obin looked like hell—probably at least partly on purpose, to avoid the scores of reporters down in the hotel lobby—as he let himself into his hotel suite. “It’s just me,” he said, chaining the door behind him.

“Dolphina called,” Annie told him from the sofa, quieting Pierre, who’d stood up but thankfully didn’t bark. “I wasn’t sure whether to answer the phone, but it just kept ringing. She was pretty upset that you weren’t here. She wanted you to call her back on her cell as soon as you got in.”

When she’d first picked up the phone, Annie had been afraid that the woman’s distress was from jealousy and hurt. But it soon became apparent that Dolphina not only knew that Robin was gay, but that she also knew about his relationship with Jules. Or nonrelationship, as Jules had claimed.

Dolphina had been worried both that Robin was embarking on day two of a record drinking binge, and/or that he would find himself mobbed by paparazzi and end up saying something on the record that couldn’t be unsaid.

“She said to tell you to stay here,” Annie told Robin, who was already heading for the bar. To her relief, he only opened the minifridge and pulled out a Dr Pepper. “She doesn’t want you to talk to anyone about the YouTube nightmare until you speak to her. Apparently, she’s bringing in some major PR guru who’s going to spin this whole thing to your advantage.” If that was even possible.

Robin turned to look at her as he popped open his can of soda. “Did you watch it?”

Annie nodded. “Was that really from last night?” she asked.

“Apparently so.” He was embarrassed, taking a long slug straight from the can, glancing at the bottles of liquor lined up against the mirrored wall behind the bar.

“You didn’t seem that drunk in the limo.”

“I wasn’t,” he said.

There had been so much sexual tension between Jules and Robin last night. Annie had been certain that there was going to be a major change in their relationship status as soon as they found themselves alone. She would have bet a year’s salary that mere moments after she and Ric had left the limo, Robin had been unable to bear it a second longer, and had grabbed Jules and kissed him.

Of course, maybe he had. And maybe Jules had pushed him away.

“What happened?” Annie asked softly. “I mean, I’m not trying to pry, I just…If you want to talk about it…”

“I don’t remember very much,” he admitted. “At least not after I got back to my hotel.”

He’d made room to pour something with a kick—probably rum—directly into his can of Dr Pepper. That was his MO, Annie realized. He could walk around, seemingly drinking an innocuous can of pop, but in truth working to get his swerve on in a major way.

And sure enough, he set his soda down on the bar and grabbed for one of the bottles, opening its twist top.

But then he surprised her by pouring it down the sink. “Help me do this,” he said. “I’ve got to get this shit out of here, like five minutes ago.”

Annie stood up, uncertain. There were so many bottles, some of them almost full. “Shouldn’t we just call room service and have them—”

“I need it gone,” he told her, his voice tight. “Now.”

He was serious—and seriously sweating, as if doing this was neither a whim nor an easy task.

There was so much of it. Annie grabbed the nearest bottle and dumped, vodka mixing with the whiskey already gurgling down the drain. They worked in silence, emptying bottle after bottle. Robin finally turned on the water to help disperse the strong smell of alcohol that was wafting up from the sink.

“So,” Annie finally said. “This is…something of a surprise.”

“I promised Jules I’d quit drinking.” Robin was gritting his teeth as he watched the last of a twelve-year-old scotch disappear.

“Was that where you went before?” she asked. “To see him?”

Robin nodded.

“So you’re just…quitting,” she said. “Just…white knuckle, that’s it, no more…?” She couldn’t hide her dubiousness. “That’s not just stupid—it’s dangerous. Alcohol withdrawal needs to be done in a hospital. Alcoholics have serious side effects when they—”

“But I’m not an alcoholic.” He was instantly defensive. “What is it with people who don’t drink? They think everyone who likes to party has some kind of problem.”

“I drink,” Annie said. “But not the way you do.”

“I’m not an alcoholic,” he said again.

Apparently he didn’t realize that insisting that he wasn’t one was a sure sign that he was.

“My father was,” she told him. “You know, he never remembered what he did when he was drunk, either. He was great when he was sober. A lot like you, actually. Funny and handsome and…really charismatic, but—”

Robin didn’t want to hear this. “I’m sure you think you know—”

She spoke loudly, right over him. “When I was eleven, he hit me and broke my collarbone and my arm. He got a rib, too, and it punctured my lung.”

That shut him up.

“I don’t think he ever really believed he was the one who put me in the hospital,” Annie told him. “He even passed a lie detector test. He was so convincing that the DA didn’t think we could win the case, especially since my mother wouldn’t let me testify, so…We moved to Florida to get away from him. He was too much of a loser to follow us all the way from Boston. But he wrote to me, for years, trying to convince me that it must’ve been someone else who hit me.”

She would never forget, though, the way his face had been twisted with rage. He’d been screaming at her mother, and Annie had tried to make him stop.

Ric had once pointed out, years ago when they’d first tentatively talked about it, that Annie had made him stop. Her mother, apparently, had been either able or willing to accept her father’s violence and abuse—but only if she were the punching bag. As soon as it was Annie, though, it was over. His theory was that somehow Annie, although only a child, had subconsciously realized that would be the case.

“I’m sorry,” Robin said. “Jesus, I can’t imagine a grown man hitting an eleven-year-old girl.”

“He couldn’t imagine it, either,” she told him. “Too bad we didn’t have YouTube back then, huh?”

Robin emptied the last of the bottles. “It’s nice to know I have your support.”

“You do,” she said. “I think it’s great, Robin, really.”

She didn’t have to say the but. He said it for her. “Jules doesn’t think I can do it, either.” He went into the master bedroom—and came back out with four more bottles—two of them empty, the others only a quarter full. “You know, just quit. But I can. I’ve done it before. It’s not that big a deal. I’m nothing like my mother.”

If it wasn’t that big of a deal, then why was he so intent upon removing every last drop of liquor from his suite? Annie kept that question to herself.

“Your mother…drinks?” she asked instead.

“Drank,” he put it into past tense. “She died—DUI—when I was just a kid.”

“You do know the disease—alcoholism—can be hereditary,” Annie said.

“Yeah, well, lucky me—I got my father’s genes,” he retorted as he finished up his task. And then he changed the subject. “I’m trying to get us a flight to California. Leaving tonight. Best I’ve found so far is a charter that won’t leave until tomorrow noon.”

So soon? Annie swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “I hate the idea of leaving. I mean, I know Ric and Jules both are good at taking care of themselves, but…”

“Yeah,” Robin agreed. “But it’s what Jules wants, so…” He looked at the bottles as if he wished he hadn’t emptied all of them. “Did you know he’s up for this huge promotion? It’s the kind of position where he’d actually have a shot at being the head of the entire FBI someday.”

“He didn’t mention it to me,” Annie said.

“He wouldn’t.” Robin smiled. He was still looking at those bottles, but his gaze had softened, as if he were no longer seeing them. “I once had…well, it wasn’t really a date with him, but…it really was. I was just too stupid to know.” He met her eyes, his own filled with regret. “God, if I could only just go back in time…” He shook his head. “Anyway, we talked for hours and…I remember he suddenly got embarrassed and he said something like, Wow, all I’ve been doing is talking about myself, except here’s the kicker—he wasn’t. He was talking about how great his friends were. His friends, his boss, his mother…I had to really work to get him to say anything about himself. He doesn’t see himself as special and…He’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met.” He picked up the hotel phone. “This is suite 1270. As soon as possible, I need a maid to come up and pick up some trash. A lot of trash—she’ll need a cart. Yeah, thanks.”

He hung up the phone, but his cell rang immediately. “Chadwick.” He took it over to the sofa and flopped down, his legs outstretched and his head back. Pierre moved away, eyeing him mistrustfully, his butt pressed against the far arm.

“Yeah,” Robin said into his phone. “If that’s the best you can…” He listened again. “Okay. Let me know if it changes. We can get to the airport in twenty minutes and…Yeah, okay, I…Yeah. Thank you for trying.” He snapped his phone shut. “No luck with that earlier flight. We’re stuck here until noon tomorrow. But at least we’ll be on a charter—you can take Pierre right into the cabin.”

Annie brought him his Dr Pepper. “Noon tomorrow’s fine with me.” Maybe Jules and Ric would get the evidence against Gordie Junior that they needed before then, and she and Robin wouldn’t have to go anywhere.

Robin held his arm out, offering Pierre his hand to sniff as he looked up at Annie. “So how’d it go with you and Ric last night? Great sex or really great sex?”

Annie had to laugh at his directness. “Those are my only two choices? How about no sex?”

Robin gave her a look. “Annie. I saw the way he kissed you. You’re really going to stand there and try to lie to me?”

The scratch that Annie had gotten while climbing up to the deck on the servants’ wing of Burns Point was mostly superficial—barely a welt marking the pale inside of her thigh.

The ouch factor came from a splinter that was in a place from which it would have been difficult for her to remove without Ric’s assistance.

Last night, during that brief reprieve after Martell left and before Junior and crew came a-calling, after Ric had made love to Annie for the first time down in his office, she’d sat on the closed cover of his toilet seat as he’d knelt on the bathroom floor before her, with a sterilized pair of tweezers and a needle and…

“What’s so funny?” Jules asked, startling Ric out of his reverie.

He’d been sitting at Annie’s desk in his outer office, leaning back in the chair with his feet up, and now he nearly went over backward. “Nothing,” he said, catching himself on the desk. “Just…thinking about something Annie said to me last night.”

Jules poured Ric a mug of coffee and brought it to his desk.

“Thanks,” Ric acknowledged. They’d been waiting for Gordie Junior to call them back for hours now. They’d left a message on the man’s cell, as well as his office line. It was nearly sunset, and still no word.

The FBI surveillance teams reported that he’d gone into Burns Point last night. He was either still inside his father’s house, or he’d gone out via a hidden route. Which was not impossible. After two years of investigation, the FBI had determined that there was an unknown way both into and out of Burns Point. They just hadn’t been able to find it.

“I could use a good joke right about now,” Jules said, taking a sip from his own mug. “Annie’s pretty funny.”

Ric shook his head. “This was…You wouldn’t get it. Private joke.” Extremely private.

Ric had finally gotten Annie’s splinter out, much to his intense relief. The idea that he was hurting her had made him sweat. She hadn’t said a word, not a single ouch, but he knew from her tension that it had been no picnic.

Of course, the fact that she’d been sitting there with her legs spread, with her panties still in the pocket of the pants that were down on his office floor—that had made him sweat, too, for an entirely different reason.

Damn, but she smelled so good.

He’d made her leg bleed just a little—the splinter had been in deep—and as he reached up for the cloth to wash her off, pressing its coolness against her, he tried to hide the fact that he’d gotten completely aroused again.

Annie, being Annie, was not deceived. In fact, as he met her gaze, he was nearly knocked over by the heat and desire in her eyes.

“Thanks,” she’d whispered. Heat, desire—and amusement—mixed with her own obvious embarrassment. But she smiled at him—and it was quite the smile, filled with all kinds of promises.

He’d actually gotten flustered, too, mumbling something hopefully appropriate in response, and sat back to let her up. But she didn’t move.

“I promised you we’d never speak of…certain sexual acts ever again,” she’d said, “so communicating is going to be a little tricky…”

He knew exactly that to which she was referring, and he had to laugh. “I take it back,” he said.

“Nope,” she said. “I promised you. The words will never cross my lips. But maybe if I use telepathy…”

She never did say those words—she didn’t have to. Her telepathy worked just fine. She wanted exactly what he wanted, and he’d kissed her, right there in the bathroom, until she came. And then she took his hand and led him into his bedroom and returned the favor, her mouth so wet and soft and…

“Are you hungry?” Jules asked, startling him again. “Maybe we should send out for something to eat.”

Ric looked at him, and then looked at him again. The FBI agent was clearly exhausted, strain showing on his face. The coffee was only making things worse.

“Are you hungry?” Ric asked. There was a fairly decent pizza place nearby that would deliver. Or they could get Chinese…

But Jules shook his head. “No.” He pointed to Ric’s office door, which was tightly closed, and he rolled his eyes. “The forensics lesson pretty much killed my appetite for the next two weeks.”

Before Yashi and his team had left, they’d brought Jules and Ric into the “crime scene,” and told them exactly where Ric would have had to be standing to inflict the fatal gunshot wound to the dead woman who was now lying on Ric’s rug.

She’d been shot, point-blank, in the face.

The story they were going to give Gordie Junior—if he ever called back—was that Ric had been threatening his ex-girlfriend, his gun right up against her nose. He wasn’t intending to kill her, but the gun had accidentally fired.

Oops. Big, dead oops.

“I was just…thinking about things I don’t want to be thinking about,” Jules continued, sitting on the edge of the sofa across from Annie’s desk. “I got news last night that a friend of mine…He was a Marine, and, um, he was killed in Iraq.”

Ric sat up. “Shit, I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah,” Jules said. “Me, too. His name was Ben. He wanted us to be…more than friends, but…” He met Ric’s gaze. “TMI, huh? Did I just freak you out?”

“No,” Ric said, and to his surprise, he wasn’t lying. “Damn, that on top of the Robin Chadwick thing…” He shook his head. No wonder Jules looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He probably hadn’t.

But now Jules was looking at him oddly. “The Robin Chadwick thing?”

“On YouTube?” Ric specified.

“Oh,” Jules said. “Yeah. Right.”

What, was there another Robin Chadwick thing that Ric didn’t know about?

Jules had put down his coffee mug and was now intently focused on retying the laces of his sneakers.

Mother of God.

It was beyond obvious that at some point between the time Jules had announced that he was not and would never become involved with Robin Chadwick and, oh, say, right now, he had become involved with the movie star. As in, sexual hookup involved.

And that wasn’t really that big of a surprise, either. Ric hadn’t missed the way they’d been looking at each other, particularly during last night’s limo ride home.

Holy Christ.

Ric’s stomach hurt, but not because he was freaked at the idea of two guys he knew and liked having sex. No, he was freaked because it was beyond obvious that Jules loved Robin—and that Robin loved Jules.

If they had hooked up, and then Robin had gone and done his YouTube performance…

How could things between them have gone so completely, utterly wrong?

Jules finished with his shoelaces and glanced up at Ric. He sighed, no doubt because Ric was unable to hide his major shell shock.

“I did something really stupid last night,” Jules admitted. “You’re not just smart, you’re a good detective, so I know you’ve already figured it out. I don’t think it’s going to get in the way of this investigation, but it might, because, well…I went to his room last night. Robin’s. I know you probably don’t want to hear any of this, but you really…need to know. There was a party going on in his suite when I got there, a little after three A.M. The people there must’ve been the ones who took that footage of him.

“Robin was already unconscious when I arrived. I kicked everyone out, and I stayed with him until he stopped throwing up, which was a long time. Someone—one of Burns’s men—might’ve made note of that. If we were being followed—I don’t know that we were, but…If we were, someone also may have noticed that, earlier in the evening, Robin and I stayed in his limo for quite a few hours after we dropped you and Annie off.”

Jules and Robin, in the limo…? Ric so didn’t want to picture that.

But then again, there were quite a few heterosexual people that he absolutely never wanted to picture having sex. His parents. Yeesh. Bruce and his too-skinny trophy wife, Val. Brrrr. The UPS guy. The lady with the neck hair who worked at the post office. Bobby Donofrio and his sainted wife, Arlene. Martell and any one of his numerous one-night stands.

The truth of the matter was, there were very few people on the planet that Ric wanted to picture having sex. Kate Winslet had long been one of them, but right now he could barely remember what she looked like. All he could think about was Annie sighing her pleasure, their fingers interlaced as he held her gaze and rocked her world.

Annie, who’d thought he was bullshitting both her and himself when the truth had shot out of him like some verbal premature ejaculation.

He wanted to spend his life with her.

The idea terrified him, yet at the same time he knew that this was what he wanted. She was what he wanted.

That conversation he’d had with his mother, all those years ago? He’d been telling her the truth. For him, it was Annie or no one. It had always been Annie.

Sure, she made him want to take crazy risks. But so what? She made him feel alive.

Ric glanced up at Jules, uncertain of what to say to alleviate both the man’s embarrassment and his obvious pain. But Jules wasn’t done.

“Robin also came to my hotel this afternoon,” he quietly said. It was clear that he wasn’t telling Ric this because he wanted to, but rather because he felt it was information he needed to disclose. “Where once again, he stayed for…” He cleared his throat. “Quite some time.”

“This afternoon,” Ric couldn’t stop himself from repeating. As in after Jules had seen that YouTube video?

“Yeah, I’m an idiot,” Jules admitted.

“Love’ll do that to a guy,” Ric said quietly.

Jules looked up at him, obviously surprised.

“I don’t get it,” Ric admitted. “The whole gay thing. But I also can’t understand why the entire rest of the world isn’t crazy in love with Annie. On the other hand, I’m really glad that they’re not because if they were, I wouldn’t stand a chance with her.”

Jules was quiet for a moment, but then he asked, “When did you decide to be in love with Annie?”

Ric laughed. “Decide? Man, I didn’t decide. I just was. ”

“Yeah, I know,” Jules said. “That’s how it was with me and Robin. How about being straight? How old were you when you decided to be straight? You know, attracted to women?”

Ric stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Your answer’s the same, right?” Jules told him. “You didn’t decide. You just were. It was the exactly the same with me, except I’ve always been attracted to men. It wasn’t a choice. It just was. I am who I am. And I like who I am—I wouldn’t choose to be anyone else.”

“You really wouldn’t choose to be straight?” Ric couldn’t keep himself from asking. “I mean, if you could just snap your fingers and…?”

“I really wouldn’t,” Jules said. “Like I said, I like me. Why would I want to mess with the way God made me?” He smiled, but it was rueful. “Although, if I could, I’d probably choose not to love Robin as much as I do.”

That one was a no-brainer. If it were Annie on that YouTube video…Ric wasn’t sure what he’d do.

Jules correctly guessed what Ric was thinking. “There are circumstances about last night you probably don’t understand,” he tried to explain. “The news of Ben’s death came at a really bad time and…Robin got drunk—more drunk—because he thought…” But then he shook his head. “It shouldn’t matter what he thought. The fact is, he got so drunk he nearly died. This is not the first time he’s done this, either. He’s an alcoholic—I know that. He says he’ll stop drinking, but I know that he won’t be able to, and it’s going to kill me. Because I’m going to have to walk away from him, and I don’t want to. God help me, I don’t, but I will. And then I’ll go into therapy and try to figure out why the hell I’m always attracted to men who end up hurting me.”

They sat there in silence for quite some time, probably both praying that the phone would ring, because yes, that had been too much information. They both sat there hoping that Gordie Junior would call so that this nightmare could be on its way toward ending.

“I really am sorry,” Jules finally said quietly. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never gotten my personal life mixed up in a case before. Well, that’s not completely true, since I met Robin while on an assignment, except that time I managed to stay away from him. Mostly.”

“It’s not as if Robin’s the suspect,” Ric pointed out. “And so what if you were watched and Junior gets the word that you and Robin are…involved? That doesn’t change anything in terms of our business deal with him. In fact, it makes it more believable that we’d want to make a sex tape—something that’ll keep Robin safely in the closet.”

Jules attempted a smile. “Well, I appreciate your positive thinking. I just can’t shake the feeling though, that somehow something I’ve done has messed everything up. I mean, why hasn’t Junior called?”

“Because he’s got other evil to do,” Ric reassured him. “He’ll call.”

Jules nodded, but it was clear he was still beating himself up.

“You know, if you want to go take a nap,” Ric suggested, “I’ll man the phones.”

“No.” Jules shook his head. But he did finally let his head rest against the back of the sofa. “Thanks, but no.”

Ric got up to refill his mug with coffee. It was weird. If someone had told him yesterday that he’d be sharing secrets with some gay guy that he’d just met, he would have laughed his ass off. But he trusted Jules, he realized, and it somehow seemed fair to not let him be the only one baring his soul.

So he said, “I did something really stupid last night, too. Well, it was this morning, actually.” He put the pot back in the warmer and took his mug back to the desk. “I asked Annie to marry me. That wasn’t the stupid thing,” he said as Jules opened his mouth to respond. “The stupid thing was, when she wigged, which she did, I gave her this ultimatum. Kind of an all-or-nothing thing, you know—and that was stupid. I know that she loves me, but I just…I let my pride get in the way, you know? For some reason, I got all wrapped up in what I thought she should do. She should trust me. If she doesn’t trust me then…what? I’m going to go back to my miserable, boring life without her? I mean, okay, that’s one option. Or I could say, yeah, I’d like for her to trust me, right now, today, but who says it has to be that way? I said it. It was my rule—and it’s a totally arbitrary one. I mean, come on. I know if I give her enough time, she’ll eventually know I’m for real.”

Because if he gave her enough time, Annie would learn to trust him.

And Ric also knew, compared to what Jules was going through with Robin, that loving Annie was laughably easy.

Jules toasted him with his mug of what was probably now cold coffee. “Here’s to breaking stupid, arbitrary personal rules, which for me is summed up with one word—Robin.”

Ric lifted his own mug. “To Robin,” he said.

“And Annie,” added Jules.

And the phone finally rang.

Ric put the call on his speakerphone. “Alvarado,” he said.

“Yo.” It was Gordie Junior. Thank you, baby Jesus. “I got a 911 call from your bud Julian Young. What’s going down?”

Jules looked at Ric, who nodded, letting him take control.

“I’m here, too.” Jules spoke up. “You’re on the speaker. Ric’s a little upset, so I’m going to do the talking, okay?” He didn’t let Junior respond. “There was an…accident, and he called me. He told me you were here last night, and that you made him an offer to, um, help with the cleanup if necessary and…It’s necessary.”

“I made the offer”—Junior didn’t sound very friendly—“before I saw that bullshit video on YouTube. I thought we had an understanding—”

“I had nothing to do with that video,” Jules interrupted him. “That was just Chadwick being Chadwick. He’s a fucking idiot.” It wasn’t hard to put conviction in his voice.

“So, what, it was just a coincidence?” Junior didn’t buy it. “The very night we discuss a tape, one appears?”

“Dude,” Jules said. “That was not a sex tape. In fact, it was the Antichrist of a sex tape. You really think we purposely put out a video in which Chadwick needed Viagra to get it up? Jesus, now more than ever, we’re looking to do business with GBJ Productions. Enough so that we’re willing to drop our price a full fifth. Provided you help us out with our little…hygiene problem.”

On the other end of the phone, Junior sniffed and hacked a loogie, no doubt while he scratched his balls. “Aight,” he said. “Hang tight. My boys’ll take care of you, but not until tomorrow. Figure sometime around midmorning. Maybe ten.”

“Ten?” Ric said, his voice up an octave. “Junior, what the hell?”

“I got other obligations,” Junior told them.

“Does this mean you’ll have the money to make the tape soon?” Jules asked.

“Are you always so fucking nosy?” Junior retorted.

“Just in a hurry,” Jules countered, “after this YouTube thing. Chadwick’s movie opens wide next Friday. If we can get it done before then…”

Junior was silent for several long moments. “I’ll have the money on Tuesday night. Is that soon enough?”

Yes. “Then let’s plan to shoot on Wednesday morning,” Jules said. “I’ll call Chadwick.”

“What I want to know,” Ric interjected, “is how you’re going to clean up my…mess in broad daylight.”

On the other end of the phone, Junior laughed. “I do it all the time. If you want, you can come along and watch.” He hung up before Ric or Jules could respond, the dial tone buzzing through the speaker.

As Ric disconnected the office phone line, Jules was already dialing Yashi. Someone was going to have to call Robin, too. “You mind calling Annie?” he asked Ric. “Filling her and Robin in?”

Ric was more than happy to have an excuse to call.

“Find out if they managed to get an earlier flight out,” Jules ordered as Yashi picked up.

“Hey, boss,” Yashi greeted him. “We intercepted Junior’s call—we got it all on tape. And get this—Junior’s been spotted. He’s still at Burns Point. Apparently there’s some kind of party going on. Birthday for some grandson of Burns Senior’s main squeeze. Junior’s sitting out by the pool right now.”

Good. “Keep me updated,” Jules said.

“Now might be the right time to get some sleep,” Yashi suggested. “No offense, but you looked pretty wiped when I was over there.”

“Keep me updated,” Jules said again, and shut his phone with a snap.

Ric had taken his own cell phone into the conference room—no doubt to talk to Annie privately.

And wasn’t Jules the idiot? He’d given away an excuse to call Robin. Although, what good would it do him? He didn’t have a potential happy ending lurking in his future, the way Ric did with Annie.

He was willing to do it—to do like Ric and explode his arbitrary personal rules—especially the one that made him insist that he would not have a relationship with a man who was not out and open about who he was. He’d already come to the realization that, at least where Robin was concerned, he was willing to sacrifice that which he’d always considered his prime relationship directive—the ability to walk in the sunlight.

But how about this one: I will not give up my career for you. Was he willing to toss out that rule, too?

Or: My partner will be faithful to me at all times, under all circumstances.

Except when blind drunk and completely out of control?

How many YouTube videos would Jules need to watch, before he couldn’t take anymore? That number was somewhat less arbitrary.

But the answer, obviously, was more than one.

Robin put the pay-per-view movie—a real charmer with Rupert Everett and Kathy Bates—on pause when Annie’s cell phone rang.

“Hey,” she said as she answered it, glancing at Robin, who clearly knew it was Ric on the other end.

“Hey,” Ric said back. “I’m just calling to check in. We won’t get any action from Junior until morning. Apparently, he’s tied up until around ten.”

“Junior’s busy until ten A.M.,” Annie reported to Robin. The frustration on his face surely mirrored her own. But then he checked his own phone, as if hoping he’d somehow missed Jules’s call. And she knew that, as far as frustration levels went, if this were a contest, Robin would win.

“Our flight leaves at noon,” she told Ric. “We weren’t able to get anything earlier.”

Robin stood up and headed into the hotel suite’s master bedroom, to give her privacy, as Ric said, “Make sure Robin knows that we’ve set a shoot date—this Wednesday morning—for the tape with GBJ Productions.”

“You mean, the sex tape?” she said, and Robin turned back to look at her questioningly.

“It’s been scheduled for Wednesday morning,” she told him, and she could see that he knew, instantly, what she was just realizing. Gordie Junior had given Jules and Ric a date by which GBJ Productions would have a major chunk of money—which they both hoped and feared was his payment for smuggling that nasty-ass terrorist into the country. It also meant that things were probably going to get hairy for the good guys, really fast. She could read Robin’s worry for Jules in his eyes.

“Jesus, I need a drink,” he said.

“No, you don’t,” Annie said. She spoke into the phone. “Will you please ask Jules to—”

“No, don’t,” Robin said. “He needs to focus. I don’t want to make it harder for him.”

Ric no doubt could hear Robin’s voice through her phone, because he said, “Genius should have thought of that last night.”

“Just…tell Jules we’re thinking about him,” Annie said with an “Is that all right?” face at Robin.

He sighed and shook his head—it was hard to tell if it was a yes-shake or a no—as he went into his bedroom. She heard him close his bathroom door behind him.

“It wouldn’t hurt if Jules could call him,” she told Ric, sotto voce.

“Jules asked me to convey this info,” Ric responded. “I’ve got to assume it was because he didn’t want to talk to Robin.”

Okay. And here she’d been thinking that Ric had called because he wanted to talk to her.

“Your mother called me,” she reported.

“Ah, great,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, that was so much fun,” Annie said. “She wanted us to have lunch next Friday. It was easier to just say yes.” She’d figured she’d just let Ric call his mom. Let him deal with the fallout after Annie was in California.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ll call her and cancel.”

“And explain?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll tell her…everything.”

“Your dad seems to be doing well.”

“He is,” Ric agreed. “Look, will you tell Robin that we’re going to be buying a plane ticket for him to get back to Sarasota on Tuesday night,” he informed her. “Under no circumstances should he use it, but…We’ve got to assume Junior has connections to someone in the travel industry. If he’s at all suspicious over these next few days…”

“Why would he be suspicious?” Annie asked.

“We’re just dotting all our I ’s,” Ric said. “Jules is pretty thorough.”

“Then maybe you better buy a second ticket for me,” she countered. “Aren’t I supposed to be Robin’s co-star in this video?”

“Yeah, right. Over my dead body,” Ric said.

“Since I’m not going to be having sex with you,” Annie pointed out, “I might as well have sex with some one.”

He didn’t laugh, as she’d hoped. But he did say, “That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. The us-not-having-sex thing.”

“Hah,” she said, her heart in her throat. “I knew you’d regret not going for that quickie.”

This time he did laugh. “Yeah, well, you got that right. Although, really, it wouldn’t’ve made much of a difference. I’d still have wanted you again, a few minutes later.”

“So what are you saying?” Annie asked. “I’m like the Chinese food of sexual partners?”

Another laugh. This one low, sexy. “That’s not how I’d put it, but there are definitely some similarities. I love eating Chinese food, too.”

“Oh,” Annie said at his insinuation. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but the sound just kind of came out of her.

“Yeah,” Ric said. “So now you know what I’ve been thinking about for most of the day.” He laughed, the sound a soft rumble in her ear. “That—and the fact that I’m an idiot. You want a year or two? You want an entire decade? Okay. You got it. I’m not going anywhere, and sooner or later, you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that I love you.”

Oh, God.

But Ric wasn’t done. “You want to pretend we’re friends with benefits until then, well, that’s fine, too—as long as I’m the only friend you’re…benefiting.”

He paused then, as if he wanted her to say something, but her mouth was dry and she couldn’t speak.

“Are we clear on that?” he asked, in his take-no-shit voice.

“Yes,” she managed. But the argumentative side of her couldn’t keep from blurting, “But it has to go both ways.”

Ric laughed again. “What part of Will you marry me? makes you believe that I have even the slightest interest in fooling around with anyone else—except of course you don’t believe me, so, yeah, okay. You have my word. You’ll be my only fuck buddy, too.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she said. “God, Ric—”

“I’m just calling it what it is,” he countered, his temper obviously flaring. “If you don’t like the name for it, maybe you shouldn’t be—” He cut himself off and exhaled hard. “Look, for the record?” He lowered his voice. “When I’m inside of you, when I’m moving the way I know you love for me to move? I’m making love to you. That’s what I call it. So why don’t you pack that in your bag and think about it while you’re in California? Of course, if that concept’s too intense for you, maybe you should just focus on all the ways I’m going to make you come, next time we’re alone together.”

She was silent for such a long time that he asked, “You still there?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m going to call Martell, have him drop by to check on you in the morning, okay?”

“Yeah,” Annie said again.

“I love you, Annie,” Ric said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She took a deep breath. “Ric—”

But with a click, he was gone.

Great. Now she needed a drink.

She and Robin were quite the pair.

Martell stopped by Ric’s on his way home from work.

The forensics nightmare was still set up in Ric’s office, but Ric and Jules were nowhere in sight.

He followed the sound of the TV upstairs to the living room—where they were sitting side by side on the sofa, playing Grand Theft Auto.

“No,” Jules was saying, shifting to keep Ric from taking the joystick out of his hands. “No, no, no—I play this game differently from you. Check this out. Look, okay, okay…here we go…”

On Ric’s flat-screen TV, the perp that Jules controlled with his joystick got out of the sports car and ran toward the fire truck that had skidded to a stop. The driver’s-side door opened, and the computer-image person who’d been driving the truck was tossed to the ground. Jules’s perp climbed behind the wheel.

“Yeah, baby!” he said as the fire truck rumbled away.

“What the fuck are you doing in the fire truck?” Martell asked from the doorway. “You can’t get up any real speed in that thing.”

Both men glanced at him.

“Nice to know your security system works,” Jules said to Ric.

“He has a key.” Ric’s attention was back on the TV, where Jules was running over both people and cars in the ultraviolent computer game, gaining more and more speed.

Boom! He just plowed through a police road block set up to stop him.

“Okay,” Martell said. “Maybe that’s what you’re doing in the fire truck. Ric, you want to update me—”

“No, no,” Jules said. “Full attention on the TV, gentlemen…Wait for it, wait for it…”

He was moving at a pace that Martell wouldn’t have dared, not even in one of the smaller cars, sliding the fire truck onto the ramp up to the highway, but whoa! Instead of driving on the road, he was on the grass between the on-and off-ramps, dodging trees with a lightness of hand that was fucking amazing.

The grass turned to a concrete ramp and the truck went up it, still gaining speed and

“Yeah!” Ric shouted as the concrete ended abruptly and the fire truck launched into midair.

“Dude!” Martell shouted. The hang time was amazing. The giant motherfucker just soared. Jules added glitter to the visual by spraying water out of the fire truck’s hose. It was beautiful.

But what went up must come down…

Except Jules managed to land the truck with amazing grace on the parking area of a nearby roof, again working that joystick like a pro to keep it from flipping on its side and plowing through the flimsy guardrail.

“Insane stunt bonus,” Jules announced, even as his words flashed on the screen. His score skyrocketed.

“Dude!” Martell said again.

Jules took the fire truck down the parking-lot ramp, all the way to the street below.

“And that,” he announced as he handed the joystick to Ric, “is the only way to play Grand Theft Auto.”

“Shit!” Ric immediately crashed the fire truck as Martell high-fived Jules.

“You awe and inspire me, my gay brother,” Martell told him.

“My personal life may be turning to shit, but I am,” Jules agreed, “the king of the insane stunt bonus.”

“So what’s going on?” Martell asked, sitting beside them.

“There’s Chinese takeout in the kitchen if you’re hungry,” Ric told him, turning off the TV.

“I’m assuming that’s not the reason I got three missed calls from you on my cell,” Martell said.

“I was hoping you’d have time to check in on Robin and Annie in the morning,” Ric said. “Their flight out doesn’t leave until noon.”

Martell had to be in court first thing in the morning, arguing a case against an assistant DA named Bob Andersen. They were appearing in front of a grim-faced man he and Ric had nicknamed Judge Doom, back when they were on the police force. Doom had a propensity for bringing in guilty verdicts.

Martell knew exactly—almost word for word—what his morning would be like. Bob would greet him by saying, Mr. Griffin. Back for more punishment today, are we?

Judge Doom would bang his gavel and Martell would argue the case, using Damien Johnson’s lame-ass excuse that he’d held up the Circle K while under the influence of sleeping pills that he’d taken by mistake, thinking they were aspirin. He was sleepwalking.

Right.

The Doomster wouldn’t buy that shit any more than Martell had. The jury wouldn’t, either, and Johnson would not pass “Go” before going directly to jail.

And Bob would smirk. Mr. Griffin. Have I started showing up in your nightmares?

Like it had been some great contest of skill that Martell had failed, instead of an exercise in necessary futility, since a trial by jury was a constitutional right of all citizens—including each and every lame-ass who insisted he or she was innocent.

And Martell wouldn’t say, Actually, Bob, I run when I see you coming because you bore me to tears.

But he’d want to.

“Sure, I can stop in, but it’ll be early,” he told Ric now.

“Thanks,” Ric said.

Jules stood up. “I’m going to bed.”

Was he serious? “The king can’t go to bed at eight-thirty,” Martell protested.

“The king is tired,” Jules said. He looked at Ric. “Wake me if Junior calls to say he’s coming any earlier than ten.”

“Yeah,” Ric said. “Hey.”

Jules stopped in the doorway.

“You know, Annie was thinking you might want to call Robin,” Ric said, adding, “Or not. She’s just…you know…being Annie, so…”

Jules just nodded, but Martell could see the intense exhaustion in the man’s eyes along with a little something extra. He’d seen that look before—in the eyes of people who were grieving a loss. He didn’t respond, except to say a quiet “good night.”

They sat there then, in silence, as his footsteps receded down the hallway, as he gently closed the door to Annie’s room behind him.

“He okay?” Martell asked.

“Yeah,” Ric said. “He’ll be fine.”

“So that’s what gay guys do, huh? Sit around racking up insane stunt bonuses on Grand Theft Auto,” Martell mused. “Who knew? I expected to find him redecorating your kitchen.”

“I got Colt 45s in the fridge,” Ric said. “Want one?”

Martell laughed. “Zing.”

“He’s a lot like us,” Ric said. “He just…has sex with…men.”

Martell turned his head to look at him.

“I know,” Ric said. “It’s kind of weird, but then again…You had sex with the lieutenant.”

God Almighty, Enrique was never going to let Martell live that one down. Their former boss had been temporarily separated from her husband, and Martell had just left the force to start law school. They’d both been drinking and…Crazy shit happened. So to speak.

“I’d have sex with Robin Chadwick,” Ric continued, “before getting naked with the lieutenant. And since the probability of my having sex with Chadwick is somewhere between negative two billion and never…”

It had been a one-time-only thing—thank you, Jesus—the true blessing being that the lieutenant reconciled with her husband mere days later. But it had been far from the awfulness that Ric no doubt imagined. Still, it was a night Martell chose to remember only selectively, squinting to dull the clarity of his memories.

“You know,” Ric said pensively, “I think I’d have sex with Pierre, before—”

“Shut up,” Martell said, laughing. “You’re such a prick. You ask me to do you a favor and then you dis my woman?”

“Your woman?” Ric repeated in disbelief.

“She was fucking hot,” Martell said, just to make the prick squirm. Also because it was not a lie. He threw one in for good measure. “She wore leather and made me call her ma’am.”

“Man, I so don’t want to know that,” Ric said. “Please tell me you’re shitting me.”

“I’m shitting you.” He stood up. “I gotta go.”

Ric stood, too. “Call me after you check in on Annie. Leave me a message if I don’t pick up.”

He was seriously concerned about her safety, so Martell didn’t make a joke about either comforting her or alleviating her loneliness. Instead he just nodded. “Will do.”

Ric followed him into the kitchen, where Martell helped himself to some Szechwan chicken that was still out and open on the table. “You sure you don’t want this?” he asked, even as he took a plastic fork from Ric’s drawer and started eating right out of the white cardboard container. It was cold, but damn good. He was hungrier than he’d thought.

“I’m sure,” Ric said.

There was a smaller container of steamed rice, and Martell unglued some of it, combining it with his chicken. “Because you know what they say about Chinese food. It tastes great, but you’re hungry again thirty minutes later.”

For some reason, Ric found that really funny.

“Bro,” Martell told him as he went down the stairs to the front door, Ric following to lock up behind him. “You’re losing it. Get some sleep while you can.”

“Thank you again for helping,” Ric said. “When you see her, tell Annie that I love her.”

Martell turned to look at him in surprise, but he’d already shut the door.

Smiling, he stabbed another piece of chicken with his fork as he walked to his car. Considering Ric was one of the best detectives Martell had ever known, it had taken him much too long.

But apparently he’d finally gotten a clue.