Heather Graham - The Cursed

“They work like veins and arteries from a heart,” Liam said. “A very peculiar pyramid scheme.” He glanced at Dallas. “How many people do they think are involved all across the country?”

“Our best intelligence officers—CIA, FBI, Homeland Security—estimate about a hundred and fifty scattered across the United States.”

Dirk nodded, taking in their words. He was silent for a moment and then said, “Odd.”

“What’s odd?” Dallas asked.

“Los Lobos...the bodies I’ve had that the county officers think were members were done in true execution style—bullet to the back of the head. This is different,” Dirk said. “I’m not an investigator, of course. I can only tell you what...what the dead can tell. But it’s something to think about, right?”

Yes, it was.

Dallas hesitated before speaking. “Different crimes call for different punishments.” He hunkered down by the dead man. “Look at his hand, Dirk. He was holding something, right? Something somebody pried out of his hand.”

“So it appears,” Dirk agreed.

“Like a knife,” Dallas murmured.

“Hard to tell. I’ll have more for you after the autopsy. Traffic is going to be bad, so it’ll be an hour or so before we even have him on a table.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, Dallas.”

“I didn’t know him well. I just know that he was one of the good guys,” Dallas said. At least Dirk had done Rodriguez the mercy of closing his eyes.

Dallas set his fingers lightly on the dead man’s shoulders as he studied him. For a moment he felt the fierce grip of pain and sorrow.

This scene was too familiar. Not that long ago they’d lost another agent. Not that long ago he’d come upon a dead woman—that same agent—in the same position, lying in the street on her back. He had been close to what was going on...close to finding the truth, to rounding up a bunch of greedy bastards who didn’t care who they killed in their quest to amass more and more wealth.

They had made arrests. But he had suspected then, and he suspected now, that the real killer—the man giving the orders—had eluded him.

Jose Rodriguez had died on his back. His left hand was still curved and slightly twisted. His right hand lay in a puddle of blood.

Frowning, Dallas studied the puddle.

Jose had been trying to write something in his own blood.

Dallas took a moment to envision the scene and figure out how Rodriguez had managed to write something while lying on his back. Only one scenario made sense.

Jose had fallen forward, dying. He’d started to write something, but the killer had come up behind him before he finished, and wrenched him around so that he had landed on his back—his hand still in the pool of blood he had been using as ink.

Dallas looked over at Liam. “Can you make that out?”

“Make what out? It’s a pool of blood—oh! I see what you’re saying.”

They both bent closer, trying to read the dead man’s message. “That first letter’s a C,” Liam murmured.

“Yeah. I think you’re right. Then...a U?” Dallas asked.

“Yeah, C-U-R,” Liam agreed. “Cur? Like a dog?”

“I don’t think so. Can you get one of the photographers over here?” Dallas asked.

Liam rose and motioned for a crime scene tech. The man hurried over, took pictures as Dallas indicated, and then moved back to the fence where he’d been working.

“Whoever he was,” Dallas told the dead man quietly, “we’ll find him.”

Two of Dirk’s assistants came for the body, and another tech walked up to Liam. “Sir? Anything specific you want us to look for?” he asked.

“Inspect the alley and all the nearby streets, and the yard, too. Our vic was seen with a knife—a big knife, like a bowie knife. Try to find it. Search everywhere our victim could have been.”

“Do we need a permit for the yard?” the tech asked.

“Hannah is a friend. We have her blessing for anything that’s necessary. Do your jobs, but don’t be careless. Try not to leave the place looking like a war zone,” Liam said.

The tech nodded and moved away.

Dallas shook his head, looking from the yard to the house. “How the hell could anyone think that a dying man was a ghost?” he demanded.

“The power of suggestion, probably,” Liam said. “People love ghost tours. They go on them all the time. They want to be scared. They don’t want real danger, but they want to be scared. Hell, Dallas, nothing’s changed since we were kids. This place survives on tourism. Tourists like stories. We’re full of them.”

“But this guy was stumbling around your friend’s yard and she didn’t wake up until some tourist screamed, and then she was all, ‘Wow, you saw a bloody ghost in my yard? Okay.’”

“Hannah is a good kid, Dallas. Lay off. She was dealing with screaming tourists who told her they saw a ghost, not a man.”

Dallas nodded. “Yeah, all right.”

“Come in and talk to her. Talk. Don’t yell.”

“I was never yelling.”

“You basically accused her of causing his death.”

“The hell I did. I merely suggested that an intelligent and rational human being might have thought from the get-go that there was something more than a ghost in her yard.”

Liam lowered his head, a slight grin on his face. “I’m going in for coffee. If you can be nice for a few minutes, you’re invited, too.” He looked up at Dallas, and his smile faded. “You heard the doc. He couldn’t have been saved unless he’d been in an emergency room when it happened. It’s not Hannah’s fault your man is dead.”

“I know. I just...I just feel like something is escaping me and that I should be able to grasp it, and I can’t. I’ll be pleasant. I promise.”

“No sarcasm?”

“No sarcasm.”

They took the path from the gate past the pool, where the techs were busy stringing tape to try to salvage what they could of the victim’s route from the yard to his death.

There were no blood trails to the yard, which seemed impossible, but unless the techs could find something with their equipment that neither Liam nor Dallas had seen, Jose Rodriguez might as well have appeared in the yard like the ghost those kids had thought he was, because there was no sign of where he had been before he showed up by the pool.

How could that be? He must have been bleeding steadily by that point.

There was a crime scene marker at every spot where Hannah O’Brien had seen blood as she’d followed the trail through her yard to the alley.

Dallas couldn’t help himself. He paused, looking at the lawn chairs beside the pool. He imagined the couple lying there....

Opening their eyes.

Seeing Rodriguez bleeding, holding a knife, then screaming in terror at what they thought was a ghost.

They had still been out there freaking out when Hannah came out to see what was going on, so why hadn’t Rodriguez stayed there with them and asked for help?

The pool was surrounded by attractive tile work, which gave way to lawn. It appeared that Rodriguez had stumbled past the chairs, then across the grass, past the bushes edging the yard and through the gate into the alley. It hadn’t rained recently, so the foliage was dry and brittle. He had to assume there would be evidence if Rodriguez had gone through it. Since there wasn’t, he had to assume Rodriguez had taken almost a straight line out to the alley.

Had the gate already been open?

He closed his eyes and tried to picture what had happened.

Sliced, bleeding, dying...but he hadn’t headed to the house?

Why?

There could be only one reason.

Rodriguez had come from the alley, trying to escape through the yard, and the killer had been behind him. But he’d seen the kids by the pool and hadn’t wanted anyone else to die, so he’d sacrificed his own life and turned around, back toward danger.