The Cursed (26 page)

“In a heartbeat,” Logan assured him evenly.

Bentley eased the gun away from Hannah’s head and leveled it at Logan.

“I don’t need you. I already have plenty of leverage to keep Hannah doing whatever I ask,” Bentley said softly.

Oh, God, Hannah thought. He was going to do it. He was really going to shoot Logan.

But just as that thought came to her, she heard thunder on the stairs. Bentley tried to swing the gun around. Too late.

Dallas was there.

He fired, and the bullet winged Bentley’s arm, sending him spinning. The gun flew from his hand. Hannah screamed and tried to wrench free, but he went down, dragging her with him.

And there was Kelsey’s gun, just inches from Bentley’s outstretched arm.

He reached for it, but Hannah scrambled desperately, got free and grabbed it herself. She was just a foot from him.

Dallas was racing down the stairs, and Logan was on his feet, but then Bentley pulled his knife again, ready to stab Valeriya.

Was it too late to save her?

There was something cold in Bentley’s icy-blue eyes. Something that meant he intended to go down fighting. He was big and powerful, and she gasped as he raised the knife over Valeriya.

“Drop it!” she commanded him.

He didn’t.

She squeezed the trigger firmly, just as Kelsey had taught her. The gun recoiled in her hand. She felt the force almost bending her wrist back.

And she saw the red stain appear on Bentley’s shirt.

She saw his eyes as he died. They weren’t so cold or so icy now. They held a look that she could have sworn was relief....

And then there was nothing in them. Nothing at all.

* * *

“Go figure,” Kelsey said. She was lying in a hospital bed, wearing a stupid hospital gown with little blackbirds all over a field of blue, but with the way her red hair framed her face she seemed especially beautiful to Hannah.

The confusion that had reigned after she’d shot Bentley was at last over. It had seemed like forever, yet it had happened so fast. Armed men had burst in through both doors and down the stairs. Dallas had taken the gun from her, turned her face to his and asked, “You all right?”

She had nodded and murmured, “Not a scratch.”

He’d had to leave her then to reconnoiter with Liam and his men, and then the paramedics had arrived. Soon the parlor was being cordoned off and Liam had taken over her phone. She tried to get to her feet and found she couldn’t stand, but then Dallas appeared from somewhere and helped her up. She was happy to see that Kelsey was already groaning and protesting the need for an ambulance.

Dirk Mendini arrived. “Hell, I’m trying to get you up to my office to see if you can identify one corpse and instead you offer me another,” he told Dallas, who wasn’t amused.

“Nobody else?” Dallas asked worriedly.

Liam was the one to answer. “Not so far,” he said. “Officer Hannigan—he was on duty in the patrol car when Bentley made his move—is hanging in. He may not make it through the night. He’s a tough old bird, though, and Bentley missed the artery.”

“Thank God,” Hannah whispered.

By then the paramedics were ready to take Kelsey and Logan away. Hannah insisted on going with them, but she was torn, worried about Valeriya.

Valeriya was going to be okay, though she was still terrified. She’d overheard some of the cops talking and kept saying that the Wolf was out there and coming to get her. Liam was working on calming her down, promising that two of his best officers would take her and her family to a safe house, then stand guard through the night.

Just as she was getting ready to go with Kelsey, Liam walked over to Hannah and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry,” he said, “but you can’t go yet. You have to give a statement.”

She looked at Dallas, a little dazed, then followed Liam to a relatively quiet spot and started answering his questions. The whole time she was aware of Dallas standing nearby and watching her with a concerned expression.

As soon as she’d finished and signed, he strode to her side and took her to the hospital to visit Kelsey.

She understood why he was so worried.

She had killed a man. A man she had known most her life. She knew that even policemen had to get psych clearance after killing someone, and she would probably need help, too.

But all she felt right then was numb.

And grateful that everyone who mattered to her was still alive.

The hospital wanted to keep Kelsey overnight to watch for aftereffects of the concussion she’d sustained, so she was all set up in a private room by the time Hannah and Dallas arrived.

“Here I am, a Federal agent, and there’s my cousin the innkeeper bringing down a hired killer before he could claim another victim. You okay, cuz?” Kelsey asked with a stern look.

Hannah nodded, aware that Dallas and Logan were watching her as intently as Kelsey was. “He was going to kill Valeriya,” she said. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You didn’t,” Logan said. “But killing a man, even when it’s a righteous shoot...it’s never easy.”

“You all need to stop looking at me like that,” Hannah said. “I’m okay. I’m fine. Really.”

“He was our friend, but you and he were especially close, with him working for you and all,” Kelsey said.

Dallas slipped his arm around her shoulders where she sat at the bottom of Kelsey’s bed and pulled her against his side. “You handled yourself remarkably well,” he told her.

They stayed a little while longer, and Hannah told them what Bentley had said about the letter. “He couldn’t believe Ronin never told me.”

“Are you certain he didn’t say anything? Anything at all?” Logan asked.

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember if he’d told me the location of a priceless treasure,” Hannah said, too drained to bother hiding her sarcasm.

“He died unexpectedly,” Kelsey said. “He dropped dead of a heart attack.”

“So maybe he meant to tell you,” Dallas said to Hannah.

She nodded. “Maybe. But at least now we know he was sure the treasure is on the property somewhere. And I swear it’s nowhere in the house.”

“Then we start digging tomorrow,” Kelsey said.

Hannah laughed. “If we start digging up the whole yard, I’ll need a treasure to put it all back when we’re finished.”

“Whatever it takes, it needs to be done,” Dallas told her.

She met his gaze, and she knew then what he was thinking.

They had survived Machete.

But the Wolf was still out there, and he had to be thinking of revenge. One way or another, they’d cost him six of his men, four in custody and two dead, not to mention he still didn’t have the treasure.

“We’ll dig up the yard,” she said. “And worry about fixing it afterward.”

They stayed at the hospital well into the night.

Katie led the ghost tour again—with Liam and David watching over her.

Dallas and Hannah kept tabs on Kelsey while Logan went to eat something, and then they grabbed a meal there themselves. To Hannah’s surprise, the food tasted delicious.

Because I’m alive to eat it,
she thought.

They didn’t return to her house that night. The hospital was in Marathon, and they just didn’t feel like making the long drive back.

They took a little room at a mom-and-pop motel just a few blocks away on the beach. Their room opened out to the sand. Hannah asked Dallas if they could just walk out and sit by the ocean. She lay back and felt the dampness of the sand against her, relaxed at the sound of the water washing onto the shore. The sky above her was beautiful, a perfect Keys night sky, shrouding the world in black velvet and shining stars.

“It’s hard to believe Jose and Yerby didn’t show up for any of this,” she murmured.

“I doubt we’ll see them tonight,” he told her. “They don’t know where we are.”

She smiled. “That’s a little sad, isn’t it? They’re ghosts, but they don’t get to be omniscient.”

“No,” he agreed. “If so, Hagen and Melody would have known that Bentley was out there watching.”

“Just bad timing, I guess,” she said.

“They were there when we needed them today,” he said. “Logan and I had our entrances planned, but thanks to Hagen I knew what was happening when I made it from the widow’s walk into the attic.”

“They
are
wonderful, aren’t they? They don’t have the ability to fight physically, but they make their presence known.”

It was beautiful by the water, but with his arm around her, she found herself wanting more.

“Let’s go in,” she said.

She hit the shower first; she couldn’t wait to wash away the feel of the day.

He joined her. She felt the thrill of his body, hot, steaming and naked against her own.

She turned into his arms and kissed him. They left the shower, damp, glowing, and then they made love, touching, kissing, as if they were enjoying a feast of passion.

Afterward they lay in bed, listening to the sound of the surf.

She turned to him then and asked, “Do you want to talk?”

“What do you want to know?”

“About your friend, your coworker. The one who was killed.”

She could just see his face in the moonlight streaming in. There was pain in his expression, but acceptance, too.

“We really were friends, best friends. And her death came close to wrecking me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I am, too. One day we wouldn’t have had the benefits anymore. She would have found the right guy for her. She would have been a great mother. She deserved that.” After a long silence, he spoke again. “What about your past?” He touched her hair.

“Nothing dramatic,” she told him. “Just...not the right guy. I don’t know what else to say.”

“What you’ve said is enough,” he said.

She kissed him, and they made love again.

It was good.

* * *

In the morning, they collected Kelsey and Logan from the hospital. But they didn’t head right home.

They went to the morgue. There was a body they needed to see.

Hannah couldn’t help but pray that they hadn’t found Jose’s sister.

17

D
allas stood looking down at the body in the morgue.

Every member of law enforcement the world over, he was certain, hated a floater.

Water creatures nibbled on the flesh. Most of the time the body had been intentionally sunk, and it was the gases forming in the body during putrefaction that caused it to rise. Decay never had a pleasant smell, and the human body was no different than any other, but the stink of a floater was something much worse.

He had a mask over his nose and mouth, and spoke through it when he looked over at Dirk and asked, “You really think we might be able to recognize her?”

“I’m hoping. My cabinets are filling up, guys,” Dirk said. “I’ll release Yerby Catalano soon, and I’d be happy to release Jose Rodriguez, too, except his only next of kin is his sister, and...”

“And this may be her,” Logan muttered.

Despite the grayish hue of the corpse’s bloated flesh, Logan had laid a hand on her, and Dallas intended to do the same. Every once in a rare while, it was possible to make contact with the deceased that way.

Dirk had finished the autopsy, so she wasn’t as grossly swollen as when she’d been found. Even so, she looked like some kind of monstrous hybrid. There was nothing left of her nose or lips. Dallas wasn’t sure that her own mother would have recognized her.

With gloved hands, he inspected her neck. The bruising around the throat was like a black collar. He looked at Dirk. “Strangulation?”

Mendini nodded. “Yes.”

Dallas surreptitiously removed a glove and laid his palm on the body, but he
didn’t feel anything at all. He prayed the poor woman’s soul had moved on.

“We can try dental records,” Mendini said.

Kelsey stepped into the room. She had on a mask and gloves. Before Dallas had a chance to ask her where Hannah was, Logan’s shocked expression posed the question.

“Don’t look at me like that. Hannah is fine. She’s in Dirk’s office with the door locked,” she said.

“You think you might recognize her?” Mendini asked.

“I’m just interested in a challenging autopsy,” she replied.

But Dallas knew the truth. She, too, had come to touch the body. But he could tell from her expression that she didn’t get anything from the corpse, either.

* * *

Hannah looked around Dirk Mendini’s office. Nice. He had a gold coin from the
Atocha
displayed in a glass case on his desk. His many framed certifications hung on the walls, along with seascapes and old photos. She was sitting in a chair in front of his big pine desk, but there was also a comfortable sofa against the wall. She wondered if he sometimes slept in his office.

There was a book on the lower Keys on his desk; she thumbed idly through it as she waited. She got so caught up in it that she was startled to hear a knock at the door.

“Hannah, it’s me. Logan.”

She rose and opened the door.

“You up to seeing a corpse?” he asked.

“Do you think I might recognize...her?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t think anyone would recognize her. I thought you might—well, your ability to communicate with the dead is better than any of ours. Stronger. Kelsey’s told me about how when you were kids she ‘met’ people through you. I know you’re a civilian and this is a lot to ask, but...”

“You want me to touch the corpse, don’t you?”

He nodded.

Reluctantly, but knowing she had no choice but to do the right thing, she accompanied him down the hall and through a door marked Autopsy: Staff Only.

Kelsey was asking Mendini something technical that Hannah was perfectly happy not to understand.

Dallas was standing by the corpse, waiting, watching her. He looked regretful. She had a feeling he wasn’t happy about the decision to ask for her help, even if he’d agreed with it because it was the right one.

She walked up to the corpse, telling herself not to look closely.

“Do you know her?” Dirk asked.

She shook her head as she touched the woman’s flesh where he couldn’t see. It just felt cold.

She looked at Dallas and shook her head again.

Turning, she noticed another body.

Bentley Holloway.

She felt nothing when she looked at him and wondered if that meant something was wrong with her. She was sorry, of course; she hated the idea that she had killed anyone. But the idea was intellectual, not anything that came from her heart.

Overall, she still felt numb. She’d simply done what she had to do.

She turned away from the body and said, “I’ll be back in the office.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Kelsey said.

Hannah didn’t know how much longer the others were going to be, so once she locked the door behind Kelsey, she chose a seat on the sofa and picked up the book on the lower Keys again, turning to the section on Key West. She was just thinking how much she loved her home when she heard sobbing.

She looked up. The ghost of a young woman was sitting in Dr. Mendini’s chair, at least as much as a ghost could sit anywhere.

The ghost was naked, and she hadn’t fully materialized, which somehow made her both more beautiful and more pathetic.

“Hello?” Hannah said softly, rising.

The sobbing stopped, and the ghost looked at her in shock.

“Hello. Please don’t be afraid,” Hannah said.
How funny,
she thought.
I’m the living person, and I’m telling a ghost not to be afraid.

But the ghost
was
afraid. She disappeared completely for a minute, then began to slowly reappear.

Hannah stood and walked toward her. “It’s all right. I’d like to help you if I can.”

“No one can help me. I saw...myself,” the young woman said.

In life, she had been beautiful. Long, curling dark hair tumbled down her neck and over her shoulders. Her eyes were large and dark and stunning. And given that she was naked, there was no way not to notice that her body was absolutely perfect.

“I’m Hannah.” She prayed she wasn’t going to get the reply she was expecting when she asked, “Are you...Alicia?”

To her relief, the young woman shook her head. “Alicia is so kind. She tried to keep us believing that help will come. Then, a few days ago, we heard that her brother was dead. She always believed he was coming for us, that he would save us.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Maria Lopez. Alicia and I...we were best friends. We grew up together in Miami. When we were older, we worked in one of the clubs together and...” Her voice trailed away.

“And?” Hannah encouraged.

“There’s money at the clubs. All the beautiful people. And...and cocaine. A lot of it. And before you know it...”

“I understand,” Hannah said.

“So then, you do things. You sleep with repulsive men and you don’t even care. And you...move things for people.”

“Move things?”

Maria nodded. “A diamond one time, artwork another. Hidden in shoe boxes in the back of your car or inside a suitcase. You go down the street and get into a van and move it where you’re told. And then one day...one day I got a call about another van. I got there early and saw two men in it, and I heard them talking. What they were saying scared me, so I went to leave, but one of them saw me. He said something that scared me even more, so I hit him and tried to run. But he was faster than me, and stronger. I ended up in the back of the van, and the next thing I knew, I was in a cabin by the water. I think it was on an island.”

“Tell me about the cabin,” Hannah demanded. “Do you know where it was?”

Maria began to weep. “I don’t know. But Alicia was there, and one other girl. Alma. And one old man who watches over us. They kept us in a room together. Alicia said her brother would come, but I couldn’t stand it. I got out and tried to swim away. I saw a man in a boat, and I thought he would save me, but he dragged me out of the water and...here I am.”

“Was he a big man, with blue eyes?”

Maria nodded.

“He’s dead now, too,” Hannah said.

“Good!” Then Maria lowered her head and wept. “Why am I still here?” she whispered.

Hannah didn’t have the answer to that. “Do you think you could come with me?” she asked. “I have friends like you at my home in Key West. Do you think you could follow me?”

“I...can try.”

As she spoke, the key turned in the door. Dirk and the others were back.

“I’m a busy man, you know, Dallas,” Dirk was saying. “Keep the body count down, will you?”

“It’s not like we go looking for them,” Dallas said. “Hannah, you ready?”

She looked from him to Kelsey and Logan. She could tell that none of them saw anything unusual. Then again, neither did she at that moment.

“Yes, ready, let’s go,” she said.

* * *

“I wonder if we’ll make it back without incident today,” Logan said, looking at Dallas in the rearview mirror. “To tell you the truth, I’m kind of hoping for something,” he admitted.

“Actually, we do have something. Some
one,
” Hannah said.

Maria Lopez was sitting uncomfortably at her side. Naked.

“What?” Logan said.

“She’s very shy and uncomfortable right now,” Hannah said, smiling at the young woman who, so far, only she could see. “But she’s coming with us. Melody may be able to help her.”

“Is it—is it Alicia?” Dallas asked.

“No,” Hannah said. “But she can help us find out where Alicia is.”

* * *

Nothing happened on the way back to Hannah’s house. The Siren of the Sea had never looked more beautiful, she thought, as she stood on the street and looked up toward the widow’s walk. Of course, when they went in, there was still blood on her parlor floor.

“What should I do?” she asked Dallas.

“There are special companies that specialize in cleaning up crime scenes. I’ll call one for you,” he told her.

So for now, she decided, they were simply going to avoid the parlor.

She headed to the kitchen, calling for Melody and Hagen, who appeared immediately. Dallas was right behind her, and Kelsey and Logan went up to their room.

For a brief moment Maria Lopez fully materialized. Then she saw Dallas and disappeared, but from his gasp, Hannah knew he’d caught a glimpse of her.

But Melody and Hagen had turned to the spot where Maria had been. From the look in Hagen’s eyes, they apparently still saw her.

Melody slammed him with an ectoplasm elbow.

“Sorry,” he murmured, and then he said kindly, “I’m truly sorry, Miss. Do not be embarrassed. I will leave now, but please, trust Melody. I know she will help you.”

“Why don’t you all come with me?” Hagen said to the others, and they followed him to the back room.

“Who is she?” Hagen asked, and Hannah explained.

“I still haven’t seen her,” Kelsey said as she and Logan walked into the room in time to hear Hannah’s explanation.

“Me neither,” Logan said.

“Just as well,” Dallas murmured. He looked at Hannah and smiled. She smiled back, and then both their smiles faded. Maria had fallen easily into a trap tailor-made for a woman who had grown up poor but beautiful—and innocent.

“The thing is,” Hannah said, “I think she might be able to help us figure out where Alicia was—and hopefully still is. She said the two of them and another woman named Alma were kept in a cabin by the water with one old man to take care of them.”

Jose Rodriguez suddenly materialized in front of them. Yerby appeared a second later, clinging to him.

“My sister?” he asked. “You know something about Alicia?” he asked.

Hannah explained again. By the time she finished, Melody had joined them. A moment later Maria Lopez appeared behind her, now clad in a casual white dress and sandals.

“It’s all up to the power of the mind,” Melody explained briefly.

Dallas and Logan rose politely, and introductions were made all around.

Maria joined Jose and Yerby on the sofa, and the others took the various chairs. The sun was streaming in, the water in the pool glistened, and Hannah finally dared to relax, feeling oddly...
good.

She had killed a man. A man she had known for years. And yet she hadn’t known him at all.

“The man who killed me—the dead man,” Maria said, “he was the one they called Machete, yes?”

“Yes,” Logan said.

“There were others like him,” Maria said. “That’s what the men in the van were talking about. There was one called the Bomb
in Miami. He died in one of his own explosions.”

Hannah caught Dallas and Logan looking at each other and read the message they were sharing.

It was going to take a long time to end the reign of Los Lobos.

“You knew my sister?” Jose asked.

Maria smiled. “She is so good. I should have listened to her. I never even said goodbye.”

She began to sob softly. Yerby laid an arm around her shoulders. “We never know when it’s the last time,” she said softly. “But you’ll see her again one day.”

Maria smiled and nodded. Along with the dress, she was now wearing a little gold cross. She fingered it with a ghostly movement.

“We have to find that cabin,” Dallas said. “And it won’t be easy. There are about seventeen hundred islands in the Keys. It could be on any of them.”

“But we can narrow it down. Maria was found in Marathon,” Logan said. “Gulf side.”

“I think we need to press Pause on looking for the Wolf,” Dallas said. “If he’s killed first, I’m betting the other two women will be killed, a clean-up operation.”

“No!” Jose said. “You can’t let that happen.”

“We won’t,” Dallas said. “I promise.”

They retrieved their agency laptops, settled around the kitchen table and got to work, looking at maps, tide charts, weather reports from the past ten days...anything that could help them figure out where Maria’s body had been thrown in the water before it washed up in Marathon.

At one point Dallas put his computer down and stretched. “We need to know who owns the private islands out that way.”

“I’ll call HQ and get a few interns busy searching the records,” Logan said.

Hannah, who’d kept herself busy making coffee and lunch, decided it was time to check on the ghosts, who’d remained in the back room. Melody and Hagen were playing host, she saw. Yerby was still clinging to Jose, and Maria was just sitting quietly, as if drinking it all in.