his best to follow along that lead—putting bad guys away.
He’d worked hard through law school, apprenticed with the system in Tallahassee and then returned home, quickly rising in the ranks at the county courts.
Robert told her he’d been trying to reach her, too. “You okay, kid? You didn’t get back to me. I was concerned. Don’t you do that to me again, young lady.”
“I won’t. I promise!”
“So, what happened?”
Raina took a deep breath. She tried to explain about the dress, muddling it terribly. But it seemed Robert hadn’t worried excessively over not hearing from her because she’d been with Axel.
She did her best to be reassuring. She tried to segue to the fundraiser the coming night. When they ended the call, she let out a long sigh, hoping her brother didn’t think she was losing her grip on reality and sanity. Of course he loved her. And he believed in her.
Axel simply believed her when she wasn’t sure she believed it herself.
All because of a pirate ship she most likely imagined on a foggy night long ago.
She tossed and turned for a while, not wanting to admit she was anxious he call her.
She really just needed out of all this. Why, of all the dresses in the world, had she been compelled to try on that one?
And look in the mirror.
And see...
“Argh!” she spoke aloud.
Titan whined, sensing her mood.
“I’m so sorry, boy! We’re going to sleep now, I promise!” she said.
The dog settled down. She lay awake a long time.
She slept at last. Deeply.
* * *
Axel could have stayed out with Andrew at his place or even with Nigel in Miami Springs. He knew he was welcome at either place anytime.
But sometimes he liked his own space. A place to come at night and go over what they knew and what they didn’t know.
He had a hotel room between Raina’s place and Andrew’s, at the western edge of the city, not far from the Miccosukee casino. It was an average place, nondescript but decent, with breakfast included in the morning. It was large enough and offered a desk and plenty of outlets for phone and computers.
He sat down to read new information that had come in and reread the old case files.
The first two victims had been identified. The first had been a young widow who made her home on Miami Beach. She’d been well-liked, loved by her staff and appreciated by all the charities she was involved with.
No one knew what had happened to her. She’d gone to a bake sale to support a local Little League team, and she’d never come home.
Her car had been found in a strip mall parking lot with no video surveillance.
Police searched high and low. She was found almost a year ago, after she’d been missing for three months. Her body had been so badly decomposed in the Everglades that it had taken another three months before she’d been identified. She hadn’t had enemies. No one could think of any reason why she should have been killed. Her name had been Hermione Shore. The cause of her death had been determined by the medical examiner who had found knife marks on a throat bone.
The second death had been that of a fifty-year-old man. Peter Scarborough. He, too, had taken forever to identify because sun, water, birds and other creatures had done quite a number on him.
Peter—finally identified through dental records from South Dakota—had been married, and his marriage had been in trouble. But his wife had been back in South Dakota, having not come to Florida when he’d moved. Naturally, she had been a prime suspect when his body was found and later identified. But everything on her had been investigated: movements, financials, phone—any possible means of her hiring a killer. And nothing suggested she had killed her husband or had paid anyone else to do so.
The third victim had signaled Axel’s involvement. This one had been—through the medical examiner’s report—in her early thirties. Little else had been determined. She had no implants of any kind. Dental records yielded nothing. They were still comparing the remains to missing-persons reports. Sadly, she matched many.
Reading further, the third victim had finally received a positive ID. They hadn’t been able to identify her for months. She had been Alina Fairfield, a clothing designer, who traveled for a living but kept an apartment in Miami. Because she traveled so much, she hadn’t been flagged as missing until recently, and the report on her had been filled out