Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  Diego looked at him and smiled slowly, shaking his head. “I’m half Cuban and half Irish. Hell, if a leprechaun walked onto the scene, I’m not sure I’d be surprised. So what the hell. If a ghost can solve our case, I’m all for it.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Cocoa is being as stubborn as all get-out,” Adrianna said, aggravated. “I could leave her back here overnight, which I may have to do, but Tampa, Luke and Bartholomew are already here. She’ll want to play as rough as they do, and I’m worried she’ll get hurt.”

  Lara hadn’t told them that Myles had been taken down to FBI headquarters. For one thing, at her request, no one at Sea Life, except for Grady, knew about the doll, so there was no easy way to explain that Myles was gone and why. Anyway, it didn’t really matter. The day was over, and she would worry about tomorrow when it arrived.

  Adrianna’s attention was all for the dolphin.

  “She’s not listening to me, either,” Lara told Adrianna after ten minutes of fruitlessly trying to coax Cocoa back into her own lagoon. “I’m sorry. Can Rick help?”

  “He’s with the last of our sponsors,” Adrianna said, shaking her head. “He likes to pull the ‘head trainer’ card when the big money is around. Besides…” she murmured, then hesitated. “The truth is, he doesn’t work as well with Cocoa as you do. Want to swim with her, see if that works?”

  “I guess, but you’ll have to open the gates so I can go from lagoon to lagoon.”

  “I’m worried the others might get in the way, so we’ll go around the long way. Through the bay,” Adrianna said.

  “You really think she’ll follow me?” Lara asked.

  “She followed you all over the bay the other day,” Adrianna reminded her.

  Dr. Amory was still standing on the platform, so Lara turned to him. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re the most interesting research opportunity I’ve seen in ages,” he told her, grinning. “I think you need to give it a try so I can observe.”

  “All right, I’ll grab my suit and be right back.”

  When Lara turned to go, Meg followed. “I’m not letting you go anywhere alone,” she said.

  “I’ll change in the office,” Lara said. “Nice and safe.”

  “We’ll have to find an opportunity for you to wear that suit Sonia gave you,” Meg told her.

  “Sounds great,” Lara said. “Meg, what do you think about Myles Dawson? Is he just a nasty jerk, or is he part of this?”

  “Hopefully the guys are finding that out right now.”

  Back at the office, Meg waited while Lara changed. When they left, Lara noticed that there was still a group gathered near the exit by the gift shop, talking with Rick and Grady. She wondered how they could hear each other over the anthems and military songs that had been playing all day but seemed really loud now that the crowd had thinned out to almost nothing.

  She and Meg made their way to the sandbar that led to the farthest platform.

  Dr. Amory was nowhere in sight, and Adrianna was standing on the platform as if frozen, staring out at the water.

  “Hey, Adrianna!” Lara called. “I’m back!”

  Without saying a word, Adrianna fell face forward into the water, as if she’d been pushed by an invisible hand.

  “What the hell?” Lara said.

  “Get behind me,” Meg ordered, forging her way around a tangle of sea grape trees and ragged brush that had taken hold on the sandy spit. Her Glock was in her hand, and Lara followed her as the path curved toward the dock.

  “We have to go help Adrianna!” Lara said.

  And then she tripped over something.

  A body.

  * * *

  “So you just don’t like Lara, is that it?” Brett asked, sitting across the table from Myles Dawson.

  Dawson looked at the small digital recorder sitting between them. “I like her fine,” he said.

  “Then, why would you play a trick like that on her?” Brett asked.

  Myles slumped back and sighed. He lifted his hands. “You don’t understand. I’ve worked there for three years now. I’m still an intern. I teach classes. I play with kids. I smile and haul fish for the trainers. Hell, I get people coffee when they ask. It was past time for them to hire me and bring on some other sucker as an intern. Instead, they paid a fortune to hire Lara.”

  “So you just wanted to scare her away? Why? Your job is nothing like hers.”

  “Really? She was hired to do media. Next thing you know, she’s a star trainer and consultant for the FBI. She’ll be running Education soon enough. Dr. Amory thinks she’s the best thing we’ve seen since he doesn’t know when. He wants to work with her and Cocoa. If she starts working with Amory, I’ll never be full-time.”

  “And you’re sure—you’re absolutely sure—that no one put you up to your ‘prank’?”

  Myles looked back at Brett, baffled. He lifted his hands again. “What? I’m so stupid I can’t even have an original idea?”

  Brett leaned forward. “People have died, Myles. Do you want to be convicted for being an accessory to murder?”

  “Me? Murder? Good God, it was a prank!” Myles protested.

  “You ever have a drug habit?” Brett asked him.

  “What? No!”

  “Were you ever caught stealing? Doing anything you shouldn’t have done?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have a record or anything else someone else could hold over your head if you didn’t do as you were told?” Brett asked.

  “No. No, no, no! What I did was stupid and I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it on my own,” Myles said, looking as if he was about to cry.

  “And no one—no one—suggested in even that vaguest way that you should have done it?” Brett pushed.

  Myles shook his head. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You’re not under arrest.”

  “But you just said—”

  “We’re just talking here, Myles. And I’m really hoping that you really will talk to me.”

  Myles seemed to sink into himself even more. “You must know everything there is to know about me. Big Brother is watching and all that. I don’t have a record. I admit I don’t always recycle, but that’s it. I just…I just got so jealous that I wanted Lara to go away! Can’t you understand that?”

  “Do you know of anyone else who dislikes her?” Brett asked.

  “There must be other people who resent her, but I have no idea who they are. Rick, Grady, Dr. Amory and everyone else seem to think she’s more of a natural with the dolphins than they are. Maybe Adrianna! I mean, she’s never said anything to me, but she must get sick of hearing Rick praise Lara all the time.”

  There was a rap on the door. Frowning, Brett got to his feet and went to answer. Matt was standing there with a sheaf of papers in his hand.

  “I think I’m just getting somewhere,” Brett said. “Any chance this can wait?”

  “Not a chance in hell. I just got the hospital’s list of every visitor who was there on the day of Randy Nicholson’s death. Trust me, you’re going to want to see it.”

  * * *

  As Meg kept running toward the spot where Adrianna had tumbled into the water, Lara, with her heart in her throat, bent down and saw that the body she’d stumbled over was Dr. Amory’s. He was crumpled on the ground, half-covered by one of the sea grape trees. There was a bloody gash on his head.

  “Dr. Amory?” she said, testing for his pulse. He looked as if he had taken the curve too quickly and tripped, hitting his head on a tree root.

  She was relieved to find he had a pulse. She started to rise to cry for help, but then she heard the blast of gunfire.

  She ducked, shocked by how loud it had been. They must have heard it even bac
k by the gift shop. At least that meant help would come quickly.

  Was Adrianna still in the water, or had Meg gotten to her before the shot?

  A voice came from somewhere past the sea grape trees. “Your friend is shooting at me, Lara. Make her stop. If you do, I’ll let you go down for Adrianna. She has about another minute and half, I imagine, before it’s lights out forever. My dart only gave her a little prick, but it’s enough to keep her from doing a thing to help herself. There’s a wonderful study on puffer fish poison. Seems way back when Cook was exploring, he and his men all grew sick after a meal in the South Pacific. Pigs on board, fed the remnants of the meal, all died. Turns out they’d been eating puffer fish. Scientists ran some weight calculations and determined that the dosage the men received was sufficient to harm but not to kill them, but it was more than enough to kill their pigs.”

  “A hundred soldiers heard that shot and will be out here in about two minutes,” Lara said.

  Ignoring her, he said, “And then there’s Meg. She can’t see me, but I bet she can hear me.” He raised his voice. “You can hear me, can’t you, Meg? I can pop a dart into you any time I want, and it won’t be a small dose.”

  “Lara, don’t!” Meg warned. “Don’t do anything he wants—he’ll just kill us both anyway.”

  Lara stood, her legs shaky, her hands trembling. She knew that these people had no problem killing, but she needed to help Adrianna.

  She walked around the bend in the trail to the platform. She couldn’t see the man who’d been talking to her, and she didn’t have time to waste looking. She dived into the water, found Adrianna’s body and she dragged her back to the platform.

  “Now, Meg,” the man said, “I have you in my sights. Help Lara get Adrianna out of the water. Oh, throw down that gun first.”

  “Like hell I wi—” Meg began.

  Something whistled through the trees.

  Meg ducked, and the dart went past her and dropped into the water.

  “Toss the gun!” he said.

  “Do it, Meg,” Lara pleaded.

  Meg, stony faced, looked at her. And dropped her Glock by her feet.

  “Oh, no. That’s not good enough. Kick the gun away from you.”

  Lara met Meg’s eyes and could tell she didn’t want to do it. But whoever was watching them was calling the shots.

  She thought that she could hear Meg’s voice in her mind.

  We’ve gotten out of messes like this before. We’ll get out again.

  “Do it, Meg,” Lara pleaded. “Kick it away.”

  Meg did. Then she reached down and helped Lara get Adrianna onto the dock.

  Lara dared to look back. Help was nowhere in sight. How had they missed the shot from Meg’s Glock?

  The music. It was the music.

  “Meg, Adrianna needs help—now!” They bent over the woman together, Meg counting and Lara trying to breathe life into Adrianna’s lungs.

  “It’s time to go,” the voice said.

  “Go where?” Meg demanded tersely.

  “Ten steps, other side of this little sandbar.”

  Lara was sure she knew that voice, and she tried to place it. There was something so familiar about it, and yet…different.

  “I’m not sure Adrianna is okay yet,” Lara said between breaths. “God only knows what you pumped into her.”

  “Not enough to kill her, though perhaps the water took care of that.”

  At that exact moment, Adrianna coughed.

  “Come—now! Or she’ll be dragged into this, too.”

  Lara looked at Meg. Neither of them moved.

  “I can down you both in two seconds.”

  “Then, do it. You’re planning on killing us anyway,” Meg said.

  “Don’t you want to buy time?”

  “Yes, we’ll buy time,” Lara said, looking at Meg and then nodding meaningfully at Adrianna, who was sputtering but breathing.

  If she regained full consciousness, the killer would undoubtedly carry out his threat, and then she would end up dead, too.

  “Do you want me to shoot her after you went to all that trouble to save her?” the man asked.

  Lara stepped over the platform and started across the little sandbar. Meg followed her.

  A small boat with three occupants was waiting on the other side. A fourth man was waiting to hop aboard. He had to be the man who’d been watching. Threatening them.

  She saw who it was. And she knew him. But she didn’t understand why he was involved.

  Life—and apparently death—could be deceiving.

  * * *

  “They were all at the hospital? Ely Taggerly, Grant Blackwood and Mason Martinez?” Brett said, heading out to the car.

  “Taggerly was there to visit an employee, a man named Jackson Baum. Martinez was visiting a sick sister. And Blackwood was having some tests done,” Matt said. “We have officers tracking down both patients now, making sure the men actually visited them, and we’re verifying that Blackwood did indeed get those tests. And,” he added, “I’ve already sent officers out to Sea Life. But—”

  “We have to go,” Brett said. “We need to get there. Whether or not they’re guilty, all of those men are there. Now. And while the doll may have been a vindictive prank, someone may still want Lara dead for her part in retrieving those body parts.” He was already striding down the hall toward the exit.

  As they hurried out of the building, Matt said, “Meg is there, and she’s a great agent.”

  Brett nodded distractedly. “Money. I did say whoever was behind this had to be someone with money.”

  “We’ll get there, but let’s stay grounded. This isn’t proof that any of those men are guilty,” Diego reminded him. “This just tells us that they were at the hospital the day Randy Nicholson died.”

  They’d reached the car. Brett had his phone out, trying to reach Lara.

  No answer.

  “Give me the keys, amigo,” Diego said.

  Brett tossed them over; Diego was an ace driver, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on the road. “Lara isn’t answering,” he said.

  Matt frowned, sliding into the backseat, his phone out, as well. After a minute he frowned. “Meg’s not picking up, either.”

  “They had their big event for the vets today,” Diego said. “They’re probably just busy. They probably can’t even hear their phones.”

  Brett glanced at his watch. “It should be over. It’s after five.” He looked at the other two men. “Taggerly is old and runs a drug company. Martinez has focused his entire business on getting people to lead healthful lives. And Blackwood…”

  “Is a rich asshole,” Diego said.

  “You think one of them is hooked up with the Barillo crime family?” Matt said, his tone skeptical.

  “This could have created all kinds of strange bedfellows,” Brett said. “In the meantime, we’ve got to reach someone there. We have to find out what’s going on.”

  “Try the main number,” Diego suggested.

  “That will probably get us some kid in the gift shop,” Brett said.

  “I’ll call Grady,” Matt told them. “I got his cell number from Adam before I came down here.”

  Matt made the call, and Brett did his best to listen to the conversation. He could hear distant noise coming from Matt’s phone—music, he realized, and it must be loud if he could hear it over the phone—but he couldn’t make out what Grady was saying.

  “Good to hear it went so well,” Matt said. “Listen, Grady, we need to make sure everyone there is safe.” A second later, he said, “Yes, yes, there are police cars on the way.” There was more noise from the other end. “Grady, listen to me. Are your sponsors still there? The big-money guys?” He put his hand over the phone and said, �
��They’re still around somewhere. He’s asking Sonia Larson if she’s seen them.”

  They were already on the causeway, and Diego was sliding around other cars with ease, definitely ignoring the speed limit.

  Brett couldn’t tamp down the sense of deep unease that filled him.

  Nothing had changed except that now he knew those men had been at the hospital. And he was certain that the “zombie” experiments had begun because someone was looking for a cure, someone who had connected with one of the higher-ups in the Barillo empire. Someone with money.

  And Lara wasn’t answering her phone.

  “Ask him about Lara,” Brett said. “And Meg.”

  Matt did, telling Grady that both women had gone down to the back lagoon and why, and that they might still be there.

  “Grady says that the cops have arrived and told him they’re checking out the place for safety.”

  “Tell him to get the cops down to that lagoon now,” Brett said. “They’re at the far lagoon? No one can see them there, right?”

  “Grady,” Matt said, “this is important. Ask the cops to head straight to the back lagoon and make sure everyone out there is fine. We’ll be there in a matter of minutes. Get one of them to call Brett or me right away. Thanks, Grady.”

  There was a knot in the pit of Brett’s stomach as Matt rang off. Something was wrong; he could feel it.

  He was pretty sure that Matt did, too.

  “One of those bastards is in with the Barillo family,” Brett said. “The real family. He’s promised to cure Anthony Barillo.”

  “We can’t know that. Not just from a hospital visit,” Matt said.

  “We’re there,” Diego announced.

  He’d barely said the words before Brett was out of the car, running toward the gate. As he ran, he heard sirens in the background.

  The entry through the gift shop was still open; he burst through it.

  The Navy anthem was playing as he tore through the store and ran straight to the path out to the lagoon.

  When he got there, he found utter chaos, cops on walkie-talkies, people milling around. Brett reached the first cop. “What’s going on?” he demanded, flashing his badge.