Cold As Death (The Mira Morales Series Book 5)

by T. J. MacGregor

  She had seen Ace free himself from chains and straitjackets that would leave Houdini in knots, and had watched Luke do flips on a tightrope forty feet up, without a net beneath him. Ever since Hurricane Danielle had washed the boardwalk away, thus ending the boardwalk performances, they had been picking up odd jobs on the island, and were overseeing the reconstruction on her house. They also had invited her and the dog to stay in their trailer until the house was habitable again.

  “What’d he say?” Ace asked. “I mean, was it, like ‘Hey, Mira, how’s it going?’ ”

  “No, it was more like, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ ”

  “Ghosts walk?”

  “I don’t know, Ace. I don’t know what the hell ghosts do. I just see them. I hear them. I watch them help dead people cross over.”

  “You need strong coffee and breakfast,” Ace said. “Coming right up.”

  She didn’t know what she needed. A lobotomy. A windfall of money to pay for the mounting bills on the reconstruction of her house, her bookstore. She needed a new life. Pity party, pity party. Ricki seemed to sense her mood, and trotted out of the room as if to distance herself from the negativity. Who could blame her?

  When Mira came out of the bedroom a few minutes later, Ace had let Ricki outside and spread out a feast on the table. Luke, already seated, eyed everything with obvious delight. “If you don’t hurry up and sit down, Mira, I’ll eat your portion too,” Luke said. “So I understand our trailer is haunted.”

  “Just briefly.”

  Luke was as tall as Ace, about six feet, but more muscular, with broad shoulders and powerful arms and hands that looked as if they could snap steel. Both men were in their mid-forties and in their eighteen years together had remained more committed to each other than most heterosexual couples she knew.

  “Ghosts haunt briefly?” Luke asked.

  “They drop in for visits,” Ace said, setting a platter of biscuits on the table. “Like the woman at the Nicholses’ place, right?”

  Luke leaned forward, his blue eyes narrowing, and whispered, “Is anyone here now, Mira?”

  “Yeah, actually, there’s a woman leaning over your shoulder, trying to read the newspaper.”

  “What?” Luke shot to his feet so fast his chair tipped back and crashed to the floor.

  Mira laughed. “Just kidding.”

  “Very funny,” Luke groused, picking up his chair.

  Ace chuckled. “I mean, c’mon, man, what self-respecting ghost would visit you?”

  Outside, Ricki started barking. Golden retrievers licked, wagged their tails, sought to please, but rarely barked, she thought. Ace, who was closest to the window, parted the slats in the blinds with his hand and peered out. “Company.”

  “Not for us,” Luke said. “Our friends don’t get up this early.”

  “Wait, false alarm,” Ace announced. “The car’s making a U-turn in the cul-de-sac. It’s a Mercedes, one of those spiffy jobs worth sixty or seventy grand.”

  “Oh, well, then. They’re definitely in the wrong neighborhood,” Mira remarked. “It’s probably Charlie Cordoba, here to arrest me.”

  “Cordoba in a Mercedes?” Luke laughed. “Please. The man drives a rusted piece of shit that bears an uncanny resemblance to his brain.”

  Ricki continued barking, but the tone of the bark changed. This sounded like a warning, the kind they had heard a lot in the days right after Danielle, when the looting had been bad. Ace and Luke noticed it as surely as she did, and Ace stood quickly and retrieved his rifle from the broom closet. Luke, peering out the window now, said: “The car pulled into your driveway, Mira.”

  She pushed to her feet. “Okay, let’s check it out, boys.” She felt like Annie Oakley.

  Ace went out first, the rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, with Luke and Mira right behind him. The Mercedes still stood in her driveway, headlights on, bright against the garage door. Ricki, no longer barking, sat back on her haunches near the car door, waiting for the driver to get out. Mira whistled for her. Ricki glanced her way, then back at the darkly tinted driver’s-side window, then reluctantly returned to Mira’s side.

  “Stay,” Mira said softly.

  “Can we help you with something?” Ace called out.

  The car door opened. The woman who stepped out wore denim Capris, a red tank top with a cotton shirt over it, sandals, and a baseball cap with the brim pulled down low over her eyes. She had a straw bag slung over her shoulder. When she took off the hat, Ace breathed, “Holy crap.”

  “Oh, my God,” Luke muttered. “You might’ve shot her.”

  It was Suki Nichols. “Mira?”

  “Suki. We thought you might be a looter. Sorry about this.”

  “I wasn’t sure of the address. The trailer threw me.” She strode toward them now, with Ricki the first to greet her, tail wagging.

  Mira made the formal introductions. Ace and Luke, their eyes the size of pancakes, acted like tongue-tied groupies meeting a rock star.

  “I’ve seen you two perform,” Suki exclaimed. “You’re terrific.”

  Ace looked like he might pass out from the praise and Luke seemed embarrassed.

  “How about some coffee?” Mira asked.

  “And breakfast,” Ace added. “If you haven’t eaten already. We were just about to eat.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Suki replied, and they all went inside.

  If she found the trailer too humble or cramped, she certainly didn’t show it. She acted as if she were among friends, comfortable enough to comment on Ace’s rifle, on the delicious breakfast banquet, and to ask about the reconstruction on Mira’s home. By the time light appeared in the windows, Ace and Luke were questioning her about how she chose her roles and memorized lines and what it was like to work with Spielberg on Acid Trip.

  In a brief lull in the conversation, Suki said, “Mira, I’d like to hire you to find my son.”

  “We’ll leave you two ladies alone,” Luke said, getting up to clear the table.

  “No, please, it’s fine with me as long as it’s okay with Mira,” Suki said.

  “I don’t have any secrets from these two,” Mira told her.

  “Hey, we’ve got a gig in Key Largo in three days,” Ace said. “We need to practice.”

  Suki pointed at Ace. “Escape artist.” Her finger slid through the air to Luke. “Tightrope walker. Do I have that right?”

  “Perfect,” Ace replied.

  “And just where do you figure you’re going to practice around here?” Mira asked.

  Ace grinned. “On your lawn, girl. And don’t worry; you won’t have to call nine-one-one. We’ll be safety-conscious.”

  “He’s lying,” Luke added. “We’re rarely safety-conscious.” He whistled for Rich, who trotted after them.

  After they’d left, Mira said, “Look, I know Adam’s alive, but I can’t promise you that I’ll find him.”

  “How…do you know he’s alive?”

  “I saw him.” Mira described her dream, minus the part about Tom. “He was clicking through photos on a computer and seemed upset by it.” She shut her eyes briefly, conjuring up the rest of what she’d seen, the details that hadn’t registered at the time. “There was also a photo album sitting next to the computer with newspaper clippings in it. Stuff about you. I saw a Styrofoam cooler off to one side, a TV, all sorts of electronic games.”

  “So whoever took him is keeping him amused and comfortable.”

  “It seems that way.”

  “Adam’s photo is going to be released today. Once that happens, the press and paparazzi are going to be camped outside my house. Paul is pushing me to make the round of talk shows, to use the media, but that seems pointless. Adam’s picture will be out there, widely circulated even if I never do anything more than issue a cursory statement. Paul has his agenda, the cops have their agenda, and I need someone in my court.”

  “All I can tell you is what I pick up.”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

&nbs
p; “Do you?” Mira leaned forward. “How blunt and honest do you want me to be, Suki?”

  She held Mira’s gaze for a moment before speaking. “I know Paul is seeing someone, if that’s what you’re referring to “He was with her the night Adam was taken.”

  Suki nodded, but something in her eyes seemed to come apart, crumble, dissolve. She looked down at the tabletop. “I suspected as much.”

  But you made love to him anyway. Mira sat back, hands wrapped around the coffee mug. “Do you know who she is?”

  “I have no idea.” She paused, then added: “There have been a lot of women over the years, most of them groupie types who think he walks on water.”

  Mira rubbed her hands over her face, wishing there were some other way to do this, that she could wave her magic psychic wand and voila—Adam’s location would appear to her, complete with address, geographic coordinates, and the name on the mailbox. A man she knew who had worked in the government’s remote-viewing program had an eighty-five percent success rate in finding anyone, anywhere, in any time frame. Mira had seen Joe McMoneagle locate a Japanese man who had been missing thirty-five years and yet he was given nothing more than the man’s name and birth date in a sealed envelope that he never opened. McMoneagle was the crème de la crème, a genuine anomaly whose abilities worked in a highly specific way. She wasn’t at that level, would never be there. She read emotions, issues, stuff, and if anyone had handed her an envelope with a name and birth date inside and asked her to locate a missing person through nothing but that, she wouldn’t be able to do it.

  “Can you help me?” Suki asked.

  The plaintive note in her voice, the desperation in her expression, the fact that she was here at all, prompted Mira to extend her hand, palm open. “I don’t know. Put your hand in mine.”

  Suki didn’t just put her hand in Mira’s palm; she laced her fingers through Mira’s and held on like a drowning woman clutching a life preserver. Mira altered her breathing, practicing what Nadine had taught her years ago. She inhaled deeply through her right nostril, exhaled through her left, repeated it three times and switched nostrils. She went through the process again and again, until she felt herself sinking deeper, deeper.

  The first thing that popped into her awareness was the figure who stood next to Suki, a man holding a model airplane. “Anthony or Anton,” Mira said. “He’s holding the same model airplane that’s hanging from the ceiling in Adam’s room. Who is he?”

  “My God,” Suki breathed. “Anton is my dad. That was his birth name. He never went by that name. He’s been dead for nine years.”

  Okay, she was on the right track. Thank you, Anton. You can go away now.

  And he did. He was sure a lot more cooperative than Tom.

  More breathing. Going deeper. Another person appeared next to Suki. As the woman became clearer, Mira thought, Yeah, right. It was Katharine Hepburn, looking very much as she had in Love Affair, a romantic comedy remake of the original Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr movie, Hepburn’s last film role before her death in 2003. Mira couldn’t remember much about the film except that it had a great cast—Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Kate Capshaw, and Pierce Bronsan.

  What could she possibly say to the ghost of Katherine Hepburn?

  You don’t have to ask me anything, Hepburn said. Just tell her I’m still here. Repeat my words exactly.

  “What?” Suki asked softly, leaning forward. “What is it?”

  “This is going to sound nuts. But, uh, Katharine Hepburn said to tell you she’s still here. She was very firm about my repeating the exact words. Tell her I’m still here.”

  Suki looked shocked. “That’s what she used to say to me any time we got together. I’m still here, Suki, and then she would sort of laugh like it was all some big cosmic joke.” How well did you know her?”

  “Not well. I met her when she was filming Love Affair. I got onto the set and into her dressing room to tell her how much I admired her. We ended up talking for a long time. Every time there was a knock at the door, she told whoever it was to go away. It was one of the peak moments of my life. Several months later, she came over to the house for dinner. I think Paul was trying to get her to sign up for a film he wanted to direct. But she was more interested in Adam. He was just a toddler then and they got along great. From time to time over the years, we would get together for lunch or coffee and she always made a point of asking me to bring Adam. Maybe that’s why she’s here. Because of her affection for Adam.”

  Hepburn continued to stand just behind Suki, her head cocked to one side, as though she were listening to something. Thank you, Mira thought at her.

  She smiled and was gone.

  Suki had long since reclaimed her hand, so now Mira touched her arm again, focusing, silently asking, Please give me more. And then she had it, the core issue, at least for Suki. But she hesitated. Was this ethical? Did Suki really want the full truth? “Paul isn’t Adam’s blood father.”

  Suki sucked in her breath. “That’s true.”

  It may come out. Are you willing to live with that?”

  “Yes.”

  No equivocation. And no explanation. “Could Adam’s real father be the one who took him, Suki?”

  “No. No. He was a producer for one of my films. Married. Not a very nice guy. Paul caught me on the rebound, and only later did I realize I was pregnant. Adam doesn’t know. Paul doesn’t know. No one knows.”

  “At some level, Adam has always known. That’s why he and Paul don’t get along well.”

  Suki nodded, folded her hands together, struggled not to cry--and failed. She broke down completely, her sobs so wrenching and devoid of pretense that Mira finally got up and sat down beside her. She put her arms around this woman whom she barely knew, hugging her tightly. Too tightly. Something new crept into her awareness. “Suki, does the word kismet mean anything to you?”

  Suki drew back, her surprise as obvious as thunder. “How…I mean, yes. Kismet was the name of the production company Paul and I started shortly after we got married. It was mostly a tax write-off, but we produced four or five independent films. Why? How’s it important?”

  “I don’t know. It means fate, right?”

  “Fate, destiny, fortune, karma.”

  Mira didn’t know why this particular word had come up, but now that it had, she would let it gel for a while. “We’ll find Adam,” Mira told her, and hoped she would be able to fulfill this particular promise. “I’d like to start by reading Adam’s room. I would rather do it without your husband around.”

  “There are feds upstairs, monitoring the phones. Will that be a problem?”

  “No, it shouldn’t be.”

  “What else do you need?”

  “Access to Adam’s things—games, computer, whatever he touches a lot.”

  “Forensics has gone through his room, but otherwise it’s just as it was.”

  “Did they take anything of his?”

  “No. But they touched everything.”

  That might be a challenge. “I’ll meet you at your place around ten or ten thirty. I have to go by my store first.”

  “That’ll give me a chance to get Paul out of the house.” She reached into the touristy straw bag, brought out her wallet, and handed Mira a check. “Is this enough?”

  Mira glanced at the check and nearly swallowed her tongue. Two hundred grand? “I think there are too many zeros, Suki. I can’t take this. It’s too much.” She set the check on the table.

  Suki looked horrified. “Mira, this is my son. I’ll pay whatever it takes to get him back. I can afford it. And if I can’t use my money to find my son”—her voice cracked. After a moment or two, she went on—”then what good is it?”

  After Suki had left, Mira picked up the check and stared at it, turned it over and over in her hands, shook her head, rubbed her eyes, and looked again, certain that three of the zeros would be gone. She never had been paid anything like this for her psychic work. Up until now, her occasional consulting
work for the Bureau was her best pay and at the most, they had paid two grand. This check would pay off her reconstruction bills, with money left over to stash into Annie’s college fund and to restock her store.

  But as soon as she thought this, she felt a terrible weight against the back of her neck and across her shoulders. She knew what it meant. Once she deposited this check in her bank, the pressure to succeed at this, to find Adam, would become almost unbearable.

  Chapter 8

  On the Beach

  Wayne Sheppard ran hard and fast across the island’s north beach, following its gracious, wide curves with a kind of athletic lust. Hurricane Danielle had devastated the other two beaches where he used to run. Even though North Beach tended to be rocky, so that he had to wear shoes, he preferred it to the jogging path in the Tango park. It was more private.

  But all of that aside, he ran here now because it marked a change in his usual routine. And change, he reminded himself, was good. Change was what he was after. The more easily he embraced it, the better off he would be. Every change he made, no matter how small, placed more distance between his former life with Mira and his present situation.

  A faint mist clung to the surface of the water and drifted inland, deepening the mystique that always had surrounded Tango Key. Over the years he had lived here, he had heard most of the myths and legends that existed about the island: buried treasures that dated back to the days when pirates roamed the Caribbean, hauntings, mermaids, UFOs, wild dolphins that sought interactions with humans, a Bigfoot-type creature that lived in the preserve. Then there was the black water mass that formed periodically offshore, nature’s time tunnel.

  Since he had experienced the mass last summer and had gone back several decades in time, he couldn’t discount the veracity of the other legends. If nothing else, his years on Tango had turned his worldview inside out and shaken loose every preconceived notion he’d held about how the universe worked.