’d seen the man, of course. Barillo appeared at rallies backing certain politicians and liked to make the scene when new clubs opened on South Beach, which was fairly frequently. The beach was a fickle place; the hottest club quickly became passé when a new club opened.

For being such a powerhouse, he was a small man. Only about five-eight, gray haired and slight.

He was a mix of nationalities—born in Mexico, but with grandparents from Italy, Colombia, Brazil and Cuba—and that might well have helped him to become the kingpin that he was, in command of his multinational “family.” He was known to speak at least five languages, including perfect English.

“This is Anthony Barillo,” the man said.

Brett knew he should behave professionally, keep the man talking, try to get something useful out of him, but he couldn’t help himself. “Then you should know, you piece of total crap, that we will chase you to the ends of the earth to see that you pay for what you’ve done. Maria Gomez was innocent, someone’s mother, just like your own.”

Barillo didn’t seem offended by his words. His tone was even, dispassionate, as he said, “Special Agent Cody, my mother was a prostitute of the lowest order. She abandoned me, and I don’t know if she’s living or dead, nor do I care. But that’s another matter entirely. Here’s the thing you must know. I didn’t kill Maria Gomez. I didn’t even kill Miguel Gomez. That’s why I’m calling you. Word on the street is that you’re out for blood. Am I an innocent man? In life, that’s debatable. But in this instance, if you truly want to catch the killer of that lovely woman—yes, even I knew she was nearly a saint—you’re going after the wrong person.”

“Bull! Miguel was wearing a wire when—”

Brett broke off. Barillo had already hung up.

Furious, he hit Return on the call, but all he got was a recording saying he’d reached a disconnected number. He almost threw the phone across the room but caught himself before realizing the futility of the gesture. He would just have to get another cell phone, and Barillo would still be out there.

He called Diego—waking him up—to tell him about the phone call, and then he called Herman Bryant—whom he also woke up—to tell him about the call, as well.

“Man’s a bloody liar. He’s as dirty as a sty on Mars,” Bryant said.

Brett wasn’t sure just how dirty a sty on Mars was, but Bryant was famous for his strange turns of phrase. He also sounded frustrated as hell, which made sense. After all, he was head of a large task force that had so far failed in its efforts to stop the man.

Barillo always managed to keep his own hands clean, letting his henchmen pay the price of arrest. The FBI had taken down a dozen of his men. They never spoke against him. He was known to have a long arm that could reach into any prison—state or federal—in the country. “I’m surprised he bothered to call you. He’s wanted on a dozen murders. What’s one more?”

“I think it offended him that we thought he’d broken his own rule about not going after family, plus I think he genuinely liked Maria. Anyway, I needed to report the call to you.”

“Of course, thanks. I’m glad you’re in on this, Brett. You could be on the task force if you wanted. You know that, right? But at the moment, I’m glad you and Diego are taking lead on the Maria Gomez case.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll keep you up on everything.”

“Any time of day,” Bryant told him.

They rang off. Brett knew that he had to get some rest. It wasn’t easy, given his adrenaline level after Barillo’s call.

His phone rang again; he stared at it. Again, a number he didn’t know. He answered but didn’t speak.

“Hello?”

It wasn’t Anthony Barillo, though this man’s voice was also accented. More of a tenor than a bass, though.

“Who is this?” Brett asked sharply.

“You lay off my father, man. He had nothing to do with Miguel or Maria Gomez. You understand? It will be harder for you if you don’t quit.”

Brett tried to control his temper. To a point, he did. “Listen, you gutless little tadpole. I don’t know which one of Barillo’s kids you are, but you just threatened a federal agent, so shut up or you just might find life getting hard for you. You were smart enough to get out of the family business, now stay smart and keep out of it.”

“Screw you!” the caller said. “My father didn’t do it—you got it?”

For the second time that night his line went dead. He thought about letting the matter go until morning, but it wasn’t that long since he’d woken the other men up, so... He called Bryant and Diego again, and both of them were as surprised as he was that both Barillo and one of his sons had called about the Gomezes’ deaths.

After he hung up for the second time he knew he had to go to bed; the next few days promised to be very long ones.

Sleep was elusive at first. He kept playing the case over and over again in his mind. He hadn’t been there when Miguel Gomez had burned to cinders. But he knew the agents and many of the officers who had been, and he knew that the accounts he’d heard were as accurate as humanly possible. The warehouse had been surrounded; it had been under surveillance for days before Miguel had gone in wearing the wire. There had been no other voices, so almost certainly no one else had been in there. Not to mention that only one set of charred-beyond-recognition remains had been found, with Miguel’s melted jewelry right there.

But—somehow—Miguel had survived. They’d found someone’s body, but not Miguel’s.

Maria had been murdered, too. Thrown from her balcony only minutes after Miguel Gomez had been seen in his neighborhood, behaving strangely.

At last Brett fell asleep.

At five thirty, his alarm rang. Blindly, he groped for the button to turn off the obnoxious buzzing he’d chosen because it guaranteed that he would get up.

He opened his eyes, ready to roll out of bed.

But he didn’t.

He froze.

Because there was a woman sitting at the foot of his bed. Maria Gomez. Her dark hair framed her pretty face, and there was a look of infinite sadness in her eyes.

“Miguel did it. It was Miguel, but it wasn’t Miguel,” she said.

And then she was gone. She simply faded into nothingness.

And he was alone in his room, frozen rigid, staring at the empty foot of his bed.

* * *

“You really should get your diving certificate,” Agent Cody told Lara.

She turned to look at him. They were on the Coast Guard cutter Vigilance. The day was just about perfect; the temperature was warm, but the breeze kept them from getting too hot. The sea was calm, and only a few white clouds puffed delicately above them. She and Rick were the only Sea Life personnel on the vessel, though Grady, Adrianna and Dr. Amory had been there to see them off before they joined Cocoa in her enclosure. Dr. Amory was fascinated by Cocoa’s preference for Lara. He said he’d never seen a bond form so quickly, and he’d been doing research on dolphins’ abilities for thirty years. But when they’d asked him if he wanted to come along, he’d said, “No. I don’t want to distract Cocoa from her task. She’ll be fine with you and Rick.”

Lara wished he’d come so she would have another friendly face onboard. Not that their Coast Guard crew weren’t great, because they were. But she’d been nervous about this whole thing to begin with, unsure that she had the skills she needed, and now Rick had headed aft, Diego was nowhere to be seen and she was alone with Agent Stick-up-the-Ass, who seemed to think she’d had a lamentable upbringing because she didn’t dive.

The better to find body parts, my dear.

“You’re going to be all right in the water, right?” he asked.

For a moment she wondered how someone so drop-dead good-looking and presumably intelligent could be such an ass. It didn’t help that he was standing so close to her that while she was busy thinking what a tremendous jerk he was, she was also far too aware of his leanly muscled body, clad only in a pair of swim trunks. She wished she was wearing more than a bathing suit herself; it was almost as if their flesh was touching. Not that he seemed to be the least bit aware of her in a physical way.

“I’ll be fine, Agent Cody. We do swim in Virginia. We do, in fact, have dive shops. We have rivers and lakes and yes, even direct access to the Atlantic. It’s just that not every kid in Richmond grows up to dive.” She hoped she managed to sound cool and disinterested in anything but the task ahead.

“Sorry,” he said curtly. He was staring out at the water, the sun gleaming down on his shoulders, those granite features facing into the wind, which seemed somehow appropriate. He turned to look at her. “Down here, it’s just...well, it’s just something most people are able to do. The reefs off the Keys are magnificent. They say there are prettier reefs other places, but I think ours compare to anything out there. In my opinion anyway. It’s just...”

His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “It’s something you might want to look into, living down here. It’s magical. You move so easily in water you think you were born there. You hear your own air bubbles, the world is far away, and you see amazing creatures in their own universe.”

“Thanks. I’ll consider it,” she murmured, thinking how strange his words had been. It had sounded as if he actually cared whether she liked South Florida.

They weren’t more than a mile due south of the facility when one of the crew came around to join them.

“We’re going to drop anchor,” he told them. “You might want to gear up, sir.”

Agent Cody thanked him, then turned to Lara again. “How’s your dolphin doing?”

She looked overboard. Rick was still standing just down the deck and had been watching the water the whole time, keeping an eye on Cocoa as she accompanied them. She had to admit that it had been a very interesting morning so far. She and Rick had swum out of the lagoon toward the cutter, with Cocoa following, then he had talked to Cocoa before they had climbed up the ladder to the deck.

Cocoa had kept pace with them all the way. Lara was even more impressed with her intelligence, and gratified that such an amazing animal had decided to choose her as, well, a friend.

As if on cue, Cocoa surfaced, giving out her squeal.

“I believe she’s fine,” Lara said.

“You can manage snorkel gear?” he asked her.

It was a real question, she realized. She managed not to be totally sarcastic in her reply.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

He headed to the stern, where he, Diego, Rick and one of the crew helped each other with their dive tanks.

Then Agent Cody came back over to her. “There’s an embankment just that way, and we’ll be close to the surface until we reach it. The depth there maxes out at about twenty to twenty-five feet, so we won’t be far at any time. Do you need some type of flotation device?”

“I’ll be fine in a mask and flippers,” she said.

“You’re sure.”

“I am.”

“All right. Just keep telling her to fetch. One of the crew will be with you. You’ll never be out there alone.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded. That curt nod of his seemed to be his trademark.

As Agent Cody went over, sitting on the hull and falling backward into the water, Diego McCullough joined her. “You okay?” he asked her cheerfully.

“You bet.”

“I’m not so sure I would be,” he said. “The dead body side of it...it takes time.”

“I’ve had a few strange experiences in my life,” Lara told him. “I’ll be fine. And thank you, truly, for being concerned.”

He nodded. Rick had already gone into the water, and now Diego followed him. A crewman came over to Lara with the mask she’d already chosen and a pair of fins. He held them out to her.

“Miss Ainsworth?”

“Thanks.”

Five minutes later she was in the water. Thankfully, she had snorkeled before at Virginia Beach and on a vacation to Jamaica when she’d been younger. She knew that she was a strong swimmer and that the fins would help propel her. She loved to just have her face in the water to see everything below her while the snorkel let her breathe.





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