Deegan surfaced at Jeremiah’s toes. “Mollie’s gone upstairs. She’ll be back down in a minute.”

He went back under, and Griffen, watching him, said to Jeremiah, “We’ve got a pitcher of margaritas. Interested?”

“No, thanks.”

She eased onto a lounge in the sun and slipped her sunglasses down over her eyes. “I haven’t been into the pool yet. I’m not hot enough yet. Mollie’s sweet to let us hang out here for the evening. It looks as if we’ll get more rain. I have a pool at my condo, but it’s not as big or as private. And needless to say, we aren’t going to hang out at Deegan’s house.” She bent a long, tanned leg. “I’m glad I wasn’t born rich. I’d hate to have the pressures on me he has on him. My folks do all right, but they’re hardly in the Atwood-Tiernay league.”

Jeremiah shrugged, remaining on his feet. After whittling, he had showered and dressed in dark trousers and dark shirt, allowing him to play either spy or dinner guest, depending on Mollie’s state of mind. He went back and forth on which he’d prefer. A couple of hours with Leonardo Pascarelli’s friends? Or a couple of hours sneaking around in the rain?

“I suppose you don’t have a lot of sympathy for that sort of pressure,” Griffen went on, her attention focused on him now, not her boyfriend in the pool.

Jeremiah shrugged. “A big trust fund and a snotty grandmother aren’t the worst life can throw at you. Deegan will figure that out pretty quick. He’s no dope.”

“That he isn’t.”

Deegan jumped out of the pool and, bypassing his towel, splashed water on her, laughing when she squealed and leaped to her feet. He grabbed her by the elbows like the kid he was and heaved her into the pool. She went in fanny first, all the way under. She bobbed up instantly, laughing, splashing, pretending she was going to kill him. Deegan sat on her chair. “Ten laps before you’re allowed out!”

She stuck her tongue out at him, looking more like a teenager herself, but eased off into the water, doing a slow backstroke. Deegan didn’t take his eyes off her. And she knew it. Jeremiah observed the proceedings with mild interest. His lifestyle did not include many twenty-one-year-old rich kids dunking their older girlfriends in a pool owned by a world-famous opera singer. He was, he thought dryly, out of his element.

“So,” Deegan said, eyes still on Griffen, “Mollie didn’t seem surprised to have you show up. I didn’t ask why not, because it’s none of my business.”

A smart lad indeed. Mollie didn’t respond too well to overprotective males, as Jeremiah himself had discovered. He supposed it came from having a flaky family. He figured she’d been left to her own devices from the time she was a tot and had learned early on how to take care of herself, responding to a sort of benign, even healthy, neglect on the part of her parents. He’d had the run of the Everglades from the time he could walk and understood that defiant gene, if not the Lavenders particularly.

“I wouldn’t underestimate her if I were you,” Deegan went on seriously. “She tends to take people at face value more readily than I would, but she’s not naive.” He talked as if he were sitting in a sociology class. He peered over at Jeremiah. “She knows you’re probably on this jewel thief story.”

This, Jeremiah thought, was true. However, he had no intention of discussing his relationship with Mollie-or his work-with her college intern. “I’d say she knows a lot.”

Deegan didn’t take the hint. “I’ve been around reporters since I could walk. You live and breathe the next story. You’re never off.” He reached for the margarita pitcher. “Mollie’s new in town, but she’s got people looking out for her. Her clients are all loyal.”

“Including Ash, the dog.”

Deegan didn’t like that one. He almost came up off his chair, but instead just angled a nasty look at Jeremiah. “You’re a real asshole, aren’t you?”

“I have my moments,” Jeremiah said mildly.

But the kid wasn’t finished. “She’s been straight with me right from the start, no BS, no coddling or hand-holding. Not just anyone would let Michael Tiernay’s son intern for them, you know. Anything goes wrong, he could ruin them. But if everything goes too well, then they look like a toady.”

“Tough balancing act.”

“It’s not one thirteen-year-old shooting another in the back, but, yeah, it’s tough.” His tone wasn’t as defensive as it could have been given the sentiment beneath his words. “I’m also known as a spoiled pain in the ass. That doesn’t help.”

“Are you?”

Deegan paused, looked back at Griffen’s long, slim, tanned body as she swam back toward their end of the pool. His mouth was grim, and he said with unexpected self-awareness, “I’m trying not to be.”

Jeremiah breathed in the fragrant air, wishing he’d had more sleep last night. He was missing something. Some connection, some fragment of insight, information, truth. Here he was, sitting by a pool in Palm Beach chatting with a rich kid who was neck deep in trying to establish his own identity. It was as if someone had transported him, Jeremiah Tabak, hard-hitting Miami Tribune investigative reporter, out of his real life and dropped him on the damned moon. This was Helen Samuel’s territory, not his.

A fragment floated by, and he grabbed it, turning to Deegan. “Your parents gave you the green light to intern with Mollie because of her relationship with Leonardo Pascarelli, didn’t they?”

Deegan seemed surprised at his insight, and admitted grudgingly, “That’s right. It allowed them to save face. They let me intern with Mollie or they’d have had to start talking cutting off the trust fund, and they don’t want to do that. Too complicated and time-consuming, too messy. So, the Leonardo connection gave them an out.” He poured himself a margarita, shrugging, distancing himself from his own emotions about his parents. He was twenty-one, the legal drinking age. What did he care? “It allowed them to postpone our day of reckoning another few months.”

“I see. Does Mollie know or does she actually think she’s getting to teach you something?”

He went momentarily sullen as he replaced the pitcher and sat back with his margarita glass. “She’s doing right by me. I’m trying to do right by her.”

“You learning anything?”

“I do my job.”

In other words, up yours, Tabak. Deegan Tiernay not only was spoiled, Jeremiah decided, but an arrogant little shit. Of course, the kid was twenty-one. He was trying to sort out his identity and responsibilities and probably had no idea, really, how goddamned good he had it. He was rich, he was Michael and Bobbi Tiernay’s only son, Diantha Atwood’s only grandson, and he had a pretty, older, successful girlfriend. Why not be full of himself?

“I don’t think Mollie realizes the extent her relationship with Leonardo colors how people around here think about her,” Deegan went on. “She doesn’t flaunt it or use it to her advantage-she doesn’t think that way-but other people do. Other people,” he said, sipping his margarita, “meaning most everyone around here.”

“Her clients?”

He shook his head. “The Leonardo connection might get them at first, but it wouldn’t keep them-and once they get to know her, they forget about him. It’s just going to be hard for her to figure out who her real friends are and who’s just pretending because of her godfather.” Deegan studied Jeremiah a moment, his damp skin drying quickly in the last of the day’s sun. “I know you think I’m a jerk. No, no, it’s okay, you’re not the first. I just…well, I do respect Mollie.”

“That’s good,” Jeremiah said.

Griffen scrambled out of the pool and snatched a towel out from under Deegan, tossing it over her shoulders as she pulled up another lounge chair and poured herself a margarita. “Are you two talking about Mollie while she’s up trying to figure out what to wear? Shame on you.” She smiled, sliding onto her chair. “Men.”