The Cursed (11 page)

He heard it the second his doorknob turned. He hadn’t bothered to lock it, since there were only the two of them in the house, and he’d gone over every possible point of entry with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it was as secure as possible. Still, he reached over to the night table for the regulation Glock he carried. He kept his Smith & Wesson—his backup weapon of choice—tucked in his briefcase at night.

The door opened, and for a moment he saw Hannah O’Brien only as a dark silhouette created by the night lights in the hallway. Even in shadow, her hair seemed to shimmer. As his eyes adjusted and she came into focus, he found her somehow both appealing and vulnerable in bare feet and a long cotton T-shirt.

His hand relaxed, and he let go of the gun. He realized she was hesitating, presumably thinking he might be asleep.

“Hey,” he said.

“Oh, you’re still awake,” she said with relief.

“Yes, come on in.” His shorts were almost as good as bathing trunks. And he was covered with a sheet.

She turned the light on as she entered. The sudden blaze hurt his eyes for a second, and he blinked.

“Oh, sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay. What is it? Did you hear something?” he asked, frowning.

“No, I just woke up because...there’s something important I haven’t told you.”

“Oh?” he asked. There was that sharp tone in his voice again. He knew better than to use it with civilians. He winced. “Sorry. Please, sit,” he said, indicating the foot of the bed. “Tell me.”

“The thing is, it wouldn’t have made a difference before tonight. I mean, I wouldn’t have told you before tonight. Because I didn’t know you...well, you must know what it’s like to tell someone you’ve been chatting with a ghost. Anyway...he’s here. Not right now. But Jose Rodriguez came back. He was here this afternoon, and he wanted help. I told him I’d talk to Liam. He doesn’t have as easy a time as you seem to, talking with the dead, but he has seen and communicated with them. He wouldn’t have thought I was crazy. I left him a message, but he never got back to me. And then tonight...you don’t just see them, you can talk to them like I can. I was so surprised that...well, I didn’t think to tell you about Jose until now.”

“He’s back—and he talked to you,” Dallas said. And why not? The woman was open to the spirit world. Jose had felt her touch in death. He’d known.

Dallas inhaled and looked at her, and was both surprised and dismayed by the undeniable effect she had on him. That long blond hair, the deep color of her eyes...the warmth of her body. Somehow that T-shirt was sexier than any silk lingerie could ever be.

He couldn’t have gotten out of bed then, even if he’d wanted to.

Neither could he shake her and tell her how important the information was that she’d just given him, and how frustrated he was that she hadn’t told him earlier.

He nodded slowly, trying to remember his manners. “Hannah, that’s great,” he finally said. “And I can’t begin to tell you how important it is. If you see him, sense him—if you have any idea he’s near—it’s imperative that you tell me right away. Okay?”

“Of course,” she said. “That’s why...I guess it doesn’t make any difference. I could have told you in the morning. But...I didn’t want to wait.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. I should have said something earlier, I just...”

“Trust me, I know,” he said.

“Really?” she asked. “You’ve really tried to tell people you can speak to the dead?”

He grinned at that. “Oh, yeah. First time? We’d moved to D.C. I was about sixteen, and I told the priest that my grandmother, who’d been dead for five years, had spoken to me. Next thing I know, my mom had me seeing a shrink. I quickly learned to say the right thing to him. Next time, still in D.C., I was working as a cop. I was smart enough not to say anything overt, but the ghost had given me the killer’s name. He wasn’t even on our radar, but when I arrested the guy he still had the weapon on him. People started looking at me funny, but what could they do? By the time I joined the Bureau, I’d pretty much learned how to use the information I got without arousing suspicion. It’s hard, though. I mean, you
know
something, but sometimes your superiors think it’s a faulty theory, so then you have to prove everything or—or make it work, somehow.”

She smiled, listening to him. He realized for the first time just how beautiful she was.

And he wished she would go away.

“Got to get some sleep,” he said abruptly.

She jumped up. “Of course, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Come anytime. It
is
your house, after all.”

* * *

Machete was startled and more than a little alarmed when his phone vibrated. He knew there was only one person it could be, and he felt his body tighten.

He thought about not answering.

Of course, if he ignored the summons, he might as well put a bullet through his brain.

“I’m watching,” he said, answering the phone. “The Fed is still in there. Not a good time for me to get back in.”

“I’ve got something else for you,” the Wolf said.

“Oh. But you told me—”

“I need my best man on this, and you’re an expert. This has to look like an accident.”

Don’t let it be a woman. Please, God, don’t let it be a woman.

But if there was a God, He wasn’t listening, Machete thought. Or maybe long ago—too long ago—he had forgotten God, and now God had forgotten him.

Wolf kept talking.

“What about the Siren of the Sea?” Machete asked dully.

“Covered. I’ve got Hammer on it,” the Wolf said.

Machete felt sick. It wasn’t that he’d ever been one of the good guys. But even criminals had their codes. He’d done what he’d needed to do when he needed to do it, and he didn’t hurt people unless it was necessary.

As if reading his mind, the Wolf said, “This is necessary. I need to shake things up here, create a distraction. And to make certain all my people are on their toes.”

“All your people,” Machete said dully.

“Insurance, if you like.”

Machete was silent.

“You’re not going soft on me, are you? You signed a solemn pledge. In blood.”

There was something about the way the Wolf said
blood.
He gave it a nuance of evil. The truth he had in mind hid behind the word.

If you fail, you will pay—with your blood,
Machete thought.

“Start now, so you can get the logistics right. And remember, I want this to look like a tragic accident.”

“I’m on it,” Machete said wearily.

Criminals, he decided, didn’t get to have a code of honor.

* * *

Hannah returned to her room, absurdly glad she had spoken to him. She was shivering, for some reason. The house felt unusually cold, probably because it was nearly empty. She usually kept the central air at an even seventy-five. All her life she had hated it when it was a zillion degrees outside and then she walked inside and needed a coat. She kept the Siren comfortably cool but didn’t freeze anyone out.

Her thoughts drifted to Dallas, who’d looked pretty damn irresistible lying there in bed. Maybe it wasn’t so bad having him around. She wondered if she would see him after tomorrow morning. Once Kelsey was here with her fellow agents, they would offer her whatever protection she needed. Not that she believed she needed protection at all, not locked inside her house at night. So it was just her bad luck that she was beginning to like the guy who had raised her hackles when they first met.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was gorgeous.

She’d been alone too long, she told herself drily. And that was true, but it was also what happened when you lived in such a small community. She knew pretty much everyone in town, and none of the guys were
the
guy. And she just wasn’t attracted to the idea of a one-nighter with a tipsy tourist.

It had been nearly a year since she had broken it off with Lars Nicholson. Luckily, he’d gone on to join a dive expedition in the Mediterranean, so they never ran into each other. She was glad. He’d insisted they could make it work if they got back together, but she’d known that was an impossibility, even though she’d been devastated. He’d cheated. And it wasn’t that she couldn’t forgive. She just couldn’t understand how easy it had been for him, and she would never be able to forget or trust him again. That was no way to build a relationship. If she took him back, she would become someone she didn’t want to be.

Still, it had been a dry year, although she’d barely thought about it until...

Damn him. There was no way out of it. He was extremely sexually appealing.

“Enough. Time to sleep,” she whispered to herself.

Though how possible that would be with him just a few doors away, she didn’t know.

She gave herself a mental shake and walked to the window. She pulled the drapes slightly open and froze.

There was someone out there. Someone standing in the shadow of the streetlight. Staring up.

Without intending to, she had looked right at him.

And, cloaked by the night, he might have looked right at her.

She dropped the curtain and stepped back. Then, carefully, she tugged at the drape again.

Too late. Whoever he was, he had gone.

Or she had imagined him.

She thought about running down the hall and waking Agent Samson.

To say what? Besides, what could he do? There was no one out there now.

She pulled the drape a little farther open and looked up and down the street. Arm in arm, two frat-boy types were ambling toward another bed-and-breakfast. Another man—probably a bartender, done at last for the night—was moving swiftly and with purpose.

Hannah hesitated and then wondered if what she’d seen had meant anything at all. This was Key West. People were out and about all night long. Maybe the man she’d seen had just stopped to light a cigarette or answer his cell, and he’d simply been looking around, the way people do.

She lay down, but by the time she finally drifted to sleep it was almost morning.

* * *

The colors of the reef and the water were beautiful, Yerby Catalano thought. There was a feeling about diving—being down dozens of feet below the surface—that was like nothing else in the world.

She loved to dive. She’d gotten her certificate just last year, and now she went every chance she could get.

This wasn’t the happiest dive of her life, though. The other three had begged off, still shaken by the effects of the day before. She didn’t quite get it. It’s not as if any of them had known the dead man. Even Shelly and Stuart, who’d had the worst of it, had only seen him for a few seconds, and even then they had thought they were seeing a ghost.

To Yerby, this was the reason to come to the Keys, and it was ridiculous that the others were going to skip it. She wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

The dive boat hadn’t been crowded, maybe because she’d chosen the early dive. Most of Key West wasn’t even awake yet. The
Minnow
made three trips a day, plus there were night dives for people with more advanced credentials. She made a mental note to go pursue her diving further. A night dive would be cool.

But this 8:00 a.m. dive was splendid, too. They went first to Joe’s Tug, which had sunk mysteriously in sixty-five feet of water, and she made up a trio with a young couple from Maine, since no one was allowed to dive alone. As the odd person out, she had to admit to being pissed that Mark hadn’t joined her.

But that was all right. Don and Lottie were nice, and she took pictures of yellow tangs and a giant grouper, along with a barracuda drifting a few feet below her and even a nurse shark.

The second dive was to an artificial reef growing up around a deliberately sunk small World War II gunship.

The ship rose from the sand like an eerie steel-gray ghost. Yerby wished Mark was with her. He would have loved it.

The divemaster paused, indicating that they weren’t to disappear into the ship. Yerby silently rebelled at that. Why dive to a ship at all if you couldn’t go inside her?

The divemaster led them around the port side. A tiny ray shook free of the sand as it rose from the seabed. Yerby snapped it with her camera.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. It was one of the other divers. She turned and saw the couple from Maine just ahead. Don was taking pictures of Lottie, who was doing a lot of posing.

Yerby didn’t recognize the diver who’d joined her. Even if she had seen him on the boat, she wouldn’t have known him now. He was wearing a full wet suit—a bit much for Florida, she thought. But a lot of people who came down had learned to dive in the Great Lakes or the Pacific, so they were used to diving with a suit.

He motioned toward the ship, smiling.

She looked around. No one was watching. She’d wanted to look inside the ship, and she wasn’t going to get a better opportunity. She would just take a peek inside. She would be careful not to get lost. She wanted to live.

She automatically checked her air gauge. She would be fine; she had another twenty minutes of air. This was the deepest dive of the day, and they were only fifty feet down. She was breathing slowly and easily, just as she had been taught.

The mystery diver disappeared inside the wreck. Vaguely wondering where his partner was, she cautiously followed him.

She felt it the second she passed into the dark interior, a vicious grip on her shoulders, whirling her around. Her hose was wrenched from her mouth.

She struggled fiercely in a blind panic. The arms holding her were like iron bars. She tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the water rushing into her lungs.

The amazing thing was that, as she weakened, she felt a strange sense of peace. She was being murdered; she knew that. She didn’t know by who—or why. But she knew that she couldn’t fight. Stars burst in front of her eyes and cold surrounded her. Cold. In Florida. It was ironic.

Darkness claimed her.

* * *

Hannah woke early. When she saw that it was only six-thirty, she ordered herself to close her eyes.

She drifted off again into a restless sleep.