obin was coming down with the flu.

Had to be.

His head was pounding, he was sweating as if he had a fever, he couldn’t sleep, and his nausea level was off the charts.

Which, of course, made Dolphina’s 5A.M. phone call all that much more fun.

“I really don’t want to do this right now,” he mumbled into his cell as he staggered into the bathroom to take a leak.

“Are you drunk again?” she asked sharply.

“No.” He leaned against the wall above the toilet, too ill to stand without support. “I’m very much undrunk. I was sleeping.” He’d finally managed to nod off when his phone rang, jolting him awake.

Dolphina, finally back from her cousin’s wedding in Orlando, had told him earlier that she’d call when the PR genius that HeartBeat Studios hired had come up with a plan of attack regarding the YouTube debacle. But this was ridiculous.

“Can’t we discuss this in the morning?” he asked, flushing the toilet.

“By morning the story will have broken,” she said. “Robin. Listen carefully. I just got a call from a reporter from TMZ dot-com. He wants a comment—from you—regarding the man who came into your hotel room last night.”

Robin made his way back to his bed, where the bottle of water on his bedside table was empty. “There were no men in my hotel room last night.”

“Last night,” she repeated. “Not tonight.”

He put his head in his hands. “You mean…”

“I’m talking about the night from the YouTube video,” she clarified.

“There were two men,” he told her, “in that video. I’ve never seen either one of them before.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, but then Dolphina said, “Robin, did your…special friend come to your room that night, too? Because this reporter says he’s seen new footage of a man who came into your room and kicked everyone out. It’s just gone up online, and he’s giving us a chance to comment for the story he’s writing—a story that’s going to break in just a few hours. A story that outs you.”

Ric came out of a really good dream with a hand on his shoulder and a voice in his ear. “Ric. Alvarado, come on. Wake up.”

It wasn’t Annie’s voice, which was disappointing—doubly so when he opened his eyes to see Jules standing over him.

“Sorry,” the FBI agent apologized. “I knocked on your door, but you were out cold.”

“What’s up?” Ric sat up, pushing his hair out of his face, aware of both his lack of shirt and his raging hard-on.

In his dream, he’d been sitting on the lounge chair out on the screened porch and Annie had appeared, the way Annie often did in his very best dreams. She’d whispered his name as she’d straddled him, pushing him hard and deep inside of her.

Yeah. Good dream. Really good dream.

He bunched his blanket in his lap.

But Jules had already moved back across the room to the doorway, respectful of Ric’s privacy. “Junior called on my cell,” he reported. “He said he’s running late, but that he should be here by noon.”

Ric looked at the clock on his nightstand. It was slightly after 5A.M., and the first faded pink hint of the coming sunrise was lighting the sky.

“He used the words our little field trip to Myakka,” Jules said.

“Myakka,” Ric repeated. Myakka was a state park, filled with alligators and long desolate stretches of swampy river. It was the perfect dumping ground for murder victims. As a cop, he’d helped drag the river many times.

Jules nodded. “I’ve spoken to Yashi. He’s got three different teams already on their way out there. They’ll be in place by the time we leave. By the time I leave with Junior. I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s no reason for you to go, too. Which is why I woke you. I don’t want you here when Junior arrives.”

He was serious.

“And Junior’s not going to think that’s weird?” Ric asked. “That I’m not along for the ride?”

“Not when I tell him that your father had another heart attack, and that you went to the hospital,” Jules replied.

That was a good cover, but…“You’ll be alone,” Ric pointed out.

“My entire team will be in place.”

“And what if this Myakka thing is disinformation?” Ric countered. “Your team will be in Myakka and you’ll be God knows where.”

“Then I really don’t want you with me,” Jules told him.

“You think something’s going to go wrong.” Ric’s jeans were on the floor next to his bed, and he grabbed them and pulled them on, yanking up his zipper so they could have this conversation face-to-face.

Jules didn’t try to deny it. He was standing there, in the doorway, in jeans and a T-shirt, with his feet bare and his hair sticking straight up in places like a frat boy with chronic bedhead. “I hate to go all Han Solo on you, but yeah. I got a bad feeling about this. So take a shower, get dressed, and go over to the hospital.”

“Jules, come on…”

His face got hard and the frat boy vanished. “That wasn’t a request. That was an order. This isn’t a democracy, Alvarado. You work for me. So get your ass to the hospital.”

“Okay,” Ric said, holding out both hands as if he were trying to reassure Pierre when Annie had been gone for too long. “Whoa. Wait. Let’s not go into panic mode just yet. We’ve got plenty of time to, I don’t know, think up a counterplan.”

Jules laughed. “You don’t think I’ve got a counterplan? I’ve got teams coming out here within the hour. They’ll be in place to provide backup, long before Junior arrives. They’ll follow, wherever Junior takes me. Plus, the body’ll be trackable. Go to the hospital, Alvarado. Don’t make me break your arm to send you there.”

Those were fighting words, meant to piss him off, but Ric wasn’t going to argue that one. “Look, man, I know you can probably beat the hell out of me if you want to. And yeah, maybe you’re going to have to, because I’m not going anywhere. You had to know that my leaving you alone with Junior and his men just wasn’t going to fly. I can see that something’s got you spooked. I’ve been there. You get a feeling, you don’t know why, but you’re usually always right. So okay. Let’s work this through—”

“I’ve worked it through,” Jules said again, “and you’re going to the hospital.”

“I realize that you’re afraid for me,” Ric said, “and I appreciate that, but…it goes both ways. I’m afraid for you, too.”

Jules didn’t move. Ric didn’t know how he did it, but one second he was standing there, the hard-ass FBI team leader, and the next, he’d completely changed. It was as if he’d flipped a switch and morphed into someone else.

“I had no idea you cared,” Jules said so softly, Ric almost couldn’t hear him. And his eyes, which had been so hard, were now filled with heat. He gave Ric a long, slow once-over, looking at him in a way that Ric had never been looked at by another man before. It was extremely disconcerting.

But Ric knew exactly what Jules was doing. Or rather, trying to do. It wasn’t going to work. He didn’t scare that easily. He wasn’t going to run away.

Instead, he called Jules’s bluff. “Come on,” Ric said. “Let’s take a walk on the wild side, babe. ” He purposely used Robin’s term of endearment for Jules. “We’ve got a couple hours to kill…”

Ric went as far as to step toward Jules—who took a big step back, away from him. Just as Ric had known he would.

“What,” Ric pushed. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Jules said. The heat was gone from his eyes—in fact, he was finding it difficult now to meet Ric’s gaze.

“Oh, I’m the asshole?” Ric asked. “I thought we were friends. I thought that you respected me. But if you were really thinking you could scare me into some kind of, I don’t know, homophobic panic…? Fuck you, for thinking so little of me. And fuck you, too, for apparently assuming I wasn’t paying attention when you were talking about Robin. Christ, if anyone out there is a one-man…man…” Damn, but that was weird to say. “It’s you. Asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” Jules said, his eyes now contrite. “And you’re right. I’m an idiot. But you’re still going to the hospital, where you’ll be safe.”

Ric didn’t get a chance even to open his mouth to begin to argue.

Because his doorbell rang.

This was not good.

This was very, very not good.

Annie hit play, and Robin’s laptop computer ran the latest digital video, this one posted on a popular celebrity news website. In it, Jules was here, in this very hotel suite.

“Tell your friends it’s time to go.” That was definitely Jules’s voice, even though it took the camera several moments to find him. And then there Jules was, wearing the same suit he’d worn to Gordon Burns’s party, sans tie.

Whoever was filming him must’ve been using their cell phone, the quality was so poor.

But they got a good close-up of him as he turned away from the sliders to the living-room balcony, as someone nearer to the phone’s mic said, “Robin Chadwick invited us here. Who the hell are you to tell us to leave?”

It was then that Jules just stopped. He not only stopped moving, but he practically stopped breathing.

Robin was sitting next to Annie, reading a printout of the impending accompanying TMZ article. “Look at how much he wants to just say it,” he breathed. “I’m his lover…”

Annie glanced over to see that he’d looked up from the article and was transfixed by the image on the screen. By Jules.

Tears gleamed in Robin’s eyes. “God, I wish he had,” Robin whispered.

But Jules finally spoke. “I’m one of his producers,” he said. “I’m also a good friend. I make sure people don’t take advantage of him. Close the door on your way out.”

The camera followed him as he headed toward the French doors that led into Robin’s bedroom. He disappeared through them.

There was a cut, and the film jumped to an even grittier, lower-light shot of Jules, crouched next to Robin, who was facedown on the tile of the bedroom balcony.

It must’ve been a woman holding the cell phone camera now. Her voice was clear as she spoke to Jules.

He asked her about any drugs that Robin might’ve taken.

She brought up Viagra, and the expression on Jules’s face was not that of a mere friend. The filmmaker knew it, and froze on it, zooming in as tightly as possible.

Annie risked another glance at Robin, who’d started to cry. He didn’t cry the way he did in his movies, with one tear and then another sliding down his perfect face. Instead, he tried to hide it from her, wiping his eyes, trying to blink back all of his emotion.

“I can’t believe I did that to him.” Robin’s voice shook. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

That was the end of the video, but the website included links to photos, as well as another video link—no doubt to the now infamous Robin Chadwick YouTube footage. Annie clicked on the first of the photos. It was a still of Robin and Jules. They looked to be standing on a soundstage, and Robin was wearing some kind of old-fashioned military uniform.

“That’s from when we were filming American Hero,” he told her. “It was taken two years ago.”

Jules looked the same, but Robin was obviously younger. He was much skinnier back then, his face more boyish and slender.

In the photo, the two men were smiling at each other, as if sharing a joke. A private joke. Their gazes were locked, and their attraction was palpable.

The second link led to a photo that must’ve been taken just seconds later. They were still standing in the same spot, but in this picture Jules had looked away while Robin still gazed at him. Neither man was smiling now, and the look of sheer longing on Robin’s face was heartbreaking.

“I was in character,” Robin said. “I was playing Hal Lord, who was gay, and I was still in character.” He paused. “That’s what we’ll say.”

Annie looked at him. “Or…you could tell the truth.”

“I can’t.” Robin stood up, taking the article with him to the sofa. Annie had already read it, and it was all conjecture, but pretty damn accurate.

She swiveled in her chair to face him. “Sure, you can.”

“No”—Robin raised his voice—“I can’t.” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “God, I have a headache. I think I’m coming down with something.” He flipped open his cell phone and speed-dialed a number. “Yeah, Dolph,” he said into it, “it’s me. Here’s what we’re going to do. You call the reporter back, you identify Jules—his full name is Julian Young.” He spelled it for her. “You tell the reporter that he’s a friend of mine, that he’s a producer, that I’ve known him for several years.”

Annie turned back to the computer as Robin continued speaking to Dolphina. She clicked the back button and clicked on the link to the second video.

There was a pause while the computer downloaded it into Media Player and then…

Oh, shit.

This was not the video she’d expected.

“Robin,” Annie said, “you better come look at this—right now!”

“My cell service is down,” Ric reported.

Jules’s Treo, too, was completely useless. “The signal’s being jammed,” he realized.

Ric swore. “The landline’s dead.”

It was, of course, Gordie Junior and three members of his goon squad, standing on Ric’s front stoop, ringing the doorbell again. The fact that they were here at dawn when Junior had just called to say they’d be delayed until noon was ominous. Disinformation, anyone?

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Jules decided. “You’re going out the back—”

“Two more men on the back porch,” Ric informed him. “And e-mail’s not an option. They must’ve taken my cable out, too.”

“You’ll have to hide,” Jules told him.

“You think they won’t search for me?” Ric countered. “I say we play it like we don’t know they’ve taken out our phones. We’ve got the tracking device in the body…”

That was assuming Junior was going to take the body with them. Of course, if they played it as Ric suggested, maybe he would.

“Okay,” Jules said. “Get the door. I’m going to leave a message up here, for Yashi.”

Ric nodded and headed downstairs.

Jules stood in Ric’s bedroom, trying to think.

Really, the only piece of information that Yashi wouldn’t have was the time of day that Junior had shown up. But how to tell him that without leaving something as obvious as a note—something Junior’s men might find if they searched the place.

Over on Ric’s nightstand, his alarm clock’s LED display switched from 5:22 to 5:23.

As Jules heard Ric opening the door and greeting Junior—“Man, it is so good to see you”—he went across the room and set Ric’s alarm for 5:22A.M. There was a notepad on the table, right next to the clock, and a pen that Jules used to write with.

He made a short To-Do list. Get milk. Clean bathroom. Set alarm. Go to Post Office.

“I broke away much earlier than I expected.” Junior’s voice carried up from the office. “Where’s Julian?”

“Right here.” Jules came down the stairs. “Hey, I thought you had a situation that was going to keep you until noon.”

“It got itself handled,” Junior told him. “I figured since we just spoke on the phone, you’d be up. I tried calling you back but the fucking cell service is down. Some dipshit must’ve hit a tower.”

Or some dipshit—like Junior himself—had access to a signal jammer. Jules’s hair was standing up on the back of his neck, but he made himself smile. He had no doubt now that Junior had somehow found out that Ric and Jules were a threat. There was something about the man’s eyes, the way he was standing, the tone of his voice…Junior knew. But he was playing it like he didn’t, so Jules played along. “Well, thanks for coming,” he said.

“No problem.” The men who were with Junior were all young—younger than the men in the security team Jules had seen at the Burns Point party. They were dressed for the beach, or maybe a fishing trip out on Myakka River—Hawaiian shirts hanging open over barely concealed shoulder holsters and weapons aplenty. “So where the body?” Junior asked.

“In my office,” Ric answered, pointing toward the closed door.

“Get it ready to travel,” Junior ordered, and two of his men went to do just that, closing the door behind them.

“Ric was asking her about some missing money, and the gun went off.” Jules volunteered the information, but Junior wasn’t interested.

“Whatever.” He smiled at Jules and Ric. “My boy Donny here’s gonna pat you down and check you for wires. It’s something I learned from Daddy. I check out my own boys every time we meet up. It’s just my thing, so no offense.”

“None taken,” Jules said, watching Donny run his hands down Ric’s jeans-clad legs—he’d come downstairs bare-chested.

“You want me to run upstairs and get you a shirt, bro?” Jules asked Ric.

Maybe if they stalled in a major way, the teams assigned to watch and follow would arrive in time to do their jobs.

“Yeah,” Ric said. “Thanks,” but Junior thwarted that plan.

“Go upstairs and grab him something to wear,” he told the goon in the purple shirt, who immediately thundered up the stairs.

It was more than obvious, from the amount of time he was gone, that he was making sure there was no one else up there, and that they’d left no notes or messages behind.

Meanwhile, Donny tossed Ric’s cell phone onto Annie’s desk.

“I kind of need that,” Ric said. “I know it’s not working right now, but—”

“No technology,” Junior said. “I like you guys, you know I do, but with people using phones these days to take picture and movies…? You can live without your phones for a couple hours.”

Jules took his own phone and handed it to Donny, then spread his legs and put his hands on Annie’s desk. He’d always hated getting patted down, but Donny, though thorough, was quick. He ran a bug sweeper over them both, then…

“Check out the body,” Junior ordered him, adding, “No offense.”

“It’s clear you’ve got a system down,” Jules said, praying that the hot new technology that the FBI had used so they could track the body was as hot and new as promised.

And sure enough, Donny was back in a flash. “It’s all good,” he told Junior, holding the door for the other two men, who’d rolled the dead woman in Ric’s area rug. Junior held the outside door, and they trotted out to the van that was in the driveway, just behind a shiny new Lexus.

Purple Shirt came downstairs, carrying…Jules’s windbreaker?

“That’s mine,” Jules said. “It’s not going to fit him.” Stall. Stall.

But Purple held it up. It was loose on Jules and it looked as if it would fit Ric just fine.

“It’s just until we get on the boat,” Junior said. “While we’re out on the water, you’re going to wanna work on your tan, anyway. I got a bit of a time crunch, so we’re going to have to get moving. So let’s do it.”

He led the way, and with Donny behind them, there was nothing left to do but walk out the door, sans weapons, sans phones.

Ric gave stalling one more try as he pulled on Jules’s jacket. “Guys, I just woke up. I really gotta take a leak before we drive all the way to Myakka.”

Junior turned to Donny in exasperation. “Go with him.”

He put himself between Jules and Annie’s desk—where their phones had been left—as Donny followed Ric into the office bathroom. They kept the door open, and it was clear Ric hadn’t been lying about needing to go, at least.

Still, when he came back out, the look he shot Jules was unhappy.

“How far is it to Myakka?” Jules asked as they got into the Lexus with Junior and Donny. One of the other men, a skinhead, squeezed into the backseat with Jules and Ric. “I’ve never been.”

“Yeah,” Junior said as Donny, behind the wheel, pulled out of the drive, following the van. “Change of plans. Myakka’s too crowded this time of year. We’re going to do a little deep-sea fishing instead.”

Swell. But not unexpected.

Junior turned to face them from the front passenger seat, two cups of coffee in his hands. “You boys want Starbucks? We picked up a couple extra on our way over.”

As if they were going to drink anything that Junior offered them. “No. Thanks, though.” Jules kept his voice light.

“I’m good,” Ric said. “I had a little too much caffeine yesterday.”

Junior laughed. “No such thing, in my book.” He took a sip from one of the cups.

So much for the poison-in-the-Starbucks theory.

Still, despite the friendly show Junior was putting on for them, Jules knew—he knew —that their cover had been blown. And unless someone was constantly monitoring the movement of their dead body, it was possible that Ric and Jules were going to disappear as completely as Peggy Ryan had.

He should have broken Ric’s arm instead of spending all that time arguing with him about whether he should or shouldn’t’ve gone to the safety of the hospital.

He should have made Junior break down the door, instead of opening it for him.

He should have met the bastard with a hail of bullets.

He should have knocked on Robin’s door a year ago—why the hell had he waited so long to see him again, anyway? Stupid arbitrary rule—it shouldn’t have mattered that Robin was in the closet. What mattered was that Robin loved him.

He should have called Robin last night and told him that he loved him, too.

Because now it was looking more and more likely that that was something Robin would never get the chance to hear.

Robin’s hands were shaking so badly, he almost dropped his cell phone. But he sat down next to Annie, which helped him gain his equilibrium, as he hung up on Dolphina and dialed Jules’s cell.

Annie was using her own phone to try to reach Ric.

Because there, under someone’s amateurish cell phone video footage of Jules running toward a house from which people were firing rifles at a crowd of police and FBI, was the identifying caption Federal Agent Jules Cassidy—Heroics Under Fire.

Jules’s voicemail picked up. “Cassidy. Leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”

“Jules! Jesus, your cover’s been blown,” Robin said. “Call me—please, God, call me right back!”

As he hung up, Annie was leaving a similar message for Ric. “I’m trying Martell,” she told him when she was done.

“Do you have what’s-his-name’s number?” Robin asked. “Yashi.”

Annie shook her head. “No, I’ve always called Jules directly. Ric had Yashi’s…Damn it, Martell’s not picking up either. Martell, it’s Annie. Call me.”

“Should I call 911?” Robin dialed Jules again, as on the computer screen the video footage showed Jules skidding to a stop next to an injured man who was wearing some kind of police uniform. He grabbed the enormous man beneath the arms and hauled him to safety. God, he had balls…

“That might make it worse.” Annie’s voice was shaking, too. If Junior saw this video…“Ric was certain someone on the police force was on Burns’s payroll.”

Robin was again bumped to Jules’s voicemail. He cut the connection and dialed information. “I need to speak to an operator,” he told the computer system when it asked him which city and state.

Annie, meanwhile, was digging in her handbag for something.

His phone’s call waiting beeped, and his heart leaped, but it was only Dolphina. Robin stayed on his call, ignoring her. He was rewarded as, miraculously, a real, living person spoke into his ear. “May I help you?”

“Please,” he said. “I need the number for the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. I’m trying to reach an FBI official named Max Bhagat.” He spelled Max’s last name for her since it was tricky with that extra h.

But of course, Jules’s boss wasn’t on any phone list available to the public. “I’m sorry,” the operator told him. “I don’t have…”

“Can you just give me some kind of main number for the FBI,” he implored. “It’s an emergency, so please hurry.”

Annie had found what she was searching for—a business card. She was dialing a number off the card, and when she was done, she saw that Robin was watching, so she showed it to him.

Sam Starrett, he read, Troubleshooters Incorporated. It included the company’s California address and phone number.

“It’s the middle of the night in San Diego,” he told Annie as his call waiting beeped again. Again, it was only Dolphina and again he ignored her call.

“I know,” Annie said. “I’m getting sent to some kind of voicemail system. Shhh, there’s a message—maybe there’s an emergency number…”

Robin stayed silent, praying as he waited for the operator to give him the FBI’s main phone number, but Annie too quickly shook her head no. “No luck,” she said, but then left a message. “Hi, my name is Annie Dugan, I’m a civilian working in Florida on an important case with FBI agent Jules Cassidy. I can’t reach him and I’ve just discovered that his cover has been blown in a huge way. He’s in terrible danger. If you get this message, please contact anyone you can think of who might be able to help him…”

“Shall I connect you directly?” the operator asked.

“Yes,” Robin said, “but give me the number, too.” He wrote it down on the TMZ article as she rattled it off.

Whatever number she’d connected him to rang. And rang and rang. He looked at his phone—it was barely 5:30 in the morning. “Come on,” he said. “Someone be there…”

There was a knock on his door—it was, no doubt, Dolphina, pissed that he’d not only hung up on her, but was ignoring her repeated calls.

Good, he could enlist her help. “I need you to call the White House,” he said as he unlocked the chain and opened the door. “I want to talk to the—”

President, he was going to say, but it wasn’t Dolphina standing there. It was a man, with another man behind him. Both were large, and they were holding guns.

Robin dropped his phone and tried to close the door, but they forced it open, forced their way inside, pushing him back—hard enough to hit the dining table with a crash. As he scrambled to keep from falling, he knocked over two of the chairs.

Annie was on her feet. “Robin!”

“We’re not armed, don’t shoot,” Robin said, trying to get to Annie before they did.

But they weren’t moving quickly—not after they got inside and closed and locked the door behind them.

“Drop the phone,” the larger man—the one built rather like a refrigerator—said as the other stepped on Robin’s cell with the heel of his boot.

Annie looked at Robin, and he tried to tell her with his eyes to go for it—dial 911. They didn’t have a whole hell of a lot to lose, considering Robin recognized both men from that party at Burns Point.

They worked for Gordon Burns—or for Gordie Junior.

“I said, drop it—right now or I’ll blow his fucking head off,” the refrigerator demanded, his gun aimed unerringly at Robin.

Dial it anyway, he tried to tell her, but she didn’t.

She dropped it.

“Kick it over here.”

She did, and the skinnier man did his boot thing on her phone, too.

Fridge, meanwhile, had taken out his own cell, dialing and holding it to his ear. “We’ve got ’em both,” he told whoever was on the other end. “He just opened the fucking door for us, and we just walked in.” He laughed. “Fucking idiot.”

Yep, that pretty much described Robin.

“I’m sorry,” he told Annie.

“Are you all right? Your nose…”

Sure enough, it was bleeding. He’d gotten smacked in the face with the door. He didn’t think it was broken—it hurt, but not that much more than the hellish headache that had been plaguing him all night.

“We’re not out of the hotel yet, so it’s probably best not to call him until…Yeah,” Fridge continued. “I’ll let you know as soon as we’re clear.”

As the man pocketed his phone, Robin told them both, “We’re not leaving the hotel.” It was only a matter of time before Dolphina came knocking. Since he’d reclaimed his key card, she wouldn’t be able to get in. Knowing her, though, she’d call hotel security.

All they had to do was stall.

And pray that Jules and Ric were somewhere safe.

Junior’s yacht was a ship. Though Ric had lived for most of his life near the ocean, he wasn’t a boat person, but even he recognized the distinction. He didn’t know exactly what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this luxurious monstrosity. It was huge.

There were two full levels belowdeck.

Ric knew that Jules had been tense in the car, too, but once they’d arrived at the moored boat and seen that roll of rug from Ric’s office already waiting on the ship’s gleaming deck, they’d both taken something of a deep breath.

As long as that body was with them, the FBI could and would track them. Jules’s team was probably already being called back in from Myakka. Other agents were probably gearing up, enlisting the aid of Coast Guard ships, preparing to follow them.

Or at least monitor their location.

As they headed for the open water of the Gulf, Ric tried to get a head count. One man—the driver, Donny—had gone immediately to the wheelhouse or bridge or whatever the control room was called on a yacht this size. Ric could see him up there, in a windowed area. As far as he could tell, Donny was alone.

At this point, he was clearly driving this thing. But once they left the harbor, he could probably put on the cruise control or autopilot—or maybe even just shut the engines down and let the ship drift.

Two men—wearing suits—had picked up their rug-wrapped body, and, in a brisk, businesslike fashion, they’d carried it below.

Another two—the skinhead and the fool in the ugly purple shirt—hung close as Junior gave Ric and Jules a tour of Daddy’s yacht—as if this really were just a pleasure cruise. As if they really were just a bunch of buddies hanging out, drinking beer and fishing.

Ric knew that Jules was counting heads, too. The FBI agent had put his hand on Ric’s shoulder, feigning a need to steady himself when they went down the full flight of steep stairs leading to the staterooms. While his hand was there, he tapped Ric six times.

That was the number Ric had come up with, too. There were six armed men aboard this ship—including Gordie Junior.

There was more than one flight of stairs leading down from the main deck area, Junior told them in his best tour-guide imitation. The other went directly to the galley or kitchen. This one led to this set of staterooms—individual luxury suites that were elegantly decorated with nautical themes and gleaming with brass. He only opened one door though. It was likely the other rooms had been trashed by Junior’s less-than-elegant friends.

The starboard and port hallways connected at the front of the ship in a spacious home theater, with rows of comfortable-looking, leather-covered seats.

“She sleeps twenty,” Junior told them. “Not including crew and staff. Of course, today I gave most of the crew the day off.”

Of course.

“We’ll have to wait until we’re out of sight of land before we can get down to business,” Junior told them. “But I’m sure you’ll be interested in seeing this…”

A door opened to reveal a companionway to the lower level, these stairs even steeper than the first set.

“This level’s used mostly for storing shit.” Junior led the way down into an area that was basement-like. “Although the crew’s berths are down here, too.”

Not only did the lower level give a sense of being unfinished—with pipes and venting systems unhidden—but it was also badly lit and damp. Ric had never thought of himself as claustrophobic before, but he could not wait to get back to the deck and the fresh air.

The movement of the ship beneath his feet sure as hell wasn’t helping. “Food’s kept directly beneath the kitchen,” Junior continued as he led them through a door that was more like a hatch than the ones on the upper levels. It was open and locked into place. “There’s actually a ladder going up into the galley, as well as a dumbwaiter and…”

Holy Christ. Junior kept talking, but Ric didn’t hear more than the murmur of his voice as he stopped short just inside that hatch. He felt one of Junior’s thugs bump into him from behind, finally pushing him aside when he failed to make room for the two of them.

He and Jules had followed Junior into some sort of area that was no doubt intended for fish cleaning. The room was designed to be hosed down completely—it had a big drain in the floor. Stainless-steel tables flipped down from the slanting, porthole-less walls—of course, they were beneath the water level down here.

The rug from Ric’s office was on the floor—the body’d been put on one of the tables, and was being worked on by Junior’s men.

They’d put it into a freaking bizarre version of a sweatsuit—the fabric was covered with explosives, all wired together.

“…used to use a meat grinder,” Junior was saying, “just flush all the evidence down this drain as fish food, but the skull and teeth were always problematic. I got this idea years ago when I heard about those suicide bombers. It always amazed me, though, that there’d be, like, an arm or a hand left intact, found in the rubble. So we’re careful to cross the arms beneath the main explosives on the chest. We also use mittens to wrap the hands in C4, since, you know…Hands and heads being the body parts you most don’t want washing up on shore. Hence the hood.”

They’d put a Spider-Man-like, tight-fitting head-and-face covering on the body. With the explosives attached, it made her look like some bizarre beauty-salon participant with freakish curlers not only in her hair but across her concealed face as well.

Her…? Wait a minute…Ric looked closer and…

“We’ll set off a fuckload of firecrackers,” Junior continued, “right before this is set to blow. We dump the body and back away—don’t want to get hit by that spray, you know what I’m saying? We use a special underwater fuse, cut long enough to give us a time delay. Remote-control detonation’s too expensive.” He laughed. “Dude, you look green.”

He was talking to Ric.

“He’s always been prone to seasickness.” Jules took him by the arm and steered him toward the hatch. “He just needs some air.”

Jules pushed Ric up the stairs and back into the theater area. He hustled him through what looked to be some kind of wood-paneled den or game room, and then up a half flight of stairs into the ship’s galley. It was much bigger than the kitchen in Ric’s apartment, and far more lavishly appointed.

A half flight of stairs led up to an indoor dining area. Another made the galley easily accessible to the main deck. There was also a window in the galley that looked as if it could be opened to create a pass-through directly to that open part of the yacht.

Ric was already feeling much better, but when they hit the fresh air on deck, Donny was there to greet them.

“He’s gonna hurl,” Jules announced.

“I’m actually,” Ric said, but Jules elbowed him hard, so he changed his feeling better to “prone to projectile vomiting.”

Jules started to muscle him to the railing, but Donny intercepted. He’d conjured up a bucket from somewhere. “It’s hard to clean that off the side,” he told them, and then backed away.

Apparently nobody liked the idea of projectile vomiting.

Junior and the other two men finally caught up to them. “Just breathe and keep your eyes on the horizon,” Junior instructed Ric. “You don’t need the fucking bucket—”

But Ric did. It was the only way he was going to be able to talk to Jules without being overheard. He clasped the damn thing as he turned away and stuck his finger down his throat.

It wasn’t as if he really needed that much help to empty his stomach. He added some nasty sound effects and…

Junior and his men all took several giant steps back.

“That body wasn’t a woman,” Ric told Jules between gags. Whoever was on that table was significantly bigger than their tracking-device-implanted Jane Doe.

“I noticed,” Jules whispered grimly. “I also saw more of those explosive suits.”

What? Ric hadn’t seen that. He looked up at Jules.

“Four more,” Jules said.

He didn’t need to say the words for Ric to know what he was thinking. Two for them, and two more—for Robin and Annie.

Ric didn’t need any help throwing up a second time.

“Can someone toss me a towel?” Jules called to Junior and his goons. One of them must’ve complied, because Ric felt him turn to catch something. “Thanks.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Ric breathed. “If he so much as touches Annie…”

“Yeah,” Jules agreed. “He’s dead. There’s a problem, though. We’re unarmed and outnumbered.”

“Screw that,” Ric said. “Let’s just take them. If one of them gets close enough, we grab his weapon.”

“Getting ourselves killed isn’t going to help Annie and Robin. If we were closer to the edge, I’d say we go over the side,” Jules said. “Split up and swim for shore. One of us would make it.”

Getting free and getting to a place where they could contact the rest of the FBI, to make sure Annie and Robin didn’t leave their hotel room, not even to go to the airport, was a damn good plan.

“Let’s do it,” Ric said, then pretended to heave. “Right now.”

“We wouldn’t even get to the rail,” Jules told him. “The one named Donny has his weapon drawn. He’s pretending to clean it, but…I’m betting he’s their best shot. Let’s just be ready. Try to work our way to the side. If one of us can go…” He helped Ric wipe his mouth, helped him to his feet, and then he swore.

As Ric stood up, he realized that while they were taking Junior’s tour, they’d moved completely out of sight of land. According to the ship’s wake, they’d been cruising in a big, slow circle for quite a few minutes now.

Even if they could get over the side and into the water, they’d have no idea which way to swim to reach land.