Brett suggested Chinese and everyone agreed, so he took requests and ordered once they were inside. After that Lara asked what people wanted to drink, and they all opted for iced tea. Apparently everyone wanted a clear head in case Miguel showed up again.
Lara went to get the tea, and when she finished she found them all in the family room. Meg and Matt had taken the wicker sofa with its overstuffed cushions, which left her and Brett the matching chairs facing it across the coffee table.
Brett started the conversation as soon as she sat down, turning to her and diving in without preliminaries. “I have the feeling you were pretty unnerved today. Talking to a dead man.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. He was the one who had pulled up the picture of Miguel Gomez and asked her if he was the man she’d seen, so obviously he wasn’t fazed by the idea of people talking to ghosts. But he was right: she was.
“I—”
“It’s all right,” he said flatly, looking from her to Meg and Matt. “Because I think I’m seeing a ghost of my own.” He met Lara’s eyes again. “Miguel has decided that he needs to communicate with you.” For a long moment he was silent, and then he said, “And apparently, Maria Gomez has decided that she wants to speak with me.”
9
Strange how life was so often all about perception, Brett thought.
He had been living with a tension unlike anything he’d known before, as if his muscles had been twisted like burning wire and then hardened that way.
But later that night, sitting on the back porch of Lara’s apartment, he sat back and realized that he should have been thinking like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
He’d respected Matt Bosworth from the time he’d met him, and he’d heard the news when Matt joined the Krewe. He’d also heard the snide remarks people made and the nickname Ghost Posse, but he knew that despite the attitude behind the asides, the Krewe were called in whenever something “different” came up—and when others failed.
And that night, because the Krewe were there and because Lara had been so open about her own experiences, it was all right that he read strange messages on his computer and that Maria’s ghost had shown up in his bedroom.
They ate Chinese food out of the cartons and talked about the case and its similarity to past cases Matt and Meg had worked. He was sitting close to Lara, and when she looked at him now and then, he could feel the strange connection that he couldn’t deny was growing between them. He frowned when Meg and Lara talked about visiting the voodoo store. He wasn’t worried that they’d gone to the store or talked to Papa Joe. He had met a number of people who practiced voodoo through the years—good people, all of them.
It was Lara’s involvement in the case that bothered him.
Then again, he was the one who had gotten her involved so deeply.
Neither Miguel nor Maria made an appearance during dinner. But he learned exactly what had happened to Lara, the truth behind all the press surrounding her abduction and the Walker scandal, and his admiration for her grew. She’d endured so much. She’d been kidnapped by a serial killer, held prisoner under god-awful circumstances, and yet she had survived. And now this.
Perception. It was everything, really.
He had thought of Lara as an extremely attractive woman. Any man would have found her appealing, even in a city where beautiful women could be found in abundance.
But now...
Now he also saw her as strong. Now...
Now her smile turned his insides molten.
He didn’t want to leave her—not even with her best friend, not even with agents he trusted.
And now he felt even more determined to solve this case.
It was growing late, and despite the fact that he was actually working and his line of work didn’t adhere to an eight-hour day, he needed to sleep, and that meant he needed to leave.
At last he regretfully stood. “Tomorrow is going to be another long day. I’ve got to get home. Thank you, Matt and Meg, for your help. And thank you, Lara. You’ve been great through all of this.”
She smiled, rising. “Thanks. Is home far?”
“Not even five miles. If you ever want a brisk walk in the blazing heat, I’m in South Miami, just past the Gables.” As soon as he said the words, he wondered what had gotten into him.
Matt stood, too, and said to Brett, “We’ll be at Sea Life in the morning, and I’ll meet you at the cemetery around one. I’m going to try to find connections between all these people—the staff at the funeral home, the dead we know about—and the Barillo family. I know the local task force is working it, but I also know your Special Agent Bryant isn’t getting anywhere and his informants aren’t giving him anything useful, so since Meg and I are here, we’re going to help if we can.”
“All help appreciated,” Brett replied. “And I can’t help but thinking that this might be an unwitting conspiracy.”