LITMIR.BIZ

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      Sleep was elusive at first. He kept playing the case over and over again in his mind. He hadn’t been there when Miguel Gomez had burned to cinders. But he knew the agents and many of the officers who had been, and he knew that the accounts he’d heard were as accurate as humanly possible. The warehouse had been surrounded; it had been under surveillance for days before Miguel had gone in wearing the wire. There had been no other voices, so almost certainly no one else had been in there. Not to mention that only one set of charred-beyond-recognition remains had been found, with Miguel’s melted jewelry right there.

      But—somehow—Miguel had survived. They’d found someone’s body, but not Miguel’s.

      Maria had been murdered, too. Thrown from her balcony only minutes after Miguel Gomez had been seen in his neighborhood, behaving strangely.

      At last Brett fell asleep.

      At five thirty, his alarm rang. Blindly, he groped for the button to turn off the obnoxious buzzing he’d chosen because it guaranteed that he would get up.

      He opened his eyes, ready to roll out of bed.

      But he didn’t.

      He froze.

      Because there was a woman sitting at the foot of his bed. Maria Gomez. Her dark hair framed her pretty face, and there was a look of infinite sadness in her eyes.

      “Miguel did it. It was Miguel, but it wasn’t Miguel,” she said.

      And then she was gone. She simply faded into nothingness.

      And he was alone in his room, frozen rigid, staring at the empty foot of his bed.

      * * *

      “You really should get your diving certificate,” Agent Cody told Lara.

      She turned to look at him. They were on the Coast Guard cutter Vigilance. The day was just about perfect; the temperature was warm, but the breeze kept them from getting too hot. The sea was calm, and only a few white clouds puffed delicately above them. She and Rick were the only Sea Life personnel on the vessel, though Grady, Adrianna and Dr. Amory had been there to see them off before they joined Cocoa in her enclosure. Dr. Amory was fascinated by Cocoa’s preference for Lara. He said he’d never seen a bond form so quickly, and he’d been doing research on dolphins’ abilities for thirty years. But when they’d asked him if he wanted to come along, he’d said, “No. I don’t want to distract Cocoa from her task. She’ll be fine with you and Rick.”

      Lara wished he’d come so she would have another friendly face onboard. Not that their Coast Guard crew weren’t great, because they were. But she’d been nervous about this whole thing to begin with, unsure that she had the skills she needed, and now Rick had headed aft, Diego was nowhere to be seen and she was alone with Agent Stick-up-the-Ass, who seemed to think she’d had a lamentable upbringing because she didn’t dive.

       The better to find body parts, my dear.

      “You’re going to be all right in the water, right?” he asked.

      For a moment she wondered how someone so drop-dead good-looking and presumably intelligent could be such an ass. It didn’t help that he was standing so close to her that while she was busy thinking what a tremendous jerk he was, she was also far too aware of his leanly muscled body, clad only in a pair of swim trunks. She wished she was wearing more than a bathing suit herself; it was almost as if their flesh was touching. Not that he seemed to be the least bit aware of her in a physical way.

      “I’ll be fine, Agent Cody. We do swim in Virginia. We do, in fact, have dive shops. We have rivers and lakes and yes, even direct access to the Atlantic. It’s just that not every kid in Richmond grows up to dive.” She hoped she managed to sound cool and disinterested in anything but the task ahead.

      “Sorry,” he said curtly. He was staring out at the water, the sun gleaming down on his shoulders, those granite features facing into the wind, which seemed somehow appropriate. He turned to look at her. “Down here, it’s just...well, it’s just something most people are able to do. The reefs off the Keys are magnificent. They say there are prettier reefs other places, but I think ours compare to anything out there. In my opinion anyway. It’s just...”

      His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “It’s something you might want to look into, living down here. It’s magical. You move so easily in water you think you were born there. You hear your own air bubbles, the world is far away, and you see amazing creatures in their own universe.”

      “Thanks. I’ll consider it,” she murmured, thinking how strange his words had been. It had sounded as if he actually cared whether she liked South Florida.

      They weren’t more than a mile due south of the facility when one of the crew came around to join them.

      “We’re going to drop anchor,” he told them. “You might want to gear up, sir.”

      Agent Cody thanked him, then turned to Lara again. “How’s your dolphin doing?”

      She looked overboard. Rick was still standing just down the deck and had been watching the water the whole time, keeping an eye on Cocoa as she accompanied them. She had to admit that it had been a very interesting morning so far. She and Rick had swum out of the lagoon toward the cutter, with Cocoa following, then he had talked to Cocoa before they had climbed up the ladder to the deck.

      Cocoa had kept pace with them all the way. Lara was even more impressed with her intelligence, and gratified that such an amazing animal had decided to choose her as, well, a friend.

      As if on cue, Cocoa surfaced, giving out her squeal.

      “I believe she’s fine,” Lara said.

      “You can manage snorkel gear?” he asked her.

      It was a real question, she realized. She managed not to be totally sarcastic in her reply.

      “I’ll be fine,” she said.

      He headed to the stern, where he, Diego, Rick and one of the crew helped each other with their dive tanks.

      Then Agent Cody came back over to her. “There’s an embankment just that way, and we’ll be close to the surface until we reach it. The depth there maxes out at about twenty to twenty-five feet, so we won’t be far at any time. Do you need some type of flotation device?”

      “I’ll be fine in a mask and flippers,” she said.

      “You’re sure.”

      “I am.”

      “All right. Just keep telling her to fetch. One of the crew will be with you. You’ll never be out there alone.”

      “Thank you.”

      He nodded. That curt nod of his seemed to be his trademark.

      As Agent Cody went over, sitting on the hull and falling backward into the water, Diego McCullough joined her. “You okay?” he asked her cheerfully.

      “You bet.”

      “I’m not so sure I would be,” he said. “The dead body side of it...it takes time.”

      “I’ve had a few strange experiences in my life,” Lara told him. “I’ll be fine. And thank you, truly, for being concerned.”

      He nodded. Rick had already gone into the water, and now Diego followed him. A crewman came over to Lara with the mask she’d already chosen and a pair of fins. He held them out to her.

      “Miss Ainsworth?”

      “Thanks.”

      Five minutes later she was in the water. Thankfully, she had snorkeled before at Virginia Beach and on a vacation to Jamaica when she’d been younger. She knew that she was a strong swimmer and that the fins would help propel her. She loved to just have her face in the water to see everything below her while the snorkel let her breathe.

      Конец

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