by Joanna Wayne
“No, of course not.” She scanned the pool again. There was nothing that even resembled a body. “I didn’t make this up,” she insisted. “I’m a professional, and I know a body when I see one.”
“Okay, just settle down,” Raoul said, his voice much quieter and calmer than either hers or Carlos’s. “Exactly where did you see the body?”
“There.” She pointed. “But I don’t see it now.”
“’Cause it’s not there,” Carlos said, “no more than any of the other ghosts people have seen out here have been. It’s that damn documentary.”
Raoul turned away from the pool and walked over to stand beside Jaci.
“I don’t know what documentary you’re talking about,” she said, “and I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Good,” Raoul answered, aiming the beam of his flashlight into the water. He circled the pool, searching every crevice and corner as best he could without actually getting into the disgusting soup.
Jaci followed him, frantically searching for any sign of the body. The effort was wasted. Thoroughly confused and exasperated, she finally backed away and leaned against the courtyard wall. “This is useless. It’s impossible to see through the scum in this light.”
“I have to agree,” Raoul said. “We’ll have to wait until sunup before we come to a firm conclusion. But no matter what we find, the pool should be drained and cleaned.”
“I’ll give that some thought,” Carlos said, though his tone lacked conviction. “But there’s no use standing out here yakking about it now. If there’s a body—which there isn’t—it’s not going anywhere tonight.”
Tamale followed Carlos back to the villa. Raoul stayed. “Want to talk about it?” he asked, once his great-uncle had disappeared inside the villa.
“You don’t have to humor me, Raoul. I’ll be fine,” Jaci said.
“I don’t see how asking if you want to talk is humoring you. I just thought that since we’re both wide-awake, we might as well keep each other company.”
It was tempting, but she couldn’t just sweep their earlier confrontation from her mind. “Does keeping me company involve repeating your earlier ultimatum?”
“I still think you should leave, maybe now more than ever, but I’ll work at keeping this a friendly conversation if you will.”
She didn’t feel particularly friendly or hospitable, but she wasn’t too keen on being alone, either. She hesitated.
“It’s not that big a deal, Jaci. The offer was only for conversation. You can kick me out whenever you want.”
She took another look at the pool and felt the icy chill again. “In that case, I appreciate the offer.” Turning, she padded toward the apartment, no longer sure that coming to Cape Diablo had been a good idea, but more determined than ever to see this through.
RAOUL KNEW HIS SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT offer to stay and talk had been a mistake the moment he stepped inside Jaci’s tiny apartment. Outside, she’d been vulnerable and unsure, and he’d felt the overwhelming urge to come to her rescue. Inside the cozy setting, alone with a woman he was unnervingly attracted to, he was the one on shaky ground.
“How about a cup of tea,” she asked, “or would you rather have wine? Though I would have bought some hard liquor with me if I’d known things were going to turn out like this.”
“I have plenty on the boat if you need it, but tea sounds good.”
He followed her into the kitchen. The lemon- yellow color of her nightshirt was much more vivid under the bright indoor lighting, bringing her auburn hair and emerald eyes to life. The soft cotton shirt fell about halfway down her thighs, showing off her shapely legs while her bare feet highlighted her bright red toenails.
She set the teakettle over the burner, then reached to the top shelf of the pantry for the tea canister. The nightshirt rode a couple of inches higher, and everything inside him seemed to tighten and yet be shaky at the same time.
He’d have to work hard to keep this light and impersonal. He walked over to the counter where she was setting a couple of pottery mugs. “Can I help?”
“Not with the tea, but if you can shed any light on what just happened in the courtyard, I’d be grateful.”
He settled into one of the four mismatched chairs around the small oak table. “Does that mean you’re no longer convinced there’s actually a body hidden somewhere under the muck?”
“I agree it’s unlikely, and that it could have been shadows playing tricks on my eyes. I’d still like it checked out fully tomorrow morning.”
“That makes sense. How did you happen to be out there this time of the night?”
“Tamale woke me. When I opened the door to see what was wrong, I saw him standing at the edge of the pool, growling and crouched as if he were in attack mode.”
“So you went out to check?”
“First I called to him, but when he stayed put and started barking loudly, I thought he must be watching a frog or maybe even a snake. I figured if I didn’t do something to settle him down, he’d never get quiet.”
“Did you find a frog or a snake?”
“No. When I looked into the pool, I saw the body floating near the edge.”
“And you saw it clearly?”
“The image was distinct. The features of the boy were distorted, swollen out of shape.”
“But you didn’t think there was a chance the boy was alive?”
“If I had thought that for a second, I would have jumped in and pulled him out. He was definitely dead, and had been for quite a while.”
“So you screamed, and Carlos came to the rescue?”
“He showed up. I wouldn’t call it a rescue. Evidently he has a whole new attitude toward me now that you told him why I came to Cape Diablo.”
“How would you feel if people were constantly prying into your past?”
“I’m not prying, and this isn’t about him. I’m conducting an investigation.”
“For a project, not because you’re a cop or that this is your job.”
“You said you weren’t going to lecture.”
“Touché. Go ahead.”
“At any rate, you heard most of the discussion, since you showed up only a minute or two after Carlos did.” She turned and looked Raoul in the eye. “Where were you, anyway? Obviously not on the boat or in the boathouse?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I took a walk on the beach.”
“Seems to be a lot of insomnia on Cape Diablo.”
“I have that trouble everywhere.”
“I don’t, and I’ve never seen a ghost, either, or a body that wasn’t there, for that matter.”
He studied her movements as she dropped a couple of tea bags into the mugs and poured boiling water over them. Graceful. Youthful. He was reminded again that she was probably ten years younger than he was.
He forced his mind back to the topic at hand. “Were you telling the truth when you said you haven’t seen the documentary Carlos was talking about?” he asked, determined to get to safer ground.
“Why would I lie?”
“I’m just asking.”
“I’ve never even heard of it.”
“But you do know Andres Santiago’s son drowned in the pool?”
“I read the police reports regarding the death.”
“Then you probably know more than I do.”
“I don’t know much. The reports were sketchy. They stated that the boy was four years old at the time of the drowning. He apparently wandered out of the house without anyone knowing it.”
“Odd that he couldn’t swim, with the pool so convenient.”
“Both Alma Garcia and his stepmother said he was an excellent swimmer. They couldn’t explain why he drowned—at least that’s what was recorded by the investigating officer The only possibility was that he was weakened by a recent case of measles.”
“Unexplainable seems to be the motto of Cape Diablo,” Raoul said. “Who found the body?”
“Alma did. She’d been the children’s nanny o
nly for a couple of months at the time. The police reported that she was hysterical, kept saying how devastated his father would be.”
“Where was Andres?”
“Away on business. The stepmother and the nanny were in charge of the children.” Jaci picked up one mug and set it in front of him, then reached for the other and joined him at the table. “You think I imagined the body in the pool tonight based on what I’d read about the drowning, don’t you?”
“What do you think?”
“I guess it’s possible,” she admitted, “but it didn’t feel imagined. The body seemed very real, and so close I could have leaned down and touched it.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. By the time I got my wits about me, it had drifted out of reach. And I have to admit that it did seem less defined then.”
“Maybe finding Mac’s body today had you upset.”
“I’ve seen a lot of corpses during my training,” she said. “They’ve never led to my imagining ones that didn’t exist.”
“Welcome to Cape Diablo.”
She looked up from her tea, her eyes narrowed but telegraphing her doubt. “Don’t tell me you believe the island is haunted.”
“Not haunted, just eerie. It freaked me out big time when I was a kid.”
“Did Alma Garcia roam the island in that white gown then the way she does now?”
“As far back as I can remember.”
Jaci toyed with the handle of her mug. “Are Carlos and Alma lovers?”
Raoul had asked himself that question hundreds of times without coming to any definitive conclusion. “If they are, I’ve never seen any indication. It’s more like he’s her caretaker.”
“But it seems strange to live on a deserted island with a member of the opposite gender and never have sex.”
Raoul wasn’t sure how they’d gone from dead bodies to sex, but this was definitely not a topic he wanted to get into with Jaci tonight. He downed the rest of his tea, then carried his empty mug to the sink.
“I should go,” he said, “and let you get some sleep. That is, if you’re certain you’ll be okay alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’m not going near the pool until sunup.”
He walked to the door. She followed him. He stood with his hand on the knob, suddenly wondering why in hell he was walking away from a woman in a lemon-yellow nightshirt who looked vulnerable and seductive and—
And this was getting him nowhere.
“Thanks, Raoul.”
“Anytime.”
She leaned closer, and there she was, in his face, too tempting to resist. He touched his lips to hers. The kiss was light and quick, yet it sent a stream of fire through him that zinged all the way to his toes.
He backed out the door while he still could. He barely noticed the pool when he passed it. There were far scarier things rolling around in his mind.
Things like how badly he wanted to walk back in that apartment and finish that kiss. But stabs of guilt mingled with the desire, and he knew the past wasn’t ready to let go of him just yet.
JACI HADN’T FALLEN ASLEEP AGAIN until the first rays of the sun had begun to melt away the grayness of dawn. Strangely, it hadn’t been thoughts of the body in the water but memories of Raoul’s lips brushing hers that took the most blame for keeping her awake.
The kiss had been surprising, but not nearly as unexpected as the titillating thrill that had coursed through her like a tidal wave. And it wasn’t even that much of a kiss. More like a brush of lips that he’d backed away from before it got started.
The kiss had been a fluke, and so had her reaction to it—some kind of arousal brought on by her shaky emotional state. Wouldn’t her mother have a field day with that explanation?
Not that any of it mattered. Jaci had far more im portant things to worry about than almost kisses. For one thing, it was pretty certain now that her imagination had been working overtime last night. And if that was the case, she had to get hold of her emotions immediately.
There was no place in forensics for that sort of hysteria. Her professor would be appalled. Carlos had been livid.
But as disapproving as the old caretaker had been last night, he’d come though this morning. He’d been hard at it a little after 7:00 a.m., scooping out trash with a long-handled net. He’d pulled out lots of gunk, but nothing that even resembled a body.
Jaci dropped into one of the white wicker chairs and began to flip through pages of notes she’d made on the Santiago family.
Her information about the children’s mother was extremely limited and not all that reliable, having come from a series of articles written about Andres Santiago’s involvement with the Central American drug culture, and published in a now defunct South American periodical. Fortunately, Jaci read Spanish, though not all that fluently.
The mother of the Santiago children, the first Mrs. Andres Santiago, had died giving birth to their only son. The son became the joy of Andres’s life.
Three and a half years later, Andres married Medina, the daughter of a Central American dictator who’d been overthrown in a military coup.
Her father, General Norberto, had been executed along with his wife and only son. Medina escaped only because Carlos Lazario, a first lieutenant in the general’s army, managed to sneak her out of the capital.
Andres smuggled them both out of their war-torn country. A few weeks later, he’d married Medina and brought both her and Carlos to Cape Diablo.
Shortly thereafter, the eighteen-year-old Alma Garcia was brought to the island to become nanny for the three Santiago children. Her father, who’d worked for Andres, had been slain in a battle with pirates trying to take over a shipment of illegal drugs headed to Miami.
Jaci was once again struck by the irony that Alma Garcia and Carlos, the last to arrive, and with no blood ties to Andres Santiago, were the only ones who remained on Cape Diablo.
With them on her mind, Jaci walked to the window and stared out at the villa. Even in full daylight, it was easy to see how some people would believe the place haunted. It might have been grand in its day, but hurricanes, years of salty air, and high humidity had taken their toll on the structure. Some of the red tiles were missing from the roof and the shutters that remained were mildewed, the paint chipped and faded.
Now that she thought about it, the old villa itself had likely cast the eerie shadows that had fueled her imagination in the moonlight. Had she been a super stitious person, she might have believed the rambling building was trying to tell her something, or even that the boy who’d drowned in the pool so many years ago was reaching out to her.
She knew better. Dead victims didn’t cry out for help. The authorities had to go in and ferret out every clue. That’s why forensics was so important. And forensically speaking, she had no reason at all to suspect the drowning was connected to her project in any way. But she was also beginning to doubt that the photos of the blood splatters would be all that helpful, either.
Restless now, Jaci grabbed her sunglasses and baseball cap and walked outside, careful this time to lock the French doors behind her. A few minutes later she was jogging along the beach.
The sand beneath her feet was warm, the sun on her back downright hot. She was almost to the boathouse when she turned and started back toward her own apartment.
She slowed to a walk, then stepped into the surf to cool off. A school of minnows swam between her legs, and she paused to watch their swishing movements. She walked out until the water was knee high, not caring at all that an occasional wave splashed her very short shorts.
She imagined Reyna and Pilar playing in the surf and running along the beach—until that one bloody night when their lives had changed forever or perhaps been snuffed out.
Had they witnessed a murder, then been killed because of what they saw? Had they been kidnapped after their parents were murdered? Or had they…
Something stung Jaci’s leg, and she jumped backward. Maybe seaweed, m
aybe the tentacles of a jellyfish. All part of a day in the gulf. A couple of seagulls screamed overhead, their calls joined by the low whir of a small cabin cruiser fifty yards offshore.
Her mind shifted gears, drifting back to the dinner she’d shared with Raoul on his boat—and to last night’s kiss. What was there about the man that got to her? He was nice looking, handsome in a rugged sort of way, but she’d been seriously kissed by better looking men and hadn’t felt so much as a quickening heart rate.
Last night’s feathered kiss had left her breathless and leaning against the door for support while he’d calmly strolled away.
So what had she expected him to do? Stay and make passionate love with a woman who imagined bodies when there were none? He was probably making plans to get the hell off of Cape Diablo, if he hadn’t left already.
She waded back to shore and turned deliberately away from the boathouse and dock and toward the villa and her own apartment. Raoul was just another man. The kiss was just another kiss—or almost kiss. And she had a project to complete.
The big arched doors to the courtyard were a hundred or so yards away when she spotted Tamale trotting toward her with what looked like a clump of seaweed in his mouth.
“What do you have there, boy?”
Tamale’s tail wagged like crazy as he dropped his treasure at her feet. A pair of glassy eyes peered through the seaweed. Jaci knelt and pushed the stringy green strands away, revealing the cracked face of a baby doll. It took several minutes to untangle the rest of the seaweed.
The doll’s head, legs and one remaining arm were of rubbery plastic. The body had apparently been of cloth, but the stuffing had all spilled out of a rip in the fabric of the doll’s belly. Only scraps of tattered material remained.
A few strands of wiry yellow hair were still stuck to the plastic scalp. And beneath it, at the back of the neck, were two letters painted onto the discolored plastic: P. S.
Immediately, Jaci thought of Pilar Santiago. But how could one of Pilar’s dolls wash up on the beach thirty years after the child had last been here?