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 foo
t 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.
But first she treaded water and waited for Cocoa to come to her. Thanks to the events of the day before, she didn’t feel in the least bit silly talking to the dolphin.
“We’re going to play fetch, Cocoa. We’re looking for something this size.” She held her hands apart to indicate the approximate size of a human head. “Somebody killed a man, Cocoa. What we’re doing can help us catch that awful person.”
She wondered if human beings would ever really understand just how much other animals—mammals, especially—knew or understood. She just knew that she was on a mission, and Cocoa was on it with her.
The water was extremely clear; Lara could easily see the divers and Cocoa below her. Cocoa hadn’t actually decided that she didn’t like Rick anymore, but she definitely wanted to bring her treasures to Lara. Unfortunately they weren’t looking for a foam wig stand or a punctured football. After an hour at that location, they moved on.
The next stop was just ten minutes away, and their efforts were repeated.
This time Cocoa found something but couldn’t quite retrieve it. She chittered and squealed at Lara, trying to get her to come down and see it.
Lara tried, since the water was shallow. But when she reached Cocoa’s sand-and seaweed-strewn find, a diver was at her side.
Agent Cody.
And, thankfully, he took the object and quickly bagged it in a dive net.
She’d had time to see what Cocoa had discovered, though. Only a brief glimpse, but one she would never forget.
It was a human head.
* * *
Arnold Wilhelm stood beside the tracks at the Metrorail Station and looked down at the street fifty feet below. It was his first day out in three months, and he was only there because his family had threatened to put him in a nursing home if he didn’t start moving—living—again.
He’d taken the death of his friend Randy Nicholson hard. The two of them had been a few of the only truly old codgers lef
t of the old days. They’d both been born at the long-gone St. Francis Hospital on the beach, and they’d gone through Shenandoah Junior High and Miami Senior High together. They’d fought in the Korean War together, had their families and remained friends since.
And then, three months ago, Randy had passed away. And while Arnold knew that he was lucky as hell—he was a man with two decent kids, five grandchildren and an ex-wife who was okay and had remarried a damned good guy—he was lonely. He and Randy had gone to the movies together and had lunch twice a week, gone to the old Elks Club together and...
Hell. Randy had been better than a wife. Randy just liked to hang, as the kids said. He never wanted anything in return. He’d shared every important experience in Arnold’s life.
Ah, well, that was getting old. Painful, but better than the alternative, or so people said.
But he wasn’t so sure. He loved his family; he was grateful for his family. Even so, the days seemed empty without his old friend.
He glanced at his watch. The damned Metrorail didn’t really go anywhere, in his opinion. It wasn’t like when you went to New York City and hopped on the subway. With the Metrorail, unless you lived right by a station, you had to drive there and look for parking, or have someone drop you off, or rely on a bus—which might or might not come at anything that resembled on time—to get you there. Even when you got on it, the Metrorail only ran north-south through the city, though with some switching around you could get all the way up to Palm Beach. It did go to the Jackson Medical Complex, though, which was where he needed to go every three months for his checkups.
Because he was an old vet.
Looking far south down the track, he thought he could see it coming. He was just about the only one waiting, except for a trio of teenage boys.
He glanced at his watch and then the schedule.
He sighed. Big outing. He was traveling all by himself, a grown-up going for his checkup. Fun. He decided he would stop for coffee at a Cuban café somewhere, try to bone up on his horrible Spanish so he could better chat with the older Cuban woman at the convenience store.
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