Diego stared at him.
Brett shrugged.
And once again Lara Ainsworth said softly, “Thank you.”
It was the job, he told himself. His job. What they did, in the end, wasn’t only catch criminals and bring them to justice, it was save lives.
And right now, they weren’t talking just any life. They were talking her life.
She thought he had a stick up his ass. She could be sarcastic, even abrasive, but…
But there was something about her. The way she was confident but not in-your-face about it, the way she smiled…
All he really knew right then was that he had to keep her alive. If he didn’t, somewhere in there he would lose his own soul.
* * *
“Coward—you’re really a coward,” Lara told her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She’d come in to brush her hair. She wanted to retain some sense of dignity when the FBI agents arrived.
After the call, she’d hurried to Grady’s office-slash-apartment and found him still awake, working on his Spanish lessons via computer. He was glad to hear that the agents were coming. “I’ve talked to Adam. It’s getting weird down here.”
That’s putting it mildly, she thought.
Lara nodded. “I just hate to bug him, you know?”
Grady grinned at that. “Weird is what he and the Krewe do.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Anyway, I’m glad that Cody and McCullough are on their way.”
So was she. But no matter what Meg had said, they might not be able to make it down that night, so it was a good thing the local agents were on their way. Like it or not, Lara was unnerved, frightened, and she needed sleep so she could do her job. And whether she thought Agent Cody had a stick up his butt or not, he was solid and practically reeked of strength and security.
With those muscles and an inner tension that seemed hotter than any fire, she would pick him in a fight any day.
Lara went back to her office and waited for Agent Cody to call again, then headed to the gate to meet him and Diego.
As always, Diego was cheerful.
As always, Agent Cody was grim.
She let them in, then locked the gate and reset the alarm.
She didn’t want to sound like a crazy person and tried hard not to.
The effort failed.
“I feel guilty about getting you out here so late. I should have told you to go home and get some sleep. I’m so sorry. But this man was here today, and then he was in my backyard. And even though I know the dead man in our lagoon doesn’t really have anything to do with me, with everything going on, I—”
“It’s all right,” Agent Cody said, cutting her off. And then he added in a surprisingly gentle tone, “Besides, you didn’t call us. We called you and said we were coming.”
“Were you worried about me for a specific reason?” she asked.
“Let’s just say that with everything going on and you having a possible stalker, yes, we were worried,” Agent Cody said. “And it’s not a problem. We’re glad to be here.”
“Absolutely,” Diego said.
She wasn’t sure why, but she believed there was something else behind their words, something they weren’t telling her, but what, she wasn’t sure.
“Well, come on to the offices,” she said. “There’s a nice communal area on the first floor. There’s a kitchen with snacks, coffee, sodas…and the couch folds out to a bed. Grady has a combination office and apartment on the second floor, and Rick and Adrianna live here. Someone needs to be on the property at all times, because of the dolphins, and we don’t have private security. The police patrol the area, of course, but…”
So much for not babbling on and on, she thought, and trailed off, but she couldn’t help herself and started speaking again almost immediately.
“Well, thank you again. I’m just glad you’re here. I was really unnerved tonight. And honestly, I swear I’m not a total coward. And I’ll be fine as of tomorrow. I have friends coming down. They’re FBI, too. You may know them. Probably not. I mean, the FBI is a pretty big organization, right?”
“You have friends in the Bureau?” Diego said. “And they’re able to just come on down?”
“I guess. I hope I’m not causing them any problems. They work for a special unit.”
“What unit?” Diego asked.
“It has some official name, I think, but they’re known as the Krewe of Hunters.”
The two agents looked at one another. She knew that the Krewe had a reputation within the Bureau. Some liked to mock them; others were in awe of their record in solving unusual cases.
“What are their names?” Agent Cody asked her.
“Meg Murray and Matt Bosworth.”
He arched a brow. “I don’t know Meg. I do know Matt. We were in a training class together a few years ago. He’s a good guy.”
“Yeah, the best,” she said huskily. “I’ve known Meg forever. I met Matt through her.” She wondered if she should just tell them what had happened to her, and how Meg and the Krewe had saved her.
Of course, they’d heard what had happened already, she was certain; the entire country and beyond had heard what had happened. But since she wasn’t going by her real surname, they wouldn’t know that she’d been the victim.
“So they haven’t been officially assigned to the case?” Agent Cody asked. He was eyeing her oddly now.
As if she had suddenly turned another color or something, like a chameleon.
“Not that I know of.” She wondered if she’d said or done the wrong thing. She hoped she hadn’t made Brett and Diego feel that someone else would be horning in on, even trying to take over, their case.
She led them down the winding path and around to the house. It was odd to realize just how beautiful the place was at night. Sea grape trees, palms and other flora and fauna nestled by the paths, shading them by day. A light breeze sweetened and cooled the night air. The slight movement of the water murmured in the background, and despite everything that had happened here, the place had the feel of a tropical oasis.
“Coffee?” she asked them, unlocking the front door.
“Coffee is always good,” Diego said.
“And then we’ll have you tell us about this man you saw,” Agent Cody told her.
“Of course,” she said.
The men took seats in the lounge area, while Lara slipped into the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. When it was done, she took it out to them, adding a cup for herself. She’d fixed a tray with sugar and cream, but neither of the agents used them. She wondered with a certain amount of humor if drinking black coffee was a job requirement.
When she sat down, her own cup in hand, Agent Cody looked at her and said without preamble, “Tell us about the man.”
“I saw him here first,” she said. “I was getting ready to leave. He was just standing in the doorway of my office. I asked him if I could help him, but he left without saying anything. I followed and tried to find him, only I couldn’t. I told Adrianna about him, but she didn’t seem particularly worried. Of course, Sea Life was still open to the public then.”
“Was he dressed like a tourist?” Diego asked her.
“Yes, actually. He was wearing a guayabera and light trousers. I’ve seen dozens of tourists dressed that way—locals, too.”
“Okay, so then you went home, and when you looked outside, he was in your yard?” Diego asked.
“Yes. I guess he might have been some poor lost Alzheimer’s patient or something, but…how did he get into my yard?”
“Can you describe him?” Agent Cody asked.
“Of course. Fifty plus. Medium build, medium height. Dark eyes and dark hair. I thought he looked like the pictures you see of Spanish conquistadors—minus the helmet,
of course.”
The two agents looked at one another as if startled by her description.
“Don’t even go there,” Diego said.
“How could I?” Brett said, his voice sounding deep and scratchy. “We know the man is dead. The DNA on the body parts matched. Not to mention what remained of his face.”
“What are you two talking about?” Lara asked. “You’re really frightening me.”
“Nothing. It’s just that your description sounds like the description of the man we found,” Agent Cody said.
She felt as if she’d been bathed in a bucket of ice. “You mean the man whose body parts we found?” Her voice sounded odd and stilted.
“Lots of people look like other people,” Diego said, turning to Brett. “Hey, I’m half Cuban. I can look like a conquistador. Hell, that description could match Anthony Barillo or a dozen of the men working for him.”
Agent Cody’s voice sounded thick when he spoke. “Yeah, I’ve been afraid that it might have been Barillo or one of his men, frankly.”
“That description fits half the older Hispanic men in the city,” Diego said. “There is one guy I’ve seen, though, does a lot of Barillo’s dirty work. I can’t think of his name, though. But I kid you not, that description fits hundreds of people.”
His explanation made sense, but Lara found that she barely heard him, because Brett Cody was staring at her as if he’d just discovered something important about her.
And he had.
“Washington, DC,” he said. “You were a media assistant to Congressman Walker. Your real name is Lara Mayhew.”
She stared back at him for a long moment before nodding. She supposed it had been just a matter of time before someone figured it out. The killer’s rampage and her own rescue had been national news after all. And these men were FBI.
“Yes, my last name is Mayhew,” she said. “I’ve been using my mother’s maiden name.”
“What the fu—” Diego quickly cut himself off.
Lara barely noticed him. She felt as if she’d locked eyes with Brett Cody. She couldn’t turn away. And yet the look he gave her didn’t make her want to shrink away or hide; he wasn’t looking at her with pity, anger or suspicion. He seemed to have an empathy for her that was somehow reassuring.
“You’re a survivor,” he said quietly.
“I survived—but I wouldn’t have made it without Meg and Matt.”
He nodded at that. “Few of us survive alone.”
“Agent Cody,” Lara began.
“Brett. You call him Diego. So call me Brett. I don’t really have a stick up my ass, and I’m sorry if I’ve acted as if I do. This case is kind of a personal one for me. Diego says I’m obsessed. I guess I am. I feel guilty. We haven’t released the information yet, but the body parts we found belonged to a man named Miguel Gomez. Miguel came to me for help. He’d been pressured for years and forced to help a drug cartel down here run by the Barillo family. I turned him over to the agents—all of them top-notch—who had been working the case for years. We’d thought that he died in a fire, but we were wrong. According to the witness, he showed up and may have killed his wife—before someone killed him and we found his body parts.”
“Brett…” Diego murmured.
Lara realized that Brett had just told her more than the authorities were telling anyone. She was surprised and pleased—more so than she wanted to be, in fact—to realize that he seemed to trust her implicitly.
She turned to Diego. “I was in politics for years,” she said drily. “I’m a pro at keeping my mouth shut.”
“I have to ask this, so please don’t be offended,” Brett said. “Is it possible that you might be a little bit paranoid—perfectly natural, after everything you’ve been through—or are sure you saw that man twice? I mean, maybe the first time you saw him, he was just a lost guest. But couldn’t you have imagined him the second time?”
Lara nodded, smiling drily. “I can understand why you might suspect that I’m losing it, but I’m not. I saw the man. I saw him as clearly as I saw you. He was in the doorway of my office, and later he was in my yard. Staring in at me through the sliding glass door.”
“Did you suspect at any time that he meant to harm you?” Brett asked.
She puzzled over that for a minute. “I don’t—I don’t think so. He just kept staring at me.”
“It sure as hell sounds like the ghost of Miguel Gomez,” Diego said, causing both Lara and Brett to turn and stare at him.
Was he seriously talking about a real ghost?
Lara didn’t mean to, but she shivered visibly as Diego’s words echoed her own thoughts. “A ghost?” She lowered her head for a second, thinking about Meg, who definitely saw the dead. Could she be seeing them, too?
“I was just thinking about your Krewe friends. Don’t worry. We’ll find out what’s going on here,” Diego said. “Tomorrow we dig up poor Mr. Nicholson, prove he’s in his coffin and start searching the city for look-alikes.”
“Is there a computer we can use?” Brett asked Lara.
“Of course. There’s a house computer just over there,” she said, pointing toward a comfortably arranged grouping of wicker furniture.
“Would you mind logging me on?” Brett asked.
Once he was online, he pulled up a newspaper article featuring a close-up of a man.
Lara stiffened, as cold as Arctic ice as she read the clipping. It was Miguel Gomez’s obituary. And the face looking out at her from the computer screen was the exact same face she had seen earlier that day.
Twice.
Brett Cody turned to look at her. “Is that the man?” he asked.
She stared at Brett. And she didn’t know how he knew—or even how she did—but they both knew there was no doppelganger running around the city.
She’d seen the ghost of Miguel Gomez.
“That was him,” she said at last.
“Obviously the man has a twin who’s trying to reach you. Maybe he’s afraid to go to the authorities, maybe he thinks you can help him somehow, since you were the one who found his brother’s remains,” Diego said.
“Even if Miguel had a twin—which I’ll bet you cash money he doesn’t—how would he know that when we haven’t released an ID on our dead man?” Brett asked.
“I don’t know, but what other explanation could there be? A real ghost? I won’t discount the idea, though…” Diego let his words trail off and he shrugged. “Or maybe Lara is loco? Sorry, Lara. I’m just trying to cover every possibility. But, I mean, it has to be another man.”
“I’m not crazy,” Lara assured him. “I swear to you, despite all the therapy I probably still need, I’m not crazy. I saw a man—who looked just like this man—here today, and then later in my backyard.”
Brett looked at Lara and nodded slowly. “I promise you,” he said softly, “we will find out exactly what’s going on.” She was surprised by the crooked smile that twisted his mouth as he spoke. “I swear,” he added softly.
CHAPTER 7
Randy Nicholson had been buried in one of Miami’s older cemeteries on Southwest 8th Street near 37th Avenue. It was a large cemetery, stretching for many city blocks, and one of the most beautiful in the city, in Brett’s opinion. While the City of Miami Cemetery was the oldest and housed many of the city’s original rich and famous, along with some Confederates and Yankees who had survived the Civil War, he’d always preferred this one, which traced its origins back to 1913. There were beautiful angels and cherubs, and impressive mausoleums throughout, along with trails and trees that created a parklike yet still solemn atmosphere. It was perfectly manicured, not at all forlorn and overgrown, as so many older cemeteries were.
The exhumation was carried out smoothly; there was only one funeral happening that Wednesday morning, and it was tak
ing place in a section far away from them.
Nicholson’s headstone was courtesy of the United States Marine Corps; it was the headstone he had requested, according to his son. Henry Nicholson seemed like a decent guy, and he’d done everything they’d asked to help the process proceed. But no matter how respectful people tried to be, there was just something inherently disquieting in digging up a human grave. At last the cement sarcophagus that was a cemetery requirement was removed and the coffin was set on a gurney for its journey to the morgue.
One of the workers came over to speak with Brett and Diego. “You get used to how coffins feel,” he told them. “This one—it don’t feel right.”
Brett wasn’t sure why, but he had a sinking feeling that the man was right.
When they reached the morgue, Phil Kinny was waiting with his assistants. Brett and Diego were in the autopsy room where the coffin was opened, while Henry Nicholson, who had asked to accompany them and hear their findings, waited outside.
There was no body in the coffin, only a sack of sand. The only indications that a person had once lain there were a few strands of hair and a couple of fiber strands, and the satin lining still bore the impression of a body.
But the coffin held no occupant.
When Henry Nicholson heard the news he lost his cool completely. “No! No!” he shouted. When he ran toward the autopsy room, determined to see for himself, Diego and Brett had to scramble to catch him. The man moaned incoherently, tears dampening his eyes as he sank to the ground.
“My father is not a zombie!” he screamed. “My father is not a zombie!”
In the end, though unaccustomed to dealing with the living, the ME gave him a sedative.
Henry sat quietly after that, only speaking again when the agents dropped him off at his house. Before he got out of the car he stared straight at Brett. “My father is not a killer,” he insisted softly.
And Brett could only tell him, “There’s something else going on here, because I don’t believe that your father is a killer, either.”
Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5 Page 40