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 the
n 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.