Undeniable Proof. B.J. Daniels
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