He wasn’t sure about how a finger in the water was connected with Barillo, Miguel and the dead woman in the banyan tree, but he was going to find out. He had worked with dive units before, so he supposed it was a good call.
“Dr. Kinny, we’ll see your full report later,” he told the ME. “Right now we need to go.”
Diego arched a brow at him.
“We’re going diving, my friend,” Brett said.
Diego looked surprised, but he only shrugged and said, “Where you lead, I follow. Only ’cause I’m paid to, of course.”
“Hey, when you’re lead, I follow,” Brett reminded him.
“And you make a very good follower, too,” Diego said with a grin. “Now lead on. I’ll follow.”
*
“It’s a big city,” Meg told Lara over the phone. “Miami is a major metropolis, and that means there are murders. It’s terrible and, I admit, pretty weird that a dolphin gave you a human finger, but sad to say, things like that happen.”
Lara had called Meg as soon as she could. She was amazed by how quickly after her first hysterical reaction everything had changed. She had calmed down in just a couple of minutes and managed quite well, she thought.
Rick had figured out that the object was indeed a human finger at the same time she did. To her relief, she had actually thought to ask Cocoa to go back for the finger before Rick did. Once Cocoa had retrieved it again they’d called the police. Now there were police divers in the lagoon and more cops all over the place.
The finger itself was already on its way to a lab. Sea Life had been closed for the day, and the conversations she’d overheard earlier had been surreal. Some of the officers were speculating that the finger was all there was to find, that its removal had been a punishment, a lesson to do better next time, and that the owner was out there somewhere, alive and well, but minus the forefinger of his right hand.
Others were speculating about where the rest of the pieces of the body might be.
And everyone was wondering who had lost his finger and maybe his life.
Somewhere along the line, Lara had realized that she was angry. Whoever had done this deserved to be incarcerated and maybe boiled in oil. She had survived being kidnapped by an insane killer; she wasn’t going to be terrified into leaving the new job she loved because of another criminal.
It just wasn’t happening, and she had told Meg as much.
“Lara, are you okay?” Meg asked over the phone. She was at her office in Virginia. It had only been a few months back that she had graduated from the FBI academy at Quantico and become an agent—a very special agent, going right from the academy to be part of Adam Harrison’s Krewe of Hunters, special units dealing with crimes that crossed the boundary between everyday reality and what could only be called the paranormal. And if it hadn’t been for the Krewe Lara wasn’t sure that even Meg could have found her where she’d been imprisoned in the old gristmill.
“I’m okay. I’m furious that someone killed someone or mutilated him or whatever, and then dumped the remains in our dolphin lagoons. I just called you because...because you’re my best friend and an FBI agent.” She hesitated. “I’m just venting. Really.”
As she spoke, looking out the window from the second-floor lounge in the small house where the Sea Life staff had their offices, Lara saw that still more law enforcement officials were arriving.
“This place is crawling with cops, and I think more have just arrived,” Lara said. “I think these guys must be FBI. They’re in suits,” she joked.
She realized that if the two men who had just arrived looked up, they would see her. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt her face grow flushed.
“They really might be FBI,” Meg told her. “Miami has a large field office. And what with the immigration situation and the drug smuggling, they might be looking for a missing informant or a low-level criminal who’s disappeared from their radar.”
Lara saw Rick standing by the newcomers and beckoning to her. “I’ve got to go. Whoever they are, I’m guessing the Men in Black want to talk to me.”
“Hang on a second,” Meg said. “Matt wants to talk to you.” Matt Bosworth was both her partner and her fiancé.
“Hey, Matt,” Lara said when he took the phone.
“Who’s there? Can you describe them?”
“Tall, fit guy who looks Hispanic and another tall, fit dark-haired guy who may or may not be Hispanic.”