“You’re wearing one of those crazy masks again, aren’t you?” Bergman asked. “I can hear it in your voice.”

They’d been talking for a full five minutes before Josh even noticed the slight aspiration that followed Creem’s consonants, as they tripped over his latex lips. That was a good sign. These masks were an outstanding bit of business.

Even if someone did take notice of him down here, what would they see? An elderly white gentleman in a Members Only jacket. Not exactly a stellar lead, in a place like southern Florida.

This would be the last time Creem was using the old man prototype. Now that the DC police had gotten wise to the whole mask thing, they were running with it in the media—which was fine. All he had to do was change the template. Just be someone else the next time. Simple as that.

In the meantime, he realized, Josh was still talking.

“…not sure I like you running off like this,” he said. His own voice was low and slow, and fairly soaked in Scotch. “This little field trip of yours wasn’t part of the plan.”

“What plan?” Creem answered. “You said it yourself. This can be whatever we want it to be. Hell, I haven’t felt this free since—”

“Fort Lauderdale. Yeah, I know. That’s the whole point. I thought we were in this together,” Josh said.

Creem took a deep breath. He loved Bergman, but the man could be a bit needy.

“We are, Josh. All the way to the end, I promise. Just don’t start getting all vaginal on me. The last thing I need right now is another wife.”

“Tha’s funny,” he half slurred. “Oh, and PS, I’ve already figured out how you can make this up to me. When are you coming back?”

“Soon,” Creem said. “We’ll talk then. But right now, I’ve got to get busy.”

“Can I listen? Please? Pretty please?”

Creem smiled down at the sand in the dark. He would have been surprised if Josh hadn’t asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Just keep your mouth shut until I’m done.”

CHAPTER

68

CREEM WATCHED THE BEACH AS A SHADOWED COUPLE WORKED THEIR WAY along the shore, arm in arm. Once they’d passed off into the dark, he crossed the sand and cut through the high grass to the back of his own property.

“What exactly are you doing, anyway?” Josh whispered over the Bluetooth.

“Something a little different this time,” Creem told him. “Wait and see.”

Bergman chuckled out his excitement, as a few more ice cubes dropped into his glass, a thousand miles away.

Inside the gate, Creem skirted around the pool enclosure to the house’s side entrance. The stone chess set on the patio was exactly as he’d left it, nearly eight months ago. He’d played Roger Wettig from next door. Beaten him, too, if memory served. The set had gone untouched in the meantime. Chess was a little above Miranda and the girls’ mental pay grade.

At the utility room door, he stopped and tried the knob. It was secure, of course, but the alarm system on this entrance had been fritzed out since two Christmases ago. He twisted the suppressor onto a small Beretta handgun from the inside pocket of his jacket, and shot the door handle right off. There was a fast, loud ping of metal. Nothing that would carry past the property line, anyway.

A moment later, he was in.

It was more than a little strange, sneaking into his own house like this. He left the lights off as he padded into the echoey back hall and up toward the kitchen. As he passed through the butler’s pantry, Creem stopped to take a white kitchen garbage bag out of a drawer, and stuffed it in his pocket.

He continued on, making a quick circuit around the first floor, just to look around. The whole place was making him ridiculously sentimental. There had, in fact, been some decent times in this house. A few Christmases and such, back before everyone started hating each other.

And it wasn’t the sex that had bothered Miranda. Not even close. She had her dalliances, and he had his.

No, it was the scandal in DC, and everything that had gone with it. There would be no more seven-figure income, no more white-cloth reputation, no more perfect imperfect life. It gave her all the excuse she needed to pull the trigger on something they both should have done a long time ago.

Except now, Miranda was pissed. And she was getting greedy, too.

Creem climbed the sculptural bamboo and steel staircase to the second floor. He took his time, opening doors along the hall. First was Chloe’s suite, then Justine’s. Neither of them had left much behind, but he did find a pair of diamond studs in Chloe’s dresser, and the opal ring he and Miranda had brought Justine from Santorini a few years back.

He’d loved his little blond beauties, once. But it was painfully clear what kind of women their mother was turning them into. Neither one had called in over a month, not even to say hello. There had been exactly one text, when Chloe wanted an increase on the limit of her Amex card.

Yes, indeed—just a couple of chips off the old bitch block. It was too late to save them now.

Creem kept moving. He passed the upstairs gym and a guest room, then up another half level to the master suite.

Inside Miranda’s dressing room, he opened every drawer, spilling her panties and knickknacks onto the carpet. He took what little of value was there, and a few old prescriptions from the medicine cabinet. It wasn’t much—not that it mattered. Tonight was all about appearances.

Finally, he turned and headed back outside.

“Josh?” he said, halfway up the hall. “You still conscious?”

“Still here,” Bergman answered. “Getting a little bored, though. What’s going on?”

“Just hang on,” Creem told him. “It’s about to get much more interesting.”

CHAPTER

69

FROM THE UTILITY ROOM DOOR, CREEM TRAVELED LATERALLY. HE SKIRTED THE side yard and pushed right through the ten-foot arborvitae between his own property and Roger Wettig’s next door.

It was a little like passing through the looking glass. The house on this side of the hedge was all lit up, with a soft golden light showing through the expanses of glass on both levels.

And in fact, Roger and Annette Wettig themselves were like some kind of skewed mirror version of the Creems. Roger was twenty years older than Elijah, and Annette was at least ten years younger than Miranda—the prototypical Palm Beach trophy wife, all set to be rich and single as soon as Roger had that inevitable second heart attack of his.

As he came onto the Ipe-planked deck around Roger’s pool, Creem went into his bit. He dragged his right leg behind him and held a hand up to the back of his head, limping the last twenty yards to one of the Wettigs’ back doors.

Inside, he could see Roger watching a Marlins game on an enormous television. His back was to the door, with his hands laced over the monk’s cap of bald scalp on his head.

When Creem banged on the glass, Roger nearly fell out of his chair.

“Hello?” Creem called through.

Roger stared back, squinting, but not coming any closer. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted.

Creem gestured toward the beach. “I was just attacked,” he said. “Could you please help me?”

From the way Roger was looking at him so intently, it was clear he had no idea who Creem was, inside the mask. Just some old stranger who’d had the nerve to be mugged on his spit of Palm Beach. He didn’t even try to hide his annoyance as he came closer.

“Hang on, hang on,” he said. He beeped out a code on the glowing keypad by the floor-to-ceiling sliders, and then pulled one open with a whoosh of air. The Marlins game inside was up at top volume.

“Reyes’s been looking good in early season play….”

“Do you want me to call the police?” Roger said.