Secrets of His Own

  Cape Diablo shimmered on the horizon, a lush emerald-green gilded by the dying light. For a moment, as the sun hung suspended in a painted sky, the island seemed bathed in gold. A glowing sanctuary that beckoned to the weary traveler.

  As they approached the island, the sky deepened and the water turned dark, as if a giant shadow had crept over the whole area. It was a strange phenomenon, a trick of the light that seemed too much like an omen.

  Carrie couldn’t seem to shake off a gnawing fear. The place seemed so wild and primitive. As the boat drifted silently toward the pier, she became aware of a dozen sounds. Water lapping at the hull…the startled flight of an egret…an insect buzzing near her ear.

  And, in the distance, a scream.

  AMANDA STEVENS

  SECRETS OF HIS OWN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Amanda Stevens is the bestselling author of over thirty novels of romantic suspense. In addition to being a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award finalist, she is also the recipient of awards in Career Achievement in Romantic/Mystery and Career Achievement in Romantic/Suspense from Romantic Times BOOKclub. She currently resides in Texas. To find out more about past, present and future projects, please visit her Web site at www.amandastevens.com.

  Books by Amanda Stevens

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  373—STRANGER IN PARADISE

  388—A BABY’S CRY

  397—A MAN OF SECRETS

  430—THE SECOND MRS. MALONE

  453—THE HERO’S SON*

  458—THE BROTHER’S WIFE*

  462—THE LONG-LOST HEIR*

  489—SOMEBODY’S BABY

  511—LOVER, STRANGER

  549—THE LITTLEST WITNESS**

  553—SECRET ADMIRER**

  557—FORBIDDEN LOVER**

  581—THE BODYGUARD’S ASSIGNMENT

  607—NIGHTTIME GUARDIAN

  622—THE INNOCENT†

  626—THE TEMPTED†

  630—THE FORGIVEN†

  650—SECRET SANCTUARY

  700—CONFESSIONS OF THE HEART

  737—HIS MYSTERIOUS WAYS††

  759—SILENT STORM††

  777—SECRET PASSAGE††

  796—UNAUTHORIZED PASSION

  825—INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE

  844—MATTERS OF SEDUCTION

  862—GOING TO EXTREMES

  882—THE EDGE OF ETERNITY

  930—SECRETS OF HIS OWN

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Carrie Bishop—Searching for her friend on Cape Diablo resurrects an old demon…and awakens a long-dormant passion.

  Nick Draco—His secret threatens Carrie’s search for her childhood friend.

  Tia Falcon—A runaway bride who escaped to Cape Diablo after leaving her fiancé at the altar. Now she’s disappeared.

  Trey Hollinger—A jilted groom with an explosive temper.

  Nathaniel Glover—The monster who abducted Carrie and Tia when they were adolescents. He was never apprehended.

  Ethan Stone—A mysterious stranger who lives in the upstairs apartment…and never shows his face.

  Alma Garcia—She has lived in isolation on Cape Diablo for thirty years.

  Robert Cochburn—An ambitious attorney with a taste for the finer things in life.

  Zeke Trawick—His supply boat is the only way on and off the island.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Prologue

  The body would start to smell soon.

  I should have dumped it in the swamp right after it happened, but I was too afraid of being seen. Even on Cape Diablo, eyes were everywhere. I could feel them on me now as I lay naked in the dark. Grabbing a blanket, I pulled it over my feverish skin and tried to ignore the trickles of sweat that slid down my temples and ran back into my hair.

  I hadn’t slept in days. Squeezing my eyes closed, I willed myself to succumb to the exhaustion, but it was no use. My mind raced with fragmented images. I’d killed someone, but I hardly remembered the act at all. Rage had blinded me and by the time I emerged from that terrible haze, the body lay at my feet.

  I could still smell the blood even though I’d scrubbed the walls and floors until my hands grew raw. It had taken me a long time to get everything cleaned up, and then I wrapped the body in several layers of plastic and tried to forget what I’d done. Told myself I wouldn’t dwell on it.

  And I hadn’t until now. But tomorrow was Tuesday.

  The supply boat ran on Tuesdays. Any visitors to the island would likely come then.

  The driver would drop off provisions and passengers and wouldn’t return until Friday. That would give me three whole days. Three days in which there would be no way off the island. No communication with the outside world. No one to stop me from doing what had to be done.

  That was why Cape Diablo was so perfect for someone like me. A person could disappear out here and never be heard from again.

  Chapter One

  Carrie Bishop clung to her cap as the supply boat headed due west, into the sunset. Just minutes from Everglades City, civilization ended and the topography became a vast no-man’s-land of sparkling channels that wound for miles through dense mangrove forests and swampy grass flats.

  Once the refuge of pirates, the area had now become a sanctuary for modern-day smugglers bringing drugs, guns and humans across the border. Lawless and primal, it was the perfect place for a runaway bride to disappear.

  Which was undoubtedly why Tia had fled to the islands after leaving her soon-to-be groom at the altar, Carrie decided as a wave bounced her up off the seat. Tia hadn’t wanted anyone to find her, especially her ex-fiancé, a handsome executive with an explosive temper.

  Carrie wouldn’t have thought to look for her here, either, if not for the postmark on her letter. Known as the Ten Thousand Islands, the area could be extremely inhospitable to anyone without a good map, a GPS device and a can of heavy-duty bug spray.

  Thank goodness she’d been able to hitch a ride on the supply boat, Carrie thought. She would never have been able to find the island on her own.

  Although being miles from nowhere at the mercy of a complete stranger wasn’t exactly her idea of a fun day. And the driver had certainly done nothing to put her at ease. When she’d met him earlier at the marina, he’d snatched the money from her hand with barely a grunt, his manner so abrasive that Carrie might have had second thoughts about climbing aboard if the attorney who’d leased Tia the apartment hadn’t been at her side.

  “Don’t worry. Trawick’s bark is far worse than his bite,” Robert Cochburn had assured her. He’d driven down from Naples to meet Carrie in Everglades City, and to her relief, he’d decided at the last minute to make the trip out to the island with her. “Besides, he’s the best driver around. He can navigate these waters blindfolded. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

  If only she could, Carrie thought as she watched Pete Trawick with a wary eye. But she found the man just plain creepy. His cold, assessing gaze made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and the way he looked at her conjured up memories that both she and Tia had been running from for years.

  Suppressing another shudder, Carrie turned to Cochburn. “How much farther?” she shouted over the roar of the outboard motor.

  “We’re almost there.” He flashed a smile. “Beautiful country, isn’t it? Florida’s best-kept secret.” He’d taken of
f his jacket and tie before they left the marina, and now with his cuffs rolled back and wind blowing through his thinning hair, he hardly resembled the conservative, fortysomething attorney she’d first met at the marina.

  When she’d talked to him on the phone the day before, he’d tried to discourage her visit to Cape Diablo, but Carrie had remained adamant. Without his cooperation, she would simply find her own way to the island because she wasn’t going back to Miami until she’d seen for herself that Tia was okay. It had been nearly two weeks since she’d received her letter, and Carrie had grown more and more worried with each passing day.

  And then there’d been that strange phone call two nights ago. It had come just after midnight, and the connection had been so weak, the voice on the other end so garbled that Carrie couldn’t be sure the caller was Tia. But something in the woman’s voice—a note of frenzy—had instilled a deep sense of foreboding in Carrie.

  Of course, she could be overreacting. A recent break-in at her apartment had left her on edge so it was entirely possible that she was letting her imagination get the better of her.

  But no matter how many times she tried to convince herself there was nothing to worry about, Carrie couldn’t shake the notion that her friend was in trouble. If anything happened to Tia and she hadn’t done everything in her power to help her, she would never forgive herself. It was hard enough dealing with the old guilt.

  “Have you ever been to the islands before?” Cochburn shouted over the engine noise.

  Carrie nodded. “Once, when I was a kid. My father brought me here on a fishing trip.”

  “Then you know enough not to wander too far off the beaten trail. Navigation is a nightmare down here. A novice could get lost and never be heard from again. Not to mention a certain unsavory element in the area.”

  “I’ve read about the drug smuggling that’s so prevalent.” Just weeks ago the news had been dominated by a story about an elderly couple who’d disappeared while sailing in the area. When their bodies had washed ashore, authorities concluded they’d been murdered and their yacht hijacked by drug smugglers.

  “These waters can be extremely dangerous,” Cochburn said grimly. “I’m not trying to frighten you, but I do feel the need to caution strangers to the area. If you exercise good judgment and a little common sense, you should be fine.”

  Carrie felt a prickle of unease at his words. Had he given Tia the same warning? “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m a city girl at heart. Once I’ve seen that my friend is okay, I’ll be on my way back to civilization.”

  Cochburn’s gaze fell on the duffel bag at her feet. She knew what he was thinking. If she’d only come for a quick visit, why had she bothered to pack a bag?

  The answer was complicated. The length of her visit depended on Tia’s state of mind. She was prepared to stay for as long as she was needed, but if Tia was fine and enjoying her privacy, Carrie had every intention of turning around and heading straight back to the mainland. But judging from the tone of that letter, she very much feared the worst.

  What if Tia had reverted back to her old self-destructive ways? What if Carrie was too late to save her?

  What if, what if, what if? She’d told herself a long time ago that she was through playing that game, but old habits died hard.

  She glanced back at Cochburn. “As I told you on the phone, I don’t want to intrude on Tia’s privacy. If she came out here to get away from it all, I intend to honor her wishes. At the same time, though…” She trailed off, her gaze moving restlessly back to the water.

  “You’re concerned about her,” he said.

  “It’s been nearly two weeks since I last heard from her. And you said you haven’t talked to her, either.”

  “But that’s hardly cause for alarm,” Cochburn said. “I only met her briefly when she signed the lease agreement in my office. There’s no reason she would get in touch with me unless she had a problem with her accommodations.”

  “But I can’t imagine why no one in Everglades City remembered seeing her,” Carrie said with a frown. “She has a very distinctive face.”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t read too much into that, either. Pete makes a supply run out to Diablo twice a week. The tenants never have to leave the island if they don’t want to. That would explain why no one we talked to at the marina remembered your friend.”

  Yes, that made sense. Tia had always been a loner and normally Carrie wouldn’t have given her absence a second thought. She would have assumed that Tia needed time to heal after calling off her marriage to Trey.

  But the tone of her letter coming on the heels of the breakup…

  And then that weird phone call…

  Carrie shivered in the late-afternoon heat. “Tell me about Cape Diablo,” she said to Cochburn as they approached another channel and Trawick powered down the engine, making conversation a little easier. “How did it get the name?”

  “Probably the handiwork of some resourceful pirate looking to frighten away looters from his treasure,” he said with a grin. “There’s always been a bit of mystery associated with the island. Strange lights, phantom ships…that sort of thing. No doubt that’s why Andres Santiago chose the place to build his home.”

  “Santiago was something of a pirate himself, wasn’t he?” Tired of fighting the wind, Carrie took off her cap and rested it on her bare knee as she finger-combed her tangled hair.

  “I see you’ve done some research.”

  She smiled. “A little. Tia mentioned Santiago’s name in her letters. She seemed so fascinated by the family that I suppose she aroused my curiosity.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Cochburn said. “Most everyone around here is a little weary of the story, but I can see why a newcomer might find it intriguing. Back in the late sixties and early seventies, Andres Santiago ran a fleet of boats to Central America, smuggling guns into the area and drugs, among other things, out. He built the house on Cape Diablo so that the authorities wouldn’t be able to keep track of his comings and goings.” He paused. “You have to wonder, though, what kept his poor wife sane, trapped on that tiny island with only small children for company.”

  “What was she like?” Carrie asked curiously.

  “The first Mrs. Santiago died in child-birth…that’s about all I know of her. But the second wife had a rather colorful past. She was the daughter of a Central American dictator who was overthrown by a military coup back more than thirty years ago. The father was later executed, along with most of his family and staff. The only two survivors were his eldest daughter, Medina, and Carlos Lazario, her bodyguard. Somehow Andres managed to get both of them safely out of the country and he brought them back here where he later married Medina. Carlos still lives on the island. He and Alma Garcia, who was once nanny to Andres’s children, are the only permanent residents of Cape Diablo.”

  “And the Santiagos?”

  Cochburn turned to stare at the spindrift behind the boat. “The whole family went missing one night. No one ever knew what happened to them. But then…you said your friend wrote to you about the island so I’m sure she must have mentioned the disappearances.”

  “Yes, she did. But I’m interested in hearing the whole story.”

  Carrie couldn’t tell if he was pleased or annoyed by her request. “There’s not much I can add. The entire family vanished one night while the servants were on the mainland celebrating a holiday. When Alma and Carlos returned home just after midnight, they discovered the family missing and traces of blood in the boathouse. The authorities suspected foul play, but the case was never solved.”

  And thirty years later, the mystery of the missing family still had the power to fascinate.

  Perhaps even to possess, Carrie thought uneasily as she remembered the strange undercurrent in Tia’s last letter.

  “Maybe Andres was afraid the authorities were on to him so he loaded his family into one of his boats and fled in the middle of the night,” she suggested. “The blood in the boathouse c
ould have been a ruse to throw the police off track.”

  Cochburn’s eyes met hers. “That’s an interesting theory.”

  She smiled at his tone. “But you’re not buying it?”

  “I barely remember Andres Santiago, but my father was the attorney who arranged the trust that allows Alma Garcia to remain in the house. The two of them were very good friends even though they were as different as night and day…the dashing smuggler and the straitlaced attorney.” He paused, and his expression turned pensive. “I never learned how or why they became friends, but I do know that my father remained loyal to Andres to the end.”

  “So what did he think happened to them? If he was that close to Andres, he must have had his own theory.”

  “He believed that someone Andres had crossed in the past came looking for revenge or else the insurgents who killed Medina’s family wanted to make sure she could never return to her homeland. In either case, my father was convinced the family met with a tragic end because if Andres was alive, he would somehow have managed to get word back to him.”

  Carrie mulled over the possibilities for a moment. “What about the nanny…Alma Garcia? Was she never considered a suspect? It seems she’s the one who benefited most from the family’s disappearance.”

  Cochburn grimaced. “If you call living alone on an island all these years a benefit. Alma didn’t inherit the property outright, and the only monetary compensation she receives is a small monthly allowance that barely takes care of her basic needs, much less the upkeep of the house and grounds. That’s why some of the property has been converted into apartments and rented out. Her inheritance was hardly the kind of fortune that would motivate one to mass murder. Besides, my father said that she was devoted to those children. She loved them as if they were her own. She would never have done anything to harm them.”

  Stranger things have happened. “Why do you think she’s stayed on the island all these years?” Carrie asked.

  “One can only speculate, but I think at first she was waiting for the children to return. Then later, once loneliness and dementia set in, she forgot why she was there. Whatever her reason, she’s remained in that house all these years, living in her own little world.”