Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  She supplied Cocoa with fish as a reward for her efforts, and as Rick had told her, she made sure that she praised and thanked Cocoa verbally and with long strokes down her back. Then she was out of the water at last. She made it into the employee shower and back out to her office within the half hour.

  Grady was waiting for her, leaning on her desk.

  “You really okay?” he asked her. “You know we’re thrilled to have you here. You love the dolphins, and the dolphins love you. But under the circumstances…if you want some time off, if you want me to call Adam or the Krewe, just say the word.”

  Grady was such a sweetheart, Lara thought. She walked over to him and shook her head, smiling. “A murderer’s…work has affected the peace of our lagoon. I’m glad I can do something to help catch him, and I promise you, I’m just fine. But I am tired, so thank you. I think I will take the afternoon off.”

  “Okay, then. If it all becomes too much, you just let me know.” He rose, set a hand on her shoulder, smiled and left.

  She was gathering up some press materials to work on at home when she felt someone watching her from the doorway.

  She turned.

  A handsome middle-aged man was standing there. He had the look of an old Spanish aristocrat with angular features, a neatly manicured beard and mustache and dark eyes. He was dressed in a guayabera, a short-sleeved shirt made popular by the Cuban community. He looked at her, seemed to wince and then turned and walked away.

  “May I help you?” Lara called after him.

  No answer.

  She hurried to the door. No one else was in sight, but she quickly opened the other doors along the hallway. The only person she found was Adrianna. “Did you see the man who was here a minute ago?” Lara asked.

  “What man? Rick? Or Grady?”

  “No. A man I’ve never seen before was at my door,” Lara said.

  “A cute one, I hope. Though I have to tell you, I think the FBI is putting hot on their application forms these days. I’m still madly in love with my husband—or as madly as anyone can be after twenty years—but if I wasn’t, and if I weren’t a good decade his senior, I’d be all over that guy,” Adrianna said.

  “Which guy?” Lara asked.

  “Tall, dark and handsome.”

  “Which tall, dark and handsome?”

  “Okay, tall, dark, brooding and handsome. Agent Cody,” Adrianna said. “Though I wouldn’t turn my nose up at either one of them.”

  “Well, I’m not talking about either of them,” Lara said. “This was someone else—someone I’ve never seen before. Not a young guy, not any of the cops who were here. I think he was Cuban, definitely Hispanic, and around fifty. He seemed lost.”

  “I didn’t see anyone. Check downstairs and if you find him, show him out—nicely, of course. This building is off-limits to visitors unless they have an appointment with one of us. Grady doesn’t even like us to have visitors unless he approves first.”

  “I know. I’m on it,” Lara promised.

  Downstairs, she found their common area empty. Whoever the man had been, he was gone. She headed back up for her things, told Adrianna she was leaving and headed out. Instead of leaving through the gift shop area by the exit, she slipped out the key-operated gate to the parking lot.

  It was an easy shot over the causeway onto I-95, exiting on US1 to head for her house. Without the usual rush-hour traffic she faced on most days, it just took only a matter of minutes. But as she drove, she considered the man she had seen standing at her door; she probably should have checked out the rest of the facility and made sure that he’d found his party—or the way out. They didn’t employ private security at Sea Life, since both the City of Miami and Miami Beach police were always in the area, not to mention the Florida Highway Patrol and the Miami-Dade force. The fences that surrounded the property were set with alarms, and the main entrance also had cameras. Besides, there was almost always staff on hand. Rick and Adrianna lived in a small apartment at the back of the “office building” where she worked. Grady had a bedroom in the back of his office and sometimes stayed over, and there was talk of creating housing for the interns when one of the storage sheds—an old sound studio from the property’s earlier incarnation—was remodeled. That was a plan for the future, though, and would require its own capital campaign. The day-to-day running of the place was expensive and depended upon sponsors with deep pockets, like the people they had entertained the night before. She smiled, thinking about what they called the “attack cats” that roamed the property. There were three of them—Meatball, Mama and Massey—all strays that Grady had rescued and brought to the property. They ruled the place, along with a few of the resident iguanas and the peacocks that had wandered in from somewhere. They weren’t far from Jungle Island, a wonderful small zoo that had once been in Miami proper rather than on the water; after Hurricane Andrew had devastated what had then been Parrot Jungle, it had reopened under a new name and in its new location off the causeway. Grady had once told her after Andrew, many of their birds had ended up living in the wild.

  Lara’s rental was a pretty duplex on Virginia Street. There was a gate—which she’d been advised to keep locked, so she did—a small private yard, and then the entrance to her half of the row house–style building. The gate and the wall that surrounded the property were covered in beautiful purple bougainvillea. She hadn’t really brought much with her yet; most of her belongings were with her aunt in the Richmond house where she’d spent most of her childhood. Her parents had been killed in an automobile accident when she was young and Aunt Nancy had stepped up and done a remarkable job of parenting her. She would be coming down to spend a month soon, and Lara was delighted.

  Though this was Florida, the building was older and had a fireplace. The mantel was the first place she’d chosen to make the home hers. She had set out pictures of herself when she was very young with her parents, their wedding picture, one of Aunt Nancy and herself and several of her with Meg. While she had come from Richmond and Meg hailed from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, summer vacations with their families had made them the best of friends as kids. They’d even gone to college together. After that, media and promotion work in politics—finding a candidate who wasn’t for sale and was motivated purely by love for the country—had been her passion.

  A passion that had almost killed her. It was only thanks to Meg and the Krewe of Hunters that she was still alive.

  “And now I’m out of politics, but not exactly living the quiet life I’d expected,” she murmured aloud. She closed her eyes. She did love it here.

  The past two days had been stressful, of course, but that didn’t mean she’d stopped loving her new life.

  Her town house had a small living room that led to a cute little kitchen with an entertainment room behind it. Her yard was tiny but serene, walled in and smelling of bougainvillea. Upstairs she had two small but charming bedrooms. The place was perfect for her. She’d bought a good-size television and a fancy stereo system for the entertainment room, and brought down her old Victorian desk and desktop computer, which were set up there, too. She loved noise when she was working.

  She went back there now and turned on her computer. All in all, she wasn’t home that much earlier than she would have been normally. She knew she didn’t need to work, but she wasn’t really sure what else to do with herself. The only friends she had made thus far were her coworkers. And her coworkers were still working.

  Lara flicked on the television. The news had moved on, as she had expected. Not surprisingly, it was all about the man who had been killed on the Metrorail platform. The police rendering of the suspected killer came up on screen, followed by a photo of the victim, followed by one of his best friend, a man named Randy Nicholson.

  Nicholson had died of natural causes and been buried three months earlier.

  And he was almost a p
erfect twin of the man in the police sketch.

  Lara had to admit, it was chilling. But, as Agent Cody had said, they could exhume Randy Nicholson’s body and put to rest the “Miami Zombie Rage” that was now quickly seizing the city.

  She was tempted to turn the television off and force herself to think pleasant thoughts, but she wasn’t sure she could manage that.

  And then she glanced out the sliding glass doors into her overgrown backyard.

  There was a medium-size mango tree in one corner, bougainvillea draped over the stone wall and small plants she couldn’t identify lining the short path that led to a table with an umbrella and a few chairs.

  She started. Standing on the path, staring at the house, was the same man she had seen standing in her office doorway.

  Fear instantly seized her. She hurried over to her phone and dialed 911. When the operator came on, she quickly gave her location and explained that a man was in her walled yard, and that he could only have gotten onto the property via a locked gate, and that she’d seen him earlier at work. “I’m afraid I’m being stalked.”

  “We have someone on the way to your address right now. You can stay on the phone with me. Officers will be there momentarily. What is the man doing now?” the operator asked.

  “Just standing there, staring at me.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “He looks Hispanic. Fiftyish, with a well-manicured mustache and goatee. Medium build and maybe five-eight to five-ten. He’s wearing gray trousers and a guayabera shirt, beige.”

  She heard the buzzer from her gate. The cops had already arrived, which didn’t surprise her since she was right down the street from Cocowalk, one of the area’s malls, and the whole Coconut Grove area.

  “They’re here, I think,” she told the operator.

  “You can stay on with me while you let them in,” the operator said.

  Lara looked out the window, just to be safe, then went out to the gate to greet the two policemen waiting there.

  “Someone’s in your yard?” one of them asked her. “Is he threatening you?”

  “No, he’s just standing there. But I don’t know how he got in, and he came to my office earlier today, then left without saying anything,” she said.

  “I’ll go in with her,” the second officer said to the one who’d spoken.

  “Get back in the house and I’ll see what’s going on,” the first man, whose badge identified him as Officer Dewey, said.

  Lara nodded and thanked him. The second officer, badge identification Martino, followed her into the house.

  “Maybe I’m being a little paranoid,” she said. “He’s not doing anything, in fact he looks a little lost. But I saw him before, and now he’s in my yard, and the gate was locked! He might have scaled the wall, but it’s pretty high, plus it’s covered with bougainvillea.” She realized she was babbling and stopped.

  “It’s okay. Better to be safe than sorry, right?” Martino asked.

  “Miss? Miss?”

  Lara dimly heard herself being called and realized she was still holding her cell phone, and the emergency operator was still on the line. She quickly thanked the woman, told her that the police had arrived and hung up. Then she headed toward the back of the house, followed by Martino, and looked out the window.

  Officer Dewey was there, looking puzzled. He walked toward the back door, and she quickly let him in.

  “I looked everywhere, but there’s nobody back here,” he said.

  Lara looked at him, dumbfounded. “He was there. I swear he was.”

  Both officers looked at her with polite curiosity.

  “I’m telling you, there was a man in my yard, staring in my back windows,” Lara said.

  “Well, whoever he was, he’s gone now. We can check out the house for you, if you want,” Dewey said.

  “Thank you.” She knew they were both doubting her sanity right about now. Well, why not? The gate had been locked, the wall around her property was at least seven feet high. It would have taken a gymnast to scale it.

  The officers went through the house. It was empty, of course.

  Dewey asked her, “Were the locks changed when you moved in?”

  She nodded. “I was here when they changed them,” she said.

  “And no one else has keys?”

  “My boss has a set in his desk,” she said.

  “Any way someone could have gotten them?” Martino asked her. “You did say you saw the man at your office earlier. Maybe he is stalking you. Maybe he’s been watching you and knew that your boss had your keys. Where do you work, and how tight is the security there?”

  “I work at Sea Life. We don’t have private security, but we do have cameras and alarms.”

  “What about you? Any enemies?” Dewey asked.

  She opened her mouth to answer, then realized the truth was just too complex.

  “Not that I know of now,” she murmured.

  “I wish we could stay with you, just in case, but we can’t do that,” Martino told her. “We can only see that the house is secure and then patrol frequently. We’ll be close by if you need us, though.”

  “Do you have an alarm?” Dewey asked.

  “Yes, but only for the house, not the yard.”

  They all stood uncomfortably for a moment. She knew they were genuinely concerned, but with no real threat against her, they had done what they could.

  “At any rate, no one is here now,” Dewey said. “If you’re uncomfortable, perhaps you could spend the night with a friend.”

  She nodded. “Thanks. I’ll just head back to work. A few of our staff members live on the premises. I can stay with one of them.”

  “We’ll cruise by here a few times, and we’ll ask the next shift to do the same,” Martino told her.

  She wasn’t sure if they thought she’d imagined the whole thing or were certain that she had a stalker and he had somehow gotten hold of her keys.

  “Will you give me a minute to get a few things together?” she asked.

  “Of course,” they said in unison.

  As she packed, she called Adrianna and told her about the man in her yard. Adrianna found Grady, who checked and still had the unmarked backup keys to her car and apartment in his desk drawer. He told her that she was free to stay at Sea Life until they got the matter settled, and she thanked him. She was definitely going to feel better knowing that Rick and Adrianna were sleeping down the hall.

  The officers waited until she was ready to go, then saw her safely into her car. As she drove, she asked her built-in Bluetooth to call Meg, and the minute her best friend’s voice came on the line, she immediately felt better.

  “I was about to call you. So another zombie attack in your area, huh?” Meg asked.

  “Yeah, the FBI is all over it—arranging to have the so-called zombie dug out of his grave,” Lara said. “But that’s not why I called you.”

  She described the day and the man to her, admitting that she might be paranoid, but it seemed she was being stalked. “Maybe it’s just my past history,” she admitted, a bit embarrassed.

  “We’re coming down,” Meg said.

  “Oh, please, your bosses will think you’re my personal babysitter,” Lara said.

  “Last time we looked for you, you actually helped catch a serial killer,” Meg said. “Besides, Adam is friends with Grady. He’ll insist we head down after what happened today anyway. We’ll be there by late tonight.”

  Lara glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was nearly six. “You’ll never get a flight down here tonight. And I’m heading to Sea Life. It’s alarm city, and Rick and Adrianna and Grady will be there to look out for me. Listen—if Adam wants you to come anyway, that’s okay, but give it up for tonight. The city is full of cops, and the FBI is
already on the case.”

  “Agents Cody and McCullough. I know. We checked. Matt knows Cody and says he’s one of the best. He doesn’t know McCullough, but if he’s with Cody, he’s got to be good.”

  “See? I’ll be fine.”

  “But they aren’t Krewe! Or two of your best friends in the world who should just be helping you get through this. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Listen for your phone,” Meg told her.

  Lara laughed. “Adam can control the airlines’ flight schedules?” she asked.

  “Adam can arrange for a private jet.”

  “Wow. Well, tell him thank you.”

  “Of course,” Meg said. She was quiet for a minute. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and I just know I need to be there.”

  Lara hesitated. She and Meg shared a strange telepathy; Meg swore that she had found Lara when she’d been trapped in the old mill because she’d been helped by a ghost, a ghost who had become real for Lara because Meg had made him so.

  A chill suddenly swept through Lara.

  Was the existence of ghosts the answer to tonight’s mystery?

  Meg had always seen ghosts, and she herself had seen that spectral Confederate soldier. And how could a man be there and then not there, unless…?

  Unless he was a dead man.

  “Lara, are you okay?” Meg asked.

  “Yes, yes, I’m driving, that’s all.”

  “We’ll be there tonight,” Meg swore.

  “Just don’t worry about me. I’ll be with my friends, and I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. Just promise me you’ll stay with them until we get there.”

  “I promise,” Lara told her.

  She hung up and told herself to stop freaking herself out. Even so, chills continued to sweep her until she finally came up with the right argument.

  If a dead man was after her, she would be all right. Meg had always told her that the dead stayed around to help, to rectify injustice.

  The sky was still bright when she finally reached Sea Life, and a lot of the staff was still there, despite the hour.