“Miss Cafferty, this all started when you and your Louisiana P.I. friend arrived in town. You and Mr. Quinn have insinuated yourselves into this investigation. You don’t think it’s a little bizarre that a young woman is attacked and you are the one to give the alarm—after you and your boyfriend have been running around insisting that a zombie-nun doll did all this?”
She looked at him, completely aggravated. “Detective, Quinn and I didn’t come down until after Kathy Kennedy was attacked. And while everyone was rushing to the girl, it occurred to me whatever happened to her had happened in the trees—the direction from which she had come running. And, yes, I saw something there—no big surprise! But, now you’ve found it, and I’m assuming that it was a zombie doll and you don’t really know what the hell happened so you need a scapegoat.”
She’d nailed it—and she knew it.
“Get in the car, Miss Cafferty.”
“Fine!”
Danni slid into the back seat of the sheriff’s car. The driver—an expressionless man—looked at Detective Mason.
Mason nodded.
They started to drive.
A moment later, Danni looked out the window, frowning.
She wasn’t from Key West, she’d only been there once before.
But it was an island, and she had a good sense of north, south, east, west, Duval Street, Front Street, Old Town—and how to get off the island.
She knew that they weren’t heading for the station.
She pulled her cell phone from her bag. Before she could begin to dial Quinn, Detective Mason reached into the back seat.
“I’ll take that!” he announced.
And he did.
Chapter 7
“You all right?” Sandra Burnett asked Quinn.
He nodded grimly. Was he all right? Sandy had called in to find out that there had been another attack—in broad daylight—on the beach. The victim was being rushed to the hospital in Marathon even as they were speeding—as best one could in the Keys—in the opposite direction. She was unconscious, so no one knew what had happened. She’d been with a group of girls down for a bachelorette party; she’d just wandered off looking around at the lay of the area—before she’d come running out screaming to the beach where they’d all been watching the filming of Lucinda.
“I’m not getting an answer now from Danni,” he said.
“Not to worry; there is so much commotion going on. I understand she was the one who alerted them all that there was something in the pines,” Sandy said. “In all that confusion, she might have dropped her cell phone.”
Dropped her cell phone? Sure, it could happen. But, that would be far too convenient.
And what the hell had she been doing on the damned beach? She’d told him that she was going to be at the police department.
And she’d written him that there were definitely at least two dolls on the loose—the doll Davy had described had been different!
“Can you get an officer out there looking for her, please?” he asked Sandy.
“Sure thing,” Sandy promised.
She picked up her radio again; he heard a Sargent Gonzalez come on the line and promise that every officer would be on the lookout for Danni Cafferty.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Sandy said.
Her voice sounded a little weak.
Nothing was fine.
As they came closer to Key West, they noted the opposing traffic. People were leaving the “Conch Republic” in droves. Quinn felt that they couldn’t get there quickly enough.
“Where to?” Sandy asked him as they turned on to Roosevelt.
“Let’s stop by Colby’s house,” he said. He hoped against hope that maybe she had gone there.
No good.
When he entered the house, something came flying at him; he almost drew his gun.
It was Waldorf.
“Happy to see me, eh, boy?”
He tried to put the cat down. Waldorf’s claws dug into him. He muttered beneath his breath, struggling to remove Waldorf’s claws without too much of his clothing or skin.
Suddenly, Waldorf jumped down—and out into the yard. Swearing, he turned to race after the cat, nearly crashing into Sandy.
“We’ll get him, don’t worry—he’ll head under my car.”
Waldorf did as she said. Between the two of them, they coaxed him out.
Sandy told him, “I know a good vet. Might save the cat’s life to leave him there until Colby is back.”
Quinn had to agree. He hurried back into the house. He called Danni’s name as he went room to room to room.
She wasn’t there.
He looked up toward the attic and then raced up the stairs. Boxes and masks and everything in place.
Downstairs he checked that the windows and doors remained locked. Then he met Sandy back outside.
“Where now?”
“She didn’t go back to the station?” he asked.
She hadn’t; he knew that. But it was hope against hope.
Sandy called in; no, Danni wasn’t there.
“The bar at the end of Duval, where the film people hang out,” Quinn said. He remembered Danni’s message. Was one of them somehow guilty? Was Andrew trying to create an aura of something truly paranormal about his film?
Cars clogged the streets; people were leaving in a frenzy, so it seemed. They passed a bearded man in tattered clothes bearing a sign that read, “The end is near! Repent!”
“What a mess,” Sandy muttered.
Quinn agreed, but he was growing steadily more worried.