by Joanna Wayne
She no longer felt the cold threat of the blade at her neck. Instead she felt Enrique’s hands groping her. She retched as her terror fused with revulsion.
Random rules of self-defense chased though her mind.
Use the strongest part of your body. Go for the eyes with your fingers to temporarily blind the enemy. Or for the crotch to buy time for an escape.
And do it with all the strength she could muster in a room so black she couldn’t even see her target. Do it even if it meant the knife would plunge into her chest or slice her jugular vein. He had no intention of letting her out of this alive.
Enrique ripped at her panties.
Jaci exploded in repulsion. She swung her free hand and jabbed it into his face. One finger caught his eyeball, and he jerked away, sputtering a stream of vile Spanish curses.
She vaulted to the floor and took off running toward the door that opened into the narrow hallway.
Her right foot slammed into the door frame, crushing her toes against the heavy wood. The pain was horrendous, but she didn’t slow down—not until she cleared the hall and ran smack into one of the wicker chairs in the sitting room.
She went over it headfirst, falling into a small table and sending the lamp and everything else on it crashing to the floor around her head.
The racket telegraphed her position, and a second later Enrique grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her to her feet. But not before she got her fingers around the scrap of jagged metal that had fallen from the toppling table.
She swiped the metal in Enrique’s direction. A new stream of filthy vulgarities flew from his mouth, and he shoved her hard, slamming her body against the wall.
Staggering, Jaci blinked, trying to see in a sudden blast of light that blinded her almost as much as the darkness had. But through the glare, she could see Raoul.
“Watch out for Enrique,” she yelled, as she jumped over the broken lamp and dashed to the open French doors.
Raoul caught her as she reached the courtyard, and shoved her behind him with the hand holding the flashlight. That’s when she saw the gun in his other hand, aimed into the apartment.
Enrique was nowhere in sight.
Jaci rested her head beneath Raoul’s shoulder blades.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“No, but you should see the other guy.”
Raoul didn’t buy her feeble attempt to fight the terror that still bucked around inside her.
“Did he…?”
“No,” she assured him. “I’m fine.”
Jaci couldn’t see a thing outside the beam of Raoul’s flashlight, but she heard footsteps running away from her apartment. Evidently Enrique had escaped through the bedroom window.
“Stay here,” Raoul ordered.
He took off running, the beam from his flashlight dancing across a trail of Enrique’s blood. Ignoring Raoul’s command, Jaci tried to follow, but lost him in the dark when he cut through the overgrown garden and rounded the villa’s north wing.
Panic swelled inside her. Raoul had a gun, but Enrique might have one as well. This was all her fault. She’d refused to listen to Detective Linsky when he’d told her the island was too dangerous. But now it was Raoul, not her, who was facing a killer.
She fell against the vines that climbed the villa, and willed time to go by, while horrifying images from thirty years ago collided with fears of what might be happening to Raoul right now.
A cool mist began to fall. She shivered and wrapped her arms about her chest, keenly aware that she was wearing only a thin, cotton nightshirt that had been touched by Enrique’s repulsive hands.
An eternity later, she heard the thud of footsteps and saw Raoul coming toward her, the beam of his light bouncing off the wall and casting him in an eerie glow.
She ran to him, and he took her in his arms and held her so tightly she had to gasp for air.
“I lost him near the swamp,” Raoul explained. “I would have gone in after him, but I was afraid he’d doubled back to the pool house.”
“Bull said there are muddy bogs in there that can suck you into them and bury you like quicksand.”
“Great. Maybe Enrique or Rodolfo, or whatever he calls himself, will be sucking mud before I find him.”
She pulled away. “Don’t even think of going in there after him. I mean it, Raoul. He’s dangerous, and you’re not a cop.”
He ran the beam of his light up and down her body. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“A little banged up from knocking into furniture,” she admitted. “I’ll live.”
“Don’t joke about that.” He rocked her in his arms, and she heard the pounding of his heart and felt the tension in his muscles.
“Promise me you won’t leave me again to go stalking through the swamp after that monster.”
“If he gets away—”
“No. Promise me, Raoul. I mean it. Stay with me. I need you here.” She needed him safe.
“Why trust me? I already let you down.”
“You saved my life.”
“I should have been inside the apartment with you, not sleeping upstairs. But you didn’t do too badly at defending yourself. Enrique was bleeding, though not enough that I could find his trail once I lost it.”
“I slashed at him with the piece of metal from Andres’s boat. Unlike you, it was the only weapon I had. Where did you get that gun?”
“I brought it with me from the boat. Always good to have one out in the gulf. You never know what kind of snakes you might run across.”
“Enrique is lower than a rattlesnake.”
“You’re sure he didn’t touch you? He didn’t…”
“He didn’t rape me,” she said, “but he would have.”
“And I would have killed him with my bare hands, or died trying.”
She had no doubt Raoul meant that. She couldn’t define it or even describe it, but there was something between them. A connection that didn’t come along every day—maybe not in every lifetime.
Yet it was Allison who haunted his dreams.
JACI TRIED BUT COULDN’T MAKE herself spend the night in the apartment. Enrique’s blood was smeared across the floor and the overturned chair. But it was the fear and revulsion that seemed embedded in the very walls that bothered her most. She would have slept on the floor of Raoul’s second-floor space if it had come to that.
But as usual, Raoul came through for her. He’d suggested she grab a few necessities and that they both spend the remainder of the night on his boat. Not only would the beds be ten times more comfortable, but the two of them would have the benefit of his generator. Not to mention his first aid supplies. Jaci had grabbed a change of clothes and a toothbrush in record time.
Right now she was sitting on his sofa with her leg stretched across a padded ottoman. Raoul was busily cleaning her skinned knee.
The lights on the boat made them an easy target if Enrique had wanted to come back for her. She didn’t expect that he would. He’d run too fast when Raoul had appeared. It was clear the man liked having the odds stacked in his favor. They wouldn’t be now. Raoul’s gun was still within reach.
“Your calf is already turning black-and-blue,” Raoul said. “So is your left wrist. I’m not sure how you got so banged up in one fall.”
“I was moving at the speed of light.”
“This knee looks more like you were skidding through gravel.”
“Try a floor of broken and cracked tiles.”
“How long since you’ve had a tetanus booster?”
“Just last year.”
“Good,” Raoul said. “The wounds are mostly superficial, but the skin is broken in a few places and I hate to even think what kind of bacteria thrives in that old pool house.”
“Thanks for sharing that with me.”
“Sorry, but facts are facts.” He twisted the cap from a small bottle of peroxide.
She sucked in her bottom lip while he doused the cuts, letting the excess soak into the
folded towel beneath her knee.
He set the peroxide aside and chose a white tube from the first aid kit. “This might burn, too.”
“Now what?”
“Antiseptic.” He squirted on a heavy coat of the cream, smoothing it with a sterilized pad. “That about does it for the wounds. How about a hot toddy to help you relax and get a little sleep before sunup?”
“No, thanks, but I could use a hot shower. I feel dirty everywhere he touched me.”
Raoul’s muscles tightened. “I wish I’d killed him. I wish I’d—”
“It’s okay, Raoul, really. I just need a shower. I’ll try not to wash all the antiseptic off the knee.”
“Don’t worry. There’s plenty more. While you shower, I’ll call the police in Everglades City and tell them about the foiled attack.”
“Linsky will say it serves me right for not following his advice.”
“Not likely Linsky will be taking calls in the middle of the night.”
Jaci swung her leg from the ottoman and slipped her foot back into her sandal. “True, but I’m sure we’ll hear from him first thing in the morning. Carlos isn’t going to like your calling the police back out here.”
“He’s got bigger issues than that to deal with.”
The comment surprised her. “Like what?”
“Guess there’s no reason not to tell you.” Raoul dropped to the couch beside her. “Carlos has cancer.”
That explained a few things. “So it wasn’t fishing that brought you to Cape Diablo?”
“No, I came to try and convince him to leave this godforsaken island. I want him to move in with me in Naples for a while so that he can get the treatment he needs.”
“Surely, he’s going to.”
“You’d think. He doesn’t see it that way. I wouldn’t have even known about his condition if his oncologist hadn’t called me.”
Raoul massaged the back of his neck, and suddenly Jaci realized just how much stress he was under.
“Where’s the malignancy?”
“In his stomach. He went in thinking he had an ulcer. When tests confirmed cancer, one of the staff specialists, Dr. Young, called Carlos in to explain the diagnosis and recommend treatment. Carlos walked out of his office before he finished, and never went back.”
“What is the recommended treatment?”
“Radiation therapy to try and shrink the cancer. If it responds appropriately, they’ll operate to remove the tumor and, unfortunately, much of his stomach.”
“And the prognosis?”
“He has a forty percent chance of coming out of this okay with aggressive treatment. Six months to a year to live if he does nothing.”
“I’m so sorry, Raoul.” But more than sorry, she felt partly responsible for Carlos’s refusal to accept Raoul’s help. “I’m sure my causing a breach between the two of you didn’t help your case.”
“I don’t think it mattered. This is about Alma and that demonic hold she has on him. I’d like to know what really happened thirty years ago in the boathouse, just to see if it explains their bizarre relationship.”
“I keep thinking about Enrique’s involvement in all of this,” Jaci said. “After his actions tonight, I think there’s a good chance he killed all four of the Santiagos.”
“Sounds feasible to me,” Raoul agreed. “They may have come home and caught him about to make off with the money Andres was said to have lying around the island.”
“The legendary missing fortune.”
“Exactly. If they found him in the boathouse,” Raoul continued, “it would explain the blood.”
“But the splatters indicate only two people were shot there. And then there’s Pilar. She was—” Jaci caught herself before she said more. “I think I’ll take that shower now.”
She started to stand, but Raoul grasped her hand and tugged her back down beside him. “What about Pilar?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing except that she’d appeared in a bizarre image, lying in a pool of blood, her doll cradled against her small, heaving chest.
Run, Jaci. Run or the wicked witch will kill you, too.
“You’re trembling,” Raoul said.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, knowing she was anything but.
The rational side of her knew that neither Cape Diablo nor the villa could be haunted. Murdered children couldn’t reach out to her, not from their deathbed or from the murky pool.
Murdered children. The revelation hit with staggering force. “Andres’s son didn’t just drown. He was murdered.”
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
Jaci didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until she heard Raoul’s surprised reaction.
“It’s just a hunch,” she said. But a powerful one. Enrique might have been in on the crimes, but he wasn’t the only one. Alma was involved as well. Alma, the wicked witch.
She must have drowned Andres’s son and then gone mad—or more likely she’d been unbalanced all along. Then, somehow, she’d fallen in league with Enrique, perhaps helped him locate the treasure, and been in on the plans to kill the family. Carlos may have been in on the scheme as well.
Only why would Carlos have turned against Andres and General Norberto’s daughter?
This time Raoul stood up. He took her hand and tugged Jaci to her feet. “You should have that shower now if you’re going to get any more sleep tonight. If you need me, call. I won’t be more than a few steps away.”
She met his gaze, and felt its warmth wash over her. Not the sensual onslaught she’d felt last night. Her nerves and emotions were far too shot for that after what she’d been through with Enrique. But it felt incredibly safe just to be with Raoul.
“I’ll turn down the covers in the big bedroom and leave the antiseptic cream handy. Soap’s in the shower. Shampoo, too. And there’s toothpaste in the cabinet over the sink.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a terrific guy?”
He didn’t respond.
Because, of course, someone had. The fiancée whose pictures still claimed the most prominent spot on his boat. Dead for two years, but still in his life—and in his dreams. Jaci turned to stare at the photographs.
Raoul stepped between her and the pictures, as if reading her mind. “You must know I care for you, Jaci, but it’s just…”
“Just that you’re still in love with Allison,” she said, finishing his sentence for him when it didn’t seem that he could.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“You called her name in your sleep after we made love.”
“I loved Allison. I’m not denying that, but…” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I killed Allison, Jaci. I killed her as surely as if I’d put a bullet in her head.”
“What are you saying?”
“She didn’t want me to take the crew on the dive that day, said she had a bad feeling about it. I blew off her concerns.”
“So you didn’t back out?”
“No, four of us prepared for the dive, and at the last minute, Allison decided to join us.”
Raoul’s voice dropped, and Jaci felt as if he were moving away from her, though he hadn’t taken a step.
“The other three crew members took the back of the sunken sailing vessel. Allison and I took the front. It was a preliminary exploration, just to determine the condition of the ship and its contents. Gung ho, as always, I rushed ahead of her. I didn’t see her when I looked back, and thought her apprehension had gotten the better of her and she’d decided to surface.”
“But she hadn’t?”
“No. The plan was that we stay together, but something down a side corridor must have grabbed her attention or else she thought I’d turned that way. A few minutes later, the hull of the ship shifted and part of a wall caved in. She was crushed. By the time we got her to the surface, she was dead.”
Jaci felt his grief and, to an extent, she even understood his guilt. She ached to wrap her arms around him,
but it seemed as if he’d moved into another world, one where she didn’t belong.
“If I’d called off the dive, or even if I’d gone back to check on Allison when I didn’t see her behind me, she’d be alive today.”
Or he might have been in the same corridor and died with her. “It’s done, Raoul. You can’t undo it. You have to let it go.”
“Do you think I haven’t told myself that same thing a thousand times? I’ve tried to put it behind me, but then something happens and the guilt bushwhacks me all over again. How can I just move on? What right do I have to happiness or love, when she doesn’t even have a life?”
Anguish tore at his voice and deepened the lines on his face. He was literally ravaged by guilt.
“So where does that leave us, Raoul?”
“I don’t have the answers. All I know is that when I’m with you, I feel things again. Not just the sex, though that was incredible. It’s like coming home when you thought you never would. The sun is brighter. Laughter comes easier. Even food tastes better.” He stepped closer and took her hands in his. “I’m sure I’m saying this all wrong.”
He was saying it just fine, but what kind of relationship could they have with him wallowing in guilt and calling Allison’s name in his sleep? Jaci’s thoughts spun into a whirlwind of confusion.
“I can’t deal with this, Raoul. Not tonight.”
“I’m not asking for anything but a chance, Jaci. I don’t want to lose you.”
And she didn’t want to lose him. If she wasn’t already hopelessly in love with him, she was well on the way. But she’d never be satisfied to come in second to a memory and his overwhelming guilt.
He released her hands slowly, letting his fingertips slide to hers as she pulled away.
Strange, but as she walked away from him, it felt an awful lot as if she’d just said a final goodbye.
“WE HAD ALL OUR SURVEILLANCE ducks in a row and were ready to catch Enrique in the act when you arrived on the island and tossed your little blood-splatter monkey wrench into the works.”
