Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  * * *

  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.

  CHAPTER 2

  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 office
rs 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—Ad
rianna, 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.