Joanna Wayne - A Clandestine Affair

“You and Andres Santiago must have been close.”

Carlos nodded. “He saved my life once. That binds men.”

“How did that happen?”

“It was back when I served with General Norberto. Andres had come to our camp to deliver some guns and ammunition he’d smuggled into the country. A bunch of guerillas jumped us and one got a fix on me. Andres took him out before he could kill me.”

A gust of wind caught wisps of Carlos’s thinning, gray hair and blew it into his face. He raked it away, then looked straight at Raoul. “All that’s past. No use in bringing any of it up now.”

His tone made it clear the topic was closed. The adage that elderly men spent more time in the past than the present didn’t hold true with Carlos. Or if it did, he didn’t want to talk of it with Raoul.

“It’s getting late,” Carlos said, “past my bedtime.”

And not nearly Raoul’s. Sleep avoided him most nights until the wee hours, so he avoided laying his head on the pillow until his eyelids were so heavy they’d close without a fight.

“You turn in when you’re ready,” Raoul said. “I’ll sleep on the boat.”

“No need. You can take my bed. I’ll stay in one of the guest rooms in the main house. We only have the one renter and she’s in the pool house.”

Even if there had been a dozen renters, there would be room in the big house. “I’m surprised you never moved up there permanently. Surely it’s more comfortable than the boathouse. Definitely more roomy.”

“I’ve thought about it, but I like my own space. The boathouse suits me. It’s clean and private. Mostly, it’s home.”

“More reason I shouldn’t run you out of it,” Raoul said.

“You’re not. I’m offering. A man gets pleasure from sharing his house with kin, and you’re the only family I got left.”

“In that case, I’ll stay in the boathouse.”

“You plan to do some fishing tomorrow?” Carlos asked.

“I’d like to. I was hoping you’d go with me. We can take my boat and hit the open gulf.”

“That would be good, just like old times, ’cept we got that lady staying here—that renter I told you about.”

“I met her when I took a walk up to the courtyard. She seems capable of taking care of herself for a day.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Carlos rubbed his whiskered chin with the back of his hand. “The guests are on their own, but still I hate to leave a woman who’s not familiar with the place out here by herself.”

“Alma would be here.”

“Yeah.”

His answer was evasive, but his expression was troubled. Evidently he realized Alma would be no help to Jaci or anyone else, no matter what the emergency.

“Get some sleep,” Raoul said, not wanting talk about Alma tonight. “We can see about fishing tomorrow.”

Carlos nodded. “There’s food in the boathouse if you want a midnight snack. Cereal and stuff like that. Plenty of cold beer, and a bottle of whiskey on the shelf over the sink.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Then I’ll just get a few things and head to the villa.” Carlos took the path to the boathouse, Tamale at his heels. He stopped after a few steps and turned back to Raoul. “How would you feel about taking another fisherman along—or in this case, a fisherwoman?”

Raoul balked. No way was he buying into that. “I don’t think Alma—”

“Not Alma. Jaci asked me to take her fishing, but I’m sure she’d have a lot more fun on a boat like yours. Besides, my motor’s acting up.”

Raoul mulled over the request. He’d hoped for some quality time when he’d have Carlos’s full attention and no interruptions. Jaci’s presence would make that impossible.

His great-uncle took off his hat and ran his hands through his thinning hair. “There’s nothing wrong with going fishing with a good-looking female.”

“That’s not the issue.”

“Isn’t it? How long has it been since you’ve been with a woman?”

Raoul tensed. He hadn’t expected anything that direct from Carlos. “I’m with women all the time. Some of my best divers are women.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

He knew exactly what Carlos meant, but there was no way he was discussing his sex life with his aging uncle. “We can take Jaci along if she wants to go. It’s no big deal.”

“Good. I’ll check with her in the morning,” Carlos said, yawning through the last of the sentence.

Raoul watched him walk away. Unfortunately, the question Carlos had asked didn’t recede with the man and his dog. The truth was Raoul hadn’t been with a woman in any kind of romantic or intimate way since Allison.

Two years plus. Twenty-seven months of aching loneliness.

Twenty-seven months of guilt.

He didn’t expect a day with Jaci to change any of that. Yet she was on his mind now, and he wondered again what had bought her to Cape Diablo’s isolated shores.

JACI HAD SLEPT UNTIL NEARLY 9:00 a.m., the latest she’d stayed in bed since the fall semester had started. Normally she would have been up by seven, but she’d lain awake for hours, tossing and turning and staring out the window into the darkest night imaginable.

She blamed her inability to sleep on the unfamiliar cacophony of sounds. The drone of the generator. The roar of waves crashing on the island’s western shore. The hooting of an owl. The chorus of a thousand tree frogs.

But it wasn’t just the noise. It was an apprehension she couldn’t explain, the feeling that something bad was going to happen before she got off this island.

She’d expected the place to be a catalyst for the investigation, but she hadn’t expected the aura of mystery to be so intense.

The isolation had a lot to do with that, but the island’s inhabitants certainly added to the eerie ambiance. Carlos Lazario and Alma Garcia were the strangest of bedfellows. Carlos was weathered but sturdy, like the mangroves that endured whatever storm come their way. Alma was more like the thin sea oats that swayed in the slightest breeze.

Yet they both seemed to belong to Cape Diablo, just as the crumbling villa did. Jaci stared at the vines that crept up the white stucco walls and twined around the second-floor loggia. The few remaining bougainvillea blossoms had turned brown, but she could well imagine them in full bloom, a riot of scarlet.

Wilma St. Clair’s painting didn’t seem nearly as bizarre now that Jaci had arrived on Cape Diablo. Fingers of blood gripping the walls fit the sinister feel of the place much better than colorful blooms.

Jaci padded to the kitchen and took a bowl from the cabinet over the sink. She’d have a bit of cereal, then get down to her real business of the day—finding transportation to Everglades City to meet with Mac Lowell before he changed his mind.

JACI TOOK A DIFFERENT PATH to the boathouse, one that skirted the eastern coastline of the island and wound through the mangroves instead of along the sandy beach. Birds chattered and shrieked in the trees, as if scolding her for invading their territory. Dragonflies and wasps flitted among the brush, and she stopped more than once to swat away a mosquito or wipe sticky spiderwebs from her face and hair.

The area wasn’t as frightening as the swamp would have been, but still it left her more uncomfortable than she would have expected.

She was almost to the clearing when she caught a whiff of cigar smoke. She had to search for the smoker. Finally, she spotted him standing under a tree a couple of yards away. He showed no sign of having noticed her, so she stepped off the path and behind a thick growth of palmetto to check him out.

Hispanic male, probably six-two, late fifties, lean but muscular, tattoos on both arms that looked to be dragons of some kind. No obvious weapon.