“I didn’t think they were close.”

Adam must have told her, Tyler decided, the back of his neck tightening. “They weren’t really close, but-”

“Adam feels responsible. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

“I guess.”

Like most women, Holly had a lot of emotional insight. Adam had probably cut off his relationship with her in case he was killed in Iraq. Holly must have figured this out. When he’d been with Adam today, Tyler had glossed over his relationship with Holly. A year and a half ago, he’d e-mailed Adam that he was seeing Holly. He’d never mentioned her again even though he e-mailed Adam on a weekly basis. Today, he might have made a mistake by not letting Adam know how much Holly meant to him. He wondered if Adam would contact her.

The phone on his hip vibrated, and he stopped. At this hour it could only be the watch commander at his guard service. “Yeah?”

“It’s Butch. We’ve got a no-show at Ocean Heights and the backup isn’t answering his phone.”

“Christ!” Ocean Heights was a ritzy subdevelopment and one of his most lucrative accounts. Their board insisted on a twenty-four-hour guard at their gate. After midnight residents could have used a remote control to open the gate, the way residents in many other gated communities did-but no, Ocean Heights needed a “gate ambassador” all night long.

Weeknights it was easy to have college kids man the gate because they liked to study when things were slow, but on the weekend, they suddenly became “ill.” Problem was he didn’t have enough backups. If someone didn’t show, he was in trouble.

He was forced to tell Butch, “I’ll take it.” He flipped the phone shut and turned to Holly. “I’ve gotta go, babe. One of the guards didn’t come in, and we can’t leave the gate at Ocean Heights uncovered.”

“Can’t you hire more backup guys?”

She sounded a little peeved. He couldn’t blame her. This was the third Saturday night that he’d skipped out on her. “It’s hard to find guys willing to be on standby all weekend, not knowing if they’re going to get called.”

“What if you paid them to wait around?”

Sometimes Holly was way too insightful. To make more money, Tyler kept guys on standby, but didn’t pay them unless they worked. “I may have to do that or go to a sub-par list.”

“What’s that?”

“Hire guys who can’t pass a background check.” If a man had an arrest record for even a minor crime like petty theft or a DUI, he couldn’t pass the check. Gated communities were suspicious of anyone with any type of a criminal record. “Wait at my place until I get off.”

Holly shook her head. “I’m going home. The boutique’s big sale starts tomorrow.”

“Okay.” He’d be dead tired anyway. The shift wouldn’t be over until seven. He’d need to crash for a few hours, then head into the office. “I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon and see how the sale is going.”

She was silent while he walked her to her Passat. Sometimes it was hard to tell what Holly was thinking. She wasn’t as open with him as his previous girlfriends. The slight air of mystery added to her appeal.

She drove off, and he stood there for a moment, thinking. He hadn’t asked Holly to marry him, but they discussed the future as if they intended to spend it together. Now Tyler had the vague feeling that he knew too little about Holly’s actual plans.

He drove to Ocean Heights and called Butch on his cell phone. Butch was a beefy Irishman who would develop a Sumo stomach if he didn’t spend his days in the gym.

“I’m sick of this shit,” Tyler told him.

“I hear you, man.”

“Know of any guys who might be a little shaky on a background check but are actually okay to work standby for us? I’ll pay them to be on call.”

Butch said he would check at his gym. Tyler hung up and drove around the bend to the mammoth wrought-iron gate at the entrance to Ocean Heights. Beyond the guard kiosk that would have been home to several families in a third world country were brand-new Tuscan-style mansions built on lots the size of a cocktail napkin. The guard on duty was pissed because he’d had to work over an hour beyond his shift.

Tyler settled in, put his feet up and wished he had thought to pick up a magazine. Nothing was more boring than the graveyard shift. His cell phone buzzed. “What the hell,” he said out loud. It was almost three-thirty in the morning. He checked the caller ID. Oh, fuck! His father.

Quinten Foley had been a commander in the navy. They’d lived all over the world until his father retired. His father had prodded Tyler to enlist, but Tyler joined the police force instead. He was a major disappointment to his father. Quinten Foley never mentioned it, but Tyler couldn’t shake the feeling.

He hadn’t heard from the old man in months. A call now must mean bad news-his father only checked in a few times a year and never in the middle of the night. This wouldn’t be about his family. Tyler was an only child. His mother had committed suicide when Tyler was in high school. There wasn’t anyone else except distant relatives somewhere in New England.

Tyler forced himself to keep his voice upbeat. “You’re back in town.”

“No. I’m on the Gulfstream, heading in.”

His father worked as a consultant for weapons manufacturers and helped smaller countries decide what to buy, then expedited those purchases. He often supplied soldiers of fortune with the latest weaponry. His clients had to be extremely wealthy to afford his services. He never failed to let Tyler know he was in a limo or on a fancy jet. It was just another way of reminding Tyler that his own father was out of his league.

“Did I wake you?”

“Nah. Holly and I were out late hitting the clubs.” No way was he going to confess to his father he was sitting on his ass in a guard shack.

“Meet me for breakfast at eight at the Outpost.” It wasn’t a request. It was an order to appear at a trendy restaurant frequented by retired naval officers on their way to the golf course.

“What’s going on?”

“We need to discuss something.”

Tyler knew that was all he was going to get out of his father until they were face-to-face. Years of working in naval intelligence and weapons had made him frickin’ paranoid about what he said over a cell phone. Tyler seriously doubted any spies were monitoring his father’s calls but the old man always acted as if his every word, every move was being scrutinized by “foreign operatives.”

Tyler hung up and stared out into the darkness. Quinten Foley was rarely interested in his opinion. Could his father want to talk about his will? The old man was in his early fifties, an appropriate time to consider discussing his future with his only child.

TYLER CONVINCED THE MORNING-shift guard to come in an hour early so he could get home, shower and shave before meeting his father. His old man treated him with a little more respect now that he’d been able to purchase a condo.

His father probably wanted to discuss his wishes should he become ill as well as his finances. Tyler couldn’t bank a smile. Quinten Foley seemed immortal, but, of course, no one was. Tyler had no idea how much his father was worth. It didn’t matter. He’d suffered enough to deserve every penny he’d inherit.

He drove into the lot of the Shelter Island restaurant. As usual there were several rows of late-model American cars. Buying American had been an unwritten rule for the naval officers of his father’s generation. Tyler parked his Beamer next to his father’s black Hummer-not an H2 or H3 model but the original Hummer the military had used.

The Outpost was some decorator’s attempt at a hunting lodge. Animal skins were nailed to the log walls in the entry, where a hostess in a safari outfit seated people. One wall of the huge room was a fieldstone fireplace bracketed by tree trunks twenty feet tall. Opposite it a soaring glass wall faced the bay. In the distance the Naval Air Station on Coronado Island glistened in the too-bright morning sun.