The Cursed (8 page)

Machete hid in the hedges and carefully watched the Siren of the Sea.

The house was quiet. He’d seen the man and the woman enter the house. He knew them, of course. Well, knew that the tall sandy-haired man was an agent. And Hannah was a local; everyone knew her. So pretty and blonde. So full of life—at least for now.

He felt his phone vibrate and answered it. He’d been expecting the call. It was the Wolf.

“So?” came a single sharp word.

“The Fed went inside with her. He didn’t come back out.”

“When he leaves, make your move.”

Machete said, “Her tour customers will start arriving in a few hours.”

“Get in there when they’re gone. Find the key.”

Find the key? Search an entire house in a few hours and find something as small as a key?

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“Of course it won’t. Someone would have found it by now if it were obvious. Check the attic. It’s probably up there somewhere.”

“I can’t promise—”

“Oh, yes, you can. The place is empty. No guests. Stay in there until you get me that key.”

“But she could catch me!”

“I doubt she wanders around her attic at night, but if she
does
catch you,” the Wolf said softly, “you know what to do.”

Machete had never argued with the Wolf before. Never questioned him. Until now.

“I think going in now is a mistake. The key will still be there, and she’s not a threat to us. She knows nothing. She saw nothing. She came out when it was over. But if something happens to this woman now, when the police are already looking for a killer, they will rip the city apart—and we’ll never get in there to find the key.”

There was silence at the other end of the line. Machete didn’t dare breathe. The Wolf had eyes everywhere, and he had assassins everywhere, too. Machete didn’t know who the Wolf was—no one did. And no one who didn’t need to know had any idea of Machete’s real name, either. Everything in Los Lobos was on a need-to-know basis.

Most of all, no one argued with the Wolf.

But the thought of killing her...

For a moment, Machete thought his infatuation with Hannah O’Brien might have been his undoing. He wished he could take back his words. The silence from the other end of the line stretched for what seemed like hours.

“I just don’t want to lose this opportunity,” he finally said quickly—desperately. “It could take time for me to find the key, and if something happens to her before I do, it would draw attention to the house. The Siren of the Sea could be closed down, and it would certainly be swarming with police. I would never be able to get inside then. I need to be able to go in and out safely until I find what we’re looking for.”

Again his words were met with silence. He felt sweat bead his brow and drench his shirt.

At last the Wolf spoke.

“Get in and get out, then. But remember, you’re on your own. And remember, too, if that woman finds you and you don’t do what’s necessary, I will.”

The phone went dead.

Machete stood there shaking and hot with sweat.

Finally the breeze began to cool his skin as he waited for the Fed to leave.

Except...

He didn’t leave.

The sweat on Machete’s skin began to turn to ice. He didn’t want to make another call.

What the hell was he going to do if the agent never left?

Or, worse, if Hannah O’Brien didn’t leave, either?

5

G
reat, Hannah thought. Broad-shouldered and bossy was staying at the Siren of the Sea.

Just what she needed.

But...she
didn’t
have an alarm system. It was complicated enough to keep track of her keys—and no way was she destroying the Siren’s period charm by using those little plastic cards the big hotels had all switched to. Guests got one key to the front door and then a key to whatever room they were renting.

Tourists tended to imbibe in Key West. Heavily. Some of her friends who also ran B and Bs had alarm systems, and they were constantly having them reset because their drunken guests couldn’t get the code right. And the codes had to be changed constantly, since after a few months dozens of people had the same one.

Besides, in all her years of running the Siren of the Sea, she’d never had a problem.

She had never once been afraid. But now that Agent Samson had put the idea into her mind that she might be a target, she couldn’t escape the fear.

It didn’t matter. Tomorrow Kelsey and the Krewe would be arriving, and they would figure things out and everything would be okay.

No, it wouldn’t be okay. It would never be okay. A dying man had come into her yard looking for help, then breathed his last in the alley behind her house, and now his ghost had come to her for help.

She’d really wanted to speak with Liam earlier. But then tall, dark and annoying had wanted her to come with him so that she could introduce him to Bentley.

Meanwhile, the dead man was no doubt off retracing his own steps, trying to figure out who his killer was, trying to repeat the last day of his life, trying to comprehend how he had been taken so quickly and unaware.

And her angry resident ghosts were still AWOL.

“So, here we are,” she murmured aloud. “Me and Mr. Shoulders. And sixteen people coming far too soon so we can all go off on a ghost tour.”

Dallas was probably all the more suspicious of her after she had retraced the dying man’s route. But something had come over her when they had stepped out of Bentley’s house. She had felt the pain of the man she had found dead and come to know as a ghost. He was determined to stop Los Lobos, and that meant he needed to know the identity of his killer.

He needed to know the truth.

“Would you like dinner?”

The question startled her so badly that she jumped up from her desk, nearly knocking over a nineteenth-century vase. She steadied it as she stared at Agent Samson.

“Uh, sorry. What?” she asked.

“I’m going out for dinner. Would you care to join me?”

“I, uh, no. That’s okay,” she said awkwardly. “But...thank you.”

“You don’t eat?”

“Of course I eat.”

“Do you have previous plans?”

“No...I have a tour starting at eight.”

“It’s six.”

She didn’t know why it seemed churlish to refuse him. She wasn’t obliged to eat with him. But damn. She wasn’t even sure she entirely disliked him now.

“It’s really okay. I can fix myself something here.”

“I’m sure you can. But would you like to go out, anyway?”

No!

“I...sure.”

He smiled at that. It was, she realized, a nice smile. And while he could come on like a bull bursting into a rodeo arena, he could also be...appealing.

“I don’t want to force you if it will be a problem for you.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said. “I mean...there’s no one here.”

He walked through to the back. She knew he was checking the lock, and she decided that was a good thing. Then he rejoined her, and they walked to the front door together.

“So, have you always lived here?” he asked.

“Not always. Just mostly.” She locked the door behind them. “My father taught for two years up in St. Augustine. I think I was eleven or twelve. Then we lived here, and then I went up to New Orleans for college at Tulane. And then I came back.”

“Ah. Where are your folks now?”

She smiled. “They’re on a world tour.”

“Oh, yeah? Alive and well and traveling the world. That’s great.”

They had reached the street. “Yeah, it is,” she murmured, looking at him. Again she felt awkward. “Does that mean that...?”

“Yeah, mine are gone. My mom had cancer. My dad died of a heart attack a few weeks after she passed.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He nodded. “It’s been a while.”

“You’re an only child?”

“I have a great older sister living in Biloxi. She has three obnoxious but wonderful children. And my brother-in-law is a good guy, so all is well. You’re an only child, though, aren’t you?”

She smiled, lowering her head. “You can tell?”

He laughed. “No. I just had a feeling. You’ve turned the family home into a business.”

“Actually, I didn’t live here with my parents. My great-uncle left it to me. He said I had the good sense to love Key West and I should have the house.”

“Did that fit with your dreams?”

She shrugged. “History major. So, yes, I guess. More or less.”

“You’re happy, running a bed-and-breakfast and telling the same ghost stories night after night?”

She would have been offended except that he winced so quickly. “Sorry—I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“Oh? And how
did
you mean it?”

“Just that...there’s a lot more history out there in the world.”

She was secretly glad to see that he was actually uncomfortable. In fact, that made her smile. “I write, too. I’ve written what I hope is a good book on local ghosts and legends, with real history. I mean, a ghost isn’t very interesting if you don’t know why he—or she—is there, right?”

“True,” he agreed. “I’ll have to read it. Is it—is it published?”

She nodded, trying to hide another smile of amusement. “Yes.”

“Title?”

“Key West: Truth or Dare.”

“I look forward to reading it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I’d like to.”

“Then I’ll give you a copy.”

“I’m happy to buy it.”

“I’ve actually sold enough copies that I can afford to give you one. Honest.”

He let out a breath, lowered his head and shook it. When he looked up, his eyes were filled with humor and he was smiling. She was startled to realize just how good-looking he was.

Personality. It was in the eyes, she thought.

And he had a lot of other assets to go with that personality.

“Miss O’Brien, may I start over? I’m Dallas Samson. Pleased to make your acquaintance. And I’ll try not to be so obnoxiously rude in the future.”

He offered her his hand. She took it. Naturally, his hand was large, and his fingers were very long. She could sense real power in his handshake.

“Lovely to meet you, Mr.—sorry,
Agent
—Samson. I’m sure the pleasure is mine. And I’ll try not to—”

She broke off, suddenly feeling guilty for being so cavalier when a man had died so close to her home.

I’ll try not to stumble on any more bodies,
she thought.

“Hey,” he said, and to her surprise he touched her chin lightly. “It’s all right. Jose would want us to get along—and he’d want you to be safe.”

How had he known what she was thinking?

She felt oddly as if they were talking about someone who had been a friend to them both. Maybe, in a way, he had been.

Or still was.

She suddenly felt as if they were sharing a moment that was almost intimate. How ridiculous! She stepped back.

“So, where shall we eat?” she asked.

“You choose.”

“I’ve been here forever, you’ve just come back, so what would you like to have?” she asked.

They turned the corner and decided on a restaurant in a beautiful Victorian house on Duval just down from Caroline Street. Neither of them knew their waitress, a pretty young girl who told them she was from Russia. They ordered drinks and the house special, mahimahi almandine.

When their drinks were served and the waitress had gone on to place their orders, Hannah realized she still hadn’t spoken to Liam and she really needed to. He wasn’t quite as adept at seeing the dead as she was, but in both his personal life and his work he’d experienced enough to believe what she told him—or to at least accept that she might really have received reliable information from a source that most people couldn’t see or hear.

She excused herself and went to the ladies’ room where she put a call through to him, but she only reached his voice mail. She left him a message and returned to the table.

Dallas stood to pull out her chair for her.

She thanked him and asked, “So what’s your next move?”

“Liam had Katie work with a police artist, so we’ll get those sketches out and look for the people Jose was with last night before he was killed.”

“They didn’t kill him,” Hannah said.

“What?”

“Uh, I...I don’t believe one of them killed him,” she said hastily. “I think they ran like rats when he was attacked. Maybe they knew someone was coming, though. They might have set him up.”

“Well, it’s important for us to find them, no matter what. Even if they didn’t kill him, maybe they can lead us to the person who did.”

“Do you think that will happen?” Hannah asked. “I thought the fate of a rat within Los Lobos was far worse than anything the law could deal out.”

“We have witness protection, and we have ways to threaten, bribe and interrogate that can be quite effective,” he told her. “Maybe others have failed, but we won’t. We’re also waiting on lab reports. We’re testing every tiny drop we could find. We could be extraordinarily lucky and discover we have the killer’s blood and his DNA is in the system.”

“I suppose I know all that, it’s just that...”

“That what?” he asked.

She shrugged. “You were so...geared to move,” she said. “And now we’re just sitting here having dinner.”

He didn’t reply for a moment. She felt a sense of unease trickle down her spine.

“You
are
working, aren’t you?” she asked. “You really do think I’m in danger.”

He raised his shoulders slightly in a noncommittal manner. “We just don’t know,” he said.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel safe, Agent Samson,” she murmured.

“I’m not sure you
should
feel safe right now.”

“Hey, haven’t you heard? I have an FBI agent staying in my house.”

“There you go.”

He fell quiet as their waitress brought their food. When she’d left he asked Hannah, “Does the word
cur
mean anything to you?”

“Cur?”
she repeated.

“Cur, yes.
C-U-R.
”

“Well, it’s a nasty dog, as far as I know,” she said.

“Yes. I just wonder what else it might mean or refer to.”

“Why?”

His eyes were level and unfathomable as he stared at her across the table. “He wrote it,” he told her. “Jose wrote it on the ground—in his own blood.”

“Oh.” Hannah had been about to taste her fish, but now she set her fork down. “Oh,” she repeated.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have waited and not upset you while you were eating.”

She shook her head. “I’m just so sorry. He was—he sounds like he was a fine man.”

He nodded. “If it occurs to you later that it might mean something, let me know.”

“Of course. I’ll ask hi—” she began, then quickly cut herself off.

“Pardon?” He frowned fiercely.

“What?”

“You’ll ask who?”

“Oh, around. You know. See if the word means anything to any of the old-timers. Or anyone else, for that matter,” she said quickly. She looked down at her plate, picked up her fork again and began to eat. He was still watching her, and she knew it. “The fish is really delicious.” She made a point of looking at her watch. “We should hurry a little. People sometimes show up kind of early, and when they do, I let them sit out on the patio.”

“People,” he murmured.

“Well, yes,
people.
They
are
the ones who take ghost tours,” she said.

“And you just let them all into your house?”

“It’s a bed-and-breakfast. I
have
to let people into my house.”

“That’s one thing. I’m assuming you get their names, addresses, a form of ID? Those are guests—and at least you have something to identify them. Anyone can take a ghost tour, right? And you just let them all in?” He sounded incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe how foolish she was.

She set her fork down again. Dinner was over. She glanced at her plate. In fact, it
was
over. She’d been so hungry that she’d finished the fish without even realizing it.

“I’m in the tourist industry. Nothing is going to happen to me when sixteen people are following me through town. You’ve seen too much of the worst of humanity. I usually get to see the good,” she told him.

He leaned across the table. She was ready to hop up, then realized that he wasn’t trying to insult her. He was trying to convince her.

“You don’t know who might be on that tour. Who might have signed up to check you out, find a way to get to you. I can understand you wanting to see the best in people, and that’s a commendable quality. Except for now. And even after this is over, you might want to be a little more careful. You don’t know who might see something they like when they’re looking around the Siren of the Sea. Something they’d come back for.”

“Oh, great.” Distracted by that depressing thought, she stood. “This was actually a nice time. Thank you.” She suddenly realized how that sounded. “Oh, sorry. That was presumptuous. Are we splitting the check?”

His mouth twitched. “It’s my pleasure to get the bill.”

They left the restaurant. When they returned to the house, there were already four people waiting out front. Hannah quickly introduced herself and opened the door, inviting them in. She turned to introduce Dallas Samson and faltered, not sure how much to say.

He stepped forward and took care of that himself. “Dallas Samson, hello. I’m staying here at the Siren of the Sea.”

The foursome was the Taylor family, George and Ivy and their two grown sons, Trevor and Blaine. Ivy oohed and aahed over the house when they took seats in the parlor. Hannah excused herself to get them some bottled water as they waited for the rest of the tour to arrive.