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“Look, sweetheart, I could have broken your neck back there off the trail,” he said, getting angry. “Or I could drown you right now. I’m not trying to kill you. I’m just trying to get you to quit fighting me. The last thing I want is you dead.”
Willa stared at him, hating him. He’d turned her life upside down. How had she ever thought he was handsome? He was cruel and horrible. She glared at him, wanting to hit him but he held her at arm’s length, his fingers tangled in her hair, and she knew if she tried, he would just dunk her again. Her eyes burned from the saltwater—and anger.
“If I let go of you, are you going to attack me again? Scream? Try to get away?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Would it do me any good?”
“None. All you’d accomplish is making sure whoever was shooting at you knows where we are and get us both killed.”
He let go of her hair and stepped toward the beach, extending his hand as if to help her ashore.
She took a step back, the water up to her breasts now.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you, okay?”
“Isn’t that what all killers say? You probably told your partner that before you shot him.”
A flicker of pain crossed Landry Jones’s face and she thought for a moment he would drown her. He looked like he wanted to. Instead, he turned and waded through the water up to the beach. Stopping, he turned to look at her.
“See?” he said, holding out his hands. “And for the record, Zeke tried to kill me. It was self-defense.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “If that were true, then why are the police looking for you?”
He sighed heavily. “It’s my word against yours. All you saw was me shoot him. You obviously didn’t see him try to kill me.”
“Right. That’s probably why the police didn’t find a gun on him.”
Landry made a low animal-like sound. “I saw you panic and take off. I came after you. Obviously someone took Zeke’s gun to make me look guilty.”
“Obviously.”
He shook his head. “I don’t care what you believe, all right? Now come out of the water. I already told you I’m not going to hurt you.”
A wave slapped her in the back, throwing her forward. She took a few steps toward him and stopped. He retreated even farther up the beach to give her space.
Don’t trust this guy. Do not—repeat—trust this guy.
“You still think I was the one shooting at you back there?” He walked over to where he’d tossed his weapon before dragging her into the Gulf, picked it up and held the gun out for her to look at it. “You see a silencer on here?”
She stared at the revolver in his hand. No silencer. The person shooting at her on the path had a silencer on his gun. She felt her body go limp with the realization that more than one person on this island wanted her dead.
“You are smart enough to know the sound a gun makes without one, aren’t you?” he asked sarcastically.
“How do I know you didn’t take off the silencer before you grabbed me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Why would I do that?”
She didn’t know. In fact, all she knew about this man was that she’d seen him shoot his partner, that apparently before that he’d been a police officer, and that he was now wanted by the law. The fact that she was the only witness to that shooting put her in a precarious position to say the least.
“I have no reason to trust anything you say.”
He stared at her as if she’d just said something astounding, then he groaned, pulled off the cap he’d been wearing and raked a hand through his full head of dark hair. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I was wondering the same thing.”
“Sweetheart, do you have any idea how many people want you dead? There are people waiting in line to kill you.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” she snapped back.
