I brushed wet strands of hair from my face, then smoothed Sam’s short hair. It was a gesture I used to make when I wanted to calm him. “What?”

“He must have been on the patio eating. The food was pushed away. And he was facedown. Like he’d fallen over. I touched him, but he was cold. He wasn’t breathing. It was…It was terrible.”

“Oh my God.” I grabbed him in a hug. I wanted to take away the pain I saw in his face.

“I freaked,” he said, his words muffled by my shoulder. “And then I heard someone inside the house.”

“It must have been Annette. She’s the one who found him.”

“I thought someone had killed him, and they were still in the house. I got scared as hell and then I thought-I have to do what I promised him, and that’s when I left. I heard later that the cause of death was a heart attack, but I still didn’t know if there was foul play, or whatever you’re supposed to call it. I just kept hearing Forester’s words that night when he asked if I was willing to do what I promised.”

I pulled back. “It was a hell of a lot to ask you.”

“He felt terrible about it, but he wasn’t sure who in his company, or his family, could be threatening him, and you know how much he loved Pickett Enterprises.”

I nodded.

Sam looked intensely at me. “I am so sorry, Iz. When I saw him dead like that, I just went into action. I didn’t really stop to think about anything except that I loved Forester. He’d been like a dad to me since I met him, and I’d made a promise.”

“But you made a promise to me, too.”

“I know.” Sam squeezed my shoulders. Pain emanated from his eyes. “I don’t know if I ever told you this, Iz, but when I met Forester, I was about to get fired by Mark Carrington.”

“Are you kidding? I thought you’d always been the young star over there.”

Sam gave a chagrined shrug. “I know you thought that, and I guess I wanted you to believe it. I wanted to forget that for a while I was a total screwup. I was drinking too much and playing too much rugby, and I just couldn’t get serious about work. Forester took an interest in me like no one ever has, and he straightened me out. Everything I have-my job, you-was because of Forester.”

“And now because of Forester,” I said softly, “you might have lost both those things.”

He shook his head fast, as if he was shaking away my words. Drops of water flew off him. “As each day went by I kept thinking how crazy it was that I was doing this. That I was wrecking everything. I wanted to call you so bad. I picked up the phone, like, a hundred times a day. Sometimes I would just stare at your number and imagine you and this face.” He stroked my cheek. “Mostly, though, I was trying to work out how I could contact you without messing everything up, without making it somehow worse for you. But I’d promised Forester I wouldn’t say anything to anyone, and once I started this whole thing I didn’t want to violate that trust.”

“But-”

He shook his head and kept talking. “I also knew that the government would probably question you, and if I started calling or e-mailing you, they might find out and it would just get you in trouble. I didn’t want to put you in a situation where you had to lie to them.”

“So you turned to Alyssa instead.”

He swallowed hard. “You know about that?”

“I know about a lot of things.”

“I didn’t take time to think. I just acted. And I wanted to get out of the country without anyone knowing. Everyone has always said I look like her brother.”

I decided to ignore the Alyssa issue for now. There was so much else. “Sam, Forester was killed. Someone paid his Chinese doctor to change the herbs he was taking to cause a heart attack.”

“Are you serious? How do you know?”

I told him how Mayburn had been helping me with the case. I didn’t mention that I helped him on other cases, too. I told Sam how I’d gone to see Dr. Li twice, how she’d essentially admitted getting paid to put the large amount of ma huang in Forester’s herbs.

Sam took a step back and put a hand to his face. “Someone really did kill him. Dammit. Dammit.”

His mouth tightened again, and this time tears slipped from his eyes.

“I know,” I said simply.

He let his hand fall away, and we stared at each other. For the first time since this all started, we were on the same page-joined in our anguish. And I knew from that anguish that it hadn’t been Sam who paid Dr. Li.

“Do you think it was Shane?” he asked.

“Could be. He’s already moved into Forester’s office.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“From who?”

“This guy Forester hired before he died, a private investigator.”

“What are you talking about? What guy?”

“Forester put the guy on a retainer and told him that if he died, and I took off, this detective should figure out what had happened with Forester’s death. He told the detective to let me know when it was okay to go back to the States.”

For a second, I thought of Mayburn. He’d worked for Forester, via me, before. “Is it John Mayburn?”

“No, some other guy.”

And then I had a feeling I knew who the other guy was. Suddenly, I was cold, and it wasn’t simply due to the fact that I was standing in four feet of water. “Is this private investigator kind of a short guy?”

“I’ve only met him once, and he works with another guy, too, but yeah.”

“Does he have dark, wavy hair?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s been following me.”

He nodded. “He told me that. Between him and his partner, the guy was following everyone. He didn’t have a lot to go on, so he was checking out every person who’d had significant contact with Forester. When he told me he was investigating you, I told him not to bother, but he said he had to. Eventually, he said he ruled you out.”

“You mean after he was in my condo and on my computer?” My voice was rising, I couldn’t help it.

Sam shrugged. “Yeah, but I told him to keep an eye out for you after he cleared you.”

“You what?”

“I asked him to let me know if you were okay. But you weren’t supposed to know he was following you.”

“You had this guy following me?”

“Well, yeah. He was doing a lot of other stuff, too, but it’s been a tough case for him. He said-”

“Wait just a freaking second,” I said, interrupting him. “This guy broke in to my apartment and he scared the hell out of me!”

He shook his head a little. “I heard he was a renegade. He hadn’t been working for Forester for long, so I guess he was doing anything he could to get a jump on the case. He didn’t even have access to Forester’s house…” Sam gave me a proud smile. “But I heard you did. He tailed you guys there that night. Nice work.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said sarcastically. “But just so I get this straight, you had this person and his buddy following me?”

Another sheepish shrug. “Yeah.”

I raised my fist again. Quickly before Sam could catch it. I punched him. And this time I got him good.