The Cursed (21 page)

She’d been discovered, as well, though not until almost a hundred years later, by one of Commodore David Porter’s ships.

Porter had never been popular in Key West, despite the fact that he’d been the one to rid the island of pirates. Residents despised the man for his rigid rule; he was against alcohol and fun in general. Before his arrival, Key West had been claimed by individuals rather than nations, although at various times those individuals had been Spanish, British and American. Since it was only a small island, people mainly used it for fishing and birding, or as a stopover on a longer trip. Finally John Simonton had purchased the island from Juan Pablo Salas, who had owned it through a Spanish land grant. But everyone had lived reasonably happily together—until Porter clamped down.

He was an interesting man, strong and determined, and intent on providing what profit he could to the United States government—at least at first. Later he would be court-martialed for demanding Puerto Rico return one of his men, who’d been sent there to retrieve a treasure he believed belonged to the U.S.

Rumor was he also knew something about salvage, and what he didn’t know, his men did. One way or another, he managed to bring up most of the treasure of the
Santa Elinora.

But there was a rumor, which arrived in Key West via Cuban fishermen, that the
Santa Elinora
had also carried a sea chest filled with gold and the jewels belonging to the mistress of a high ranking official in Cuba. The poor woman, after being discovered by the official’s wife, had faced a trumped-up charge of treason and been hanged.

The jewels the official had showered her with when he’d first been smitten were set to become gifts of atonement to the man’s wife. Among those jewels was a medallion known as the Zafiro de Seguridad, a huge sapphire set in gold and surrounded by a ring of diamonds and supposedly blessed by a priest to bring safety from all evil to those who wore it.

The book contained a drawing of the piece, which was beautiful and looked as if it would have fit right in with Britain’s crown jewels in their tower.

But though there were rumors about the chest, it hadn’t been on any official logs.

The rumor sprang up among the navy men assigned to Commodore Porter that he had found it and was keeping it at Fort Zachary Taylor.

Then, years later, rumors rose up again and claimed that it had been on the
Wind and the Sea
when it went down.

That was the age of salvage, and the locals had done their job well before the ship finally sank beneath the waves. So questions remained. Had the treasure been aboard the vessel when she’d gone down? Had it been salvaged and secretly stowed somewhere in Key West once again? Or had there ever even been such a treasure to begin with?

Hannah set that book down and picked up the other. Commodore Porter had reigned over Key West with a heavy hand. She’d known that. He’d basically hated the place, so there had been no love lost on either side.

There was nothing about the treasure, though.

Hannah closed that book, as well, and then remembered that Jose had told her about an article about the
Discovery,
the ship that had gone out in search of the remnants of the
Santa Elinora
and then gone down in a storm itself.

“Hey, you okay up there?” Kelsey called to her from downstairs.

“Yep, fine—just reading.”

“Okay.”

“I’m coming down, though. I want to get on the computer.”

Hannah stood and put the books back. The sun was streaming heavily into the room. In the interest of preserving the air-conditioning, she walked over to the window to close the drapes. As she did so, the cat made a mewling sound.

“What’s up, Petrie?” she asked.

He was staring at the windows as if he were looking out. As if he had seen something there.

Hannah paused. She really hated it when he stared at things. He frequently saw the ghosts before she did. And sometimes he just stared when she didn’t see anything at all.

Animal instinct.

“Okay, Petrie. I’m looking.”

At first, she didn’t see him. If it hadn’t been for the cat, she wouldn’t have kept looking.

But she continued to search until, finally, she was certain she saw a man.

He must have moved slightly, or else the breeze shifted the branches of the big old banyan tree beyond the sidewalk, and that had drawn her attention. She still couldn’t see him clearly, though.

But
he
was there. Looking up, just watching.

“Kelsey!” she called.

She heard her cousin coming up the stairs. But by the time Kelsey reached her, a horde of bachelorette partyers—the bride was wearing a headband with a veil—was walking by, giggling.

Hannah blinked.

And the man was gone.

* * *

Liam had done his work well, getting his officers to cover the docks and, Dallas was certain, the whole of the island.

Five minutes after he’d dragged Billie Garcia out of the water and wrested the knife from him, there were officers on-site, ready to take him in.

Dallas said he’d be along as quickly as he could get changed. He also asked one of the officers to call Liam and tell him to put Garcia alone in an interrogation room after getting him dry clothing. He was to be watched but left to sweat for a while, wondering what was going to happen to him.

Once Billie was safely in a patrol car and being driven away, Dallas reached for his cell phone to make a call and then realized that it was as drenched as he was and didn’t work. He cursed the ruined phone as he drove quickly back to the Siren of the Sea.

Since he couldn’t call to say he was there, he stopped at the patrol car. The officer had just come on duty and quickly dialed for him, too well trained to ask about Dallas’s condition. The front door opened as he approached the house, his feet sloshing in his shoes.

Hannah stood there watching him approach, Kelsey right behind her.

“You decided to go for a swim?” Hannah asked casually, but he saw the concern in her eyes and heard a deeper question in her tone.

“Hey, it’s a beautiful day, right?” he asked drily. As he stepped inside, though, he set his hands on her shoulders. “We’re getting closer. I found Blade.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going to clean up and get down to the station. I have him on hold until I get there,” he said.

“So you caught him in the water,” Kelsey said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Hand me your phone,” Hannah said. “I’ll put it in a bowl of rice right away to dry it out. Believe it or not, it usually works.”

He produced his phone—and then his wallet and keys. She smiled as she took them.

“Thanks,” he told her briefly.

“Anything else we can do?” Kelsey asked him.

“Have you heard from Logan?” Dallas asked.

Kelsey nodded. “He’s fine. He’s on his way back. He says you should go up there with him tomorrow.” Kelsey inhaled deeply, then let her breath out in a sigh. “Also, I got a call from Mark Riordan, Yerby’s boyfriend. He wants to know when he can have her body.”

Dallas paused, frowning. He’d been so intent on the hunt that he’d forgotten about Yerby’s boyfriend, along with Judy and Pete Atkinson. As far as he knew, Shelly Nicholson and Stuart Bell were back in Miami, and none too anxious to return to Key West anytime soon.

“Mark Riordan called you here?”

“He tried the police station, and all they told him was that she was still at the M.E.’s office up in Marathon, and they would provide more information in a timely manner. Then they referred him to me and gave him my cell number. He sounded pretty broken up. Yerby’s parents died when she was a baby, and she bounced around from foster home to foster home. He’s all she had.”

“I’ll talk to him. Not a bad thing to talk to him anyway,” Dallas said. “He and the Atkinsons are still down here, I take it?”

Kelsey nodded.

“Would you mind giving him a call and telling him I’ll see him in the morning? Right now I’ve got to get back to the station,” Dallas said.

He looked at Hannah again. She seemed grave and quiet. He wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

He didn’t touch her.

And to be honest, he didn’t know if things really would be all right. The Wolf had been operating Los Lobos for quite a while, and they hadn’t so much as laid a hand on him.

But they were getting closer.

Maybe the Wolf was finally losing control and they would get the break they needed.

“Are you all right?” he asked Hannah.

“Yes, of course,” she said, and offered him a smile. “Go get changed, and I’ll go take care of your phone.”

She turned away, and he hurried up the stairs to shower and find clean, dry clothing. As he got dressed, he noticed the books on his bed. Someone had been doing research.

He couldn’t stay; he needed to get to the station before Billie Garcia bashed his head into a wall or injured himself in some way so he wouldn’t be able to talk.

Hurrying back downstairs, he found Hannah and Kelsey in the kitchen. “Was that you doing research earlier?” he asked Hannah.

“I’m looking for any clue I can find, but so far I haven’t found anything that gets us any closer to solving Jose’s death. There may or may not have been a treasure. It may or may not have been found by Commodore David Porter. It may or may not have been kept at Fort Zachary Taylor. It may or may not have been on the
Wind and the Sea
when she went down. Oh, I did find out that part of the treasure is supposed to be a medallion called the Zafiro de Seguridad. A massive sapphire set in gold and surrounded by diamonds. Priceless, I imagine.”

“That means something like
sapphire of safety,
doesn’t it?” Dallas asked.

Hannah nodded. “Didn’t do much for Hagen Dundee, assuming they were both aboard the
Wind and the Sea,
”
she said drily. “But I suppose if it was going to protect you, you probably needed to be wearing it.”

“A priceless gem of protection that did nothing against a curse,” Dallas said.

“No object can guarantee your safety,” Hannah said. “Not even a gun.”

“Or a knife. And speaking of knives...” Dallas glanced at his watch, glad it was a diver’s watch and his recent dousing had done it no harm. “I’ve got to get going and talk to our buddy Blade. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I’m sure Logan will be, too, but even with both of you here, no one for the ghost tour comes in until we’re here, okay?”

“You got it,” Kelsey agreed.

“Come with me and—”

“Lock the door,” Hannah said. “I know.”

He smiled at her, but she didn’t notice. He knew something was disturbing her, and he didn’t think it was him. Unfortunately, he had no idea what it was. No matter, it had to wait. First things first.

He drove back over to the station.

Liam was watching Billie Garcia through the one-way glass.

“Has he said or done anything?” Dallas asked.

“He tried to take the table apart. Maybe he thought he could skewer himself with a leg, I don’t know. He gave the guards hell when they got him into dry clothes. He doesn’t have a belt or shoelaces or anything, so we’re pretty sure he can’t hurt himself. For the past fifteen minutes he’s just been sitting there as if he’s catatonic. But there’s nothing wrong with him.”

Dallas nodded. “Thanks.”

He walked into the room and sat down across from Billie, who looked back at him warily. Dallas smiled. Then he leaned forward. “Want to talk?”

“I have absolutely nothing to say to you,” Billie said.

Dallas shrugged. “You might as well talk to me. Your cousin has already fingered you for enough crimes that we can put you away for years.”

Dallas knew instantly that word of Martin being picked up by the cops hadn’t reached Billie yet. He paled to the color of ash.

“Martin is a sniveling liar,” he said.

Dallas shrugged. “Maybe, but Martin will probably live.”

“Martin is already a walking dead man,” Billie told him.

“We can protect you.”

“No one can protect anyone from the Wolf. He has eyes everywhere.”

“The Wolf is a man—just a man. And he only has power because he keeps secrets and convinces other people to keep them, too. People start telling those secrets and he won’t have any more power. We’ll pick you off, you know, one by one. And we’ll get to the heart of Los Lobos. We’ll get to the Wolf.”

“Fuck you! I’m not saying nothing.”

“That’s a double negative, but whatever.” Dallas smiled again and said icily, “You are responsible for the death of my friend Jose,
Blade.
You led him straight into an ambush.
Now, you can help me, or I’ll do one of two things. I’ll let you out on the street and make sure the newspapers print something about you being a snitch—”

“I’m not a snitch!”

“Ah, but will the Wolf believe that?” Dallas mused. “Or I’ll see to it that you spend years and years—the rest of your life—in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, at the very least. What I won’t do is let you die easily. You’ll help me now, and if you don’t, you’ll spend every minute wondering how and when the Wolf will get to you. I know the way he works, and it won’t be pretty, I can promise you that much.”

14

“Y
ou’re going to learn how to fire a gun,” Kelsey told Hannah.

“I don’t own a gun,” Hannah said.

“And I’m not giving you one—not right now, anyway. But you need to learn how to use one in case there’s ever a need.”

Once, Hannah thought, she would have argued. She’d never been fond of guns—not even spear guns. She dived for pleasure, to see fish, not shoot them. Not that she didn’t like to eat them, too; she just wanted them on her plate, a nice filet, or maybe some sushi.

“All right,” she agreed.

“This is my service weapon,” Kelsey told her, placing her gun on the table. “It’s a Glock 19. It uses a magazine. Right now it’s loaded, but I’m going to unload it. To do that, you push the little button right here, on the side, by the handle.” She demonstrated. The magazine fell into her hand. “Okay, you can’t be certain at this stage that there isn’t a round still in it—that it’s really unloaded—so you bring the slide back. With the magazine out, you should be able to look in the hole and see clear through the gun—unless there’s a round in it. If there
is
a round, once you hit the slide, it will empty. It’s crucial that you always make sure.” Kelsey demonstrated, and the bullet emerged. “Okay, my mags have fifteen rounds. That’s a new one, and I want you to put it back in the gun. That notch goes forward. The number on the back goes to the rear. Now you take it.”

“Wait. Where’s the safety on this thing? Shouldn’t I check that first?” Hannah asked, tucking her hands behind her back to avoid taking the weapon.

“It doesn’t have a safety.”

“What?”

“Not all guns have a safety, per se. But this one does have a safe trigger. You could throw this gun across the room and it wouldn’t go off. It can only fire when the trigger is fully depressed—that’s the ‘safety’ on this model.” Kelsey pointed. “There’s the trigger, now see that little piece in the middle? The gun can’t fire if you aren’t squeezing the trigger firmly. If it’s nudged on top, no. If it falls, no.”

She held out the Glock again, and this time Hannah took it.

It felt funny to handle the gun. It wasn’t that she hadn’t touched firearms before. It was just that they were usually harmless flintlock reproductions that were used for Key West’s famous Pirate Days.

She loaded the gun just as Kelsey had instructed her. She wasn’t sure whether she was glad it was so easy—or disturbed.

“That’s it—you’re ready to shoot,” Kelsey told her. “In fact, we should go to a range soon so you can learn.”

“We should?” Hannah said. “Already?”

Kelsey said, “Okay, let’s have you do the whole thing first. Take the clip out, check that the barrel is empty and there isn’t a round remaining. There won’t be, of course, because you saw me take it out, but you need to learn to check it. Then slide the magazine back in again.”

Hannah did as she was told.

Kelsey nodded approvingly. “Good. I bet you won’t have any trouble learning to aim, either. When we were kids, you were great at those carnival shooting games.”

“Hey, don’t forget. I’m good at darts.”

“Always an important talent,” Kelsey said. She picked up her gun and slid it back into her waistband. “I usually have this on me. Logan carries a Glock plus a little Smith & Wesson, and I think Dallas carries the same model Glock I do. Not that it matters. They all load the same. The number of rounds in the mag is always on the back end and the notch always goes forward. Got that?”

“Got it,” Hannah promised.

Kelsey seemed tense, she thought. She realized that her cousin had seemed jittery ever since she’d run upstairs in answer to Hannah’s call, only to find that the watcher—if indeed there had been a watcher—was gone. “Are you okay?” Hannah asked.

Kelsey nodded. “Of course I’m okay. I wish I could have seen what you saw, that’s all. I’m not surprised. I figured someone was watching the house round the clock, and I don’t mean the officer out front. You didn’t catch any details at all?”

“Not of his face,” Hannah said.

“But it
was
a him?”

“Or a big her.”

“What about Melody and Hagen? Where are they? And Jose and Yerby?” Kelsey shook her head. “We’re in a very lucky position to have them, but it would be nice if they showed up more often.”

“They’re probably watching the grounds,” Hannah said, and smiled. “But I know they’re somewhere nearby. We can ask if they saw anyone next time they materialize.”

Kelsey nodded. She walked to the front door and looked out. Then she moved through the house to look out back to the pool and patio. “It’s so beautiful back there,” she said.

“Want to go sit outside for a while?” Hannah asked.

Kelsey lifted a brow at her.

“Oh, yeah. I’m supposed to stay in the house,” Hannah said. “Out there we’d be sitting ducks for a sharpshooter or a bush vaulter or whatever.”

“Cabin fever already?” Kelsey asked her. “You’ll get out tonight for your ghost tour.”

“Please, Key West History and Legends Tour,” Hannah corrected with a smile. “In deference to Melody and Hagen. They don’t like being called ghosts.”

Kelsey smiled. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Seriously, sometimes we’re all so politically correct we don’t know what we’re talking about. But in my experience, most ghosts prefer the term
spirit.
”

Almost as if the word had summoned them, Hagen and Melody materialized, entering hand in hand from the backyard.

“Did you find out anything?” Hannah asked them.

“No, but Hagen and I have been walking the trail from where Jose entered your yard, met Shelly and Stuart, and then staggered out to the alley to die,” Melody said.

“And?” Hannah asked.

“The killer must have followed him,” Hagen said.

“We’d figured as much,” Kelsey said. “But where is Jose’s knife?”

Hannah shook her head. “The crime scene techs searched everywhere. They even went through bins of garbage. The killer must have taken it with him.”

“All right, that makes sense. But what about the blood? The only reason for the killer to take the knife is if he was cut, and that means his blood has to be somewhere,” Kelsey said.

“But unless the lab found his blood, we can’t even test the DNA,” Hannah said.

“The knife was dripping blood—that’s what Shelly Nicholson said, right?” Kelsey asked.

“Right, but she was pretty freaked out, I don’t know whether it was really dripping. There might just have been blood on the blade,” Hannah admitted.

“And there’s another problem with DNA evidence,” Kelsey said. “Even if we find the killer’s blood, we need something to compare it to. If he’s not in the system, we’re screwed.”

“On another topic, have you two seen anyone watching the house?” Hannah asked.

Melody looked questioningly at Hagen. “I haven’t seen anyone,” she said. “And at night Hagen takes the front and I take the back. It’s odd, though.”

“What?” Hannah asked her.

“I
feel
something. I
feel
that we’re being watched, that someone is always out there all the time. And I don’t know why I can’t
see
him.”

* * *

Billie Garcia wasn’t as easy to break as his cousin.

But, in the end, he broke all the same.

It happened when Dallas threw up his hands and told Liam that he was through and the cops could take Billie. As soon as Liam thanked him and said that Billie would fit right in with the general population at the correctional center on Stock Island, Billie suddenly decided he liked the concept of living after all.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t even as helpful as his cousin had been. He swore he hadn’t killed anyone. He knew that he might have been asked to. He listed the relatively few robberies he’d taken part in, and explained that he’d mainly been responsible for transporting stolen goods.

From where to where?

He’d been told where a van would be and then told where to drive it.

Not much help, Dallas was forced to admit. The Wolf was meticulous, using several people on a haul, none of them knowing who had left the truck for them or who would be picking it up after they left it in turn.

“The four of us that night...we’re all from here, so we go way back,” Billie explained. “Martin picks up work as a dishwasher at different restaurants. Reggie plays a mean guitar. He hangs at Mallory Square a lot. Carter does odd jobs, pretty much whatever he can find. We mostly work gang jobs on our own, like everybody else, but when the Wolf needs a group effort, he comes to us.”

“How do you get paid?” Dallas had asked him.

“Cash, of course. We get a call about where we can pick up the green.”

“What about Jose Rodriguez?”

Billie grew visibly uncomfortable. He let out a sigh. “I met the guy at a bar on Duval. He’d been scrounging money from tourists over on Duval near Front Street. As soon as he got enough, he came in and asked for a drink. He told me he’d been let off from some kind of a computer job, and the more we talked, the more he seemed like a guy we could use. I told the Wolf about him, and he told me to feel him out. I did. The night he met with the four of us, I was supposed to give him a phone. I guess the Wolf had done some research on him in the meantime and didn’t like what he found out. And...well, you know what happened next.”

“Give it to me from your point of view. The five of you were seen walking along Eaton Street from Duval. You were ahead of the witnesses. Then you turned and went back the way you’d come,” Dallas told him.

“Yeah. When we were walking down Eaton, I got a call to circle around. When we got close to Duval the next time—” Billie broke off. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. I was scared to death when the guy came up behind us. All I remember after that was someone shouting
run,
so I ran. I ran like a jackrabbit.” He was trembling as he spoke.

“You heard from the Wolf after that?”

“Yeah,” Billie said dully. “Yeah. I got a call. It said I had done a good job, and that I’d get a bonus.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Blood money, I guess.”

Liam had handed Dallas a file, and now he opened it slowly, taking out an eight-by-ten picture of a beautiful young Latino woman. He put it down in front of Billie.

Unless the guy was really good, the picture meant nothing to him.

“Is she dead, too?”

“We don’t know. Do you know her?”

Garcia looked up at him. “I’ve never seen her. Who is she?”

Dallas shrugged. “If you haven’t seen her, it doesn’t matter.”

Billie looked up at him. “I really hope she’s not dead,” he said.

Dallas believed him. He didn’t think Billie was the diver who had killed Yerby. He wished he were, that he had gotten somewhere on this damn case. “What about your boat?”

“What about it?” Billie asked. He looked genuinely confused.

“Did you have it out recently?”

Billie shook his head. “No—oh, man, you think I killed that woman, the diver. That wasn’t me. I swear it. I haven’t even been at the dock in over a week.”

“Who knows you have a boat?” Dallas asked him.

Billie shook his head, looking cornered and beaten. “Everyone. Everyone knows I have a boat.” Now he looked genuinely frightened.

Dallas noticed and almost felt sorry for the guy. “They’ll keep you in a safe house tonight,” he said. “And while you’re there, try to think of anything—anything at all—that might help us. Your life depends on it.”

Billie nodded and dropped his gaze. After a long moment he looked back up at Dallas. “I knew that people died. But only people who deserved it. People who didn’t listen to the Wolf. People who were thieves, too—and worse. People like me. I figured this guy, Jose, was just another no-gooder who wanted more than what he was going to get. But then...”

“Then?”

“That girl who died on the dive...she didn’t just drown. There’s a guy—Machete, they call him—he’s the enforcer down here. I’m pretty sure if you can figure out who Machete is, you’ll have your killer.
Her
killer, anyway.”

“Why did the Wolf want her dead?”

“To make an example of her. To keep anyone else from talking. She was with that group staying at the Siren of the Seas. Kill her, and if one of the others thought of something, well, they’d think twice about calling the authorities. Murders cover up murders.”

“Did Machete kill Jose?”

“I think so,” Billie said. “But I don’t know.”

“What did you really see that night, Billie?” Dallas asked.

“A guy—a big guy.”

“Did you see his face?”

“He was wearing a hoodie. I couldn’t see a thing under that.”

Back to basics, Dallas thought wearily. He knew more than Billie, in fact, since he knew the guy he was looking for probably had blue eyes.

He glanced at his watch and was shocked when he saw the time. Time to go.

As he rose, Billie gripped his arm. “You won’t—you won’t let them put me in gen pop, right?”

Dallas shook his head ruefully. The Wolf didn’t pick the bravest or the best, he thought.

But then, the Wolf didn’t care. His people were expendable.

“For tonight, no one will know where you are. You’ll be protected. And I don’t care how many people the Wolf has, the man doesn’t command an army. You’ll be safe. There will be two officers with you at all times.”

“That’s just it,” Billie said, looking up at him. “Cops don’t get paid that much. How do you know one of the cops isn’t in on this?”

* * *

Valeriya Dimitri tied the plastic handles of the garbage bag and headed for the kitchen door. She’d barely stepped outside when she felt rough hands on her shoulders, pulling her back into the shadows of the carport. The hand over her mouth was massive; she couldn’t breathe, much less scream.

A voice, a harsh whisper—sandpaper scratching the air—spoke to her.

“What did you find?”

She was so terrified she could barely stand, but she needn’t have worried. The man was strong. She wasn’t standing on her own at all. He was holding her up.

He shook her until she thought her neck would break.

“What did you find?” he repeated.