“Arnold.”
He heard his name and thought that his kids might be right, that his inertia really was bringing on some kind of mental-deterioration disease. It had sounded just as if Randy had called his name.
He turned.
And to his amazement, Randy was there.
“Randy?”
He’d seen the man in his coffin just three months ago.
But he was standing there, as hale and hearty as ever. Well, maybe not hale and hearty. His color was awful.
As if he’d been in the grave for three months.
And his face... Something was wrong with his face. It didn’t really move. It was as if he didn’t have any expression—couldn’t show any emotions—at all.
“Randy?” Arnold repeated. He invented an explanation in his head for what might have happened. The family had pretended that he was dead. They’d buried some kind of an effigy. Why? Something to do with money, having money, needing money... They’d kept Randy a prisoner down in the basement, which would explain his awful color, while they spent their ill-gotten inheritance.
And now he’d escaped. Except that he was...confused, probably from being in solitary confinement for months.
“Randy, yes, it’s me, Arnold.”
He started toward Randy, arms out to embrace him, to assure him that he could make everything okay. He would take care of Randy, and his family would become his old friend’s family, too.
He dimly heard the sound of the Metrorail as he reflected, still stunned, that he really was seeing his old friend again.
He didn’t have to walk all the way to Randy, because Randy was coming at him. Coming like a bull.
Randy slammed into him and sent him flying backward onto the tracks.
And Arnold was still so stunned that he never knew what hit him.
He was dead within seconds of his impact with the arriving train, dead long before his broken body fell to the ground far below the elevated platform.
5
There weren’t many good things to be said about finding a human head, Lara thought, although at least they had assumed the man was already dead, and Agent Cody believed that finding the head meant they would have a better chance of finding the killer. Rick called Grady to let him know they’d found what they were looking for, and Grady insisted that she go home, especially given her long night at the party and the stress of the morning’s discovery.
She barely saw Special Agent Brett Cody after the find. Other divers were headed to their location to continue the search, while Agents Cody and Diego headed back to shore with her and Rick—and their gruesome evidence. She gathered that more pieces of the victim were found—how many, she didn’t know, nor was she sure she wanted to.
When Cocoa seemed set, following the cutter home just as she’d followed it out to the bay, Lara sat in the galley with Rick, drinking the very decent cup of coffee one of the crew members had brought her.
“Dolphins,” Rick said. “They’re the most amazing creatures. I love our dolphins, and I wish people understood how much they enjoy working with us. The research we do is as much fun for us as it is enlightening for us, and even the entertainment side of things is enjoyable for them. They like people. Our guys, they’re the smartest. That’s why Cocoa could do this.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve done extensive training with them. They recognize far more of what we say than we do of what they ‘say’—though we do recognize what many of the sounds they make mean,” Rick told her. “You’ll learn more the longer you stay with us. They can actually count. They can imitate one another. You’ve already seen how they can find one kind of object versus another. And they know and prefer certain people, beyond a doubt. You should see the lagoons when Grady goes in. They flock around him like puppies. You could be a trainer, you know. Although you’d better not tell Grady I said that, because you’re good at what you’re doing already and we certainly need someone in that position.”
“Well, thank you,” Lara said, pleased by the unexpected compliment.
“Your work with Cocoa today was pretty amazing, though,” he said.
“Well,” she murmured drily, “hopefully we won’t be doing this often.”
“It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever worked with the dolphins in this capacity,” Rick said, then nodded toward the ladder to the deck.
Lieutenant Gunderson, who was captaining their cutter, was coming down. He nodded to the two of them and headed to the coffeepot. He poured himself a cup the way a man might pour himself a scotch after a trying day. His back was to them for a long minute before he turned around.
“Lieutenant, has something happened?” Rick asked.
Gunderson was about fifty, with steel-gray hair. He wore his uniform with dignity. He looked at them, shook his head, then let out a long sigh. “The press is at it again. Guess these days I should say the media is at it again.”
“In what way?” Lara asked.
“You’ll hear about it soon enough. A man was killed today. Thrown in front of a Metrorail train, body went flying down to the ground. Hope it was fast—his neck and half his bones were broken. Just happened an hour or so ago, but there were kids on the platform that saw the whole thing. They twitted or whatever it is that kids do, and the information was all over the place. Worst thing is, they described the man who killed the guy.”
“How can that be a bad thing?” Rick asked. “Won’t the police be glad to have eyewitness descriptions of the killer?”
Lieutenant Gunderson didn’t have a chance to answer them; others were coming down the ladder, including Diego McCullough and Brett Cody.
“Mike the chicken,” Diego was saying dully.
“What, another dead man rose to commit murder? You’re not really falling for that zombie crap, are you? Because—” Brett asked him. Suddenly he stopped, as if realizing others were listening.
One of the Coast Guard crew said, “I’ll get coffee for everyone.”
“Thank you, Seaman,” Lieutenant Gunderson said, nodding his approval.
Lara felt a strange tightening in the pit of her stomach. “What happened?” she asked. “What are you all talking about? Apparently it’s already all over the media, so you might as well tell us.”
“A man was killed when he was about to get on the Metrorail,” Agent Cody explained. “There were three teenaged boys on the platform at the time. They saw the killer go after the guy. They described him to a police sketch artist, and apparently the drawing looked just like a friend of the victim’s who died three months ago. So naturally the media are going on about a zombie king sending zombie henchmen out to kill for him.”
“It may not be zombies, but something is sure as hell going on,” Diego said, shaking his head and sliding into the seat next to Lara.
“Something we’ll nip in the bud. I’ve asked that they start making arrangements to exhume the dead friend,” Brett Cody said.
“Remember, we know Miguel Gomez was supposedly dead, too,” Diego reminded him.
“Exhumation,” Brett said. “Simplest way to know one way or another if the guy has been in his grave for three months or not.”
“How did the friend die?” Lara asked. “Natural causes or...?”
Brett looked directly at her. “Heart failure. Died at the hospital. And as soon as we’re back, I’ll be speaking with the doctor who signed the death certificate—and the funeral home where his remains were sent.” He was quiet for a moment. “And those boys at the Metrorail station,” he added.
“If it’s just a drawing—even though it was done by a police artist—couldn’t it resemble someone but not be him?” Lara asked.
Diego looked at her. “It could, but right before the murder, one of the boys was taking a selfie, and the killer was caught on t
he kid’s phone.”
“Not a clear image,” Brett said.
“We haven’t seen it yet,” Diego reminded him.
Brett shrugged.
“I can only imagine what you and the police will be dealing with,” Gunderson said. He sighed and shook his head. “Well, we’re almost back, but of course we’re at your disposal again any time you need us.” He turned to Brett and asked, “You’ll see to the proper transfer of the remains?”
“Dr. Phil Kinny, the ME, will be meeting us at the dock,” Brett said.
Rick rose. “Time for us to see to our girl, Lara. Gentlemen, thank you.”
She rose, too, thanked the officers for their help and accepted their thanks in return, then followed Rick when he dived cleanly from the boat to join Cocoa. Together the three of them swam back toward the gate, which had been opened for them, and into the lagoon. Cocoa swept past Lara, then came back and swam through with her. Nearing the platform, Lara found the shallows and stood on one of the slippery steps, stroking Cocoa. She watched as the cutter slid up next to the farthest platform, allowing Brett and Diego to disembark. She noticed a group waiting for them on the platform. Men in suits and white coats. One official-looking man in a dark suit immediately fell into step with the two agents; she assumed he was their superior.
They left quickly, and Lara turned her attention to what was going on at the center, which had reopened to the public that morning. Several school classes were there, and Adrianna was in one of the middle lagoons conducting a dolphin swim with special-needs children. Other visitors were eating at the picnic tables by the café.
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 fo
r 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 perfect 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.