Undeniable Proof

by B. J Daniels

  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 pre-server 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 wails. 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 sto
pped 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."