Читать книгу The Forgotten - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 9

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A bottlenose dolphin leaped majestically out of the water, crystal droplets raining down around it in the morning sun. It splashed as it landed, then appeared almost to fly as it raced around the lagoon, thrusting itself out of the water with the power of its fins and flukes, all the while staring straight at Lara Mayhew. The dolphin emitted a chattering sound, something delightfully akin to laughter.

Lara smiled at the sight and sound of the dolphin, a beautiful female estimated to be about ten years old and named Cocoa. Rick Laramie, the head dolphin trainer, had told Lara on an earlier visit that Cocoa was performing for her and “speaking” to her simply because she had chosen to, that she’d decided she liked Lara. That was fine with Lara. She liked Cocoa, too, and was fascinated by her. Cocoa was one of the facility’s rescue dolphins. She’d been attacked by a shark and been near death when she was brought to Sea Life. Now it seemed she knew she owed her life to the facility. She was as friendly as a family pet. Today Rick was taking her for her first dolphin swim and training experience, and she was glad it was going to be with Cocoa.

Rick hadn’t shown up yet, but Lara knew she was early. She was delighted just to be there, enjoying the sunlight beneath a beautiful blue summer sky, feeling the warmth of the day heat her skin. No one at the facility was up yet, in fact. It was just after six thirty. In another half hour the cooks and cashiers who ran the small café would arrive, and a few minutes after that the rest of the staff would come wandering in. The facility opened to the public for seven hours each day, but the crux of the work here was research and education, not entertainment. They didn’t study dolphin disease and physiology, or perform necropsies or anything like that; they focused on training, learning more about dolphin habits and intelligence with each passing season.

Which, of course, was expensive. And why Grady Miller, one of the three founders of the Sea Life Center, had decided that, like other sea mammal research facilities, they would educate the public on dolphins, arranging for playtimes, dolphin swims and other trainer-conducted interactions. While Rick was the head trainer here, Grady was managing director. The facility had been a nonprofit research institute for years, and Grady was loved and respected by the dolphins as well as all of his coworkers. She’d seen him in the water with the dolphins; they had all rushed to him like giant wet puppies, eager to greet him, eager to have him stroke them along their backs and fins, eager for his kind words. He’d purchased the property and the docks from the previous owners—filmmakers who’d trained dolphins to perform for the camera—and continued working with the dolphins they’d left behind, simply loving and being fascinated by the creatures. That had been almost thirty years ago. He’d started with two partners. Willem Rodriguez had provided financing, and Peg Walton worked with him day-to-day. Peg had passed away a few years ago, and now Grady essentially ran it on his own. The facility was now far larger than when it had been founded, and it was thriving, with its research featured in the most influential scientific publications.

They were supported by people from around the world, rich and poor alike. Their contributors included people who “adopted” a dolphin for a small donation and “sustainers” who, in return for their substantial support, were allowed to see some of the research as it was being conducted and were invited to attend a picnic-style fete each year, as well as being welcomed to various small meetings where the center’s newest findings were presented. There was, in fact, a dinner planned for that evening. It would be Lara’s first chance to attend such a special occasion, because there weren’t many of them, and as a new employee she was lucky to find one happening so soon after she was hired. At Sea Life, every contributor was appreciated, and with nonprofit enterprises continually reliant on the philanthropy of others, it was important to always let all their contributors know how much they were valued. And tonight a few of their major supporters would be on hand. Lara didn’t know much about Grant Blackwood of Eden Industries or Ely Taggerly of Taggerly Pharmaceuticals. She did know that Mason Martinez, CEO of Good Health Miami, had a nationwide reputation for his healthful lifestyle clinics and the preventive medicine practiced there. She was also familiar with Sonia Larson of Sonia Fashions.

In fact, she owned a number of Sonia’s pieces, trendy business fashions that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. She was anxious to meet the woman, along with all the others, of course.

Lara’s job tonight was to seat everyone and see that they were happy with the food and everyone had a good time while the trainers and scientists talked about their research and results. It hardly seemed like work.

And then there was the day-to-day here at Sea Life. Always time to walk around the lagoons and talk to the dolphins.

Lara felt she’d truly found a haven. She loved all the dolphins—but especially Cocoa.

Cocoa was in the front left lagoon that day, her usual location, though occasionally she was shifted to a different lagoon for training purposes. There were six underwater enclosures for the dolphins at the facility, front, right and left, and then two more behind each of those, with a sandbar-like island at the rear that more or less created a back street to approach the lagoons. The last two were the largest, where the adolescent males were kept. They could be rough when they played, just like teenage boys, and since two of the females had calves that were just a few months old, they were happiest away from the antics of the “boys.” The lagoons were all connected via underwater gates so the dolphins could be moved around for training and medical purposes.

Each lagoon had a floating dock for trainers, medical personal and the visitors who were part of a swim program, as well as a floating platform farther out in the water.

Lara sat down on the dock. “Good morning, Cocoa!” she called.

The dolphin made that clicking sound again, disappeared for a minute, then came up near Lara in a magnificent leap and welcomed her with a showering spray of seawater.

Lara laughed. “Yes, yes, you’re lovely and talented, and that actually felt very good. Love the sun, but it is warm. That water felt great. This is such a beautiful day,” she said.

And it really was. Stunningly beautiful. The sun was shining, making the water sparkle. A breeze was drifting in off the bay, rustling the palms and sea grape trees that grew along the stone paths and by the docks. By afternoon it would be hot, and they might be caught by one or more of the torrential storms that could hit the area in the summer and into the fall. But right now, it was simply beautiful. The sky was a true bright blue; the water was like a sea of diamonds.

The move to Miami had been a good idea.

She was actually living in Coconut Grove, an area of the city that was historically artsy, with a “downtown” that was hopping until what seemed like all hours of the morning. It was a ten-minute hop over to the research facility, which was situated on a small private road off one of the bridges that connected the city with Miami Beach, which meant it was near other attractions, such as downtown Miami, the Art and Design District, South Beach, the Port of Miami, Jungle Island and the Children’s Museum. While the area surrounding Sea Life was busy and modern, the facility itself had an old-time charm. The foliage was a little wild and ragged, iguanas roamed freely, and birds were everywhere. The best of both worlds.

And I so desperately needed the change, she thought.

Yes—a complete change. She had even started going by her mother’s maiden name, Ainsworth. The trauma she had fled had been one thing; she was strong. The constant publicity had been another. Ironic, since media was what she had done as a congressional assistant—and was mainly what she was still doing now. Of course, her boss, Grady Miller, knew who she was and what she had fled from. He was supportive and wonderful, and she trusted him completely.

And why wouldn’t she? Grady was friends with Adam Harrison, executive director of the Krewe of Hunters, her best friend’s unit at the FBI. Without Meg Murray and her unit, Lara wouldn’t have survived.

“Hey!” Rick called to her, heading from the service building with a cooler filled with fish. “You’re here bright and early.”

“I understand that this is very special. That even employees don’t get free swims all that often,” Lara told him, grinning.

She liked Rick; he was probably about fifty, weathered from years in the sun, slim and fit. He was married to Adrianna, another of the trainers. She had actually met Adrianna first, right here, just two years ago when she had been at her previous job, doing media for then-congressman Ian Walker. Due to a series of murders in Washington, DC, with which Walker had been involved—indirectly, or so he alleged—he was no longer a congressman.

Murders—and Lara’s own kidnapping and imprisonment, naked and starving, in the dank underground of an abandoned gristmill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

But she had survived, and now she was here, building a new life. Rick knew all about her past; he also knew that she’d survived mainly because of the ingenuity of a friend who worked for the FBI, and that she’d received extensive therapy since. To be honest, she hadn’t felt that she’d needed all the therapy; she’d come out of the experience grateful for her life, and furious with anyone who would commit atrocities and murder for personal gain. The henchman who had actually carried out the vile acts was, she was convinced, truly certifiably crazy, but that didn’t mean she was unhappy about the fact that he was going to rot in jail for the rest of his life, or that the woman whose manipulative will had set him on his murderous course would rot along with him.

“Well, Lara, you should definitely be in the water with these babies,” Rick said. “There’s nothing in the world like getting to know Cocoa and her buds. We bring in wounded soldiers, autistic kids—you name it. This interaction is good for whatever ails you.”

“Rick,” she told him firmly, “I’m absolutely fine, and I don’t want people tiptoeing around me. I’m here to do a bang-up job with Sea Life’s PR. Not that I’m not beyond excited to get to know Cocoa better.”

“Okay, we’ll start our training session on the platform,” he told her. “And then we’ll get in the water. No bull, though. I’ll kick you out in two seconds if I don’t think you’re going to be a good fit with the dolphins, okay?”

“Okay.”

From the platform, Rick began to teach her the hand signals that Cocoa knew. Lara dutifully imitated every sign Rick made, and Cocoa responded like a champ. She learned from Rick about the vitamins they gave to their dolphins to compensate because they didn’t hunt their fish from the wild, and how they were given freshwater, too, something they usually got from their fish—and still did—but this ensured that their intake was sufficient, and they loved it. The biggest issue was trust, Rick told her. No dolphin was forced to perform or work—ever, under any circumstances.

“How on earth do they learn what a hand signal means to begin with?” Lara asked. “I mean, it’s not like you can explain, ‘Hey, when I raise my hand like this, I want you to make that chattering noise while you back up on your flukes.’”

Rick grinned. “We use targets, and it’s a long process—except for sometimes when we work with the calves and they just follow their moms. Dolphins are social creatures, and they’re curious about us, too. They like interaction, and they love learning. When the trainer blows a whistle after a task, it’s to tell the dolphin that he, or she, did it properly. It’s called positive reinforcement, and I don’t know of any facility that uses anything else. When the dolphin hears the whistle, he knows to come to the trainer for a reward. It may be fish, like we’ve been using today. Sometimes it’s a toy and sometimes it’s a lot of stroking. Dolphins are mammals. They’re affectionate. Oddly enough, a lot like aquatic dogs, but even smarter. Smart as all get-out. I love working with them. I’d honestly rather be doing what I’m doing than be a millionaire working on Wall Street. I wake up happy every day, and I get to work in paradise, with my friends and these amazing creatures. You’re truly going to love it here.”

“I already love it,” she assured him. “I knew I would.”

She did love what she was doing. The first week she’d started, half of her media work had been planning out her own press spin, getting the media to get past her move to Miami and the Sea Life Center and concentrate on the dolphins and the work being done here. She thought she’d handled it very well. The “news” was always fickle; a high-profile celebrity had been involved in a sex scandal, a policeman in Oregon had been accused of taking bribes from prostitutes and the world had quickly begun to forget her. In the past three weeks she had been able to work with a society that arranged dolphin interactions for autistic children, adults and children with Down syndrome and an organization involved with veterans’ affairs and helping wounded servicemen and women. Writing press releases that dealt with the good things going on in the world wasn’t like working at all.

It was a bit more of a challenge to politely fend off reality-show producers or convince the rich and famous that they had to go by the same rules here as everyone else. No one was allowed to just hop in and play with the dolphins; trainers always called the shots. And, of course, no one bossed a dolphin around; if a dolphin didn’t want to play, it didn’t have to play. Each animal could escape human interaction if and when it chose to do so. There was no drama. No one interviewed anyone without the express permission of Willem Rodriguez, who had provided Grady with the financing to buy the place a quarter of a century ago. Willem had used his business savvy in the years since then to make Sea Life what it was now: an excellently run nonprofit with a top staff of trainers and veterinarians. It was one of the most important aquatic mammal centers in the States, possibly the world.

“Ready to get in the water?” Rick asked her.

“You bet!”

Lara slid in; Rick stayed on the dock.

“You’re not coming in?” she asked him.

“No, I’ve had all kinds of dorsal tows in my day. I’m going to teach you how to get one when you need one, though, whether you’re in the water or you’re on the platform, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Swim out into the center of the lagoon,” he told her. “You’ve seen this done, so you know the hand signal. Give that signal and Cocoa will come get you. Just grasp onto her dorsal fin and go for a ride!”

Lara swam out. The day was heating up; the water was still deliciously cool. This was so entirely different from what she had left behind.

Life was good.

* * *

There was something strangely but beautifully surreal about the sight of Maria Gianni Gomez in the banyan tree.

It was almost as if she’d been posed.

Her arms were spread out almost gently, forming a casual arc over her head. Her face was turned slightly to the right.

Her eyes were open.

She was dressed in a flowing white robe. A small branch lay over her lower body, as if set there by a modest and benign hand that might have reached down with ethereal care. The great banyan with its reaching, twisting roots had grown in such a way that the center, where Maria lay, might have been scooped out to create a bed for her.

If it weren’t that death was so visible in her open eyes, she could have been a model posing for any one of the sometimes very strange commercial shoots that took place in the notoriously and historically bohemian section of Miami.

Brett Cody was standing next to his partner, Diego McCullough, and looking up at the tree, studying the body where it lay.

“Ladder?” he asked Diego.

“One of the Miami-Dade cops went to get one. He’ll be right here, along with the medical examiner,” Diego said. “You got here fast,” he noted.

“We’re not all that far from Virginia Street,” he reminded Diego. He lived right down from the mall that was more or less central to the area, almost walking distance to this North Grove area of nicer homes. “You got here pretty quick yourself.”

Diego nodded. “I was at the coffee shop,” he said glumly. “This is just...so wrong.”

“She should have been protected,” Brett said, a feeling of deep anger sweeping over him. But someone out there had killed Miguel—who, after all, had made his living in the drug trade, where violence was common—and now had come after his widow, it appeared.

But how?

“She had a state-of-the-art alarm system and steel bolts on the doors, and there’s no sign of forced entry,” Diego said.

“We need to talk to the fed who was duty in front of the house when it happened,” Brett said. “We knew Miguel’s killers might think she knew too much, so we were keeping a watch on her.”

“He thought she jumped,” Diego told him. “She was deeply depressed, devastated, after Miguel’s murder. You don’t think that’s possible?”

“No,” Brett said quickly. Too harshly. He understood how the officer might have gotten that impression; the tree was fairly close to the master bedroom balcony, which overlooked the pool and the patio area.

But, Brett was certain, no matter what kind of an athlete she might have been when she was young, there was no way she could have jumped from the balcony and wound up where she was.

It would have been possible, however, for someone to throw her over and cause her to land exactly where she had.

“Hey, I know how you feel about this one, how much you wish you could have seen it through,” Diego said quietly. “But if you want to keep the peace, don’t tear into the officer on duty.”

“Sorry,” Brett said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bark like that. And I don’t blame the agent. He didn’t see anyone go by, and should someone have gotten past him, the house has alarms and a top-of-the-line security system. No one broke into that house. How the hell she was killed, I can’t begin to imagine. Unless Miguel has a clone running around somewhere—a clone with his fingerprints and his memories.”

They were both quiet for a minute, looking at one another.

“He was burned beyond forensic recognition,” Diego reminded Brett. “No DNA left, even in the teeth or the bones.”

“Identified by the melted remains of his jewelry, and the fact that we saw him get out of his car and go inside, the only person in there,” Brett said thoughtfully.

“Maybe Miguel wasn’t killed in that oil-dump conflagration,” Diego suggested.

Brett shook his head thoughtfully. “Those were definitely Miguel’s things forensics took from the fire. And Miguel truly loved Maria. There’s no way on God’s earth that he would have killed his wife. Even if he didn’t die in the fire,” he added.

They both turned at the sound of footsteps. A uniformed police officer was hurrying over with a ladder. Dr. Phil Kinny, medical examiner, was just behind, followed by two forensic teams, one from the local Miami office of the FBI and one from the Miami-Dade homicide division.

“Let me get a quick look up the ladder first, okay?” Brett called to Phil.

“As you wish,” Phil told him. “I’m here, ready whenever. I can only tell you how she died. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure out how she got in that tree.”

“Thanks,” Brett said.

The ladder was set carefully next to the tree; Brett nodded his appreciation to the young officer ready to steady it. Brett could have climbed the tree without it, but he was trying to maintain a level of professionalism. Once he had studied Maria Gomez in situ, photographers would chronicle everything before Phil started his exam and told them the preliminary time of death and whatever he could about the injuries that had presumably killed her.

Studying the woman, Brett felt again the terrible pang of guilt about the entire Gomez affair. He hadn’t been assigned to the Barillo crime case; other agents and officers—both the feds and local law enforcement—had worked it for years. When Miguel Gomez had come to him, he’d made a point of going undercover to meet the family and find out what was going on, what Miguel had done and what he could give the authorities.

Basically, Miguel had been like a slave laborer, doing whatever his boss told him to do, letting them use his property, forced into the crimes he’d committed. He’d been minding his own business in a family where distant relatives had fallen prey to the lure of money and rewards. It wasn’t always easy for newcomers to trust in the United States government. Miguel’s son had been approached leaving school by a couple of Barillo’s toughs and warned about what happened when the “family”—meaning Spanish-speaking immigrants—didn’t work together.

Nothing had happened to the boy, but Miguel had known that his son being threatened meant that he was supposed to play the game. Only later had he learned that Barillo prided himself on never going after innocent family members, and by then it was too late. He was in too deep.

He had done so for years. Then he had seen a friend who had avoided running “errands” for the family wind up in a one-car fatal crash. Miguel had realized that he might be doing as he was told, but it was impossible to know when you might do the wrong thing, even by accident, and wind up in a car crash—or worse, have one of your children wind up dead, despite the fact that word on the street was that Barillo prided himself on “taking care of” only those who were guilty of betraying the family, never wives or children.

Oddly enough, rumor had it that Barillo’s own children weren’t part of the family. He had two sons and a daughter. They were all seeking advanced degrees at some of the best schools in the nation.

He wanted a different life for them.

Miguel had found Brett by accident; he’d seen him in the street when the FBI had busted a small crew who had dumped five Cuban refugees off the coast in a rubber tube. Miraculously, the refugees had made it. Diego and Brett had been watching the group, and they had talked a terrified mother into identifying the suspects who had taken their life savings and then deserted them to die at sea. Brett and Diego had found the perpetrators because of her tip and taken them down. The United States Marshals had stepped in; the Cuban mother was now living safely with her family in New Mexico, all of them under new government-supplied identities.

Brett had liked Miguel, who’d stopped to talk to him after the takedown, and he’d known that the Barillo cartel had been a thorn in the side of South Florida law enforcement for a very long time, but he wasn’t himself involved in the investigation. The case, and responsibility for Miguel’s safety, had gone to Herman Bryant, head of the task force pursuing Barillo and his “family,” a large group of Central and South American, island and American criminals whose cunning and power rivaled those of the Mafia in its heyday. Herman had a task force of two units, twelve agents, working the ongoing investigation, two of those men undercover. The Barillo family was extensive and dealt with human trafficking, illegal immigration, prostitution, firearms and drugs. Every federal, state, county and city law enforcement agency was kept alerted to their movements.

The frequent discovery of the family’s victims’ mutilated remains reminded them all that Barillo and his crew stopped at nothing to reach their goals, following up threats and intimidation with stunningly effective violence. The men who had infiltrated had reported back that loyalty to Barillo was all. Traitors were executed; the rule was immutable and simple.

But though Special Agent in Charge Herman Bryant was good at his job, and had managed to prevent murders, drug sales and more, so far they had been unable to crack the back of the giant beast. Bryant was a veteran of drug wars around the world; he’d dealt with cases from Brazil to the deepest sectors of China, interacting with local law enforcement agencies along the way. Brett had been certain that Miguel had been in good hands.

After Miguel’s murder, Bryant had urged Maria to make an excuse to leave Miami, or to move in with her children. When she’d refused, he had kept men watching her house. He had done all the right things.

Even though it didn’t really fit the Barillo methods for family to be killed—especially not with Miguel already dead.

Miguel had worn a wire the day he’d been killed.

Despite that, when he’d headed into his own warehouse before meeting with members of the Barillo family, he’d been killed. When—supposedly—he’d been early and alone. None of the officers watching had heard anything—no voices other than Miguel’s—before the warehouse had burst into flames so strong and high that the conflagration had been visible miles away. Clearly his boss had suspected he was a traitor and had taken care of things in his own violent way.

Miguel had been seen entering the building; no one else had been there.

It hadn’t seemed much of a question that the remnants of bone that had been found had belonged to Miguel Gomez. Melted fragments of the man’s watch had been found mixed in with the charred remains along with his signet ring, the initials still partially visible. There had been no reason to doubt that the man was dead.

But there must have been someone else in the warehouse who the officers hadn’t seen, who had, perhaps, been there waiting, staying when others had left for the day. Someone who was already there when Miguel first arrived and who had then set off a detonator to ignite the fire, and then had escaped unseen in the chaos.

That person had never been found, though, nor had he left any clues they could trace. The most logical conclusion had been that Miguel had been killed. After all, he certainly hadn’t come home after the fire.

It must have been that person who was killed, though how Miguel’s effects had come to be there was still a mystery. It would have been easy to misidentify the body, though, since there truly hadn’t been anything useful left for the medical examiner to work with.

And now Maria, too, was dead. Brett had liked her. She’d been a slim, fit, energetic woman in her late forties; there had been nothing plastic about her. Miguel had loved her with all his heart. He’d told Brett once that they’d met, dated about two weeks, then eloped. So quickly? Brett had asked. And Miguel had told him, “I knew—I just knew. And it didn’t matter how long we’d been together or what others thought. I knew that I would love her forever.”

Maria had been wonderful. She’d had warm brown eyes and a few wrinkles, no doubt the result of her quick smile, and a great heart. From the ladder, Brett observed her and made mental notes to help in his investigation. Her head was at an angle, and he had a feeling her neck was broken. One arm looked broken, as well.

There was nothing in her hands, as far as he could see. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup; it appeared she had been just about to go to bed when...

She looked so alive—except that she was dead, of course.

Instinct told him that she had seen her killer coming.

Her open, glazed eyes showed disbelief and pure terror, and he couldn’t help wondering just who she had seen before she died to put that look in her eyes.

“Anything?” Diego called to him.

“Looks as if she was tossed off the balcony like a rag doll. As if she died when she hit the tree,” Brett said.

“We’ll scrape beneath her nails,” Phil said. “If we’re lucky, she got a piece of her attacker.”

Brett climbed down from the ladder.

Diego set a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t take this on yourself, mi amigo,” he said. He had been born in Miami and grown up with English as his first language, but he liked to switch to Spanish when he thought the Spanish words sounded more “real” or appropriate. “Mi amigo,” he had once told Brett, was warmer than “my friend,” with more real meaning.

“I’m not,” Brett said, but he knew that he was lying. “Diego, her eyes—you should see the look in her eyes.”

“She was murdered, Brett, of course she has a look in her eyes.” Diego was quiet for a minute. “We’re lucky we got here before the birds,” he added softly.

Brett had to agree. He’d come across victims who had been hidden by nature before. Nature wasn’t gentle on a corpse.

“There’s just something disturbing about her,” Brett said.

“Yeah, she’s dead.”

Brett looked at Diego, trying not to show his aggravation at his partner’s callous comment, but then he saw that Diego was staring up at the tree, obviously upset by Maria’s death himself.

Diego looked at Brett. “So we’re going to be lead on this? Despite Bryant and his crew having been on the Barillo thing so long?”

“Bryant himself suggested to the powers that be that we take this on. I have to keep him advised, of course. He felt I deserved in on it. His team wouldn’t have had a lot of the information they used to bust a number of Barillo’s underlings if it hadn’t been for Miguel. They were all upset when he died, and not only because they lost a source, though I know that this will really affect Bryant and the team professionally, too. They were really hoping Miguel’s info could give them enough to arrest Barillo, or at least his immediate lieutenants.”

“We will find who did this,” Diego assured him.

Brett nodded. “Yes, we will. I’m going to speak with the agent who was watching the house.”

Diego nodded back. “I’m going to step out on the street, see if I can find anyone who saw anything odd, do a bit of canvassing.”

“Great. By the time we finish we can see if the forensic teams came up with anything.”

“I think we know who did this—the same people who murdered Miguel Gomez.”

Diego was probably right. But it was impossible to just go and arrest Barillo or his people. Barillo himself usually kept his hands clean. The man had been trained as a doctor in his native country, but he’d found crime far more profitable.

Brett followed Diego to the front of the beautiful old deco house. Some of the places around here were surrounded by big wood, stone or concrete walls. Not the Gomez home. The sides were fenced, as was the rear, but the front was open to the street.

Agent Bill Foley, who had been on duty in his car watching the house, was still by his car and staring up at the place. When he saw Brett coming toward him, his ruddy face grew even darker and he shook his head in self-disgust. He started speaking without even pausing to say hello.

“I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t on the phone, texting or even listening to music, Brett. I was watching that house. I don’t know how the hell anyone got inside. I tried to reach her on the phone for a prearranged check-in, but she didn’t answer. I went in and did a quick sweep and...no one. When I got upstairs and couldn’t find her I looked out, and I thought she’d jumped. She loved Miguel. She’d been depressed. Brett, I don’t know how the hell anyone got in there. If you don’t punch in the alarm code, a siren loud enough to wake the entire peninsula goes off.”

“Someone knew the password,” Brett said. “All we can do is theorize right now. Someone had the code—somehow. I don’t know. We’ll check into the alarm company, make sure they don’t have someone on the Barillo payroll. Someone could conceivably have come over the gate in the rear, lipped around through the foliage to the front door and then keyed in the entry code.”

“I don’t know how they got by me,” Bill told him.

“We’re canvassing the neighborhood,” Brett told him. “We’ll see if we can find anyone who saw anything unusual.”

Diego, he saw, was down the street, speaking with an elderly man who was walking a small mixed-breed dog. Diego motioned to him and he excused himself to Bill to join his partner.

Diego looked at Brett with a grim smile. “This is Mr. Claude Derby,” he said.

Brett nodded. “Special Agent Brett Cody, Mr. Derby. Thank you for speaking with us.”

“Of course,” the elderly man said.

Diego cleared his throat. “Mr. Derby says that he saw Miguel Gomez.”

Derby strenuously nodded. “It was right around dusk last night. I was out walking Rocko here. I saw him and said, ‘Miguel! Thank God—we all thought you were dead.’”

“Are you sure it was Miguel?” Brett asked.

“Of course I’m sure!” Derby said indignantly. “I’m old, but I’m not senile, at least not yet! And my eyesight is probably as good as yours, especially when I was standing as close to him as I am to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Brett said. “What did he say?”

“Well, he didn’t,” Derby told him. “I’ve never seen anyone act so strangely in my life. He just stood there, as if he was completely unaware of me. Like...like a zombie.”

“Like a zombie,” Diego repeated.

“Did he shuffle when he walked? Was his flesh rotting off?” Brett asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Derby said indignantly. “I’m not a fool, and you’ve seen too many movies. He just wasn’t right. It was as if he didn’t even know I was there, that I was talking to him. I’d say he totally ignored me, but I don’t think he really even saw me. It was weird. I figured maybe he was heading home, except he didn’t head for the front door. I thought maybe he was going around to the side door, that he wasn’t dead and the papers had had it all wrong. I figured he could be on some kind of medication that was making him spacey. Anyway, I figured he’d get home and his wife could deal with him. Rocko and I, we just kept walking.”

“Thank you, Mr. Derby, thank you very much,” Brett said, but some of his skepticism must have been evident.

Derby wagged a finger at him. “Listen, Mr. Whatever Special Agent, I’m telling you God’s truth. I’m as sane as you are, and I’m not in the habit of seeing zombies around every corner. I saw Miguel Gomez, and he was not himself, not to mention the fact that someone who was supposedly burned to ashes would have a hard time coming back as a zombie.”

“I agree with you completely, sir,” Brett assured him. “And I thank you for your help. I would like to ask you, though, not to speak with the media.”

“Not a problem,” Derby said. “Well, not for me, but I did tell my wife when she was headed to bingo, so I’m not sure who else knows that I saw Miguel by now. If you have any more questions, I live catty-corner across the street.”

Brett thanked him again and looked at Diego.

“Miguel Gomez is alive after all,” Diego said.

“And he killed his wife?” Brett said, puzzled. “I just can’t believe that Miguel Gomez would have killed the woman he loved so much.”

“Zombies kill anyone,” Diego said lightly.

Brett looked at his partner.

“Sorry,” Diego said. “But you know it’s going to hit the news. By now everyone at bingo knows that one way or another, Miguel came back from the dead, and if they don’t know by now that his wife’s been killed, they will soon. I’ll go try a few more houses, find out if anyone else saw Miguel.”

* * *

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.