AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER SEVEN
Willa grabbed the edge of the desk, her knees going weak as she stared at the photograph of her escaping the safe house. How had anyone gotten this? But she knew. It had to have been taken from one of the media helicopters.
She remembered one of the officers guarding her had called for backup just a few seconds after the safe house was attacked. The media must have picked up the call on the scanner.
She stared at the photo, her heart sinking. Vaguely she recalled looking up and seeing a helicopter overhead as she was running away. She’d thought it was the police and had kept running, acutely aware that the police couldn’t protect her from the likes of Landry Jones or the men he worked for.
The shot of her had been blown up, the picture grainy, but even with her hair no longer long and straight and blond, she had no trouble recognizing herself.
Had Odell recognized her?
She tried not to panic. On impulse she took the section with her photo and the story about Zeke Hartung’s murder, quickly folded it and stuffed it under the waistband of her shorts, covering it with her shirt.
The rest of the paper she would leave. She started to slide it back into the spot where she’d found it then noticed there was a laptop computer under his desk. Was the old manual typewriter just for show?
“You a news junkie, too?” Odell asked from his apartment doorway.
She jumped and spun around to face him, the newspaper still in her hands, her mind racing for an explanation for being in his apartment.
“The door was open,” she managed to say. She’d left it open on purpose so she would hear him coming. But she’d been so upset and busy trying to get the newspaper back in the right place that she hadn’t heard him. How long had he been standing there watching her? Had he seen her take the front page and hide it under her shirt?
“I can do without a lot but not the news,” Odell said, leaning against the doorjamb watching her. “I have to know what’s happening back on the mainland. You’re welcome to read that paper if you’d like. I’m finished with it.”
She looked down at the newspaper in her hand and said the first thing that came to mind. “I was just checking my horoscope.”
He smiled. “You do that, too? It’s silly but I can’t help myself. When I spill salt, I have to toss some of it over my left shoulder.” He smiled. “I even knock on wood. Silly, huh?”
“No. We all have our own superstitions,” she said, remembering what he’d buried behind the villa. “If you don’t mind, I will take the newspaper. Might as well read ‘Dear Abby’ while I’m at it.”
He wasn’t looking at her but at his typewriter now. She hadn’t noticed that there was a sheet of white paper sticking out of it. When she’d seen the ream of unopened paper she’d assumed he hadn’t been writing yet.
She could almost read what he’d typed—
He stepped to her, blocking her view of the typewriter. “I’m glad you were just after the newspaper and not trying to read what I’d written on my book.” His smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes now.
She smiled, hers even more strained. “Okay, you caught me. I was curious. Bull said you were writing a book on Cape Diablo.”
Odell laughed. “I should have known he would blab. Okay, now you know. I’m fictionalizing it since no one knows what really happened, except maybe that old woman upstairs or her boyfriend, the Ancient Mariner, as I call him. But neither of them is talking. At least not to anyone but themselves,” he added, and laughed at his own joke.
“I’m sure the book will be a bestseller.”
“You think?” He seemed to relax a little.
She nodded, still smiling. She wanted to ask him what had him so scared that he was worried about evil curses. She wanted to go back to her apartment. She could feel the newspaper article under her shirt growing damp against her bare skin.
“Well, thanks for the newspaper,” she said, holding it against her chest. She started to step away and heard the crinkle of the newspaper article she’d hidden under her T-shirt.
“Hey,” Odell said.
She froze.
“You’d better watch the sun as fair as your skin is,” he said, eyeing her. “You look flushed and a little unsteady on your feet. The sun and heat on this island will do a fair-skinned girl like you right in.”
Or something would, she thought.
“You’re obviously not from Florida,” he said. “Some place up north?”
She could feel him studying her. Had he seen the resemblance to the page one photo of her? She hadn’t had time to read the story and see if it mentioned her name or that she was from South Dakota. No doubt the police had been forced to be forthcoming after two of their officers had been gunned down at the safe house and the media had photos.
