“All this?” he asked, shaking his head.
“I tend to overpack,” she said, tossing the laptop over her shoulder and picking up the two smaller bags. “I can carry my own luggage,” she said. “I’ll come back for the rest.”
“I’ll bring ’em,” Carlos said, “but don’t go expecting me to wait on you.” He turned to Bull. “Did you get my order?”
“I got it right here.”
“Good.”
Bull reached inside an old cooler at the front to the boat and took out a package wrapped in brown paper. “It wasn’t easy to come by,” he said, handing it to the man.
“I appreciate it.”
“You be careful, Carlos. You don’t need any trouble at your age.”
“I’m not going looking for any.”
The verbal exchange between the two men bordered on the surreptitious, and Jaci would have loved to know what was in the package.
Carlos tucked it in the pocket of his tattered black jacket, then bent and picked up the two heaviest pieces of luggage with seemingly little effort. He was strong for a man his age.
“Follow me,” he said.
“Sure you want to stay?” Bull asked, climbing back into the boat.
“I’m sure.”
But an icy tremble slithered down Jaci’s spine as she started up the shadowy path toward the house. The crimes might have occurred thirty years ago, but the air seemed alive with dark and possibly deadly secrets.
The situation was a forensic student’s dream, unless…
Unless it turned into a nightmare.
Chapter Two
Alma stood near the edge of the courtyard watching the new tenant as the young woman completed a series of lunges and squats. Her skimpy black running shorts revealed long, tanned legs, and a white jogging bra stretched across her perky, ample breasts.
Even with no makeup, and her auburn hair pulled through the back of a baseball cap and flowing loose behind her like a horse’s mane, Jaci Matlock was striking.
But then, it was easy to be striking when you were Jaci’s age. Mid-twenties, Alma suspected—young, but still older than Alma had been when she’d first come to Cape Diablo.
She had been striking, too, though she would never have dressed in such scandalous attire. She’d worn white peasant blouses and full cotton skirts that only revealed her ankles when the fabric was billowed by ocean breezes.
Her hair had hung to her waist, straight and black as onyx. Her complexion had been flawless, always carefully protected from the sun by large-brimmed straw hats woven by her grandmother back in their tiny Central American country.
Her face was gaunt now, her once flawless complexion weathered and wrinkled until she was only an unrecognizable shadow of the beautiful young woman she’d once been. Even her hair had betrayed her, lost its gleam and become wiry and prematurely gray.
When Alma had first come to the island, she’d missed her family and friends terribly. Worse, the isolation had frightened her. The wind whispering through the branches of the trees had reminded her of the wailing of women whose husbands and sons had never come home from battle.
But Cape Diablo had been the pathway to her future, the awakening of her dreams. Dreams that had withered and died almost as quickly as the seaweed that washed up on the beach to bake in the noonday sun once the tide had receded.
All because of the events that had transpired one dark night.
The secrets were old and tattered now, threadbare like her white festival dress. And yet they ruled the island like angry demons. The spirits dwelled in every crevice of the crumbling mansion, and had seeped between the tiniest grains of sand.
“Beware, Jaci,” she whispered as she backed into the shadows beyond the courtyard wall. “The curse of Cape Diablo shows no mercy.”
CARLOS PULLED THE WORN fishing hat low on his forehead as he squinted to read Raoul’s letter for the second time that morning. The note hadn’t come by regular mail delivery. His late brother’s only grandson never used the post.
Instead, it had been hand delivered by a courier who’d arrived by speedboat while Carlos was checking his stone crab traps. He’d read it and stuffed it in his pocket while he finished emptying the night’s catch.
Carlos reread the note now, carefully this time, to make sure he had not overlooked Raoul’s arrival date. But no, it wasn’t there. All he’d written was that he was coming for a short visit.
But he would arrive soon, possibly tonight. Raoul never gave a lot of advance notice for his rare stopovers at the island.
Carlos folded the note and stuck it back in his shirt pocket, grimacing as he did. The last time Raoul had been to the island was to tell him that Raoul’s grandfather had died. He’d come and taken Carlos back to the mainland to pay his last respects to his only brother.
Emilio’s death had hit Carlos much harder than he’d expected. Not that he’d seen him much over the last thirty years. Emilio had never understood the ties that bound Carlos to this place after the terrible tragedy, and Carlos hadn’t dared explain.
Feeling torn between his desire to see his great-nephew and his concern for what might have prompted the unexpected visit, Carlos left the shade of the mangroves and walked across the sandy beach behind the big house.
Courtesy demanded he let the señora know that Raoul was coming, though he wasn’t sure she’d recognize Raoul or realize he was Emilio’s son. She seemed confused about a lot of things these days—another source of worry for him.
Occasionally a tenant questioned him about the old woman who stared at them from the third-floor window, or from behind the courtyard wall, yet avoided talking to them even if they encountered her on the beach.
Carlos merely shrugged when they asked, refusing to offer an explanation. The señora belonged to the island and the house. The vacationers were the intruders, and he had had nothing but trouble from them over the last few months. The visitors had become more deadly than the drug smugglers who’d always used the island for their nefarious business.
And now there was a new one. Jaci Matlock. She seemed nice enough, but there was an intensity about her that worried Carlos. Not that she’d asked many questions when she’d arrived last night. It was more the way she’d scrutinized him when he’d carried her things inside the apartment. And the way she’d stared at the villa, as if she was making notes in her mind.
Or maybe he was just growing paranoid in his old age. He was seventy-three and felt it in his joints and bones. Nothing like the days when he’d been strong and daring, fighting for his hero right up until General Norberto was killed and his dictatorship overthrown.
The old memories set in, more comfortable in his mind than thoughts of Raoul or the island’s new inhabitant. The sun grew hot on Carlos’s back as he walked. Even though it was mid-October, the heat penetrated his thin shirt as if his skin was bare.
The heat didn’t really bother him. He’d grown used to it years ago. The sun and the island were like old friends, he thought as he paused to watch a blue heron step along the shore, searching for its breakfast.
Carlos’s heartbeat quickened as he spotted something that looked like a human bone bobbing around in the retreating tide. He waded in and slapped both hands into the water. On his second try, his fingers closed around the wave-tossed object.
Driftwood. Only a piece of driftwood.
He stared at it for long minutes, then flipped it back into the water. Paranoia was definitely setting in.
“Good morning, Carlos.”
He