B.J. Daniels - Undeniable Proof

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 on Cape Diablo. But she didn’t delude herself. She would never be safe. The sound of the boat motor died off into the distance. She looked back once but the boat had already disappeared from sight. All she could see was the horizon and the endless Gulf of Mexico.

As she looked up at the villa, she wondered if there was any place safe enough or far enough from civilization to elude the men who were on her trail.

If it wasn’t Cape Diablo, then no place existed.

Willa stopped in front of the villa. She could hear the waves lapping at the dock and the wind whispering in the palms as if it were hiding some sinister secrets….

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for Tim and Elise who told us about these waters and gave us our first chart of the islands. Thank you for many hours boating through a blur of mangrove-green islands on endless water. There is no neater place to be lost.

B.J. Daniels’s life dream was to write books. After a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, she sold thirty-seven short stories before she finally wrote her first book. That book, Odd Man Out, received a 4½ star review from Romantic Times BOOKclub and went on to be nominated for Best Harlequin Intrigue of 1995. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense.

B.J. lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, two springer spaniels, Scout and Spot, and an aging, temperamental tomcat named Jeff. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. To contact B.J., write to her at P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771, or check out her Web site at www.bjdaniels.com.

Willa St. Clair—The artist’s dreams were all coming true—until she witnessed a murder and was forced to hide on the island of Cape Diablo.

Landry Jones—His life depended on finding the artist and making sure she never testified against him.

Zeke Hartung—What had the undercover cop been thinking the night he died?

Freddy D.—He’d do anything to get the name of the man who’d betrayed him—and the missing evidence that could save him from prison.

Odell Grady—Was the writer working on a book about Cape Diablo? Or was he up to something that could get him killed?

Henrietta “Henri” LaFrance—The good-looking redhead had come to the island to escape a bad relationship. Or had she?

Blossom—All Cape Diablo needed was a surly teenaged actress.

Alma Garcia—The former nanny had been on Cape Diablo so long everyone thought she was crazy.

Carlos Lazario—The old fisherman moved around the island like a ghost.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

He’d waited too long. They knew. The realization turned his blood to ice water. If they knew that he had the disk, then they also knew what he planned to do with it.

He felt the full weight of the disk in his breast pocket. In the right hands, the disk was gold. In the wrong hands, it was a death warrant.

Simon didn’t look back but he knew they were behind him, following him. Two of them. He could hear them. Feel them working their way along the dark street.

All he could guess is that they weren’t sure where he was headed. They would want to know who he’d planned to give the disk to. He had a pretty good idea that they knew exactly who he worked for—but just wanted proof.

He’d changed course the moment he’d heard them behind and now found himself headed for the beach. Ahead was the artsy part of St. Pete Beach, the small southern Florida town at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Art galleries, studios, little shops. All closed this time of the night.

No place to hide.

He had to ditch the disk. It was his only chance. He was probably a dead man either way, but he might be able to talk his way out of this if the disk wasn’t found on him.

Ahead Simon spotted a light burning in one of the art studios. Was it possible it was still open? Could he be that lucky?

He could hear the quickening of the men’s steps behind him as he neared the shop entrance. Inside, the light silhouetted a figure at the back of the shop apparently working late. His good luck. That person’s bad fortune.

It took everything in him not to run. But that would make him look guilty. That would get him killed before he could hide the disk.

Simon reached the front door of the shop and grasped the knob. He could see a woman working in the studio at the back. The men behind him were so close he thought he could feel their collective breaths on his neck. As he tried the door, he expected to feel a hand drop to his shoulder and a cold steel barrel press against his backbone.

Locked! He couldn’t catch his breath. He jiggled the doorknob. His heart pounded so hard, all he could hear was the blood buzzing in his ears.

The woman who’d been working at the back looked up. Obviously she hadn’t been expecting anyone.

Simon waved and called to her in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own, “Sorry I’m late.”

Surprise registered in her eyes, but she stopped what she was doing and walked toward the door.

He thought he heard the two men slide back into the darker shadows as the woman opened the door.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said, stepping in, forcing her to step aside as he pushed past and into the shop. “I was afraid you’d already gone home. I called about one of your—” he glanced to see what kind of work the woman did “—paintings,” he said, and stuffed his hands into his pockets so she didn’t see how badly they were shaking as he turned to look at her.

He’d thought her twenty-something but she could have been younger. It was hard to tell her age with such pale skin sprinkled with golden freckles and blond hair that she had pulled back in a single long braid that trailed down her back. She wore a sleeveless T-shirt, peach-colored, and a pair of denim cropped pants. He caught the scent of vanilla.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking confused. “Are you sure you have the right gallery?” Simon could see that she was scared. If she only knew. But she closed the door behind her, failing, he noted, to lock it, though. Would the two men come in here after him? He couldn’t be sure.

But if they did, the woman was as good as dead.

“Yes, this is the shop,” he said, improvising as he moved to look at one of the Florida landscapes done in pastels. “My wife said she was told someone would be here late.” A man with a wife would make her feel safer, he hoped, as he saw that she hadn’t moved. In fact, she seemed to hover by the phone on the desk by the door.

He thought of the real wife he’d had. She’d left him because she couldn’t take the line of work he was in. Low pay, ridiculous hours and always the chance that tonight might be the night he didn’t come home. Tonight might be the night she got the phone call. Or worse, opened the door in the wee hours of the morning to see one of his buddies at the door bearing the bad news.