“Come, tell me the story in here.” He led me into the family room, where a big-screen TV sat opposite a soft, deep nine-foot couch, the kind of couch you sink into and have a hard time getting out of. When we fell into the soft pillows, I made sure we were a safe distance apart and that my towel remained discreetly wrapped.

I puffed out my cheeks and exhaled loudly. “B.J., you can’t imagine what I saw tonight.” My throat tightened. “We’ve got to stop them.”

He chuckled. “Like I said, out to save the world.”

“No, not the world ... just some girls, like Sunny in there. I didn’t save Elysia; in fact, I probably even contributed to her death. I mean, if I hadn’t gone to talk to her that night... I think she’d still be alive.”

B.J. reached over and took my hand in his. There was more compassion than romance in the gesture, yet my body reacted to his touch as though an inner fault line were shifting.

I looked into his almond-shaped brown eyes. B.J. was a man, like Neal, like Cesar. Could I trust this man? I’d made so many bad choices recently, I didn’t trust my own judgment anymore. Was this man any different?

He stared back at me, unflinching. “It’s okay to ask questions,” he said.

I slid over the cushions, wrapped my arms around his waist, and rested my head against his chest. “And that’s why you are different,” I whispered.

We sat like that for a while just holding each other. And then, with those miracle-worker fingers of his, he began massaging my head, easing the pain in the bumps and taking the tension out of my temples. I twisted around until I was leaning against him like a backrest and started to tell him the whole story.

“See, B.J., people don’t normally build compartments into ships to smuggle stuff out of this country. That didn’t make sense to me at first.”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“But then I thought about where they were going, the Cayman Islands, and then it all made sense.” From my head to my neck to my shoulders, his fingers worked, bringing life and warmth and tingling and pleasure.

“What made sense?” he asked.

“What are the Caymans known for?”

“Diving and banks,” he said, and began kissing me on the side of my neck.

“Right. So if you’ve got lots of illegally obtained cash...”

I started to ask him where he thought Neal might have hidden the money on the freighter, but just then his hands reached over the tops of my shoulders.

I needed to check on Sunny, I needed to call Mike, but all that faded with this other need. Leaning back into B.J.’s chest, forcing his hands to slide lower, I pulled loose the bath sheet so that his hands were free to slide over my breasts and down my belly. From deep in his chest I heard a murmur, maybe a groan, and I knew, as surely as he had known the time was wrong before, that this time was just right.

XXV

We lay naked on the couch, our bodies entwined, and I tried to join B.J. in that much-needed world of sleep. I’d had almost no sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and the fatigue I felt was bone deep. But I was too tired to sleep. I wanted and needed the rest so badly, I was trying too hard. My eyes simply would not close, so I lay there staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, willing myself to get some rest.

Once again I had a feeling that we were being watched. All the windows except that one by the front door were covered on the outside with aluminum hurricane shutters. No one could be looking in. I glanced toward the entry, wondering if I was sensing someone coming to the front door. Or was it just paranoia, a reaction to the days of dealing with these wackos?

My heart rate had quickened, along with my breathing. Thoughts went around inside my brain like clothes in an electric dryer. I felt trapped under B.J.’s arm, so I slowly rolled off the couch, out from under his embrace. He moaned and rearranged himself but didn’t wake.

I had to get to a phone, call Mike, then get out to the wreck site. There would be clothes upstairs. Mrs. Larsen was shorter and heavier but I wasn’t up to crossing the yard in the buff.

Their bedroom was at the top of the stairs, and in the dresser I found some navy shorts and a black T-shirt. With a belt from the closet, I was able to keep the shorts up. The shoes were all too small for my size nines. Padding down to the toilet at the end of the hall, I thought I heard a noise from behind a closed door. I stopped for a moment and listened, but I didn’t hear anything. In the bathroom, I heard it again. It was a creaking metallic sound.

As I pulled up my shorts, I thought about the closed door out there in the hall. I knew the house fairly well; the door led to another guest bedroom. I couldn’t imagine why this door was closed, unless B.J. had closed it for some reason. Reaching for the doorknob, I heard the sound again, much louder, more distinct this time. I froze. I knew that sound. It was the sound of the aluminum hurricane shutters rolling up.

The hallway seemed wide open and very exposed. I pulled my hand back from the doorknob, my pulse now pounding in my throat. Cesar must have figured out we were in here. But how did he get up onto the second story?

Unless ... The idea forming in my mind seemed farfetched at first, but then all my tumbled thoughts fit together. Maybe someone trying to get out, not in.

I crept down the hall to the spare bedroom and put my ear to the door. It was quiet, almost too quiet for anyone to be in there. Then, far off, I heard the sound of an outboard cranking over. My outboard.

I opened the door and the light from the open window lit the interior almost like daylight to my unaccustomed eyes. Stopping short in the middle of the room, I stared at the mess around me. There were food wrappers, dirty dishes, and soda and beer cans all over the carpeted floor. Some tools and hoses were set out on blankets on the floor, and several torn-open FedEx boxes were stacked by the closet. The linens on the bed were twisted into a crumpled, dirty jumble. A rope tied around a large armoire led over to and out the window. Rags and towels with dark stains were strewn about everywhere. I picked one up and held it up to the light. Bloodstains.

The outboard engine caught and roared to life. I made it to the window just in time to see a familiar silhouette throw off the lines from the davits and take off upriver in my Boston Whaler.

XXVI

My feet barely touched the carpet as I flew down the stairs. Damn him! First my money, now my boat! That son of a bitch! I didn’t bother closing the kitchen door behind me. Abaco yipped at my heels as I ran down the path to the dock. She liked this game—first she got to chase her old buddy Neal, and now I was playing, too. Only this was no game.

I yanked the door to the Jet Ski’s boathouse. Locked. Keys . .. keys . . . where were the keys? That’s right, Gorda. I ran over, punched the code into the tug’s alarm panel, and yanked open the wheelhouse. Chart table drawer. It was a mess, jam-packed with pencils, old fuel dock receipts, brass dividers, a small hand-bearing compass, and down in the bottom of the mess, the boathouse keys.