Murder in the Magic City: A Micah Brantley Story G.P. Sorrells (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

something akin to the Northern Lights. For a moment, he was a kid again, staring at the sky and wondering how it looked outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Did the same phenomena exist in the cold emptiness of space? Or was this just one of those things that made the Earth special? A reason for it to exist other than just to be one of a million such rocks hurtling around a star far larger than them until something ended them all. He had been an odd child. Had changed little in the years since, just grown surer of himself.

The causeway seemed to go on for miles and miles longer than it actually had. There was something to be said for the way a horizon can trick the brain, even on land. Or a structure approaching that solidity. Back on solid land once more, Micah quickly passed another beach, then a harbor full of boats and yachts. A small forest came into view on his left as his destination materialized off to his right. He turned when he saw a blue and green sign which looked like an overturned letter L with a large screen hanging from the top. The words ‘Miami Seaquarium’ laid out across the protruding portion somewhat haphazardly.

Micah pulled into the first parking lot he saw, directly across from the entrance to the oceanarium. On Virginia Beach in Biscayne Bay, the Miami Seaquarium is one of the oldest structures of its kind in the United States. It opened its doors in 1955 and welcomes over half a million people onto its premises each year. Among its plethora of attractions, which run the gamut of marine life, is Lolita, an orca. Not just any killer whale–it is said that Lolita is the oldest of her kind in captivity. She has been a source of great interest to guests since she first arrived in the oceanarium in the seventies.

Controversy has followed her as well, though that is to be expected when you have a wild mammal living inside an enclosure deemed far too small for them to experience anything resembling well-being. The negative press had little negative impact on park attendance. It certainly didn’t force the park to end the attraction part of Lolita’s existence. Quite the contrary, as they kept her at the forefront of their promotional materials. Of course, an integral part of any attraction at parks anywhere in the world is maintenance.

That’s where Micah’s current target came into play. Oliver Christensen served as an aquarist at the oceanarium. He had studied marine biology while enrolled at the University of Miami. Once he gained citizenship in the United States, he accepted a job at the Miami Seaquarium and quickly rose through the ranks. That he stepped on some toes and rubbed some people wrong along the way had never much mattered to him. He simply had an end goal in mind of becoming the director of the oceanarium, and there was no plan in place to let anyone stop him from reaching his destiny. Never once did he consider that his actions outside of work could have ramifications that stretched into the one place where he felt untouchable.

Micah turned the car off and stepped out. He stretched his arms wide, letting out a grunt as if his bones were aching from an abnormally long drive. The oceanarium was dimly lit, its last patrons having left the facility hours before. There wasn’t a soul visible from where Micah stood, but he hardly felt as though waltzing through the front door was a viable move. A quick survey of the surrounding area revealed a partition in the wall near some shrubbery where one could slip through unseen.

As he got closer, Micah saw with clarity the skeleton of a construction site which would one day become an expansion to the existing gift shop. One last stop for guests to part ways with their hard-earned cash before leaving the grounds. It didn’t look like much in the moment, just an amalgamation of rebar and plaster, molded into a shape which vaguely resembled some buildings nearby. It seemed likely to be larger upon completion, though it was hard to be certain. Extraordinarily little light made its way to the interior of the structure, and the security lights outside seemed focused at the key point of entry.

Micah waded through the mess, careful not to touch anything. He eventually came upon a doorway secured only by a tarp. Though he wasn’t certain where it led, the area was dark and so he felt more at ease exiting out of it than out the actual door on the opposite side of the room. Back outside, Micah wiped his brow and looked around when…

Snap!

“Aw, what the hell, man?”

Micah couldn’t see where the voice had come from, but he quickly rushed over to an employee break area and tucked himself behind a nearby bench. Crouched, but ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, he waited. The voice was close, but there was still some distance between them.

“How many goddamn times do I have to tell those idiots to keep their messes contained to the construction site?” The voice was closer. Clearly male. And embroiled in a bit of a power complex.

Micah’s thoughts were stifled when he heard the squawk of a radio. He peered slightly over the top of the bench and saw a security guard standing a mere eight feet away. The man’s back was to him as he grabbed hold of the radio.

“Yo, Doug,” the security guard barked into the radio holstered next to a flashlight on his utility belt.

“What’s going on, Mitchell?” The voice at the other end squawked, as with most radio transmissions, but still somewhat discernible.

“We need to do something about these assholes that’s been doing construction…”

The man’s voice trailed off as Micah peered about, curious to see if there was the chance to escape unseen. A mammoth structure rose from the ground about a hundred feet in front of him. Off