Deadly Touch Read online

  “He was a Miami-Dade patrolman when I was a kid. He had the county beat, covering what wasn’t federal or tribal out here. But then, federal lands, county lands and tribal lands are often hard to determine. I know there have been places where tribal police and county deputies or federal agents have had trouble, but not with Andrew and his officers, and not in any of my dealings. Helps that Andrew, Nigel and I were friends all our lives. Plus, there isn’t a soul I know of who doesn’t want this solved and put to rest.”

  “So, we need to do it!” Kylie said, handing them all paper cups.

  Axel smiled at her. He hadn’t known her that long, but he liked her a lot. He knew she’d been about to start a dream job in New York City when she and Jon had met; she had given it up to move to Northern Virginia with him. She was a brilliant historian and had quickly found work she loved, doing research on a Revolutionary-era building near their home in Alexandria—work that was exactly what she wanted, done on her own schedule. Adam Harrison had seen the historic property and determined to buy it, with Kylie continuing her work on the research, and starting the process to open the old home as a museum, circa the late 1700s when it had been built.

  She also embraced what Jon did and loved the Krewe.

  And it just so happened that she herself was unusually talented, like the rest of the Krewe.

  He was counting on that now.

  “You need the dress, right?” Axel asked her.

  “I’m working in the dark here, too. I haven’t figured myself out yet,” Kylie told him. “But yes, I’m thinking we should have the dress.”

  They left soon after, taking both cars just in case they discovered later in the day they might need to move separately.

  As he drove with Raina, Axel asked her, “You’re seriously all right with all this?”

  “I’m not just all right, I’m anxious. I want to do this. I want Jordan to be all right. I want to believe I helped stop whatever is happening, that I’ve helped to save lives, maybe.”

  He nodded. “Last night, you saw things. Amazing things.”

  She nodded slowly. “That’s what I mean, though. It was like Kylie said. I don’t understand myself, either. But I want to test the limits and hope it can take us where we need to be.”

  They drew down the off-road path to Andrew’s house. Jon and Kylie were right behind them. Andrew and Nigel came out as they arrived, ready to greet the four of them.

  But first out was Titan. He ran to his mom as if he were a toddler who’d been left at day care for the first time.

  A happy dog. Bending down, Raina greeted him lovingly, and then introduced Titan to Kylie and Jon, who luckily had not lied.

  They seemed to like the dog immediately and Titan returned the affection.

  Then Andrew cleared his throat, looking at Nigel.

  “Check your messages,” Nigel said. “There was a quick hit on our interagency system. The thigh material belonged to a young man named Brandon Wells. He went missing about a week ago, from the St. Pete area.”

  “St. Pete?” Axel murmured. “Interesting. And until now, our killer hasn’t done any slicing.”

  “For now, we have to treat it as if it might be a separate case,” Nigel said.

  Axel stared at Nigel. “Unlikely someone would try to poison Raina’s dog without there being a connection.” He looked around at the silent group. “Kylie, Raina, any place in particular you’d like to be?”

  Raina looked at Kylie. “Where are you most comfortable?” Kylie asked.

  “Where we are out of the way?” Raina suggested.

  “Anywhere you want to be is fine,” Andrew assured her.

  Raina smiled ruefully. “Believe it or not, I’d love to be in the stables with the horses and the smell of hay, and yeah, I’d be comfortable there.”

  “Okay, going to try the dress on in a stall?” Kylie asked.

  She was serious.

  So was Raina.

  “Sure. Sounds fine. Just—”

  “I’ll be there. Ready to catch you if you fall.”

  “I don’t think I will,” Raina said.

  “Jon, want to join Andrew and me?” Nigel asked.

  “I’m here to help. Where are we starting?”

  “We’re looking at relationships in the life of our latest victim. Presumed victim. Though it’s unlikely the young man is still alive if he’s, er, missing that much leg material. Possible, but under the circumstances...”

  “It’s strange, though,” Andrew said. “How do you go from a swift, practiced kill to slicing and dicing someone?” He shook his head and started toward the house.

  “We won’t disturb you—unless you need us,” Nigel said, looking from Axel to Kylie and, finally, to Raina.

  “I’m going to be fine,” Raina said.

  She did so with confidence. Axel hoped she was really growing as comfortable with her strange visions as she claimed.

  Then again, what choice did they really have other than to exploit them in any way they could?

  Sixteen

  Axel was headed inside with Andrew, Nigel and Jon to quickly discuss their course of action for the day.

  That left Raina to introduce Kylie to Wild Thing and Jacob. Kylie apparently liked horses as much as she liked dogs. It was hard to fake affection for dogs and horses. They instinctively knew who did and didn’t like them.

  “How did you get into animal training?” Kylie asked her. “It’s not one of those careers that comes up when you’re speaking with a school counselor.”

  “I think I wanted to be a veterinarian—except I found out animals died and there might be a lot of blood. Anyway, I always had a dog, even when I was young, but my dad was with a friend who had an old horse and was thinking glue factory. It turned out the horse wasn’t so old, he was just a bit wild. Anyway, I worked with him and someone at the ranch was impressed and said I should be a trainer. So, I went to college and did all kinds of courses in science and psychology, and luckily, a lot of people need their pets trained.”

  Kylie grinned. “People are animals. I know a few who need to be trained.” She laughed. “Sorry—that sounded horrible. I just mean there are a lot of people out there who need to learn about manners and behavior.”

  “True, people are animals. But I prefer to deal with the furry kind.”

  “Easy to see why sometimes,” Kylie said, stroking Jacob’s nose.

  “What about you? How did you come to be with Jon? I know you had a strange experience with a regression.”

  “I went on a bachelorette party with a friend who didn’t want strippers or wild nights, just fun with her closest friends. And then,” she said, pausing and smiling dryly, “everything kind of went to hell, horrible at first. I witnessed a murder, and I had a hard time dealing with that. But then things got better because I was able to do some good. Anyway, it’s all worked out for me.”

  “And you’re here now,” Raina said.

  Kylie nodded. She looked at Raina. “I was like you—everything was just normal. Four of us...we were just spending time doing what the bride loved to do, which was explore Salem, Massachusetts, something we’d all done together dozens of times. And we’d done tarot and palm readers several times—mainly just for fun—so we went to this man who had a reputation for past-life regressions and, just like that, my life was suddenly different. I’m no hero of any kind but I felt like you did. That I had to stop what was going on. Make a difference. And now, of course, I’m hoping to use my experience to help you. Of course, you don’t have to do this. If you feel—”

  “Oh, I do have to do this! I want to do this,” Raina told her. “And I hope I’m smart enough to be frightened and wary, the kind of frightened that makes me careful and watchful.”

  Kylie smiled at her. “I like it.” She was quiet a minute. “I think whoever is doing this knows you or Axe
l or maybe someone in law enforcement. How has Titan been acting around everyone?”

  “Titan was around a lot of people. He was at the fundraiser with me. But he didn’t behave oddly around anyone. Of course, that night, there were hundreds of people there. He also knew he was ‘on duty,’ more or less. The only thing was a strange feeling I had after Jordan had been at my house. And then, finding Jordan and remembering the way he had behaved.” She looked at Kylie. “Think there’s any possibility Jordan will come out of his coma and tell us everything we need to know?”

  “There’s always the possibility. And there’s the possibility others who know something or suspect something might disappear quickly, as well—and not be found alive. It’s pretty amazing Jordan escaped whoever had taken him.”

  She was right. Raina looked around the stables. For a moment she thought about how great Andrew’s house was—modern, sitting on the edge of an ancient world. She loved the history of Florida’s Native Americans, their run deeper and deeper into a no-man’s-land, conquering it to survive. The Everglades, deadly, yes. Beautiful, too, and unique.

  “I’m anxious to get started—with whatever we’re going to do.”

  “The dress.”

  “Yes, the dress is the key. Let’s see if Axel is ready to join us. He’s not going to be happy if we start without him!”

  * * *

  “We’re lucky that DNA testing can move so swiftly and we have priority with all this,” Nigel said. “Not that long ago, we’d have been waiting for weeks to get anything on the flesh you found.”

  Axel studied the papers they had on the missing man whose DNA had matched up with the piece of thigh left in Raina’s yard.

  “Humdrum job,” Andrew said, reading a dossier. “Computer tech with a big company. No records suggest he’d driven or flown down this way, or been in the Greater Miami Area or even Broward County. Credit card statements for the last six months keep him in his own area—St. Pete, Tampa and one drive down to a restaurant in Sarasota. His girlfriend reported him missing. They’d been together about a year and a half when he disappeared.”

  “We’ve found the remains of Fran Castle, dead thirteen years, most likely,” Nigel said. “Dr. Carlysle can’t say, but it’s likely she was killed when she went missing. Then, Hermione Shore, rich widow, but again, known for being a kind humanitarian. Next, we have the man who was found, throat slit, first in our recent history—Peter Scarborough, separated and living here while his wife was far away in South Dakota. He’s liked by all his coworkers. No one can think of anyone who would want to harm him. Then, Alina Fairfield, a clothing designer who traveled a lot. It took several months to identify her. Then, quickly discovered, Jennifer Lowry. And now, we believe we’re going to find Brandon Wells, another victim. Loved by his girlfriend, who again, according to all records and reports, never left home in the days before he was reported missing. They’d all been living here—or working here—except for Brandon Wells. The only thing they seem to have had in common was that they were nice, well-liked people. No criminal activity in any of their backgrounds.” He looked at them, frustrated. “Maybe this last incident—the human meat meant to kill a dog—does give us what we need, since the person responsible knows Raina Hamish has become involved in this search.”

  “Raina is the key. Listen, you guys keep at this,” Axel said. “I’m going to head out to the stables. I want to use Kylie to guide Raina.”

  “She’ll be good,” Jon said.

  “I’ve gotten ahold of Vinnie Magruder, retired,” Nigel said. “He’ll be out here tonight and we’ll see if he remembers anything at all.”

  “I’m not sure he can help us—unless it’s with old cases we don’t know anything about,” Andrew said. “Still, anything that might help.”

  “That first young lady, Fran Castle. From what we have—and what we remember, though memory could be faulty—she must have been at the casino. Her car was found just a little farther west on the trail. That suggests to me she’d been playing...and maybe then she was headed over to Naples. Someway or somehow, she stopped there and was picked up. And killed.”

  “No one seemed to protest when they were taken—though, of course, we don’t really know. But we do know that with Jennifer Lowry, there was no sign she’d fought, that she’d been knocked on the head or given a concussion. She was just taken. That suggests someone powerful,” Nigel said.

  “Or someone who might have had a strange hold like a bribe, blackmail, something like that,” Axel suggested.

  “They were all blackmailed?” Andrew asked. “If you’re blackmailing someone, don’t you want them alive so you keep getting those blackmail payments?”

  “Maybe. But maybe that’s the answer when you haven’t made your blackmail payments. There’s got to be something that ties them together. And I think we’re looking at more than one killer. More like a team. Maybe it’s more than two people, or two people always, but a different two people, somehow involved with one another—and a plan to get rid of someone. However, when you have a quiet neighborhood, it would be easy enough to stalk someone—know their schedule—and wait to seize them quickly and in the darkness. You do risk being seen by a neighbor, but if you’ve observed someone’s habits long enough, it’s certainly possible and likely. The Fran Castle case, though...right on the Tamiami Trail.”

  “Someone had balls,” Nigel noted. “Or, if she was the first, they were just learning. Maybe taking risks because they didn’t really know what they were doing yet.”

  Axel’s phone rang and he answered quickly.

  Angela Hawkins.

  “I found something,” she told him.

  “You did? Great! What?”

  “Not sure how great, but Jennifer Lowry had an aunt who died about forty-eight hours after the medical examiner determined Jennifer had died. The aunt—Elizabeth Lowry—left behind a considerable fortune. Jennifer died before her aunt, so according to the will, none of it would come her way or go into any of the charities she embraced. It would go to the other nieces and nephews—there were three more of them. Now that might mean nothing, but—”

  “It might mean everything. She needed to die before the aunt, and unlike the others, the killers needed for her body to be found immediately.”

  “That could suggest a couple of things. Copycat killers, or killers who had been hired to make sure her body was found quickly. Which may be why she was found in a more obvious, well travelled part of the Everglades.”

  “Murder for hire,” Axel mused.

  “I’m digging into other finances, other family members,” Angela said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Axel told Jon, Nigel and Andrew what Angela had discovered.

  “Executions. You said it from the beginning,” Andrew said.

  “A business machine that’s been running for years, and God knows just who it might employ,” Axel noted.

  “Let’s see what we get from Angela on the others. The finances on Jennifer Lowry didn’t pop up because she was never involved with the money. She would have been out of the aunt’s will before the aunt died because she was dead already,” Jon said. “I think we’re on to something now, but the who and why is still missing.”

  “We need Raina and Kylie,” Axel said.

  “We need anything we can get,” Jon agreed.

  Axel started out and the others followed him. Maybe, Axel thought, they all needed a break from staring at data and trying to figure out what it could all possibly mean.

  Their timing was good. Raina and Kylie seemed to be coming from the stables for him.

  “We didn’t want to start without you,” Kylie said. “We need to figure out a way to own horses in Alexandria!” she called to Jon as he headed back toward the house with Andrew and Nigel.

  “Sure! Everyone has a few on the beltway!” Jon called back.

>   “Spoilsport—we’re near tons of good land!” Kylie told him. “Okay, a bit of a drive, but doable.”

  In the stables, Raina paused again to speak to and assure Wild Thing and Andrew’s sturdy and dependable buckskin, Jacob.

  Then Raina ducked into the tack room to disrobe and don the little blue dress that had started it all.

  Axel stood just outside the door to the tack room, waiting with Kylie.

  After a while, he grew anxious and he opened the door.

  Raina was clad in the dress. Standing barefoot, she was staring straight ahead at Axel and Kylie, but not “at” them at all. She was seeing something distant, something they could not begin to fathom.

  At Axel’s side, Titan whined softly.

  Axel reached for her hand, then hesitated. She still didn’t see him.

  “It’s all right. I think. This is the blind leading the blind,” Kylie said softly. “Take her hand, lead her out here with us. We can have her sit on the grain chest over there and be next to her.”

  Axel grasped Raina’s hand and led her over to the grain chest, easing her down to sit, and went on his knees before her. Kylie stood just behind him.

  Titan found a position by Axel, setting his nose on Raina’s knee. Her eyes didn’t change, but she set her free hand on the dog’s head.

  “She didn’t scream this time,” Axel commented.

  “In my experience, you stop screaming once your mind kind of accepts what’s going on,” Kylie said softly. Then she spoke in an even, level tone to Raina.

  “Raina, it’s Kylie. You’re safe. You’re with Axel and me. We’re in the stables. Titan is here and the horses are here and Jon and Nigel and Andrew are just inside the house. Whatever you see, it isn’t where you are. But it’s good to see what you see. Can you talk to me?” Kylie asked.