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“No, actually I was born and raised here,” she lied. “I just avoid the sun.”
“Probably a good idea,” he agreed, sounding like he knew she was lying. “You must have gone to a good college. No Floridian accent like most of us. But some accent I haven’t been able to place yet.” He was no longer smiling.
“I think I’ll lie down for a while.” She started for the stairs, feeling his gaze drilling into her back as she hugged the newspaper to her stomach and practically ran to get away.
“If you’re really interested in the book I’m working on, maybe we could get together and talk about the ghosts that haunt this island,” he called after her.
“What ghosts?” Henri said, sticking her head out the open door of her apartment as Willa ran up the stairs.
“Cape Diablo ghosts,” Odell said with a chuckle. “Has to be told over a good bottle of wine, though.”
“I have the wine,” Henri offered. “What do you say, Willie?”
Willa had reached her apartment, opened the door and was almost safely inside. Just not quick enough. She thought of several reasons to decline as she looked down and saw Odell watching her, waiting.
“That is unless Willie is too scared,” he said, as if trying to make it sound as if he was joking. His gaze met hers.
“I’m not afraid of ghosts,” she said, m
eeting his eyes.
Odell lifted a brow. “Great. Later I’ll get the barbecue grill going. We’ll make it a party.”
“You got yourself a date,” Henri said.
“Sounds great,” Willa agreed, just to be agreeable. She would come up with an excuse later.
She closed her door, heard the music coming from the third floor again and shivered as she remembered her stolen artwork and the smell of gardenias. Odell might be right about one thing. The elderly woman living in the tower did appear to be in her own world. What had she done with the painting she’d taken? Probably put it up on a wall. At least no one would see it.
Pulling the newspaper from under her shirt, she dropped it and the rest of the paper on the table before glancing out the window. She caught a glimpse of Alma Garcia standing at her window overlooking the courtyard. Had she been listening to the conversation about ghosts? Apparently she had since she looked upset.
Willa followed the older woman’s gaze. Alma seemed to be glaring down not at Odell and Henri who were talking by the pool but at Blossom, who was partially hidden from view where she stood in the shade along the back wall of the villa.
The girl looked as if she was eavesdropping on Odell’s and Henri’s conversation. Blossom looked up. Her piercing gaze seemed to meet Willa’s, almost daring her.
Willa dropped the blind back into place and picked up the newspaper article she’d taken from Odell’s room and turned it over.
All the breath rushed out of her. Earlier she’d been so shocked to see her own photo in the paper that she hadn’t even noticed a second story—and photograph.
This one was of a younger Landry Jones.
He was wearing a police uniform!
Dropping in a chair, her gaze flew to the headline. Undercover Officer Wanted For Murder Of Partner: Manhunt Continues For Killer Cop—And Only Witness.
Willa quickly read the newspaper articles. The story had been broken by the news media after discovering that the police were involved in an intense but secret manhunt for plainclothes detective Landry Jones of the St. Petersburg Police Department.
Jones was wanted for the murder of his partner, Zeke Hartung after an eyewitness saw Jones kill Hartung outside a St. Pete Beach art gallery.
The police commissioner refused to discuss rumors that the two had been working undercover at the time of the murder or had turned on each other after infiltrating a criminal organization.
An inside source not to be named by the paper said Landry Jones had been working for known crime boss Freddy Delgado and had been hired for the contracted killings of Zeke Hartung and another undercover police officer, Simon Renton. Simon Renton’s mutilated body had been found at a favorite organized-crime dumping site the day after Zeke Hartung’s murder.
An inside news source said Renton’s body had been identified by a tattoo on the torso because it had been impossible to get prints from the badly mutilated body.
Willa felt sick. No wonder the police had insisted on putting her in protective custody. Unfortunately they’d failed to tell her anything about Landry Jones. Or what he was involved in. Organized crime. Contract killings of two police officers.
She looked at Landry Jones’s photo. The caption under it read Dirty Cop? Landry Jones Wanted For Questioning In The Brutal Murders Of Two Other Officers.
