Книга - Undeniable Proof

Undeniable Proof
B.J. Daniels


SECRETS KEPT CAN ONLY BE TROUBLE…Though Cape Diablo had a reputation for being cursed, Willa St. Clare–the only eyewitness to a murder investigation–found the remote island the perfect place to disappear. Only, she never realized she was being followed….A case of mistaken identity put undercover cop Landry Jones and Willa at cross-purposes. And though a mysterious entity on the island wanted to make sure Willa remained deadly silent, her only hope for survival rested on Landry's too-broad shoulders. But as the danger around them escalated, was their undeniable attraction the greatest risk of all?









Willa couldn’t remember ever feeling so isloated.


So alone. Not even in the middle of South Dakota, miles from the nearest town. Surely all the people looking for her would have a hard time finding her on Cape Diablo. But she didn’t delude herself. She would never be safe. The sound of the boat motor died off into the distance. She looked back once but the boat had already disappeared from sight. All she could see was the horizon and the endless Gulf of Mexico.

As she looked up at the villa, she wondered if there was any place safe enough or far enough from civilization to elude the men who were on her trail.

If it wasn’t Cape Diablo, then no place existed.

Willa stopped in front of the villa. She could hear the waves lapping at the dock and the wind whispering in the palms as if it were hiding some sinister secrets….




Undeniable Proof

B.J. Daniels





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


This book is for Tim and Elise who told us about these waters and gave us our first chart of the islands. Thank you for many hours boating through a blur of mangrove-green islands on endless water. There is no neater place to be lost.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


B.J. Daniels’s life dream was to write books. After a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, she sold thirty-seven short stories before she finally wrote her first book. That book, Odd Man Out, received a 4½ star review from Romantic Times BOOKclub and went on to be nominated for Best Harlequin Intrigue of 1995. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense.

B.J. lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, two springer spaniels, Scout and Spot, and an aging, temperamental tomcat named Jeff. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. To contact B.J., write to her at P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771, or check out her Web site at www.bjdaniels.com.




CAST OF CHARACTERS


Willa St. Clair—The artist’s dreams were all coming true—until she witnessed a murder and was forced to hide on the island of Cape Diablo.

Landry Jones—His life depended on finding the artist and making sure she never testified against him.

Zeke Hartung—What had the undercover cop been thinking the night he died?

Freddy D.—He’d do anything to get the name of the man who’d betrayed him—and the missing evidence that could save him from prison.

Odell Grady—Was the writer working on a book about Cape Diablo? Or was he up to something that could get him killed?

Henrietta “Henri” LaFrance—The good-looking redhead had come to the island to escape a bad relationship. Or had she?

Blossom—All Cape Diablo needed was a surly teenaged actress.

Alma Garcia—The former nanny had been on Cape Diablo so long everyone thought she was crazy.

Carlos Lazario—The old fisherman moved around the island like a ghost.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue




Chapter One


He’d waited too long. They knew. The realization turned his blood to ice water. If they knew that he had the disk, then they also knew what he planned to do with it.

He felt the full weight of the disk in his breast pocket. In the right hands, the disk was gold. In the wrong hands, it was a death warrant.

Simon didn’t look back but he knew they were behind him, following him. Two of them. He could hear them. Feel them working their way along the dark street.

All he could guess is that they weren’t sure where he was headed. They would want to know who he’d planned to give the disk to. He had a pretty good idea that they knew exactly who he worked for—but just wanted proof.

He’d changed course the moment he’d heard them behind and now found himself headed for the beach. Ahead was the artsy part of St. Pete Beach, the small southern Florida town at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Art galleries, studios, little shops. All closed this time of the night.

No place to hide.

He had to ditch the disk. It was his only chance. He was probably a dead man either way, but he might be able to talk his way out of this if the disk wasn’t found on him.

Ahead Simon spotted a light burning in one of the art studios. Was it possible it was still open? Could he be that lucky?

He could hear the quickening of the men’s steps behind him as he neared the shop entrance. Inside, the light silhouetted a figure at the back of the shop apparently working late. His good luck. That person’s bad fortune.

It took everything in him not to run. But that would make him look guilty. That would get him killed before he could hide the disk.

Simon reached the front door of the shop and grasped the knob. He could see a woman working in the studio at the back. The men behind him were so close he thought he could feel their collective breaths on his neck. As he tried the door, he expected to feel a hand drop to his shoulder and a cold steel barrel press against his backbone.

Locked! He couldn’t catch his breath. He jiggled the doorknob. His heart pounded so hard, all he could hear was the blood buzzing in his ears.

The woman who’d been working at the back looked up. Obviously she hadn’t been expecting anyone.

Simon waved and called to her in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own, “Sorry I’m late.”

Surprise registered in her eyes, but she stopped what she was doing and walked toward the door.

He thought he heard the two men slide back into the darker shadows as the woman opened the door.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said, stepping in, forcing her to step aside as he pushed past and into the shop. “I was afraid you’d already gone home. I called about one of your—” he glanced to see what kind of work the woman did “—paintings,” he said, and stuffed his hands into his pockets so she didn’t see how badly they were shaking as he turned to look at her.

He’d thought her twenty-something but she could have been younger. It was hard to tell her age with such pale skin sprinkled with golden freckles and blond hair that she had pulled back in a single long braid that trailed down her back. She wore a sleeveless T-shirt, peach-colored, and a pair of denim cropped pants. He caught the scent of vanilla.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking confused. “Are you sure you have the right gallery?” Simon could see that she was scared. If she only knew. But she closed the door behind her, failing, he noted, to lock it, though. Would the two men come in here after him? He couldn’t be sure.

But if they did, the woman was as good as dead.

“Yes, this is the shop,” he said, improvising as he moved to look at one of the Florida landscapes done in pastels. “My wife said she was told someone would be here late.” A man with a wife would make her feel safer, he hoped, as he saw that she hadn’t moved. In fact, she seemed to hover by the phone on the desk by the door.

He thought of the real wife he’d had. She’d left him because she couldn’t take the line of work he was in. Low pay, ridiculous hours and always the chance that tonight might be the night he didn’t come home. Tonight might be the night she got the phone call. Or worse, opened the door in the wee hours of the morning to see one of his buddies at the door bearing the bad news.

He studied one of the signed paintings, trying to focus. Thinking about Evie right now was a really bad idea. Next to it was a poster announcing an art show at a gallery down the street tomorrow night. “Are you W. St. Clair?”

“Yes.” She sounded shy, maybe a little embarrassed. Or maybe it was just nerves with him in her studio this late at night. He could see where she’d been framing some paintings at a workbench in the back.

“You say someone told your wife I would be here late?” she asked. He could hear her trying to come up with an explanation. “I can’t imagine who would have told her that.”

He shrugged and moved through the paintings, trying not to look out the front windows. Just act normal. The thought almost made him laugh. A normal man would be smart enough not to have gotten caught. And he was caught. Even if he ditched the disk, he wasn’t sure he could save himself. Those men wouldn’t be after him unless they knew he’d double-crossed them.

“I had to work late myself tonight,” Simon said, making it up as he went. Nothing new there. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get here in time. You see it’s our anniversary. Ten years. My wife told me about a painting she saw here and I thought it would make a great anniversary present for her.”

Evie had bailed after six years. Hadn’t even waited for the seven-year itch.

“Your anniversary?” The artist smiled. She wanted to believe him. Simon knew he was laying it on a little thick but he needed her to feel safe. To act as if she’d known he was coming. Act as if nothing was wrong for the men who he knew were outside watching him. Watching them both.

The ploy seemed to be working. He saw her relax a little, her movements not as tense as she stepped away from the front windows.

“Do you mind if I just look around for a few minutes?” he asked. “I know I’ll recognize the painting she fell in love with from the way she described it.”

“If you tell me—”

“You do beautiful work. I can understand why she was so taken with your paintings,” he said, cutting her off.

“Thank you,” she said, sounding less suspicious although clearly still cautious. “I have a show coming up tomorrow night so I was working late framing. I’m afraid some of the paintings aren’t for sale—at least until the show tomorrow night. I hope your wife didn’t choose one that’s tagged for the show.”

“Well, if she did, I’m sure I’ll find something that she’ll love.” Simon heard her go back to the bench. All she had to do was look up and see him from where she worked. He continued to move through the paintings, pretending to admire each as if in no hurry to find the one his wife wanted.

There was only one spot in the small shop where she wouldn’t be able to see him. Nor would anyone outside have a clear view because of several large paintings that hung from a makeshift wall.

He found a painting that was marked For Show, Not For Sale and slipped the knife from his pocket. He quickly cut a small slot along the edge of the paper backing the framed painting—one of a colorful sailboat keeling over in the wind—and slid the disk inside between the paper and the artwork.

The disk fit snug enough that it made no sound when Simon picked up the painting as if inspecting it more closely. No one should notice the careful cut he’d made. Not that anyone would get the chance. He’d be back tonight for the painting just as soon as he got rid of the two men after him.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he picked up another small painting of a Florida street market, colorful and quaint and the painting was not tagged for the show.

“This is the one. What does the W. stand for?” he asked as he took it over to her.

“Willa.” She smiled as she saw which painting he had selected. “An excellent choice.”

Simon paid in cash and watched her carefully wrap it, priding himself on the fact that he hadn’t once glanced toward the front windows. Anyone watching him from outside would think this had been his destination all along. At least he hoped so. Everything was riding on this.

“You really saved my life,” he said, smiling at the young woman. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was to see that you were still around tonight.”

She handed him the package and smiled back. “Happy anniversary. I hope your wife enjoys the painting.”

“Oh, she will.” Evie would have had a fit if he’d brought home a painting by an unknown. Evie liked nice things. And Simon had failed to give her what she needed.

Swallowing down the bitterness, he idly picked up one of the flyers by the cash register announcing Willa St. Clair’s gallery showing the next evening and pretended to study it before he folded the flyer and put it into the breast pocket of his jacket.

She followed him to the door.

“Good luck with your show tomorrow night,” he said as she started to close the door. “Maybe my wife and I will stop by.”

“It’s just down the street, at the Seaside Seascapes Gallery.”

Simon nodded as she closed and locked it behind him, then he turned and started back the way he’d come, taking his time, the small painting tucked under his arm.

He waited for the two men to accost him as he walked down the street. Two blocks from Willa St. Clair’s art studio, and he hadn’t seen anyone who wanted to kill him. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d hidden the disk and blown off his delivery meeting for nothing.

He should have been relieved. But instead, it made him angry. He’d panicked for nothing. Now he would have to go back and get the damned disk after the studio was closed. Worse, he would have to set up another delivery meeting. Any change of plans always increased the danger.

At his car, he beeped open the doors, the lights flashed and he reached for the door handle.

They came at him from out of the darkness, surprising him. Simon reached for his weapon, but he wasn’t fast enough. The small painting he’d bought fell to the ground with a thud as the larger of the two grabbed him, the smaller one taking his gun and searching him.

“What the hell do you want?” he bluffed, recognizing them both. “You scared the hell out of me. You’re damned lucky I didn’t shoot you both.”

The smaller of the two men scooped up the painting from the sidewalk and tore the canvas from its frame, tossing it aside when he didn’t find what he was looking for.

Simon considered whether he could take them both and decided he’d be dead before he even had one of them down. No, he thought, he had a much better chance if he could get them to take him to their boss. He’d managed to bluff his way this far. He had to believe he could get himself out of this, as well.

“Where is it?” the small one demanded as he jammed a gun into Simon’s kidneys.

He groaned. “Where’s what?” The big one hit him before Simon even saw him move. The punch dropped him to his knees.

“Not here,” the smaller one snapped and Simon heard the sound of a car engine.

A moment later he was shoved onto the floorboard of the back seat, something heavy pressed on top of him.

He tried to breathe, to remain calm. The disk was hidden. If he played his cards right, he could get it back and still make delivery. Too much was at stake to give up now.

If there was one thing Simon Renton was good at it, it was talking his way out of trouble. Didn’t everyone say he was like a cat with nine lives?

He just hoped he hadn’t run out of lives.




Chapter Two


Simon was dead.

Landry Jones stood in the large office of the Tampa warehouse fighting the urge to put a bullet hole into the brains of the two men who’d killed Simon. Stupid fools.

But then he’d have to take out their boss, Freddy D., and that wasn’t part of the plan. At least not yet.

“We almost got him to tell us who he was working with,” said the larger of the two thugs, who went by TNT or T for short, no doubt because of the man’s short fuse.

The other man, known as Worm, was smaller, cagier and meaner if that were possible. “I told T to back off a little but Simon was giving him a lot of grief.”

Knowing Simon, he would have purposely got T going, so the fool killed him before he gave up the names of the other undercover cops who’d infiltrated the organization.

Landry swore under his breath. “That’s why I wanted to handle this. I would have gotten the names out of him.”

Freddy D. studied him from beneath hooded gray eyes. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Landry shook his head angrily. “So where’s the disk Simon supposedly made?” he asked the two thugs. “Or did you kill him before he told you that, as well?”

“Easy,” Freddy D. said, but turned his big bald head to take in T and Worm. “Tell me you got the disk.” The tone of his voice made it pretty clear that T and Worm might not be around long if they didn’t.

Landry held his breath. T squirmed but Worm looked almost cocky. “He told us where to find it,” Worm said.

Landry let out the breath he’d been holding. “Great. You don’t have the disk, you don’t even know if it exists or if Simon was a cop or not.” He felt the corpse-gray eyes of Freddy D. shift to him again.

“My source said he was a cop and that there were two others working with him in my organization,” Freddy D. said.

“Yeah? And what if your source just wanted Simon dead and you running scared of your own men?” Landry asked, knowing he was stepping over the line. “Simon was smart. He was good for business. Now he’s dead and there might not even be a damned disk.”

“Cool down…” Zeke said from where he lounged against the wall. Zeke Hartung, known affectionately as Zeke the Freak, was tall and slim with rebel good looks. Landry had never asked how he got the nickname. He didn’t want to know.

“We all liked Simon,” Zeke continued. “If he was a cop, then I’m a cop and I’m taking you all in.”

The men in the room laughed nervously. Landry met Zeke’s gaze. Zeke smiled. The bastard loved to bluff.

“If your source says there’s a disk, Freddy D., then there’s a disk,” Zeke continued. “So let’s find it. Find out what’s on it. Find out where Simon got his information—or if these two morons killed the wrong man.”

“Who you calling a moron?” T demanded, going for Zeke.

Freddy D. stopped it with a wave of his hand. “Zeke’s right. Once we have the disk, then we’ll know who we can trust. So where is this disk and why don’t I have it yet?” Freddy D. asked, a knife edge to his voice.

Even Worm looked a little less sure of himself. “Simon said he hid it in a painting in one of those art studios down by the beach.”

“You think he’s a cop, you think he has information on a disk that will bring down the entire organization or make it possible for some other organization to move in on us, and you trusted him to tell you the truth about where he hid it?” Landry demanded incredulously.

Freddy D. shot Landry a look that dropped his blood temperature to just above freezing before turning that cold stare on T and Worm. “So why didn’t you just get the painting and bring it to me?”

Worm swallowed, his Adam apple bobbing up and down. “It’s in this art studio. The thing is the shops are all open now. We can’t just waltz in and take the painting in broad daylight.”

Freddy D. sat up, his weight making the chair groan. “Don’t take it, you fool. Buy it. How much money do you need?”

T and Worm exchanged a look. “It’s not for sale.”

Freddy D. sat back as if Worm had slapped him. “You aren’t serious.”

“The painting is part of an art show tonight at some gallery called Seaside Seascapes,” Worm said. “I just thought I’d go to the show tonight and buy the painting.”

Freddy D. groaned. “You? At an art show?”

“Better than sending T,” Landry said.

Freddy D. swiveled around in his chair to pin Landry with that corpse-gray gaze again. “You go, Jones. T and Worm will be waiting for you in the alley to make sure there are no problems. You buy the painting, make sure you get it tonight, you hand it over. They’ll be watching you the whole time. Have a problem with that?”

“That’s assuming T and Worm aren’t undercover cops,” Landry said sarcastically.

Even Freddy D. laughed at that.

“I don’t know. They’re dumb enough to be cops,” Zeke said.

Both men looked like they could kill Zeke, but were smart enough not to try. At least not right now in front of the boss.

“I don’t want those two in the alley,” Landry said. He knew the best thing he could do right now was to go along with Freddy D.’s plan. But it was too late in Landry’s life to do the best thing. Far from it.

“Think about it, these two hanging out in the alley behind a fancy art gallery?” Landry said. “First off, anyone who sees them is going to call the cops, thinking they’re staking out the place. Secondly, if your source is right and Simon was a cop working with the feds and had made a disk he planned to hand over, then the feds are looking for this disk, too.”

Freddy D. narrowed his eyes at him, and for a moment Landry thought he might tell T and Worm to kill him. “While not eloquent or wise, you do make a good point. You’re saying that Simon might have gotten the feds word where he hid the disk.”

Landry doubted it. Otherwise the feds would be busting down the doors right now, guns blazing. “I think it would be a mistake to underestimate Simon. I know if I was him and I spotted these two behind me, guilty or not, I’d do whatever I could to cover my ass.”

“I’ll cover the alley,” Zeke said. “Or better yet, I’ll go to the art show and let Landry wait in the sidelines.”

“Like you know squat about art,” Landry said, then pretended not to care. “Whatever.”

Freddy D. raised a hand. “Landry goes in. Zeke, you take the alley. T and Worm won’t be far away just in case.”

Just in case any of them thought about double-crossing him. “I want that disk,” the boss said.

“If it exists,” Landry added, and Freddy D. gave him a warning look before turning again to T and Worm. “What do we know about this artist where Simon said he hid the disk?”

The thugs exchanged confused looks.

“The painting he had on him was signed W. St. Clair,” Worm said. “Simon said her name was Willow.”

“Or something like that,” T said. “He wasn’t talking too clearly.”

Freddy D. groaned. “What about the artist? Is it possible she’s his contact?”

“You hear sirens?” Zeke asked sarcastically. “If the feds had the disk we’d all be facedown and handcuffed.”

“Zeke’s right,” Landry said. “So what does this painting look like? You did get that, right?”

Worm looked like he was itching to punch Landry’s ticket. “It’s a painting of a sailboat. It had a red and white sail and the boat was blue. The boat is at full sail and there is a blond woman at the wheel. Her hair’s blowing back and she’s kind of hanging off to the side like she’s having a great time.”

Landry stared at Worm, amazed they’d gotten that much information out of Simon about the painting but weren’t sure about the artist’s name. He wanted to believe that Simon had made up every word of it. But Landry had seen T in action and knew that few men could withstand that form of torture. Even Simon.

“I’ll find the painting,” Landry said.

“I also think it would be wise to find out what the woman knows about Simon,” Freddy D. said. “Either way, she’s a loose end.” Freddy D. was looking straight at him. “You have a way with the ladies, Landry. Take care of her.”



WILLA ST. CLAIR GLANCED around the gallery at all her paintings hanging on the walls and could no longer suppress her excitement. She still couldn’t believe it. All the hard work, the long hours painting then framing, had finally paid off.

Just when she thought that her life couldn’t get any better than this, she saw the handsome dark-haired man standing by the door.

He’d caught her eye several times earlier, lifting his wineglass and giving her a nod. She’d felt herself warm, complimented by his attention.

Now he smiled and she saw that the crowd had thinned. Clearly he was waiting for her. Her heart beat a little faster.

Several of the stragglers came over to congratulate her. Like her first two openings, this one had been an incredible success. She still couldn’t believe it. Almost all of the paintings had small red dots on them, indicating they were sold.

Her dream had come true. She tried to calm her runaway heart, took a deep breath and turned to look toward the door.

He was gone.

Her disappointment pierced the helium high she’d been riding on just moments before. She’d taken too long. He’d gotten tired of waiting.

She couldn’t help feeling regret. He’d made a point of getting her attention during the show. But each time she hadn’t been able to get away to talk to him. She’d hoped he would find a way to talk to her before the evening was over.

“Great show, sweetie,” the gallery owner, Evan Charles, said, coming over to give her an air kiss beside each cheek. “Everyone was just raving about your use of color. You’re a hit.”

She thanked Evan and promised to let him know when she had enough paintings ready for another show. Taking her wrap from the closet by the door, she stepped out into the Florida night air, closed her eyes and breathed it all in as he locked up behind her.

You’re not in South Dakota anymore.

She smiled to herself. She would never tire of breathing sea air. She could hear the cry of the gulls and the lull of the surf not a block away. She loved Florida. And Florida, it seemed, loved her.

“Beautiful night,” said a male voice as warm and silky as the night air. “Beautiful woman.”

She opened her eyes and turned already smiling, knowing it was him. He had waited for her.

“Congratulations,” he said. “I was hoping all evening to get a chance to meet you. You were much too popular. And I was much too shy.” He grinned and extended his hand. “Landry Jones.”

He was anything but shy, she thought as her hand disappeared into his large one. His touch was gentle but there was raw power behind it. She shivered as she looked into his dark eyes, and he grinned as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Amazingly, he was even more striking up close. Not classically handsome. Too rough around the edges for that. He wore khaki chinos and a palm-tree-print short-sleeved shirt and deck shoes. He was tanned and the fingers on his left hand were scraped as if he’d been in a fistfight. He looked like a man who could hold his own in a fight, she thought, as a niggling worry wormed its way into her perfect night.

Landry Jones wasn’t the type of man a woman met at an art showing. Especially not hers.

“So, you’re interested in Florida landscapes?” she asked, cocking her head to one side. “You don’t seem the type.”

He feigned hurt, laughed and gave her a sheepish grin. “Actually I’m more interested in the artist, although I find both intriguing.”

She felt her cheeks heat under his compliment as well as his dark piercing gaze. If he was trying to charm her, he was doing a darned good job. “Thank you.” She wanted to pinch herself. This night was just too good to be true.

“Any chance I could buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked. “Now that we’ve officially met? There’s a coffee shop I know that’s still open not far from here. Or if you’d like something stronger…”

If only this night never had to end. And Landry Jones was like the topping on the cake. And maybe the ice cream, as well.

So what if he wasn’t the type to frequent art shows? For tonight he could be her type, she thought with a thrill.

“Coffee would be great.” She couldn’t trust herself with anything stronger, not while feeling as exhilarated as she was already.

“Coffee it is then,” he said, his smile mesmerizing. “This night calls for a celebration. If you’re feeling adventurous, we could even have a piece of key lime pie.”

She was feeling adventurous, all right.

“My car is just over here.” He pointed down the dark street and suddenly she wasn’t so sure.

She knew she was being silly. But suddenly the reality of the situation hit her. This wasn’t South Dakota and she didn’t know this man from Adam.

The idea of getting into a car with a complete stranger was totally alien to her—and suddenly seemed more than a little dangerous.

Odd as it might seem, she knew everyone back in her small hometown in South Dakota and never dated anyone she didn’t. Now she was about to get into a car with a stranger she’d met just moments before.

While she could hear traffic a few streets over, there was no longer anyone around, all the shops and galleries were now closed and she was feeling a little vulnerable.

She turned, hoping Evan was still inside closing up. Even the gallery lights were out. She hadn’t seen Evan leave, but then all her attention had been on Landry Jones, hadn’t it?

Landry must have seen her indecision and the way her feet were rooted to the sidewalk. “Wait here. I’ll get the car.” He flashed a reassuring smile, then turned and keyed his remote. A set of headlights flashed down the street. She watched him walk toward a newer-model blue BMW, telling herself she was being very foolish.

Yes, she was taking a chance, but hadn’t she had to take a chance when she’d left South Dakota to come to Florida? And look how that had worked out. Sometimes you had to take a chance.

Especially with a handsome man on one of the most exciting nights of her life.

She groaned as she took a few steps down the street away from the gallery—and Landry Jones. With her luck, the man would turn out to be a serial killer ax murderer. Otherwise, it was almost as if he was too perfect.



AT THE CAR, Landry climbed in and pulled out his cell. He punched speed dial as he watched Willa St. Clair.

“The painting wasn’t in the show,” he said the moment the line was answered. He could see Willa St. Clair waiting for him. “But don’t worry. I’ll find it. I have the artist in my crosshairs right now, so to speak. Tell Zeke I won’t be needing him. I’ll call when I have the disk.” He snapped his cell shut before Freddy D. could argue.

With a start, he saw that Willa St. Clair was walking down the block toward the alley behind the gallery.

He swore as he noticed the change in her. She’d looked a little leery earlier when he’d asked her out. But now she appeared scared and, unless he missed his guess, about to change her mind.

She hadn’t been what he’d expected. One look at her and he’d known he’d have to handle her with kid gloves. At least until he got her in the car.

Now he had to move fast. Once he had her under his control, he told himself, it would be smooth sailing. He grimaced at his own inside joke.

Where the hell was this sailboat painting that Simon had told T and Worm he’d hid the disk in? Landry had come to believe it existed. Simon was smart enough to know that by telling T and Worm, he would also be telling the rest of them. That could explain the intricate description Simon had given the two goons.

But as Landry’s luck would have it, the painting T and Worm described wasn’t in the gallery show.

So where was it? T. and Worm had said that some blond woman had been working at the back of the art studio last night when Simon had gone in. Their description of her matched the artist’s—Willa St. Clair.

She was the key to finding the painting—and ultimately the disk. And Willa St. Clair was going to tell him. One way or another, Landry would have that disk before the night was over.

As he reached to start the car engine and go after her, he heard a soft tap on his side window. He turned and glanced up, only half surprised to see Zeke standing next to his car.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked as he powered down his side window. “Didn’t Freddy D. tell you to call it a night?”

Zeke smiled. “Change of plans, old buddy.”



WILLA KNEW she would hate herself in the morning if she didn’t go out with Landry Jones. For the rest of her life, she would think of him, actually building him up in her memory—if that were possible—and always wonder what might have been.

She stopped walking up the block and turned, blinking as she looked back. The BMW hadn’t moved but she could hear the purr of the engine. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw that a man was standing beside the driver’s side talking to Landry.

Now was her chance to just disappear. Take the coward’s way out. Run!

Funny, but that’s exactly what her instincts told her to do.

Pop! Pop! The sound took her by surprise. She stared, unable to move even when she saw the glint of a gun through the windshield, saw the flash as Landry Jones fired two more shots.

The man next to the car staggered back, slammed into the wall and slid slowly down, his head dropping to his chest.

Poleaxed, she stared at the dead man—her first dead man—her mind screaming: Landry shot him! He shot him!

She felt Landry shift his gaze to her and suddenly she was moving, kicking off her high heels and running for her life. She could hear the roar of the BMW engine as he came after her, the headlights washing over her.

A main street was only two blocks away. She could see the lights of the traffic. There would be people around. She could get away, get help. But she knew she would never reach it. The BMW was bearing down on her.

She glanced back and blinded by the headlights didn’t see the man with two dogs on leashes appear out of the darkness off to her right.

The man avoided crashing into her, but she got caught up in the dogs’ leashes and went down hard.

“Are you all right? I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” the man said, sounding distraught as he knelt beside her.

“Help me,” she cried, not yet feeling the pain. “He’s going to kill me.”

“Who?” the man asked, glancing around.

She managed to sit up, vaguely aware that her hands and knees were scraped raw from hitting the sidewalk. The street was dark. No BMW. No Landry Jones.

Three sets of eyes stared at her at ground level, only one set human. The dogs were big and wonderfully muttlike. The man knelt next to her, looking scared and upset.

Willa began to cry. “That car that was chasing me….”

“It went on past,” the man said.

Her hands and knees began to ache and she saw that her dress that she’d bought especially for the showing was ruined. Her new shoes were back down the street where she’d kicked them off.

“Are you sure the car was chasing you?”

One of the dogs licked her in the face. She put her arm around its neck, hugging it tightly for a moment before she dug her cell phone out of her purse and punched in 911.




Chapter Three


Landry couldn’t believe how badly things had gone. What a nightmare. Simon was dead. So was Zeke. Zeke.

He put his head in his hands. What the hell had happened?

Unfortunately, he knew the answer to that, he thought as he gingerly touched his side. He’d been lucky. Although the wound had bled like hell, it hadn’t been life threatening. Still, he’d had a hell of a time finding a doctor to stitch him up and make sure it didn’t get infected. It wasn’t like he could just walk into an emergency room. By law, doctors were required to report gunshot wounds.

He’d had to find a doctor he could trust not to turn him in. He couldn’t chance using Freddy D.’s or any of the ones the cops knew about.

The wound, though, had turned out to be the least of his problems. Since that night, he’d been a hunted man. Willa St. Clair’s eyewitness testimony that he’d shot Zeke Hartung down in cold blood had every cop on the force and the feds after him—not to mention Freddy D. and his boys.

For days Landry had been on the run, keeping his head down, but he’d known from the get-go that he couldn’t keep this up. He had to find that damned disk. The proof he needed was on it. Without the disk, he was a dead man.

He’d come close to getting the girl—and in the long run, the disk. He still had a few friends on the force he could trust, ones that wouldn’t believe he was a dirty cop, even if he was, and one of them had given him the safe house location where Willa St. Clair was being held.

Unfortunately, Freddy D.’s men must have had an inside source as well because they hit the house before Landry could.

He’d almost had Willa St. Clair, though. He’d been so damned close he’d smelled the citrus scent of her shampoo in her long blond hair. But she’d managed to get away from not only him, but also Freddy D.’s men. The woman had either known about the hit on the safe house or she was damned lucky.

Like the night of her art show. If that fool with the two dogs hadn’t come out of nowhere, Landry would have caught up to her, got her into the car and he’d have the disk by now and be calling the shots instead of running for his life.

But she’d seen him kill Zeke and he had known getting her into the car that night would have been near impossible if she’d been alone. Landry was good but he couldn’t have taken on the guy with the two big dogs, too. And Freddy D. had said T and Worm would be nearby. If they’d seen him kill Zeke, then he couldn’t be sure what those two fools would do.

He would be sitting behind bars right now or dead if he hadn’t gotten the hell out of there.

So he’d disappeared into one of the small old-fashioned motels along the beach, blending in as best he could with the tourists, waiting for his cell phone to ring with news.

Since the safe house hit, he’d been hot on the trail of Willa St. Clair. His one fear was that someone would get to her before he did. There was no way she would last long out there on her own. That’s why he had to get to her first. It was now a matter of life and death. His.

His cell rang. He took a breath, hoping that one of his cop friends he could trust had come through for him. But Zeke had friends too, friends who were taking his death personally and would shoot first and ask questions later if they found Landry.

“Hey,” he said into the phone.

“This may be nothing…but I ran her cell phone. Willa St. Clair made a couple of calls. You want the numbers?”

Landry closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d been holding. “Oh, yeah. I owe you big-time.”

“Yeah, you do.” His friend read off the numbers. One in Naples. The other in South Dakota.

He hung up and tried the Naples one first. An answering machine picked up. She’d called a law firm? He almost hung up but heard something in the recording that caught his attention.

“…if you’ve called about the apartments on Cape Diablo island…”

Cape Diablo? Where the hell was that?

Five minutes later, a Florida map spread across the table in his motel, Landry Jones found Cape Diablo in an area known as Ten Thousand Islands at the end of the road on the Gulf Coast side almost to the tip of Florida.

The only other call Willa St. Clair made had been to South Dakota to probably friends or parents. So he was betting she’d rented one of the apartments on Cape Diablo.

Landry couldn’t believe his luck. The woman was a novice at this. Plus she had no idea about the type of people after her. Or the resources they had at their disposal. She thought she’d found herself the perfect place to hide, did she? Instead, she’d just boxed herself in with no way out.



WILLA PULLED the baseball cap down on her now short curly auburn hair and squinted out across the rough water. The wind blew the tops off the waves in a spray of white mist. Past the bay she could see nothing but a line of green along the horizon.

She glanced at the small fishing boat and the man waiting for her to step in. He called himself Gator, wore flip-flops, colorful Bermuda shorts and a well-worn blue short-sleeved vented fishing shirt. His skin was dark from what he professed had been most of his fifty-some years in the south Florida sun.

“You want to go to the island or not?” he asked, seeming amused by her uncertainty.

“Maybe we should wait until it’s not so rough out there,” she suggested.

He laughed and shook his head. “We wait, the tide will go out and there is no going anywhere until she comes back in. You want to wait until the middle of the night?”

She didn’t, and this time when he held out his hand she passed him the two suitcases and large cardboard box, containing what was most precious to her.

He set everything in the bottom of the boat and reached for her hand. She gave it to him and stepped in. The boat rocked wildly, forcing her to sit down hard on the wooden seat at the front of the boat. “I haven’t been in a lot of boats.”

“No kiddin’,” he said, and started the outboard, flipping it around so the boat nosed backward into the waves.

She grabbed the metal sides and hung on.

“Might want to put on that jacket,” he said as he tucked a tarp around her large cardboard box. “It could get a little wet.”

A slight understatement. A wave slammed over the bow half drowning her in cold spray. She heard a chuckle behind her as she let go to hurriedly pull on the crumpled rain jacket he’d indicated, then drew a life preserver on over that. Both smelled of dead fish, and not for the first time, she wondered if this wasn’t a mistake.

The boat swung around and cut bow first through the waves. Gator gave the motor more power. She gripped the seat under her as the boat rose and fell, jarring her each time it came down. She was glad she hadn’t taken Gator’s advice and eaten something first.

As they started across the bay, she turned to glance back at Chokoloskee, afraid she hadn’t been as careful as she should have.

The wind snapped a flag hanging from the mast of a small sailboat back at the dock. The half-dozen stone crab fishermen she’d seen mending a large net on the dirt near one of the fish shacks were still hard at work. Several of the men had been curious when she’d walked down the dock to talk to Gator, but soon lost interest.

There was no one else on the docks. No new cars parked along the street where she’d hired Gator to take her out to the island. She tried to assure herself that there was no way she’d been followed. But it was hard, given what had happened while she’d been in protective custody.

Landry had found her in what was supposed to be a safe house with two armed policemen guarding her. She’d been lucky to get out alive. From the shots she’d heard behind her, the two men guarding her hadn’t been as lucky. She didn’t kid herself. Landry was after her.

Especially now that she was on her own, unarmed and running for her life. Nor did she doubt that the next time he found her, he’d try to finish what he’d started back at the safe house.

That’s why she couldn’t let him find her. Even if it meant doing something that she now considered just as dangerous.

The green on the horizon grew closer and she saw that it wasn’t one large island but dozens of small ones, all covered in mangrove forests.

Gator steered the boat into what looked more like a narrow ditch, just wide enough for the small fishing boat. As he winded his way through one waterway after another past one island after another, she tried to memorize the route in case she needed to ever take a boat and get to the mainland on her own.

It was impossible. When she looked back, the islands melded together into nothing but what appeared to be an unbroken line of green. She couldn’t even see where the water cut between the islands anymore.

Tamping down her growing panic that she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire, she told herself she’d picked this island because it was hard to find. She’d wanted remote, and what was more remote than an island in the area known as Ten Thousand Islands along the Gulf side of the southern tip of Florida?

She’d heard about Cape Diablo through another artist she’d met. The woman, a graphic designer named Carrie Bishop, had rented an apartment in an old Spanish villa on the remote island. That’s the last she saw of the artist but she remembered the woman telling her that the area had always been a haven for smugglers, drug runners and anyone who wanted to disappear and never be found.

That would be Willa St. Clair she thought, as watched the horizon, anxious to see what she’d gotten herself into. The rent had been supercheap. The apartment was described as furnished but basic. Not that beggars could be choosers. She was desperate, and that had meant taking desperate measures.

The sun dipped into the Gulf, turning the water’s surface gold and silhouetting the islands ahead and behind her. Willa wondered how much farther it was to Cape Diablo and was about to ask when she felt the boat slow.

She looked up and caught a glimpse of red tile roof. A moment later the house came into view. Instantly she wanted to paint it. A haunting Spanish villa set among the palms.

With relief she saw a pier and beyond it an old two-story boathouse, thankful she would soon be off the rough water and on solid ground again.

Gator eased the boat, stepping out to tie off before he offered her a hand.

The boat wobbled wildly as she climbed out on the pier, making Gator chuckle again. She shot him a warning look, then turned her gaze to the villa.

It was truly breathtaking. Or at least it had been before it had fallen into disrepair. The Spanish-style structure now seemed to be battling back the vegetation growing up around it. Vines grew out of cracks or holes in the walls. Others climbed up the sides, hiding entire sections of the structure.

Palm trees swayed in the breeze and through an archway she could see what appeared to be a courtyard and possibly a swimming pool.

This had been the right decision, she thought, staring at the villa. It gave her the strangest feeling. Almost as if she was supposed to have come here. As if she had been born to paint it. Silly, but she felt as if the house had a story it needed told. That there was much more here than just crumbling walls.

Movement caught her eye. She looked upward and glimpsed someone watching her from a third-floor window.

“You change your mind?” Gator asked from behind her.

She turned to see that he’d put her suitcases on the dock and was sitting in his boat, obviously anxious to leave. Apparently this was as far as he went with her suitcases and box. So much for chivalry.

She turned to look at the villa again. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?”

He grunted.

She’d rented the apartment sight unseen through a phone number she’d called. Her rent had been paid via mail. So she wasn’t surprised there was no one to meet her. She’d been told that the caretaker lived in the boathouse near the pier but that he might not be around. If there was an emergency or any problems, he was the man to see. Her rent money would be picked up each month when a supply boat came. She was told to talk to a man named Bull to order what she needed since there was no phone on the island. No electricity other than a generator. And cell phones didn’t work from the island.

She’d wanted to disappear to someplace isolated—well, she had.

“Last chance,” Gator said.

She shook her head.

He shrugged and glanced toward the Gulf of Mexico where the sun had sunk into the sea. “Then I’ll shove off.” He looked past her toward the house and seemed hesitant to leave her here—just as he’d been to bring her to the island in the first place. He’d tried to talk her out of it, asking if she knew anything about Cape Diablo.

“Why would you want to go out there?” he’d asked, pinning her with narrowed brown eyes. “Only people who are running from something or searching for it go out there. Few find what they’re looking for. Usually just the opposite. Most wish they hadn’t looked. Why do you think it is called Cape Diablo?”

“What are you telling me? That the island is haunted?” Her graphic artist friend had told her the island had an interesting history but hadn’t elaborated.

“More like cursed.”

Willa had anxiously looked over her shoulder, half expecting to see Landry.

“Running from something, huh?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m trying to get away from my ex-boyfriend, if you must know.” She’d touched the bruise on her cheek that she’d gotten when the safe house the cops had put her in had been attacked.

Gator had given her a slow knowing nod, reached for the cash she’d offered him and hadn’t tried to talk her out of it.

But clearly he hadn’t wanted to bring her out here. Nor did he seem to want to leave her here. She thought about asking him why as he paused, then started the outboard.

“Send word by a fisherman or anyone heading to the mainland and I’ll come get you,” he said, his gaze softening. “Even if it’s in the middle of the night.”

Why would she want to leave in the middle of the night? His look said it wouldn’t be long before she couldn’t wait to get out off the island.

He touched the brim of his cap and turned the bow back the way they’d come. At least she thought it was the way they’d come.

She picked up the suitcases from the pier and started toward the villa, figuring she would come back for the box with her paints and art supplies. She couldn’t help but wonder what Gator would have said if he knew the truth.

That she was the only witness to the cold-blooded murder of a police officer named Zeke Hartung.

Make that missing witness.

The story, complete with sensational headlines, had been splashed across every South Florida paper followed quickly she didn’t doubt by the attack at the safe house and the death of two more officers.

As she looked up at the villa, she wondered if there was any place safe enough or far away from civilization to elude Landry Jones. If it wasn’t Cape Diablo, then no place existed.

The sound of the boat’s motor died off into the distance. She looked back once but the boat had already disappeared from sight. All she could see were mangrove islands on one horizon and the endless Gulf of Mexico on the other.

She couldn’t remember ever feeling so isolated, so alone—not even in the middle of South Dakota, miles from the nearest town. Surely all the people looking for her would have a hard time finding her. But she didn’t delude herself. She wouldn’t be safe until Landry Jones was behind bars.

Willa stopped in front of the villa. She could hear the waves lapping at the dock and the wind whispering in the palms, but also the faint sound of music.

She looked up again to see an elderly woman through the sheer curtains. The woman wore a white gown and appeared to be waltzing to the music with an invisible partner.

“Hello.”

Willa jumped at the sound of the male voice next to her, making her drop one of the suitcases.

“Here let me take that.” He stepped around her and picked up the suitcase and reached for the second one. “I thought I heard a boat.”

She could only stare at him, her heart thundering in her chest. She’d been told there were four apartments in the villa, all vacant when she’d inquired.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” the man said. He appeared to be in his early thirties, blond, blue-eyed and tan—her original idea of what Florida men should all look like. “What’s your apartment number?”

“Three.”

“Then you’re right up there.” He pointed through an arch. She could see a wrought iron railing, a blood-red riot of bougainvillea flowers climbing the wall behind it and a weathered door with a 3 painted crudely on it.

He took the other suitcase from her and carrying both, headed through the archway into a tiled courtyard. She started to turn back to retrieve the box with her painting supplies from the dock. “I’ll get that for you,” he said.

Still a little unsteady after the boat ride, she decided to let him and followed him through the archway, seeing that she was right—there was a pool. Unfortunately it was dark and murky, apparently abandoned years ago but never drained.

“I’m Odell Grady,” he said over his shoulder. “That’s my apartment over there.” He motioned across the pool to what had once been the pool house, she guessed.

“How many tenants are there?”

“Just you and me right now. Unless you count the old gal up there.” He motioned to a third-floor tower section of the villa where she’d seen the woman dancing. “She’s grandfathered in, so to speak.”

He stopped partway up the stairs and turned to look back at her. “You were warned about her, weren’t you?”

She hadn’t been warned about anything except the isolation and no one to meet her at the dock, but she wasn’t worried about some elderly woman who waltzed with a phantom lover. Odell was another story altogether.

“If you like peace and quiet, you definitely came to the right place,” he said as he scaled the stairs. “That’s why I came here. How about you?” He’d reached the landing and stopped next to one of the doors to turn to look back at her.

“Peace and quiet,” she agreed as she topped the stairs. She wondered if it would be possible to get either with Odell Grady around.

He nodded, openly studying her. He had put down the suitcases just outside the door and held out his hand.

It took her a moment to realize he was waiting for the key to open her door.

“Thank you. I can take it from here.”

He seemed to hesitate, then looked embarrassed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to come on so strong. This place gets to you after a while. I hadn’t realized what it would be like, not talking to another human being.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Too long obviously. I’ve been talking your ear off, sorry.” He stepped back, giving her space. “I’ll get your other package.” He turned and trotted down the stairs.

She opened the apartment door but didn’t enter, instead watching him, worrying.

Odell returned with the box. “It’s pretty heavy. Want me to set it inside?”

“Thank you.” She let him enter but stayed outside until he’d put the box down and came back out.

He must have seen how uncomfortable she was having him in her apartment. Actually being pretty much alone on the island with him—since she doubted the elderly woman upstairs would be much help if she needed it.

“So, welcome to Cape Diablo,” Odell said, dusting off his hands on his shorts. He met her gaze. He didn’t look dangerous, but then she’d thought the same thing of Landry Jones, hadn’t she.

“If you need anything, I’ll be right down there pounding on my manual typewriter. I’m a writer,” he said walking backward a few steps. “Fiction.”

She relaxed a little and felt guilty for the rude way she’d reacted to his kindness.

“How about you?”

“You mean what I do for a living?” she asked, giving herself time to come up with an answer. “I’ve been a waitress, a barmaid, a receptionist, a grocery clerk. Right now I’m just taking a break to figure out what I want to do.”

“Been there,” he said. “You’re still young. You’ll figure it out.” He cocked his head at her. “You look like an…artist to me.” He must have seen her shocked expression because he laughed. “No, I’m not psychic. The box lid came open and I saw all your art supplies.”

The box had come open? Not with the amount of tape she’d used. “It’s just a hobby.”

“Yeah, that’s how my writing is. I just hope to turn it into something more,” he said, and looked toward the Gulf. “This would be a great place to paint.” He turned back to her. “I’d love to see your work.”

“I don’t let anyone see it,” she said too quickly. “It’s just…embarrassing at this point.”

He laughed. “Probably the same reason I don’t let anyone read my work.” Another song drifted on the breeze. He glanced toward the third floor where the elderly woman was dancing again. “If you weren’t crazy when you came here, you will be.”

“I’m sorry. How long did you say you’ve been here?”

“Just since this afternoon, but long enough to go stir-crazy, although not as crazy as some people.” He made a face and cocked his head toward the tower, making a circle with his finger next to his temple.

Since this afternoon? So he’d arrived only a little earlier than she had. She felt a chill at the thought that someone had found out where she was going and Odell had been sent to wait for her.

“Thank you again for your help.”

He smiled and nodded. “My pleasure.”

Almost apologetically she turned away from him. She picked up her suitcases and stepped inside the apartment. As she started to close the door, he called from the stairs, “Hey, I never caught your name.”

“Will—Willie.” It was out before she could call it back. She was tired and just wanted to be left alone and she hadn’t thought before she’d spoken or she would have given him the name she’d planned to use. Too late for that.

“Short for something?” he asked turning on the stairs.

She was forced back out on the balcony to keep from yelling her answer. “Actually, it’s a nickname. My real name is Cara Wilson. My friends started calling me Willie and it stuck.”

“Cara,” he said. “That’s a pretty name. But Willie suits you.”

She smiled nervously and gave him a nod as she stepped back into her apartment and closed the door, leaning against it, feeling like a fool.

She concluded Odell was more lonely than anything else. Nosy and lonely. Unless she was wrong about him—the way she’d been wrong about Landry Jones. To think she had almost gotten in the car with Landry.

She shivered at the memory, her gaze skittering over the rooms where she’d be living until Landry was caught. The apartment wasn’t bad. If you liked living in a monastery. The walls had once been painted white, the ceilings were cracked and ten feet high at least. The temperature was nice and cool, though, so that meant the walls were thick.

That was a plus and the place was furnished. Kinda.

Not that any of that mattered. She would be safe here. At least she prayed that was true.

Dragging her suitcases into the bedroom, she was excited to see the wonderful light coming in through the window. She felt a sense of relief. She would be able to paint in here. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get started.

She dragged the box in. As she started to open it, she noticed that the tape was open on one corner and the flap turned back. She ran her finger along the edge of the tape. It had been cut.




Chapter Four


Willa’s heart began to pound a little harder. Someone had cut the tape to look inside the box. Odell? Was it possible he had a knife in the pocket of his shorts? A lot of men in South Dakota carried pocket knives. But in Florida?

Or could it have been someone else? The box had been on the dock unattended for some time while Odell had brought her suitcases up to her room. But who else was there?

She glanced toward the third floor. The music had stopped again. She recalled it stopping before, a break between songs before she saw the elderly woman dancing once again. Was it possible the woman had gone down to the dock to look in Willa’s belongings?

What harm could a curious old woman do anyway? Willa liked that theory better than thinking Odell had purposely cut the tape to see what was in the box. The man was nosy, but whoever had cut the box was looking for something. Looking for her?

But if whoever had looked in the box was here to kill her, then that person already knew she painted. And not even her changed appearance would fool him.

She tried to put the incident out of her mind as she unloaded her painting supplies and set up an easel by the window.

Painting relaxed her, let her escape for a while from the reality of her life, the reality that Landry Jones was still out there on the loose and she was the only witness to the murder.

Until the police captured him, she wasn’t safe. Even when he was caught, she wasn’t sure she would feel safe, possibly ever again.

She stacked up all of her art supplies on the top of the chest of drawers, hoping they would last until she got to leave here. Eventually she would run out of rent money and be forced to leave and get a job.

She moved to the window by the bed and peered out. Through the palms she could see the Gulf of Mexico. It looked endless. How odd not to be able to see land on the horizon. Just water as far as the eye could see. No wonder early man feared sailing to the edge and falling off.

Turning back to the room, she considered making the bed and taking a nap. She’d been running on fear for so long, she felt drained. She needed her life back. All she had to do, she told herself, was stay alive until Landry was caught.

She stared at the empty canvas on her easel. She had to paint. It had been days since she’d gotten the opportunity. She itched to pick up a brush.

Painting had always been her survival. When her father was killed in a tractor accident. When her first love married someone else. When her mother remarried and sold the farm, hacking away the roots that had held Willa in South Dakota.

Willa hurried to catch the last of the day’s light coming in through the palms. She never knew what she was going to paint until she had a brush in her hand and the white empty canvas in front of her.

To her, painting was exploration. A voyage to an unknown part of herself. Her work was a combination of what she saw and what she didn’t. It was a feeling captured like a thought out of thin air.

She set up her paints and went to work, the evening light fading until she was forced to turn on a lamp. It wasn’t until then that she really looked at what she’d been working on—and felt a start.

What had begun as an old building along a narrow street had turned into the street where she’d witnessed the murder. A thin slice of pale light at the back illuminated what could have been a bundle of old rags but what she knew was a body slumped against a stucco wall, the dark BMW sitting at the curb.

She stepped back from the canvas. She’d been so lost in the physical joy of painting, she hadn’t even realized that she’d been reliving the murder.

From this distance, she saw the face behind the windshield of the BMW. It was subtle, almost ghostlike, but definitely a face. Landry Jones’s face. The same one she’d drawn for the police. She remembered the investigators’ strange reactions. When she’d asked if they knew who he was, the detective who’d been questioning her assured her they knew Landry Jones only too well.

Just her luck that a known criminal had taken an interest in her. She had wanted to ask what other crimes he’d committed but didn’t want to know. Wasn’t murdering a man in cold blood on a St. Pete Beach street enough?

In the painting, Landry was peering out of the darkness not at the body of the man he’d just killed—but at her. She could almost feel the heat of his dark eyes.

She stumbled back from the painting, bumping into the sagging double bed and sitting down on the bare mattress, suddenly exhausted and near tears.

Had she been foolish to think she would be safe anywhere—let alone on this island? She would always be haunted by what had happened that night, would always see Landry Jones’s face, if not in her paintings then in her nightmares.

A tap at the door startled her. She didn’t want to answer it but knew she couldn’t pretend she’d gone out. Another tap.

“Cara? Willie?”

Odell. She groaned. Where had she come up with Cara? “Just a minute.” She glanced around the room as if there might be something lying around that would give away her true identity, but didn’t see anything. She couldn’t help the feeling that she’d already made a mistake that was going to get her in trouble. She couldn’t keep living like this.

She opened the door. “Odell,” she said as if seeing him was a surprise.

“Hi. Sorry to bother you, but I noticed you didn’t bring any food,” he said, looking sheepish. He held out a sandwich wrapped in plastic. “If you don’t want it now, you can eat it later. Turkey and cheese.”

She took the sandwich. “Thank you. It looks…great.” She actually smiled and he seemed to relax. A part of her felt bad about being so unfriendly. Back home in South Dakota her behavior would have been outright rude.

The whisper of fabric made them both turn. All Willa caught was a blur of white.

“She sneaks around here all the time like that, I guess,” Odell said of the elderly woman who passed on the third-floor balcony overhead. “Her name’s Alma Garcia. She was the nanny.”

“The nanny?”

“You don’t know the story of Cape Diablo?” he asked, sounding surprised. “The island is cursed. At least according to local legend. There have always been reports of strange happenings out here, including storms that wash up all kinds of interesting things. For decades it was home to pirates and treasure seekers who looted ships that sank or were sunk just off shore, smugglers and drug runners.”

“Who built the villa?” she asked, unable not to. The place had drawn her from the first glimpse.

“Andres Santiago, a rather notorious pirate and smuggler, and this is where it gets interesting,” Odell said, warming to his story. “Back in the late sixties, early seventies, Andres smuggled guns, drugs, anything profitable in from Central America. The Ten Thousand Islands have always been home to smugglers of all kinds because it is so remote and easy to get lost in.”

She nodded remembering how quickly she’d become lost among the mangrove islands on the way here. “You said he had a nanny?”

Odell nodded. “He lived here with his wife, Medina, and three small children from his first marriage. That wife died in childbirth. Medina was the daughter of a Central American dictator. During a revolt, her father was killed but Andres managed to rescue Medina and a devoted lieutenant named Carlos Lazarro. He brought them both to the island. Carlos still lives in that old boathouse by the pier.” Odell paused. “Do you really want to hear this?”

He didn’t give her time to answer. But she would have said yes even if he had.

“The woman up there, Alma Garcia? She was the nanny for Andres’s children.” He glanced toward the third floor. Only a faint light glowed overhead. “She went crazy after what happened.”

Willa felt a chill. “What happened?”

“First, Andres’s only son drowned in the pool. Then the whole family went missing. No one ever knew what happened to them. Alma and Carlos had been inland that night. When they came home some time after midnight, they discovered everyone gone. There was blood… The authorities suspected foul play, of course, but the case was never solved. That was thirty years ago.”

“How awful.”

“There are lots of theories. Some say Medina’s father’s enemies came and killed the whole family. Others say Andres made it look as if they’d all been killed so he could disappear with his family. In Andres’s will he made provisions for both Alma and Carlos to live on the island for the rest of their lives. That’s why the villa was divided into apartments since the money Andres left has long since run out. A lawyer friend of the family handles everything.”

Willa saw the woman sneak back into her apartment. The front of her white gown was covered with what appeared to be dirt.

“When I got here, I saw her digging,” Odell said. “Local legend has it that Andres Santiago hid a small fortune on this island.”

She felt her eyes widen.

Odell laughed. “If it were true, fortune hunters would have found it over the last thirty years.”

“I’m surprised Alma and Carlos would want to stay here after what happened,” Willa said, seeing the villa so differently now.

“I guess they had nowhere else to go. Alma spends her days creeping around here like some kind of ghost. Carlos is the caretaker but most of the time from what I can tell, he’s on the other side of the island in his boat fishing.” He seemed to notice that she was still holding her sandwich. “You probably want to get that in the fridge and I’ve talked your ear off again. Sorry.”

“No, I enjoyed hearing the story, and thank you for the sandwich.”

He smiled. “Holler if you need anything. And don’t worry about Alma and Carlos. They seem harmless enough.”

“Thanks.” Willa stepped back into her apartment and closed the door. She waited a few moments, until she heard Odell’s footfalls retreat, before she locked the door.

After she put the sandwich in the fridge, she dragged her suitcase over to the marred old chest of drawers and unpacked. At the bottom of her suitcase, she found the sheets and towels she’d brought. She made the bed and hung up the towels in the bathroom, surprised to see there was a huge clawfoot tub.

Some of her fatigue evaporated at the thought of sinking neck-deep into a tub of hot water scented with her favorite bath soap. She popped in the plug and turned on the water. The old pipes groaned and complained but after a few moments, wonderfully warm water began to fill the tub.

Quickly she checked to make sure she’d locked the door before she went back to the bathroom and stripped off her clothing and stepped into the tub.

Everything was going to be all right, she told herself as she immersed herself in the warm water and began to soap her body in the rich lather. From somewhere she heard music again, the song older than the woman on the third floor. Past the music, she heard voices, though too faint to make out the words.

She couldn’t help but think about the story Odell had told her. The history of Cape Diablo and the Santiago family fascinated her. She’d felt something when she’d stepped off the boat and looked up at the crumbling old villa. A sense of mystery. A story unfolding. Or had she sensed something else? The spirits of the lost souls? Or a sense of foreboding as if she’d been drawn to this island for another purpose?

She shivered, wondering again what could have happened to the family and even more intrigued by the woman who’d stayed on upstairs.

Odell certainly was knowledgeable about Cape Diablo. She felt foolish for suspecting him of having other motives for being on the island. And yet, anyone could learn the history of the place. And pretending to be a writer gave him the perfect cover.

She shook her head at the path her mind had taken. She hated that she was suspicious of everyone now.

Finishing her bath, she toweled dry and dressed in a sleeveless nightshirt. She felt better, calmer, back in control somewhat, she thought as she started to wipe the steam from the mirror and was momentarily startled by her own unfamiliar image in the glass.

Her hand went to her short curly auburn hair. It did make her eyes seem larger. Or that could have been the fear.

She picked up the glasses from where she’d left them on the sink. The lenses were clear, but the plastic frames distracted from her face enough to make her look entirely different from the woman she’d been just weeks before.

She touched her hair again, missing the feel of her long, naturally straight blond hair inherited from her Swedish ancestors.

But she would let her hair grow out again. After Landry was caught, after the trial—when it was safe to go back to her life, she told herself, trying hard to believe she could ever reclaim it.

Glancing around the apartment, she decided the first item of business would be to make this place more her own. What little furniture there was had been shoved against each wall.

She grabbed the end of the couch and pulled it away from the wall and saw at once why it had been pushed against the wall as it had been.

There was a sizable hole in the wall behind it.

On closer inspection, she saw that the hole—four inches wide, a good foot high and seemingly endless in depth—had been chipped into the adobe wall. She couldn’t tell how deep it ran. Not without a flashlight.

As she straightened she noticed a scrap of paper on the floor near the hole. She picked it up and saw that it was a piece of a torn photograph. The piece appeared to be part of a face covered with something like a gauzy veil or a film of some kind.

She peered into the hole and thought she saw another piece of the torn photograph. How odd.

Vaulting over the couch she dug in her purse for the penlight on her key ring. In the kitchen she found a butter knife and returned to behind the couch.

Shining the tiny light into the hole, she began to dig out the pieces of the photo with the butter knife. She still couldn’t tell how deep the hole was—obviously too deep for her dim light. But there were more pieces of the photograph in there, as if they’d fallen down from the floor above.

Diligently she worked the pieces out until she couldn’t reach any more.

Just as she was starting to collect the scraps, a sliver of light sliced down through the top of the hole. Willa angled her gaze upward into the opening and saw light coming through what appeared to be a crack in floorboards upstairs.

She’d thought no one lived directly above her. She heard the creak of footsteps on the floor overhead. The light went out. She listened, but heard nothing more.

Taking the pieces of the photograph over to the small kitchen table, she pulled up a chair and began to fit the pieces together like a puzzle, curious after seeing the veiled face in the first piece.

The graphic artist who’d mentioned Cape Diablo had also been an avid photographer. Was it possible this was one of her photos? Or maybe that she’d even stayed in this very room?

The photograph began to take shape. Several of the edge pieces were missing but she was starting to see an image. What was it she was looking at?

She laid down the last piece and felt a jolt. It was a photo of the pool in the courtyard, the water murky and dark.

Funny, but the face that had spurred her curiosity enough to put the photograph back together in the first place seemed to have disappeared.

That was strange.

Carefully she turned the pieces of the photograph a hundred and eighty degrees and gasped.

A boy of about four was lying on the bottom of the pool in the deep end, the dark water like a mask over his face. There was no doubt that the child was dead.




Chapter Five


Abruptly Willa shoved back her chair and stumbled to her feet. Odell had said Andres Santiago’s only son had died here. Drowned in the pool? But that had been more than thirty years ago.

Her hands were shaking. How long had this photo been in the wall? If the shot had been taken by her friend, then it would have been just weeks ago.

Suddenly scared, Willa looked at the photograph again.

The body on the bottom of the pool was gone. So was the little boy’s terrified face.

She stared down at the photograph. Had she just imagined seeing the little boy? Could it have been a trick of the light? Or just her imagination after the terrible story Odell had told her?





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