Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  “An ambulance is coming. There are two people out by the lagoon.”

  “Women?”

  “A man and a woman. He got a good bash on the head, possible skull fracture. We’re not sure about the woman.”

  “What about Lara and Meg?” Brett asked, then realized this man wouldn’t have any idea who he meant. He started running again, his steps crunching on the gravel of the path until he reached the long dock that led out to the sandbar island at the far lagoon.

  Matt and Diego were right behind him when he got there. Grady and a cop were kneeling down beside a body. He quickly realized that the body was Dr. Amory.

  Grady looked up at him, his features solemn. “Someone hit him. Hard. And Adrianna… She’s breathing, but barely moving, just staring at the sky.”

  “Lara?” Brett said. “Lara and Meg?”

  “I don’t know,” Grady said. “I just don’t know.”

  Paramedics were running down the path toward them, carrying stretchers.

  “The woman on the dock has probably been injected with puffer fish poison,” Brett told them, fighting to control his panic.

  Where the hell were Meg and Lara?

  He knew the answer right away.

  Because he saw Miguel Gomez. The ghost was walking up and down by the platform, pointing.

  Pointing out to sea.

  A boat. The place had always been vulnerable from the bay.

  “We need the Coast Guard,” Matt said.

  “I’m getting Lieutenant Gunderson. This is his area,” Diego said.

  Brett couldn’t wait for the Coast Guard. “Grady, you’ve got a boat?”

  “Yeah, a little Donzi.”

  “Speedboat? Perfect. Where?” Brett asked.

  “There’s a small dock on the other side of the lockers,” Grady said. He pulled a massive ring of keys from his pocket. “It’s this one,” he said, and handed the whole thing to Brett.

  “I’m going with you,” Matt said, turning to Diego with a question in his eyes.

  “I’ll handle things here and come with the Coast Guard,” Diego said. “Who the hell are we after?”

  Brett looked quickly at Grady. “Who was with you at the end, Grady? More important, who wasn’t?”

  Grady appeared surprised. But even as he gave his answer, Brett turned to run for the Donzi. He was surprised; the answer hadn’t been who he had expected.

  * * *

  The boat was a twenty-five-footer with a small cabin holding a tiny kitchen, horseshoe table and sofa.

  Lara and Meg found themselves seated at the table while the vessel sped away from the dock. It was surprisingly fast, but she supposed she should have expected that.

  Grant Blackwood could afford anything he wanted.

  She hadn’t recognized his voice because the Southern charm had disappeared when he’d spoken to them at the dock; there had been no trace of his liquid accent. And when they’d gotten on the boat he’d produced a gun with a massive silencer, and he kept it pointed at them now, smiling all the while.

  “Good thing you decided to come along. Unlike your Dr. Amory. Decent guy, even if he didn’t accept Ely Taggerly’s offer. He was a smart man, and he could have gone far with us. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard. And Adrianna… Well, I’d have killed her without much regret. She was no one to me.”

  “So why haven’t you just shot us?” Meg asked him.

  “Because I have something else in mind. Poetic justice of a sort,” he said, then turned to Lara. “I am sorry about this, but, Lara… You and that damned dolphin. You just had to find those body parts and bring down the whole FBI. Well, I’m sorry, but yours are going to be the next ones they find. You found the dead in the water? Now you’ll be the dead in the water.”

  Another man—one of the crew who had manned the boat while Blackwood cracked Dr. Amory’s skull and poisoned Adrianna—came down to the cabin. He was about forty, Lara thought, Hispanic, medium build, with dark eyes and hair.

  “You’re a Barillo, aren’t you?” she asked. “You look like your father. I’ve seen his picture in the paper.”

  The man looked at Blackwood. “She knows.”

  “You know, sometimes you’re an idiot. She doesn’t know anything—or didn’t, till you confirmed her suspicion. It’s a good thing it doesn’t matter anymore, isn’t it?” Blackwood asked.

  “Tomas Barillo?” Meg asked.

  “The same, chica,” he told her, sweeping into a bow. He looked at Blackwood. “She’s FBI. Talk about being an idiot. The FBI will never let this go, not once you kill one of their own.”

  “The FBI can chase their tails forever, just like they’ve been doing all along. Once they lose cadaver girl here, they’ll have nothing,” Blackwood said. He slid next to Lara on the seat and laughed. “Such revulsion! Not all that much different from the look you gave me at the party when I asked you to take a walk, huh, little girl? Leave it to Sonia to let me know about Special Agent Cody. I wouldn’t have killed you for that, though. But you just had to keep finding evidence. All those body parts…”

  “I had to keep finding them because you kept providing them,” Lara said, surprised that she could talk, stunned that she wasn’t terrified. She was going to be killed. And Meg—who was powerless because she had asked her to drop her gun—was going to die with her.

  She looked at her friend. Meg wasn’t betraying fear. She wouldn’t, either.

  Meg was looking at Tomas Barillo. “I understand what you’re trying to do,” she said. “Your brother Anthony is dying of some neurological disease, and you’re trying to find a cure.”

  Tomas lowered his head, grinning. “You think I did this to save my brother?” he asked. “Yes, I need to keep him alive. But just barely. I need people to see him and think that he is alive and well.”

  “A puppet figurehead, while you take over his empire?” Lara asked.

  “Bingo,” Tomas said. “Lovely and smart. What a waste. We could play awhile, you know, Blackwood.”

  “No. No time for play,” Blackwood said. “Stop letting the little head rule the big one.”

  “Why are you part of this?” Lara asked Blackwood. She really did want to know. She also realized they were about to kill her and Meg, and it wouldn’t hurt to play for time. “You’re rich as Midas, and you earned all your money legitimately. You have everything.”

  Barillo started to laugh. “Everything? Let me tell you something. My partner here, Mr. Grant Blackwood, has been diagnosed with a neurological disease that will first steal his muscles, and then his organs, and then…he will die like men die from puffer fish poison. He will know that he is wasting away, that he will be nothing but a lump of meat.”

  “Shut up, you mongrel bastard!” Blackwood said. “Let’s do this! Ladies, get up and out on deck.”

  “Why should we make it easy for you?” Meg demanded, staying where she was.

  “Let’s see. I can drop you into the water to drown whole, or I can blow up your kneecaps first. Maybe the sharks will eat you before you have time to drown. I don’t care which. Your choice.”

  Meg looked at Lara, and Lara could read her mind.

  Do what he says. Every second of life buys us more opportunity to escape.

  Lara rose and pretended to catch her suit on the table.

  “Move!” Barillo said.

  “I’m trying!” she said.

  He ushered them both up on deck. There was a third man there—he’d been captaining the vessel.

  They hadn’t come as far as she had expected.

  Lara could see other boats closer to shore and, in the distance, downtown Miami. Sea Life wasn’t all that many miles behind them.

  It wouldn’t be an easy swim, but if he just threw them over the side…

  “G
et the rope,” Blackwood commanded Barillo.

  Barillo swore in Spanish but didn’t move.

  “We’re going to hog-tie you, little ladies,” Blackwood said, his accent suddenly heavy again. “Hog-tie you and leave you to the water until you’re nothing but bones.” He looked over to his partner. “Damn you, Barillo, get the rope!”

  “Get your own damned rope,” Barillo said.

  The two men were facing one another, testosterone blazing. Lara was closest to Blackwood, and as far as she knew, Barillo wasn’t armed.

  She didn’t really know what she was doing, but she also knew that they didn’t have any choice but to take this one chance. Hog-tied, they would die.

  She prayed that Meg was reading her mind as she suddenly slammed herself as hard as she could against Blackwood’s gun arm.

  The gun went flying, and she and Meg threw themselves over the rail into the water.

  They went deep…deeper…

  She saw bullets whizz by in the water, close…so close…

  * * *

  There were dozens of boats out on the water. Brett tried to think of what kind Grant Blackwood would have chosen.

  Nothing obviously expensive. Something very fast, though. He looked out and dismissed several right off the bat.

  “We’re looking for something the average boating enthusiast could afford,” Matt said, a pair of binoculars trained in the distance. “They must be holding them inside,” he murmured, a strained expression on his face. He looked at Brett. “I don’t know how the hell he disarmed Meg.”

  “Threatened her with someone else’s life,” Brett said flatly. He let out an oath of utter frustration. “I don’t know which damned boat to follow. That’s been his strategy all along. Kill the forgotten. Blend in with the everyman. Where the hell…?”

  His voice trailed off as the water beside them suddenly burst upward in a majestic display.

  It was Cocoa. She was soaring in front of them, surging ahead.

  She was guiding them.

  Showing them which way to go.

  “She’s right—just ahead!” Matt said. “There! There’s a man shooting into the water. Hell yes, it’s Blackwood.” He turned to Brett, who had hit the throttle hard.

  “The guy next to him is the man who came to my house with Anthony Barillo.”

  “Tomas,” Matt said. “It’s Tomas Barillo. Faster! They’re shooting. They’ll hit one of them soon if…”

  If they haven’t already.

  The words hung unspoken between them.

  * * *

  There was no way out of it.

  Lara was a good swimmer. Not the strongest ever, but good enough. So was Meg.

  But even if they’d been Olympic athletes, there was a point when a human being had to breathe. They had both kicked down deep—thirty feet, at least—but they were still close to the boat.

  But now her lungs were burning as if they were about to burst, simply explode.

  She had to have air. And she knew that when she surfaced, she would be seen, and for Grant Blackwood it would be like shooting ducks in a carnival gallery.

  She was at the point when a bullet seemed better than drowning when something huge whisked by her in the water. It took her a second to realize that it was Cocoa.

  As the dolphin swerved back toward her, Lara turned and saw Meg about ten feet away, about to shoot back toward the surface, too.

  Lara didn’t know if Cocoa could possibly understand what was needed.

  But she did.

  Lara grasped the dolphin’s dorsal fin and motioned toward Meg. She didn’t know if it was the correct hand signal; she simply didn’t know what else to do.

  But Cocoa did.

  She whisked her elegant, long body through the water to Meg’s side. The second Meg had also clasped Cocoa’s fin, the animal thrust her powerful body forward.

  They were rising and drawing away from the boat at the same time.

  * * *

  The two men aboard the boat were so busy looking into the water and shooting that they didn’t realize anything else was going on until the captain shouted something and immediately threw himself over the side of the boat.

  Brett didn’t think twice about ramming the vessel; he knew that Grady would readily sacrifice his Donzi, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass about the other boat.

  “We could give a warning—Oh, fuck it!” Matt said, bracing for the impact.

  He jerked the wheel, and the Donzi slammed sideways into the other boat with bone-jarring force, but Brett barely felt it. As the two boats splintered, he felt a bullet graze his shoulder.

  Blackwood had turned and was already shooting again, hiding behind the wall of the small cabin. Brett saw Matt leap onto the other boat’s deck and head for Barillo; meanwhile, another bullet soared past his head as he followed Matt’s lead and boarded the other boat. He had to find cover.

  At least now the men were firing at him and Matt, two people who could fire back.

  Brett rolled and got to his feet, sloshing in water as he made his way toward the cabin. Blackwood was still firing in the direction where he’d been. All he had to do was circle around behind Blackwood and take him by surprise.

  The boat was listing heavily. Brett had nearly made it all the way around the cabin when a wave sloshed over the side and the boat began to capsize. He tried to catch himself, but he was thrown into the water, and his Glock went flying.

  He pitched downward and instinctively scissored his legs hard to head back to the surface.

  Blackwood had been thrown into the salty waves just as he had—but Blackwood still had his gun.

  The man smiled at him and aimed.

  He never fired.

  It was as if a gray torpedo rammed the man, hard and sure. Blackwood seemed to fly through the water, his mouth opened in a scream of pain.

  A dolphin!

  Cocoa was there, saving his life.

  He shot up to the surface for a breath. Twenty feet away, he saw Blackwood surface, gurgling and screaming in pain, thrashing desperately to stay afloat.

  He would go after Blackwood. But not until…

  “Brett!”

  It was Lara, just a few feet away, swimming strongly toward him. He drove toward her and threw his arms around her, and they both began to sink as he caught her to him for a fierce, salty kiss, then kicked hard, propelling them both back up.

  “Meg?” he asked anxiously.

  “Fine,” she assured him. “Blackwood?”

  “Still alive. I’ll go get him,” Brett said. “I’d like to kill him.”

  “Don’t do that,” Lara said. “He got involved because he’s dying from something neurological, too. Let him rot away with it. Serves him right for thinking he could kill others to cure himself.”

  He left Lara treading water by the ruins of the two boats and made his way to Blackwood. The man bellowed and tried to move away, but he was clearly in pain and finding it hard to breathe; Cocoa had evidently broken several of his ribs.

  As Brett shook his head and closed in on the man, he saw that the Coast Guard cutter, with Diego and Lieutenant Gunderson at the bow, had nearly reached them.

  “Grant Blackwood, you are under arrest,” he said, and gripped the man in a lifesaving hold.

  Blackwood truly deserved to live until he met the agony of his natural end.

  EPILOGUE

  Brett had never really thought of his house as a home, but in the weeks since the arrests of Blackwood and Tomas Barillo, Lara had taken to staying at his place.

  And since Grady had insisted that she take a short break from work, she had been able to make it something like her own home, too.

  Little things changed the place.

  Like
the flowers she liked to have in the house, the pictures of the parents she’d lost and the aunt who had raised her, pictures of her and Meg and more. There was also the scent of her soap and shampoo and perfume, lingering lightly and teasingly on the air.

  And major things changed it.

  Like waking up to find that she was beside him. And realizing why he’d cared so much about Miguel and Maria. They’d had what he’d always wanted: the knowledge that you wanted to wake up that way every single day for the rest of your life.

  Because his house had become a home, he had Grady, Rick and Adrianna over, along with Diego, Meg and Matt, on the day that Adrianna and Dr. Amory were released from the hospital. He felt they deserved the best explanation he and his fellow agents could give.

  They had a barbecue with fish and meat, salads, corn on the cob and key lime pie for dessert. And afterward they sat in the back and watched the sun set and the moon rise as they talked.

  Grady shook his head in puzzlement. “How on earth did Grant Blackwood meet up with Tomas Barillo?”

  “At the hospital,” Brett said. “Grant was in the process of discovering that he was going to rot away for the next few years and then die. Tomas Barillo was there with Anthony, learning that his brother might not have long to live and stewing in the knowledge that he himself didn’t command enough respect from the rank and file to take control once his brother was dead. It would be nice to think that Tomas just wanted his brother to live. He didn’t. He was afraid that when Anthony died, the ‘family’ would fall apart, leaving him with nothing.

  “Blackwood knew about experiments that had been going on, using monkeys, in which researchers were working on cures for Parkinson’s, MS and other neurological diseases. They’d had some success making use of the body’s own chemicals to at least ameliorate some of the symptoms.”

  “Tomas Barillo had hired chemists and biologists to look into uses for puffer fish toxin,” Matt said. “They’re all under arrest now, but most of them were kept pretty much in the dark. They must have suspected that some of their work was being used in less than legitimate ways, but they were being paid—and they were afraid. Their motto was pretty much ‘act stupid, receive a nice income and live.’ It’s self-defense when you see people being killed all around you.”