The Cursed (17 page)

Hannah was listening to Kelsey so intently that when she heard a knock at the front door, she nearly jumped out of her chair.

At the same time, Kelsey’s phone rang.

Kelsey held up a hand, warning Hannah to wait, as she answered the phone. Then she said, “That was the cop out front. He says there’s a woman at the door—an attractive blonde.”

“Oh, hell. It’s Valeriya Dimitri,” Hannah said. “I should have called her.”

“And Valeriya is...?” Kelsey asked.

“My housekeeper. She usually comes mornings, and we clean up the place together. I’d like to talk to her. I haven’t spoken with her since right after I found...Jose.”

Kelsey nodded. But she didn’t leave her gun on the table. Instead, she slid it into the back of her jeans and let her light cotton jacket hide it.

They walked to the door together.

Valeriya looked delicate, but she could whip through a room like no one else and change beds in the blink of an eye. Once a month, Hannah had a local cleaning crew come through to give the house a thorough going-over, but on a daily basis she and Valeriya easily handled it together.

“Hannah!” Valeriya said, her eyes wide. “I hadn’t heard from you since—well, you know. I was starting to worry.”

“Come in, Valeriya,” Hannah said. “This is my cousin, Kelsey O’Brien. She used to live here in Key West.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Kelsey said.

“There’s a policeman out front,” Valeriya said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, trust me,” Hannah assured her. But
was
she?

“This is very scary,” Valeriya said. “I came to America to be safe.”

Hannah glanced at Kelsey. Safety was in short supply at this house right now.

“Valeriya, with everything that’s going on, you don’t need to come to work today. I don’t even have any guests other than my cousin and her fiancée. I thought she was bringing people with her, but it turns out it’s just the two of them.”

“I heard you’re secret agents,” Valeriya said breathlessly to Kelsey.

Word was out, Hannah thought. Key West was nothing but a small town when you got right down to it.

Valeriya turned to Hannah. “Hannah, please. I have to work. I can’t afford my rent if I don’t work.”

Hannah looked at Kelsey.

“Okay, Hannah. We’ve only been using three of the bedrooms, so—”

Valeriya smiled. “I will get to work right now.” Still beaming, she left them and went upstairs.

“I can’t let her starve,” Hannah said when she caught Kelsey’s dubious glance.

“No, but her behavior is pretty strange. I know you, though—you’d pay her whether or not she worked the hours.”

“Yes, I would.”

“So why is she staying and working?”

“Maybe she’s scared,” Hannah suggested. “She saw the body in the alley. And if she can’t make a living and has to leave the island, I’ll be in trouble when this is over and I start taking guests again,” Hannah said.
If this is ever over,
she added silently.

And Valeriya’s behavior
was
strange. Very strange. She had a child. Her mother lived with her and was her childcare provider. Why was she here when she could be with them?

Whatever Valeriya’s reason, Hannah decided, if working was that important to the woman, she could work.

“I guess you’re right,” Kelsey said.

“Besides, I’m afraid, too.”

“Of?”

“What if someone decides Valeriya knows something, or that I told her something?”

“First, people know she works for you, so she’s in danger already. Second, we won’t let her go home until Logan and Dallas get back, and then one of us will see that she gets there safely,” Kelsey said.

“Yes, but she needs to go shopping and things—she has to keep living. I should have called her. I should have told her to stay away,” Hannah said.

The words had barely left her mouth when they heard a long sharp scream from upstairs.

Followed by a massive thump.

12

T
he young man sitting sullenly in front of Dallas had neatly clipped brown hair and hazel eyes. He was tanned and fit, like someone who spent his days playing in the sun. Or working in it.

But he didn’t have the hands or fingers of a working man. His palms were baby soft, and his fingertips were callus free. He had the look of many South Floridians; Dallas was pretty sure one of his parents had some kind of mixed Northern European background, while the other had hailed from Cuba or one of the other islands, or Central or South America.

His first words to Dallas were, “You have no right to keep me here.”

“No? Actually, I can hold you for twenty-four hours without charging you. I understand you demanded an attorney, then decided you didn’t want one after all,” Dallas said.

Liam laid a file down in front of Dallas, then stepped to the back of the room and leaned against the wall, just watching. The plan was for him to stay there, silent, unless Dallas asked him something.

Logan was watching from the other side of the one-way mirror.

Dallas opened the file. “Martin Garcia. Born Miami Beach, Florida, 1991. Hmm. I’m looking at a couple of drug busts here.” He looked up at the young man. “Why do I get the feeling you’re lucky you were brought in for possessing the stuff rather than selling it?”

Martin Garcia smiled at him. “You can think anything you want.”

“What I want is for you to tell me about the murder of a man the other night—a man you were with until he was attacked.”

Garcia tried to keep up his cool, belligerent manner. He was leaned back in the chair, legs sprawled forward. Dallas ignored that and watched his eyes. As soon as the kid lowered his lids and looked to the side, Dallas knew they had him.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Garcia said.

Dallas leaned closer to him, shrugging. “I think you do. And, at this point, you should talk—and you should stay here just as long as we let you. Because I’m pretty sure the Wolf kills those he suspects of disloyalty—which would certainly include giving the police any information on him. And if you leave here, I’m going to hold a press conference and announce that we’re close to finding the Wolf because of information we’ve received from an informant.”

The blood drained from Garcia’s face, and he turned a sickly shade of taupe.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” he said quickly. He tried to regain his composure. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about. Los Lobos. Yeah, I’ve heard of them—everybody has. So what?”

“Tell us about the Wolf,” Dallas said.

“I don’t know anything about any wolf!” Garcia protested.

“Well, then,” Dallas said, sitting back and turning around to look at Liam. “We might as well just release him. He doesn’t know anything about the Wolf. He won’t wind up like Jose Rodriguez or Yerby Catalano or, more importantly, the man who died on the bridge last night. Admittedly, the Wolf didn’t kill him. The poor bastard committed suicide by cop. He’d rather have us shoot him than face what he knew was coming from his boss.”

“Sure. We’ll let him go right now,” Liam said. “Littering—what were my guys thinking, picking him up on a charge like that?”

Everything about Martin Garcia changed then. He shook his head. “Don’t. You can’t. I’d tell you what you want to know, but I don’t have anything to tell you. Really.”

“See?” Liam said. “He can’t help us—really. We should just let him go. I mean, I’d offer him protection, a bunch of cops to stand around keeping an eye on him all day, but we don’t have that kind of manpower. He got himself into whatever, he can get himself out.”

“No!” Garcia was on his feet. “You don’t understand. I don’t know who the Wolf is. I got mixed up in the whole thing because of my cousin Billie.”

“Billie,” Dallas said. “Sit down.” He indicated the chair again. “So, tell us about Billie. Would he be Knife, Hammer, Pistol or Blade? Which one are you, by the way?”

Garcia’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what—”

“Get him out of here!” Dallas said with disgust.

“No, no! Billie is Blade. I’m—I’m Knife.”

“Knife,” Dallas said. “You like knives, Garcia? Slicing people up?”

“I never killed anyone, I swear!” Garcia protested. “I just needed a name—you know, one that would make me sound tough and cool. None of us are supposed to know each other’s real names—or even know each other at all, most of the time. If a job calls for more than one person, we meet at a predetermined location and use the names we’ve chosen.”

“But you and your cousin
did
know each other. There were four of you the other night—getting to know the new guy. Jose Rodriguez. At least one of you knew him by name, because someone in the group recruited him.”

Garcia nodded. “Yeah, my cousin. Billie. Blade. He recruited him.”

“Great. Tell us about your cousin Blade.”

“Blade didn’t kill him, either.”

“But you all knew he was going to be killed,” Dallas said.

“No.”

Dallas started to turn away in disgust.

“No, no! I swear we didn’t!” Garcia cried, his voice high-pitched and tense. Sweat suddenly appeared on his face.

He was telling the truth.

“That’s just it, don’t you see? You have to protect me.” Garcia hadn’t wanted to talk, but he suddenly couldn’t stop, the words pouring from him. “I never saw the guy before that night. Billie—Blade—met him in some bar. He was talking about his sucky life—how he was ready to do more so he could get more. Blade talked to the Wolf, and the Wolf said to bring him in. Blade brought the new guy—Pulpit—when we got together the other night. Wolf’s orders. We were going to get our assignment when the Wolf called Blade.

“So we’re in the bar and Blade gets the call. He just tells us to leave the bar and walk down Duval toward Mallory Square. Then the phone rings again, and the Wolf tells us where to turn off. We’re just walking. Just walking, I swear it! Then suddenly there’s this noise behind us and I...I turn around and there’s blood and your guy is trying to fight off some guy and Blade says ‘Run!’ So we ran—the rest of us, we ran like hell. I have no idea who actually killed the guy. I’m telling you the truth. Finally Blade says we gotta split up. Then he tells me that I gotta look different, so I cut my hair and all. I bought preppy clothes...I did what I was told.”

Dallas stared at him. “And you never killed anyone?”

“No.”

“What happened to the girl who went diving?” he asked quietly. “Yerby Catalano.”

Garcia shook his head. “I swear I don’t know. I overheard one of the guys saying that call went to Machete.”

“Who’s Machete?”

“I swear to God, I don’t know.”

Liam came forward, pulled a pad from the folder on the desk and pushed it toward Garcia, along with a pen he took from his pocket. “We need names—real names if you have them, aliases if you don’t.”

“I’ll be a dead man if I do that.”

“You’re a dead man if you don’t. Your only hope is helping us. Then, if your info pans out, we’ll bring in the U.S. Marshals and see about getting you a new identity. But first we need everything you can give us. And you’d better not lie or witness protection goes out the window,” Liam warned.

Garcia winced, looking down at the paper. “My cousin...he’s my blood,” he said.

“It’s your blood or your life,” Dallas told him. He leaned forward. “If we send you out there now, you’re dead. I want your cousin’s full name. I want to know where to find him. I also want to know about every theft you’ve been involved with, and I want to know everything—
everything
—you can possibly tell us about Los Lobos and the people in it. And it’s in your best interest to do so, because until we get the Wolf, no matter how we try to protect you, no matter what we do, you’ll be looking over your shoulder the rest of your life.”

Garcia was visibly deflated. His whole face was damp with sweat. He nodded.

“There’s one more thing I need to know—and I need to know it now,” Dallas said.

Garcia looked at him. His eyes were wide, terrified. He nodded.

“What were you doing on that ghost tour?” Dallas asked.

Garcia froze. Then he winced as if he were in pain.

“What?” Dallas demanded.

“The house,” Garcia said at last. “I was supposed to get a good look at the house.”

“And what else?”

“I...I was supposed to get the woman alone. Wolf knew that Hannah O’Brien wasn’t going to be leading the tour. That it would be another woman. Katie O’Hara. I was supposed to...to get her alone when the tour was over, before she headed back to the house.”

“Why?”

He winced again. “I—I wasn’t ordered to kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was supposed to get to know her. Talk to her about the Siren of the Sea like I was studying local history and needed to know for a paper I was writing.”

“Why?”

“So she would invite me back to see more of the place. The Wolf didn’t know she’d have a cop
and
her husband with her.”

“So you gave up the plan. But what
was
the plan?”

“I was supposed to get her talking Then I was supposed to see that the doors were left unlocked.”

“That’s it? That was all you had to do? You weren’t supposed to kill anyone?”

“No. No killing,” Garcia said.

Maybe not, Dallas thought, but the kid was lying. There was something else.

Dallas forced Garcia to meet his eyes. “There’s something else going on. What aren’t you telling me?”

Garcia let out a breath. “Drug her coffee,” he said.

“What?” Dallas said, surprised by the answer.

“Get into the kitchen and drug her coffee. But I never got the chance.” Garcia stopped talking and inclined his head toward Liam. “The cop was there.”

“Detective Beckett was there, you mean.”

“Detective Beckett. And the other guy—lethal looking guy. He was a Beckett, too. David Beckett. The cop’s brother. So when I found out she’d be surrounded all night, I shelved the plan. The Wolf isn’t stupid.” Garcia paused again and sighed. “He doesn’t mind sending out an army to get killed. But he always has the endgame in mind, so if things don’t line up, he gets it. When he called me to check in and I explained the situation, he said just to be friendly and curious and stay at the Hard Rock when the tour was over, then leave after I had my free drink.”

Dallas stood and looked down at Garcia. “This better be the truth—the absolute truth,” he said. “We’re going to find the others and pick them up. We’ll hold them, and then, most probably, they’ll be charged with conspiracy to commit murder. I’m a federal agent, not a district attorney, but if you testify, I’m sure the DA will agree to relocate you.”

Garcia nodded, then looked down at the pad and pen lying in front of him.

When Dallas and Liam headed for the door, Garcia laid his head down on his arms. He was shaking, Dallas saw. Despite his dangerous alias, “Knife” wasn’t cut out for a life of crime, and he was afraid. Terrified. He’d been an easy mark. He almost felt sorry for the kid.

But, Dallas knew, the Wolf wouldn’t feel any such thing. Because he didn’t care who he lost—who he sacrificed.

And damn it, they still weren’t close to the answers they needed.

“Think we’ll get anything?” Liam asked as he and Dallas met up with Logan in the hall.

“I think he was telling the truth. The Wolf is smart about only sending those out to kill who can kill,” Dallas said. “Garcia, a killer? No way. The Wolf goes for the cold-blooded kind. Like the guy who came after us on the bridge. He was ready to kill or be killed. The odd thing is, I don’t think the Wolf cared whether we were killed on that bridge or not.”

“No?” Dallas asked.

“What he wants is to get inside the house. He knew the accident might not go his way, but he figured even if we weren’t killed or in the hospital, we’d be so wiped out by getting hit, then all the follow-up with the cops, that once we got back we’d be out like lights. Maybe even on painkillers to help us sleep. Meanwhile, he would have come in through the door Garcia left open and hidden somewhere, so once we were asleep he could look around for the treasure to his heart’s content.”

“And then most likely kill us all,” Logan finished.

“Maybe,” Dallas said. “Or maybe he just wanted to get into the house and our fates didn’t matter one way or the other. The Wolf steals art and artifacts. The only time someone dies is was when they cross him or he wants to send a warning, or they’re in his way or have something he wants. The people on the salvage boat disappeared. But Jose was only killed because he had infiltrated the gang, and maybe because the Wolf thought Jose was close to discovering something about the
Wind and the Sea.
”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Logan said. “Why does he think the treasure’s at Hannah’s place? It was never there, right?”

“There are no records to show that it was ever stored at the house,” Dallas agreed.

“Records can be missing or misleading,” Liam said.

“We have to find it,” Dallas said.

“Yes,” Logan said. “And the Wolf.”

“But,” Logan said, “if we can find the treasure—or even make Los Lobos think we have—we just may be able to trap the Wolf.”

* * *

Valeriya was in Captain Chandler’s room, the room where Dallas was staying.

She was on the floor, looking disoriented. Kelsey rushed in ahead of Hannah, gun at the ready, prepared for anything. Valeriya saw the gun and let out another high-pitched scream.

“Valeriya!” Hannah cried, hurrying forward to help the girl, who was trying to get up. “What happened?”

Valeriya pointed at the bed. “I—I pulled the sheet, but it caught under the mattress and I slammed against the wall and fell down.”

“Did you hit your head? Are you hurt?” Hannah asked her.

Kelsey slid her weapon back into the waistband of her trousers, snug against the small of her back, and joined Hannah to help Valeriya to her feet.

“I’m okay,” Valeriya said. “I’m sorry I screamed like a baby.”

“You sure did,” Hannah agreed, laughing. “But that’s okay.”

“Let’s get you downstairs, so you can have something to drink and sit a minute—make sure you’re all right,” Kelsey said.