Danger is never far off...

When forensic psychologist Claire Britten started working with lawyer Nick Markwood on his South Shores project, she had no idea it would endanger her life—and the life of her daughter. But when the little girl goes missing from her South Florida home and Nick insists his longtime nemesis is to blame, Claire frantically follows the trail to the Cayman Islands, desperate to save her daughter before it’s too late.

Nick always knew the man who staged his father’s “suicide” was out to get him, but kidnapping the child of someone he cares about is despicable. Finding the billionaire criminal is one thing—meeting his demands in order to save Claire’s daughter is quite another. What he wants threatens their professional and personal interests beyond imagination...but what choice do they have when a child’s life is on the line?

Praise for the novels of Karen Harper

“The thrilling finish takes a twist that most readers won’t see coming. While intrigue is the main driver of the story, the able, well-researched plotting and sympathetic characters will keep romance readers along for the ride.”

—Publishers Weekly on Broken Bonds

“Haunting suspense, tender romance and an evocative look at the complexities of Amish life—Dark Angel is simply riveting!”

—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author

“A compelling story...intricate and fascinating details of Amish life.”

—Tami Hoag, New York Times bestselling author, on Dark Road Home

“Harper, a master of suspense, keeps readers guessing about crime and love until the very end...of this thrilling tale.”

—Booklist on Fall from Pride (starred review)

“Danger and romance find their way into Ohio Amish country in a lively and endearing first installment of the Amish Home Valley series.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fall from Pride

“A tale guaranteed to bring shivers to the spine, Down River will delight Harper’s current fans and earn her many more.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“Well-researched and rich in detail... With its tantalizing buildup and well-developed characters, this offering is certain to earn Harper high marks.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dark Angel, winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award

Drowning Tides

Karen Harper

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To our Boca Ciega friends

Jim and Lee Ann Parsons

and my Naples, Florida, readers.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Author’s Note

Extract

Copyright

1

2014

“I’ll get her back, Claire. I swear to you, I’ll get your daughter back.”

“We’ll get her back together,” she insisted, turning toward Nick as he drove the rental car across I-75 to Miami where they would catch their plane.

Thank God, Claire thought, Florida was narrow west to east, but the drive across the state on what Floridians called Alligator Alley seemed endless. Claire’s four-year-old daughter, Lexi, had been kidnapped, taken to the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman. They had round-trip Cayman Airways tickets, leaving this morning from Miami and getting in to Grand Cayman early afternoon. They also had reservations for a place to stay on the island—all provided by the kidnapper who wanted much more than Lexi.

Claire clenched her hands so tightly in her lap that her fingers went numb. She frowned at the canal where alligators basked like logs in the early morning sun, and white herons and ibis fluttered in the tops of mangrove trees. Early October was just past the rainy season, and the air seemed crystal clear. But nothing looked beautiful to her anymore.

How could she ever have imagined when she went to work for criminal lawyer Nick Markwood that it would come to this? The two of them had been through hell enough already, but this horror was so much worse.

“Let’s go over some things again,” Nick said.

Ever clever, seemingly calm, even in the chaos of his own life, and now hers and Lexi’s too, Claire thought. But she clung to that. She needed that—and him.

“Yes. Yes, all right,” she agreed. “I know we have to go along with him, play by his rules. But we have to find his weakness, a way to save Lexi and you too—if he lets any of us go.”

“Clayton Ames controls people the way he does his international business empire,” Nick said of the sixty-four-year-old billionaire business mogul.

“Except for you. He found he couldn’t control you, that you would pursue him for your father’s murder, even if he had it staged to look like a suicide. You’d think by now he’d ignore your attempts to prove that, since he always just slips out of reach. Nick, that’s what terrifies me about him having Lexi—and soon having us. He can make people disappear.”

A noisy semi went around their car with a deep honk of its horn. They passed the exit to the Miccosukee Seminole Indian reservation on the edge of Everglades National Park. The lush foliage merged with the saw grass prairie of the Glades with its tree-filled raised mounds called hammocks. At last a scattering of West Coast buildings appeared along with green-and-white highway signs to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

She stared at Nick’s profile, which was seemingly set in stone. She was grateful he was as obsessed with saving Lexi as she was, and she loved him all the more for it. It seemed the long night they’d spent planning and packing had etched deeper lines on his chiseled face. The silver streaks along the temples of his dark hair seemed more pronounced and his gray eyes more intense than even during the days they’d struggled to get answers and stay alive on the St. Augustine murder/suicide case. He suddenly looked older than thirty-nine, but then, she felt far beyond thirty-two today.

How ironic she’d decided she would not work as his forensic psychologist again if an assignment took her away from Lexi, and now her daughter had been taken away from her—from her own front yard. Claire had vowed she’d stay home in Naples and stick to more mundane investigations through her Clear Path fraud-fighting website, but here they were, more desperate than ever.

“As I said, expect the worst from Clayton Ames,” Nick told her, his voice hard as it always was when he spoke of his archenemy. “We have to watch what we say at all times, in the airport, on the plane, even once we get to our Grand Cayman hotel, because he could have places bugged or his lackeys hovering. Expect to be under invisible surveillance day and night. We’ll walk on the beach away from others if we want to be sure we’re not overheard. Nothing about Jace, especially. He’s risking his neck to fly down on his own in case we need him.”

It went unspoken between them that they couldn’t have stopped Jace Britten anyway. Her ex-husband had arrived at Claire’s house just after Lexi was taken and saw the threatening note the drone had delivered. Lexi’s abductor had evidently driven a car like Jace’s and even resembled him to a degree, to get the child close enough to grab. But Claire had to agree with Nick that Jace could be a loose cannon in all this.

“Jace and I may be divorced, but he’d do anything for Lexi.”

“And for you,” he said, turning to shoot her a sudden stare before looking back to the road. “He still cares for you a lot.”

“I’ll never forgive myself if his plan to fly down there on his own blows up. He’s a skilled pilot and used to jets, so it’s not that. But rather if he’s harmed once he’s there or ruins our chances of getting Lexi back.”

“At least he knows the stakes. But as I said, Ames likes to know exactly what his competitors, even in business, are saying and thinking, what’s going on. I wouldn’t have rented this car at the last minute if I didn’t think he’d manage to bug my other one.”

“I know,” she said, her voice shaky. She looked at the narrow, deep waterways that ran along this four-lane highway. “I’ll be careful what I say and when.” She turned toward him, tugging her seat belt out to give herself room to sit sideways. “Nick, I can’t thank you enough for risking yourself to get Lexi back. I know Ames means to harm you.”

“He does, but I’m banking on the fact he likes to exert his power, make his enemies twist and turn, control and ruin them, torment them. I’m hoping he means to make me toe his line somehow, not just trade my life for hers.”

Claire broke into tears again when she’d tried since yesterday to keep calm. But she felt she was spiraling down into a dark hole. At least she didn’t have a horrible dream last night from her narcolepsy in the half hour she’d gone to sleep. Right now, she didn’t need her so-called “sleeping disease” or her powerful meds that controlled it. Despite her deep exhaustion, for once, she couldn’t sleep.

“Sorry. I’m okay. I mean, not okay, but holding up. Really,” she tried to assure him as she grabbed for a tissue in her purse on the car floor and swiped under her eyes.

“I’m sorry too, sweetheart,” Nick said, reaching over the console to grip her knee with one hand. “But, despite all this, I can’t be sorry we met, that we—we care for each other. Again, I swear to you on my life, we will get Lexi back and get through this. Then I’ll leave your life so that bastard doesn’t try to use you and those you love to get to me again.”

A tear trickled down Nick’s cheek from under his sunglasses, but, focused on the road again, he ignored it. She loved him desperately despite hating him too over this—didn’t she?

Claire made herself look away from him. Fear was on his face but fury too. Did he know her heart was broken not only over Lexi but over what he’d just said—that once they got her back, Nick would leave their lives?

* * *

As Nick took the turn south toward Miami International Airport through a maze of curved and elevated ramps and overhead signs, the horrible day he’d found his father dead came back to him. That waking nightmare crashed in on him sometimes when he least expected it. His attorney dad whom he adored and had later patterned himself after, dead. His head partly gone. Pistol in hand. Blood spatter and brain matter on the wall behind his desk.

He heard again his own shrill, young voice. “Dad! Dad! Dad!”

Obviously a suicide, the coroner ruled: late at night, wife out of town, son supposedly asleep upstairs, trajectory of the bullet, spatter pattern, only the deceased’s fingerprints on the gun. And the fact his father had recently lost huge real estate investments, ones he’d made on the advice of his trusted friend, Clayton Ames, Nick’s “Uncle Clay.” Later, in his teens, Nick had found papers stashed in a metal box that showed his father had meant to expose Ames as a cheat and fraud.

But Nick had known even then, his mother did too, that Dad would not have killed himself and left them broke and bereft like that. The only good thing that had come from their public family tragedy was Nick’s dedication to become a criminal lawyer and eventually to found two entities to help distraught people: Markwood, Benton and Chase, LLP, the law firm in which he was a senior partner; and South Shores, a secret, separate enterprise that sought out and defended those who were wrongly accused of or ruined by murder or suicide.

Once he’d seen forensic psychologist Claire Britten testify in court about interviewing witnesses and suspects, he’d known he needed her on his South Shores team. The problem was, it hadn’t taken him long to learn he needed her in other ways too, though he’d tried not to mix purpose with pleasure. They had not yet made love, but he wanted her desperately. Before this chaos, he’d had hopes he could convince her they should be seriously looking at a life together. Now, he might even lose his life, but he was not going to forfeit hers—or Lexi’s.

“You need to try to sleep or at least rest, now, on the plane too,” he told Claire. “We’re going to need, as they say, our wits about us.”

“I can not only do my best, but what is necessary. My mother used to say that. I suppose she got it from one of her books she always had her nose in. My sister and I say it sometimes to get through tough times. Nick, I wish I could have told Darcy what happened. She’s going to think I’m nuts, that I’ve taken Lexi and run off with you, like I stupidly eloped with Jace. But I had to leave her that note about us taking time away so she wouldn’t call the cops. No cops, Ames’s note said.”

“She’ll understand when you get Lexi back, when you can explain the truth, or some of it. We’ll be there soon. Trust me, Claire. Again, on my life, I swear we’ll get her back. Close your eyes. I’ve got to keep mine on this heavier traffic.”

Out of the corner of his vision, he saw her settle back in her seat. But a big 747 jet taking off overhead from the Miami airport made her open her eyes again, sit forward and look up. Her ex was an international airline pilot, so what was she thinking in that beautiful head of hers? He was afraid to ask because he knew in his gut that she and Jace still cared for each other and not just because of the endangered child they shared.

Besides, unfortunately, Jace was blond and rawboned handsome, a real take-charge guy. Emotional, even volatile for a former navy pilot, Nick thought, so that could spell more trouble if the guy was frustrated or cornered in Grand Cayman. Still, even when Jace Britten was angry, he radiated that top gun charisma women probably went for. Evidently, Claire had fallen for him and hard. She’d said she’d eloped with the guy.

After she settled herself again in her seat, Nick stole one more glance at her. Her body stayed tense. Here in South Florida, she always seemed slightly unworldly, out of place with her porcelain complexion and stunning red hair—natural red hair, the color of a sunset over the Gulf. Most tourists and Floridians were tanned like he was, and her hue of hair was so—so Irish, or like a painting of an angel.

But her delicate appearance was deceptive. She was strong, great at psyching out people’s lies and deceits and patching together the truth. She performed what lawyers called forensic autopsies, where a person, living or dead, was dissected through their statements and deeds to ferret out guilt. When he’d hired her, Claire already had a small consulting firm she called Clear Path. He wished he could find a clear path for her and Lexi—and himself—out of this looming catastrophe.

He felt guilty that he’d caused this crisis and at how much he still wanted her. He figured she knew that. And he was scared, not at how finding someone he could trust and love had finally come his way, but that, even if he saved Lexi, he had to lose Claire so Ames couldn’t hurt her like this again.

* * *

Jace cruised over Cuba in the Cirrus SR22 turbocharged plane he’d borrowed from an old buddy who was a lot richer than he was. It was legal to pass over the embargoed island in a small plane. Several of his hotshot pilot friends had faked engine problems and asked for an emergency landing there just to look around in off-limits Havana. This was one heck of an emergency, but no way he was stopping anywhere but Grand Cayman.

He planned to get there in slightly under the three-hour flight plan he’d filed back at the Marco Island Executive Airport. He’d picked that smaller facility instead of Naples Municipal Airport, hoping the spying eyes of that damned Clayton Ames would have more trouble finding him there. Jace had obviously been researched and watched. He’d been sent photos of Nick and Claire together at an address no average outsider should have, but Ames’s long arms seemed to pull a lot of strings. He felt really guilty that the guy who had snatched Lexi had resembled and pretended to be him.

The distance was just under 400 nautical miles, and he was pushing the Cirrus near its top speed of 180 knots, hovering just under its ceiling of 17,500 feet since the plane was not pressurized and he didn’t want to mess with supplemental oxygen. He wanted to land at MWCR in the Cayman Islands as if he was a tourist. He’d case the area where Nick and Claire would be staying and, no doubt, where they would be contacted. Just as when he’d flown jumbo jets to Singapore and back or when he’d gone on Middle East combat missions, he wanted to be prepared and ready.

He didn’t really have a specific plan after he landed, but he’d recon and get one. Anything he had to do to find this Clayton Ames who held his daughter’s life in his dirty hands. So what if Nick Markwood said he’d been trying to get the goods on him, even locate him for years because he moved around so much? The guy might be rich, powerful and slippery, but he was going to pay for this, even if Jace had to take orders from Markwood for a while. Even if Claire was staying with the rich lawyer in what were probably luxurious digs on a gorgeous beach on a tropical island. Even if—this really scared him too—she seemed to trust Markwood, to look at him as if...

Damn, why hadn’t Claire been content to just run Clear Path from her home office and steer clear of criminal investigations? She put her life—all their lives—in danger. This whole mess really got to Jace. It would be so easy to just end things up here over this vast blue-green water, to just disappear. Maybe Claire would talk to people he knew to try to find out if he’d been suicidal, why he’d kept changing his work flight schedule, why he’d considered giving up the international flying career he’d worked so hard for. She could use her forensic autopsy skills on him even if they never found his body.

He shook himself loose from that sick daydream. He was going to not only survive, but live. Really live. And with Claire and Lexi by his side.

2

As Claire and Nick’s Cayman Airlines jet dropped toward the island’s airport, Claire pressed her forehead to the window. Her beloved little Lexi was down there somewhere. Terrified? Tied up? Locked up? Drugged? Claire’s mind could not let her go further. She prayed for her daughter’s safety again, trying to send her silent reassurance and love.

“Those two cruise ships anchored there look like toys in a bright blue bathtub,” she told Nick as he leaned closer to look out too. “Amazing, long, white beaches, even compared to those in Naples.”

“That one is Seven Mile Beach. Look how close George Town is to it. Did you learn much when you checked out the islands online last night?”

“Until my eyes crossed. Like a lot of resort areas, it seems a mix of rich and poor, good and bad. For us, I’m hoping for the good.”

She bit her lower lip and blinked back tears. Except when they’d had ginger ale to calm their nervous stomachs, she and Nick had held hands for most of the flight. They pretended to sleep at times so the lady with the British accent in the aisle seat would stop being so chatty. They couldn’t put it past Ames that she was a plant. After all, he’d sent the tickets with the ransom note, so he could have bought three seats instead of two.

“And, of course, it’s a tax haven,” Claire went on, keeping her voice low. “Grand Cayman’s offshore investment reputation means a lot of those pretty pastel-and-glass buildings down there are just fronts for companies that aren’t really located here but want to escape taxes.” She whispered even lower, “I read that big firms like Apple, Walmart and Exxon do business here. No wonder...” She checked what she was going to say about Clayton Ames and finished lamely, “I read too that Osama bin Laden was a genius at stashing money offshore.” Clayton Ames was in good company here, hiding his assets, she thought. At least his Grand Cayman home must be luxurious. So Lexi might—must—be in a good, safe place.

After their aircraft taxied to the gate, they took their two carry-ons from the overhead bins and walked out through people waiting for friends and family. Claire kept scanning the crowd in case someone had a sign with her or Nick’s name on it, to take them to Lexi. They assumed they’d be contacted at their hotel, but she had hopes of something sooner.

But nothing—no one for them.

They stood in line to take a brightly colored taxi, painted with a green turtle like the one on the Cayman Islands flag. Inside, as they’d decided earlier, they kept their conversation to tourist talk again. Claire was so physically and emotionally exhausted that scenery blurred by as the driver took them in heavy traffic—a lot of ritzy cars like BMWs, even Rolls-Royces—toward their hotel, the Sand and Sea Club, at the north end of Seven Mile Beach. Their cabbie spoke in a unique drawl and pronounced Cayman with the emphasis on the man part.

“Oh, look at that sign!” Claire blurted when the cab came to a sudden stop. It read Iguanas Have Right Of Way. Drive Slowly. “I read the iguanas here are blue, the only place in the world,” she added.

“They only blue when they mating,” their cabbie said. “April, May, not now. They endangered, nuh.”

Claire wasn’t sure what nuh meant, but it got tacked on the end of sentences here, maybe like an exclamation point.

Again, sights seemed to rotate past: a pile of conch shells for sale, several pirate mannequins advertising Pirates Week Festival next month. The mannequins reminded her of Cecilia and Lola Moran, women she’d interviewed for Nick’s St. Augustine murder/suicide case just last week. How far away that all seemed now.

She tried to convince herself that this warm, breezy location could pass for Naples, but it was far different, a mix of British and Caribbean, an exotic place all its own. Jerk chicken stands stood next to bars and pubs; she saw signs to squash clubs and cricket fields. Duty-free shops and banks were everywhere. She had read some of the workers were from Jamaica, the Philippines or Honduras, so, with the tourists, it was a real mix of people on the streets of George Town.

The American influence was here too. Signs advertised a Wendy’s and a Kentucky Fried Chicken, but there were ones that read Sting Ray City and This Way To Hell. She heard Nick grunt at that. She’d read Hell was a tourist stop where strange seaweed had turned the coral rock shaped like flames black. She didn’t need a place like that; she was so sick at heart about Lexi she felt she was in hell already.

* * *

Jace paid for a ridiculously pricey room over a row of shops on West Bay Road that ran along Seven Mile Beach. He’d told Nick he knew someone who lived on the island, but that wasn’t true. He figured this dive overlooking the front street above a noisy area was at least several miles from the tonier place Nick and Claire would be. Close but not too close.

He ditched his gear, except for his camera and the pistol he’d managed to sneak in. He rented a motorbike, ignoring street hawkers trying to get him to windsurf, Jet Ski or take a jitney bus tour. He bought a really loud shirt with parrots on it and wore it with his worst-looking cutoff shorts and a ratty sailor’s cap to hide his recent haircut. He hated flip-flops, but they looked like the shoe of choice around here, so he bought a pair of those. If he had to run fast, he’d kick them off.

He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and hoped he looked like a beach bum instead of former navy man. And he hoped that someone that rich and powerful felt secure enough that he didn’t hire guards on his property, though Jace would have to locate it before he could case it. He tried to slouch and lose the military bearing and pilot pose. Top gun, heck. He just wanted to be top dad, that’s all—top husband too.

He rode his motorbike north along West Bay past a loud, brass street band as he headed for the Sand and Sea Club where Claire and Nick would stay. Two massive cruise ships, which had disgorged passengers to shop or hit the tourist sites, were visible through gaps in the tinted glass, pastel-colored office buildings. He’d learned the ritzy places where Ames probably lived were a little ways out of town, but he needed to be where he could keep an eye on Claire and Nick, then follow them when the sick bastard who held Lexi contacted or summoned them.

He found the Sand and Sea Club a six-mile ride away at the north end of Seven Mile Beach in a cluster of similar rentals and “club” apartments, most really nice-looking if a bit dated. The Sand and Sea Club offered oceanfront suites and a restaurant with a menu posted outside that he stopped to glare at. It offered turtle stew, jerk chicken, coconut bread, conch fritters and panfried fish like snapper, grouper and marlin. His stomach rumbled but not from hunger. He was as tense as when he used to get in the captain’s seat for combat.

He took a flyer from a glass box that touted Cemetery Reef as a great snorkeling site, only fifty yards out. Man, that’s all he needed, to think about someone dumping a body out at sea at a place called Cemetery Reef.

Trying to blend in with the locals and tourists, he chained and padlocked his bike to a palm tree and slouched between two buildings to wait for Nick and Claire’s arrival. On his phone, he shot a few pictures of the entrances to the club and the beach. The sand was wide, blinding white and crowded. Maybe he could rent a beach umbrella to hide behind. He figured he’d beat them here by about two hours, but he was content to wait. Content at least for that, because he’d like to kill Lexi’s kidnapper right now.

* * *

Claire’s skin crawled as they checked into the Sand and Sea Club. It wasn’t the humidity, because there was a nice sea breeze that also kept the bugs pretty much away. It was the prickly feeling they were being watched. Yet she hesitated to scan the people waiting for some sort of snorkeling tour with fins and masks in hand. She didn’t want to stare back at anyone in a challenging way. Patience. They had to be patient and wait to be contacted.

She went with Nick to their suite down a hall with breezeways throughout. Two double beds, thank heavens, instead of one. A sitting area and decent-sized bathroom. Fantastic view, of course, through sliding glass doors that led to a private lanai set off from the rooms next to it by flowered trellises. Bright beach umbrellas stuck in the sand provided some shade for patrons in the glare of the sun. Too much of that and Claire’s skin would freckle and turn as red as her hair, but what did any of that matter now—matter ever again if they didn’t get Lexi back and soon?

Nick put her small bag on the bed farthest from the door. “Don’t unpack too much,” he said. “I’m sure things will work out and you and Lexi, at least, will be leaving soon, and I’ll do whatever our friend wants.”

Dialogue prepared in case there were mics or cameras in the room, of course. That gave her the creeps too: Did Clayton Ames hope for some sort of reading on Nick’s relationship with her? Were they being watched to see if they were affectionate? Made love? More than once, she would have liked to but she’d thought they barely knew each other and circumstances were bad then—ha! How could they even pretend more than clinging to each other when things were so dangerous and desperate? Ames obviously knew enough of what they meant to each other to be sure that threatening Lexi’s well-being would turn the screws on Nick.

She made some small talk about the hotel and the view, unpacked a change of clothes and went into the bathroom. She propped her hands on the seashell-shaped pink sink and stared at herself in the mirror. Grayish bags under her eyes like half-moons. Windblown hair. A bruised bottom lip she’d chewed too hard. Exhaustion. Terror she was trying to control. She hadn’t eaten a thing and she could throw up in this basin right now.

She set to work washing up and changing, then twisted her hair into a topknot. Or, since she didn’t wear it like that much, would that set Lexi off when they were reunited? She took her hair down and brushed it loose again, refreshed her makeup and went out.

Nick was stretched out on his bed, using his laptop. Wi-Fi was included here. She wondered if the dangerous, ubiquitous lackeys who reported to Ames had a way to snag whatever Nick was sending or reading online. Probably. But surely he knew that.

“Lie down and take a nap,” Nick said. “I’ll be here, waiting.”

“Yes, all right. But I’d rather pace. I’m praying we will have Lexi back safe and sound as soon as possible,” she said in a loud voice. Let the eavesdroppers and spies report that to Clayton Ames, she thought.

She leaned against the open sliding glass door and watched the sunbathers in various sizes of bathing suits or near undress. Could their contact be out there? Was Jace out there?

She jolted when a knock sounded on their hallway door. Had Nick ordered anything while she was in the bathroom? He got up from the bed, but she beat him to the door, slid the bolt and pulled it open.

3

The plump, chatty British woman they’d sat next to on the plane stood there, dressed the same as before with a little smile on her lips and a beige envelope in her hand. Claire gasped as Nick appeared beside her. “We meet again,” he said to the woman.

“Indeed. A friend has sent you this,” she said, extending the envelope to him. “I wasn’t to give it to you earlier. If I were you, I’d follow those directions straightaway. That is all I know, so don’t inquire more. Ta-ta, then.” She turned away and scurried down the hall.

Claire tugged Nick out into the now empty hallway and whispered, “What does it say?”

They bent close as he pulled a card from the stiff vellum envelope. “It’s a handwritten invitation,” he muttered so quietly that she could hardly hear him. “Our presence is requested, and so on—smart-aleck wording. But here’s his address. I’d love to let the FBI have this, but Lexi comes first.”

As he started to go back into their room, she grabbed his arm and mouthed, “The FBI? Are they in on this?”

“No,” he whispered so quietly she had to read his lips. “But an agent questioned me—grilled me—a couple of years ago over what I knew about the man I used to call ‘Uncle Clay.’ They’re not interested in my father’s death but looking into IRS taxation questions about Ames’s global companies that are under the umbrella of a massive conglomerate called Ames High. I could only tell them I’d tried to track him but he kept moving and lives mostly as an expat now. Let’s get a cab and go see him before he disappears again.”

“With Lexi,” she muttered as they went back into the room to grab their things. She was annoyed he had not told her about the FBI earlier. What else was he hiding? She’d barely glimpsed the so-called printed invitation, but she would read it on the way.

Before they grabbed their gear, they fell into each other’s arms, holding hard. It terrified her to think this might be the last time—if, just maybe, things went wrong. He suddenly held her at arm’s length, almost as if he was thrusting her away. He stared into her teary eyes.

“You will leave here with Lexi, no matter what else happens. I said it before and I mean it now—more than ever.”

* * *

Jace had to move fast when he saw Claire and Nick emerge from the front of the club. His hands shook as he unlocked the chain around his bike. He saw Nick scanning the area, frowning, but he didn’t react as if he recognized him. Was he looking for him or a spy or stalker? It didn’t matter since they waited barely a minute before a brightly colored cab pulled up and they got in. He had to keep up with his motorbike, but at least the cab had to stop a lot, heading back into George Town.

Jace thought Claire looked pale and nervous, but why wouldn’t she? He pictured Lexi, green-eyed like Claire, though she was more blonde than red-haired. Well, strawberry blonde. And she loved strawberry ice cream and her so-called Frozen doll—what a name for a doll. She loved her cousin Jilly, the same age. Yeah, she was as close to Jilly as Claire was to her sister, Jilly’s mom, Darcy. That and his international traveling were reasons he’d never so much as considered trying to take “Princess Alexandra,” alias Lexi, from Claire when they divorced. But if Claire ever married Nick or anyone else, he’d sure sue for equal time with his daughter. But first, they had to get her back.

He swore under his breath as the cab got through an intersection when the light changed but he didn’t. Too many tourists loose in town, taking too long to cross the street, rushing back to their ships. A policeman with a pointed white cap was still holding up his line of traffic.

He revved the bike and stretched as tall as he could, trying to pick out the cab they were in from vehicles one block ahead now. He should have memorized the number on its back, 4-4 something. If they got much farther ahead, he’d have to just guess which private mansion along the area called South Sound they’d gone to, since that’s where it looked like they were headed. He prayed he hadn’t already ruined his chance to help them and save Lexi.

* * *

Claire gazed at the mansions along the South Sound. Some of them reminded her of the massive ones in the Port Royal area of Naples. Even behind privacy walls, they loomed vast, beige-and-white concrete and stucco, some with wood pillars or pastel trim. Their fronts bordered on the canal with boat access. “More like yachts, nuh,” their driver said—you might know, the same driver they’d had before, no doubt someone else on Ames’s payroll. She could see tall masts or an occasional yacht through the spaces between the buildings. The houses’ rears, where she glimpsed an occasional gardener working or a maid putting out the trash or a service or repair truck, faced the road with the South Sound, a lagoon that merged with the blue-green sea. She read on scripted signs lovely names of these huge homes like Golden Pond, Lazy Lagoon, Happy Days, Sea and Sky—and, the one they pulled into through ornate, open wrought iron gates, Nightshade.

Claire squinted, scanning the back garden area within tall walls for any sign of Lexi. A burly man, who wasn’t dressed like a gardener, stood on the other side of a shaded fountain, watching them. Could that be Clayton Ames? No, because Nick glared at the man but didn’t react.

As they got out—the driver said he’d already been paid—Claire noted the well-kept grass and flowers. The fountain in the shape of a huge, fluted clamshell dominated the area and the wind blew spray onto the surrounding plants.

As the cabbie drove away, Claire tugged on Nick’s arm. “See those tall, purplish, trumpetlike flowers around the fountain where that man is standing? They’re called deadly nightshade, and their berries are poison.”

“Not now, Claire.”

“I did a report on poison plants in college. That can cause hallucinations and seizures if you eat it, so watch it if he offers food here.”

“I don’t think he brought us here to poison us—not that way anyhow.”

Her heart pounded so hard that she feared she’d collapse from the cataplexy she controlled through her meds. That debilitating disease was linked to the narcolepsy she’d struggled with for years. She had to be ever vigilant in highly charged, emotional situations, and she couldn’t think of anything much worse than this. Her knees went weak when she had to stay strong.

“Well then, what part of it is poison?” he asked quietly when she’d thought he didn’t want to hear more.

“Roots, leaves, berries—everything. There’s an old legend that the plant belongs to the devil who trims and tends it. Its Latin name comes from one of the three Fates in mythology—can’t recall her name—the one who cuts the cord of each person’s life to bring death at the time and manner of her choosing.”

“Well, isn’t this the perfect place for Clayton Ames then?” he muttered, putting his arm around her waist.

“I’m all right,” she said, pulling slightly back from him. She couldn’t go in to face Ames leaning on Nick.

As he raised his hand to knock on the back door, it opened as if by magic, but of course they had been watched again. A short, handsome, white-haired man with pale blue eyes stood there. He was nattily dressed in white slacks and a navy golf shirt. He wore an expensive-looking gold watch. She couldn’t guess his age; he could be anywhere from fifty to eighty. His tanned facial skin was tight and unwrinkled but for the crinkled corners of his narrow eyes. He radiated friendliness, so this could not be Clayton Ames.

Claire was expecting at least a butler, but the man broke into a white-toothed smile and said, “Nicky, welcome. It’s been so long, my boy. And, of course, Claire, Lexi’s mother. Nicky and I go way back, but I’ve so wanted to meet you. Please step in, and let’s have a chat before we get down to business.”

So this man was Ames after all. Of course it was, because Nick had described him as deceptive and slick. And the man’s comment about he and “Nicky” going way back was no doubt a veiled reference to those horrible days when Ames murdered—so Nick believed—Nick’s father. Yes, Nick was right: this man was dangerous and demented.

Neither man extended his hand. Nick looked carved from stone. Ames clapped him on his shoulder and reached for Claire’s hand. She was expecting his touch to be cold, but he felt very warm.

“Welcome to Nightshade,” Clayton Ames said, “my home away from home.”

* * *

Jace was furious. He’d lost them, screwed everything up. A row of mansions stretched out here. He saw traffic on this so-called South Sound Road but no cabs. Ordinarily, he’d just call Nick or Claire on his cell, but they’d decided it would be too risky to use phones here. Besides, Nick and Claire could be with Ames now and no way they could take a call. If someone tracked it, that would give his backup presence away.

Then he saw a cab pulling out onto the road from down the way. Yes. Yes! When it passed him as it headed back toward town, he saw part of its ID number was 4-4. Thank God! It had evidently dropped Claire and Nick off and was leaving.

But when he got to the property labeled Nightshade, he didn’t see any way to go in without being spotted. Besides, a burly man was looking his way from the other side of wrought iron gates as they automatically closed. As Jace buzzed by, that man was joined by yet another. He’d have to circle back to the For Sale property he’d seen, go through there to the canal and walk back to Nightshade, or at least close enough to case it. Nightshade seemed a strange name, he thought, but the moon could throw some shade at night.

He went a little farther down the road, then circled back. Near the For Sale house, he pretended his motorbike had quit in case anyone was watching. He rolled it up to the wooden gate, but that was locked, so he pushed the bike between the security fence and the neighbor’s white concrete wall, then chained it to another grate over a first-floor window.

Since most of the living areas of these big homes faced the canal rather than the expanse of water across the road, he strolled out to the canal and ambled along it, counting the houses until he reached the fifth. He saw some serious boat flesh, as he called luxury watercraft. He stopped before he could be spotted from Nightshade two properties down—or he hoped so, because he didn’t want to tangle with those beefy guards. At least there appeared to be no fences back here.

Until it was dark tonight—and he was doomed if these places had watchdogs—he’d better retrace his steps to the beach just across the road and watch from there. At least he’d be able to tell if Ames moved Claire, Lexi or Nick. That strip of sand and some rocks had other people around so he could blend in, even if there weren’t the big numbers like on Seven Mile Beach.

Leaving his bike locked where it was hidden between the two houses, he crossed the road and strolled down the beach, back toward Nightshade. A couple of families sat on the sand or waded in the water; it reminded him of better times when he and Claire had taken Lexi to the beach by the Naples pier. Kids screeched and ran free. Pretty far down the beach, one kid in a straw hat was flying a kite with two women who might be mothers or nannies. But he turned his eyes back to the row of mansions, scanning Nightshade for any sign of Claire or Nick or even Lexi.

* * *

Claire gazed aghast at the interior of the mansion. Nothing graced the longest wall in the high-beamed great room but a row of large, lighted fish tanks at eye level. She wondered if Lexi was imprisoned somewhere in this house. It made her want to rip the ceilings, floors and walls apart.

As if they’d come to see his aquariums, Clayton Ames was talking in a maddeningly calm voice about “his babies,” the tropical fish, evidently captured from Caribbean waters. If he could talk about his “babies,” couldn’t she ask about hers? But she followed Nick’s lead to merely look interested—watchful, at least—while waiting to see what Ames’s next move would be. This all had to mean something, to lead somewhere, but it was pure torture.

“The world may be dog-eat-dog,” Ames said as he peered into a tank and rapped on the glass with his well-manicured fingernails, “but in here it’s fish-eat-fish.” His nails were fairly long for a man’s—devil’s claws, she thought, feeling sick to her stomach. “You know, people make a big mistake when they think fish are unintelligent and unresponsive pets. They are capable of learning, and I like to study their behavior—which, of course, is key in your career, Claire.”

She started to say something—she wasn’t sure what—when Nick said, “I imagine you look at people in the same way, Clayton. Aren’t all these tanks difficult to take with you when you move about, or do ‘your babies’ stay here?”

“Like my immediate staff, they go where I go. The fish may seem antisocial or destructive but from their point of view, they are being constructive,” he added, pointing to another tank where a large, lovely specimen was hiding behind a coral rock, evidently lying in wait for its prey. But when it lunged and snatched, at least, it was not at another fish but a piece of floating food.

Usually, Claire was mesmerized by aquarium fish, but it was hardly calming this time. If she wasn’t so strung out, waiting for a mention of Lexi—to see Lexi—she would have tried to psych this maniac out. What made him tick besides control of others and his ruthless pursuit of wealth and power? What made that ticking bomb explode?

But she could not stand it one moment more. “Fish doing what comes naturally is one thing, but doing what comes naturally to a mother is worrying about her child,” she said, steeling herself to look directly into the man’s pale blue eyes.

“I understand, of course, and we will get to that directly. She is being well taken care of. She has some kindly companions with her and is having a fine time, I assure you.”

“But how—” Claire started before he held up a palm toward her as if stopping traffic.

“You will see and soon,” Ames said.

Nick said, “I’m surprised you don’t have piranhas here.”

“Very clever, Nicky. But a bit heavy-handed, don’t you think? I prefer a more subtle approach. See that fish flaring its gills?” he said, gazing at the glassed-in fish again. His reflection made it look like a twin stared out at them from a watery mirror. “Watch as it opens its mouth wide, making what is termed a ‘frontal threat display.’ But that can be misinterpreted. In some species that aggressive posture is actually a courtship display. So please, let’s sit on the second-floor lanai, have a drink and talk business without any misunderstandings or antagonism. You see, you have both challenged me cleverly and carefully just now, and I appreciate your spirit.”

This man was delusional, Claire thought. Did he believe he could control others like this? And yet, wasn’t she being delusional to think they had a chance to defy him? She would do almost anything this man asked right now to get Lexi back.

Nick spoke again. “We would appreciate no frontal threats.”

Ames chuckled, and Claire shivered. What sort of business deal was this horrible man going to propose? Surely, not that Nick give up his life for Lexi’s. The handwritten summons here to Nightshade had been worded so formally, almost like a wedding or reception invitation would have been. She’d kept it to perhaps analyze his handwriting later—if there was to be a later. But whatever this man’s game, she had to keep calm and go along. Nick was right that he loved to torment people. He was poison, washed down with sips and gulps of his pseudo kindly presence.

He led them up a curving staircase to a large second-floor deck with a stunning view of the emerald South Sound lagoon that seemed to merge with the glittering sea. They sat in woven wicker chairs around a glass-topped table in the shade of a white umbrella. From this broad balcony, Claire could see people on the beach. A few were swimming or walking in the waves. A girl in a pretty yellow dress and flopping straw hat flew a red kite while her companions cheered and clapped.

A tray of what appeared to be tall glasses of iced tea and pink lemonade awaited them. Ames took an iced tea and raised it to them as if giving a toast.

“To your happiness, both of you and Lexi in the future,” he told them.

Neither of them reached for a drink, but Ames ignored that and went on, “And, Nicky, I commend you on managing your frustration and temper, and to have chosen such a great woman as your fiancée, who doesn’t demand her daughter back at once.”

“Fiancée? Claire and I are not engaged.”

“Really? If you want Lexi back, I rather thought you’d both agree to be more than engaged—that is if you wish to live happily ever after. Lexi’s excited about your wedding, and I am too.”

Claire, who had sat frozen at the mention of marriage, gasped, but Nick choked out, “Wedding?”

“Here, this evening. With Lexi as flower girl. She’s been so excited to hear you sent her down ahead to have a good time and help me make plans for the ceremony tonight. It’s quite easy to get a license and a celebrant for tourists here, you know, so I’ve taken that upon myself. We’ll have an intimate reception afterward, and the three of you can be on your way tomorrow, though I’d be honored if you’d spend your wedding night here. Your beach hotel is paid up for a week, if you’d like to stay there. Though children aren’t usually part of a honeymoon, I’m sure you’d rather have Lexi with you than with me.”

Still in shock, Claire sucked in another sharp breath. Nick just gaped at him. He obviously had not seen that coming—just the opposite. But it all made sense to Claire. Her pulse started to pound, and she flushed prickly hot. Nick had not married so he didn’t have to worry about protecting a family from this horrible man. But Ames had discovered that Nick now cared about someone who had an only child who meant the world to her. That meant Nick had a new weak spot, and once Nick had married her, Ames would have three people to torment and control, not just one.

But Ames had just said Lexi was with two women, and she’d seen that girl on the beach, who had actually reminded her of Lexi...

Claire vaulted from her chair and leaned over the edge of the beige concrete balcony. She squinted into the stiff sea breeze. Yes! Yes, so close and yet so far. At a distance, in that dress, with strange women! Claire didn’t mean to make a sound, but she heard herself scream, “Lexi! Lexi! Lexi!”

4

“My, aren’t you a clever girl, but Lexi can’t hear you from here,” Ames said as he came to stand beside Claire, and Nick rushed to the balcony to stare outward. “It’s too far, and the breeze is in the wrong direction to carry your voice. But I assure you, Lexi, with her companions, will disappear before you can even cross the road if you two don’t sign on my dotted line. When you do, of course, we’ll get Lexi back so she can prepare—like all of us—for a lovely, private wedding this evening. I’ve had a cake and the attire ordered. Now, don’t disappoint the child, as she’s tried her pretty frock on already and practiced carrying the rings on a little pillow. I’m sure you’ll like those too.”

Nick stood silent. He covered Claire’s trembling hand with his where she still gripped the balcony. The red kite had taken a dive into the sand, and her two companions were running after Lexi toward it.

“I just love surprises,” Ames said, clapping his hands. “Oh, and Nicky, there’s more to it for you than just saying ‘I do.’ Let’s you and I chat about that while I send for Lexi to be brought here for a little future family reunion—or not. What do you say, my boy?”

“I say I’m not your boy and never was. That you and I are not finished over this or—or the other matter between us.”

“Finished? I hope not. I have another profitable offer to make, which I’m certain you will take. You see, I need your promise to work for me as well as to wed the lovely Claire. You’re a fine attorney, just as your father was, and I have a particular case for you to oversee. Why, your future wife, clever forensic psychologist that she is, may be able to help with it too. Because as long as you win that case for me, there won’t be a worry in the world about Lexi or your future. Let’s step inside, and I’ll explain more. Ah, isn’t it a lovely day for a wedding, even an evening one? We’ll have it right here in moonlight and candlelight with a view of the lagoon and the sea, so romantic.”

For the first time in her life, Claire understood murder as a crime of passion. Her head was spinning. Was this a dream or a nightmare? At least Lexi was alive and ran free and in her sights—for now.

“If you want to talk to Nick,” she said to Ames, “can I just stand here and watch Lexi until you send for her?”

“Why, of course. And while I do that, I’ll have the housemaid Jemma come out to keep you company.” He patted her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch and yet she had to obey him at least until they got Lexi back and got out of here. She prayed Nick would agree to anything and everything this man said—because that’s exactly what she was going to do.

“Oh, Claire,” Ames said, as he followed a grim Nick to the door to go back inside, “I should assure you that, although Lexi was surprised at first that my man who picked her up at your home was not her daddy, she adapted quite well when my people told her the happy surprise you and your betrothed had planned for her. She understands that you two needed time to plan the wedding. Also, I believe she calls you Mr. Nick, doesn’t she, my boy? We told her that her new stepfather would be a big part of her life but that she could still see her daddy. That is, if he doesn’t hurt himself flying all over the Caribbean, right?”

He turned away, but Claire glimpsed Nick’s expression of shock that Ames must know Jace had come down here too. They were doomed, she thought. But she’d marry Nick, keep it in name only, a partnership until they could stop this devil—someday, somehow.

* * *

“Look, Clayton,” Nick said the moment they sat down in facing black leather club chairs in his darkly paneled den, “I’ll do what you say, but can’t you leave Claire and Lexi out of it?”

“I’ve seen via lovely photographs how much you like Claire and evidently want her. Well, what red-blooded bachelor would not? No, you need to marry Claire, and I need her and your darling new stepdaughter for insurance that you will do as I ask on a particular local matter of great importance to me and my business affairs.”

“Local? You want a lawyer to try a case here in Grand Cayman?”

“Hardly. You don’t have the credentials or the clout here as you do in Collier County. No, this is a case local to you near Naples I need to have you take and win for me. I believe you’ll realize why you’d be the ideal attorney on this. And well-paid, of course, so you and your new family can get a very nice home.”

“One with your listening devices and hidden cameras built right in.”

Ames ignored that and went on, “Once you hear me out, you’ll want to do this not only for me.”

“For keeping my new wife and stepdaughter safe, you mean.”

“My, you’re paranoid. You don’t have what they call a wire on you, do you, Nicky?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“You’re not stupid at all, which is why I want you to work for me. I was quite annoyed when I found you’d traced the name of my offshore company, Ames High, which stores my resources here in Grand Cayman as well as in a few other places in Europe and Asia. Now that you are working with me, I absolutely expect you to keep that a secret, especially not to share it with any US agencies that may inquire.”

Nick’s stomach went into free fall. He tried not to show surprise, for why should anything shock him with this man? Could Ames know the FBI had interviewed him and that the IRS was on his tail? He said nothing, but met the older man’s eyes with a steady stare. Those cold, pale blue eyes: Nick was certain he had either pulled the trigger of the gun that killed his father or hired the man who did. He clearly recalled his father telling him that “Uncle Clay” was going to stop by that night.

Ames leaned forward in his chair, elbows propped on his knees. It took all the restraint Nick had not to launch himself at the man, to pound him to pieces.

“Nick,” he said, finally dropping the silly Nicky, “I need you to defend your friend Chet Hazelton from Goodland in a Collier County court, a criminal case.”

“A criminal case? He goes by Haze, you know.”

“I do know. I know a lot about him.”

“Then with all your spies, listening devices and drones, you realize I have other cases that need my attention. What’s he done? He’s a longtime friend, and I’d work pro bono for him. But I believe he has money flowing in, thanks to your leasing his Fountain of Youth water supply for your so-called health drink Youth Do, as well as the cosmetic firm Fresh Dew corporations.”

“I’m honored how closely you follow my career and my gifts to mankind through those excellent products. Now, Nick, sadly, my friend and yours, Haze Hazelton, is in dire straits.”

“Is he being sued for that phony water you use and promote? You have to know that spring his family has owned for years, though it may be worth megamillions, is bogus.”

“Nick, Nick. I’d have to sue you for slander and libel if you ever said that in public, but I need you to say just the opposite. I know you’ve kept your mouth shut for years since your friend believes in his sparkling waters. Worse, you simply must keep up with current events in your own backyard, so to speak. Our mutual friend Haze has something bigger to face. A dreadful murder occurred in Goodland yesterday, and he is the number one suspect, though the police haven’t arrested him yet.”

Nick sucked in a breath. “I—I didn’t know.”

“Quite simply, he’ll need you to defend him. I’m sure he’s been calling your office. He could be arrested any day now for, as they say on TV, murder one.”

“Who’s he accused of killing?”

Ames ignored that and went on, “And when you do defend him in the media or the public venue of the court, be sure to extol the virtues and the claim that the Goodland water’s curative and youth-giving powers are valid and that my products are not only health-giving but anti-aging. You see, the person he’s accused of killing said just the opposite.”

Nick snorted. Though he’d let Haze have his pipe dream, he’d always figured the miraculous water was all hype and lies. Scientists were on his side that the $292 billion global industry of turning back time in the human body was mostly smoke and mirrors. Desperate Americans were anti-aging crazy, and that was driving the sales of any new book, supplement, food or drink that held the promise of eternal health and life. And the government only controlled meds and food, so that meant the selling of water or cosmetic products that were mostly water was outside their jurisdiction.

Nick asked, “I repeat, he’s likely to be accused of killing whom?”

“I assume you’re familiar with that mouthy rebel Mark Stirling, owner-editor of the Marco Island newspaper, The Burrowing Owl, rag that it is. It’s been attacking Haze’s claim that the spring he owns is indeed Ponce de León’s fountain, instead of that one in St. Augustine. But, you see, that’s the same as attacking my company’s claims and my reputation. Before his sad demise, Stirling had even—let’s say—‘burrowed’ his way into probing my offshore profits from the Dew and Do corporations, just when they are starting to take off big-time with the huge Gen-X and millennial markets as well as the aging baby boomers.”

“Haze wouldn’t kill anyone. I’ve known him for years.”

“Precisely, and you can defend him well and get him to avoid a silly expose-the-false-advertising case. Keep your Markwood, Benton and Chase law firm going, but on this case you and your firm will really be working for me—as a priority. That way you and yours, as they say, won’t be endangered like the poor, vulnerable little fish sometimes eaten in my aquariums.”

Again, Nick had to fight to keep from vaulting out of his chair and pounding Ames. But he knew a guard would rush in, and Claire and Lexi would suffer too.

“So, do we have a deal?” Ames asked. “For the wedding and your loyalty to me in the Goodland case?” He extended his hand.

“Do I have a choice? But that’s how you play the game.”

“Nick, it’s not a game. I’m deadly, deadly serious.”

“Did one of your spies or hit men kill Stirling? I’ve always known you killed my father, but you operate through others now. You had everything to lose if this Stirling probed deeper and turned up your offshore accounts.”

“How insulting and outrageous. Although Haze hasn’t been arrested yet since Stirling had other enemies, I expect you and your clever little forensic psychologist bride can ferret out enough other suspects to muddy the police investigation waters. Meanwhile, after your nuptials, you might want to read the Naples Daily News online for today. I believe they’re dubbing Stirling’s sad demise the Mangrove Murder, since his battered body was wedged under mangrove roots not far from that precious ‘fountain of youth.’ Nick, win that case for your friend Haze Hazelton—and for me.”

Hating this man, hating himself and the trap he was in, Nick thrust out his hand and they shook on it. No contract, though Ames had earlier mentioned signing on the dotted line. He must have meant the marriage license.

* * *

When she heard Ames’s voice behind her, Claire finally turned away from gazing at Lexi. Nick followed him out onto the balcony, which another housemaid was already setting up for the wedding with a long, damask-covered buffet table and an arched trellis under which they’d take their vows. Unbelievable. She cared for Nick and he cared for her but not to this degree, at least not yet. They’d have to come to an understanding, to set some rules. How well did she really know the man she was expected to live with, sleep with? A forced marriage, a different sort of shotgun wedding.

“Boring business all concluded,” Ames said with a clap of his hands, and a tight smile. “I’m sure your intended will share with you later what we intend, Claire.” He chuckled at his play on words again. “And,” he went on, “I’ve just sent someone to bring Lexi over so we can move on to wedding plans.”

She noted a man in casual clothes, big-shouldered and tall, walking toward Lexi and the women, though she wasn’t sure where he’d emerged from. Not this house while she was standing here. Did Ames have this entire property surrounded by guards?

She squinted through the sinking sun to her right side, still trying to keep an eye on Lexi. At least they hadn’t locked her up or, from the looks of it, terrified her. The Disney world of princesses and fairies was still real to her at times, so why not a Cinderella fantasy that her mother would marry Prince Nick in a distant land called Grand Cayman?

“Good,” she finally said to Ames. “Nick, is everything decided?”

Ames answered for him. “It is, and he can explain it all to you later. We have only about an hour before the celebrant will be here to have you sign the special visitor’s marriage license to make things legal in the British territory. Needless to say, the Caymans are often a destination wedding site, and this lovely event is one of my gifts to you. The dresses and Nick’s suit are laid out in bedrooms on this level, and I’ll bring Lexi right in to see you, Claire. I’m sure both of you, bride and groom, will say the appropriate vows and answer any questions from the celebrant to his—and my—satisfaction. And that includes calling me Paul Kilcorse this evening, not Clayton Ames.”

Nick merely nodded. No wonder, Claire thought, Nick and his tech team hadn’t been able to trace or locate him here. In Grand Cayman, Clayton Ames didn’t exist.

“Jemma,” Ames said, turning to the woman who had silently watched Claire, “please escort the bride to her room. Oh, and I’m pleased to say, Nick, now that things are settled between us after all these years, I will stand as your best man this evening, while Lexi does double duty for Claire. After all, now that you are working for and answer to me, I am your best man.”

As he turned away, Ames again chuckled at his own lame joke. Nick shot Claire a quick look she couldn’t read. Did it say, I’m sorry or At least we’ll all survive this—or I do love you, despite everything?

As Nick followed Ames into the house, Claire turned again to gaze out at the beach. The two women were bringing the kite and Lexi back toward the house, trailed by the man. Lexi was barefoot beneath that yellow, flowered dress. Despite the straw hat, Claire hoped they’d put sunscreen on her. She wanted to throw herself off this balcony, to run to her.

“Miss Claire, come on,” Jemma urged from behind her. “We do what he say.”

“I’ll bet,” Claire muttered. She started to turn away, but her eye caught something else besides the people on the sand with Lexi. A grungy-looking guy with a pronounced limp and stooped posture was following them at a distance. Another guard? But no—it looked like Jace’s body build despite the slouch and lack of well-cut clothes. Still, she couldn’t tell his hair or eye color.

But the closer he got, the clearer the image became and Claire realized, yes, Jace was here! He’d made it and he was close! He’d seen Lexi but at least he knew not to just try to grab her. And he was hanging back, maybe so Lexi wouldn’t see him. Or else he finally saw the power and evil of the man who owned Nightshade—and, right now, owned them.

5

Claire burst into tears when Lexi came alone into the bedroom with a stuffed green cloth turtle in her arms. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” she cried and ran to her. Claire knelt to her height and covered her face with kisses.

“Are you all right?” Claire asked. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

“I was scared when I saw the man wasn’t Daddy. But I’m going to be in your wedding!” she shouted as Claire held her. “But won’t Aunt Darcy and Jilly be mad they can’t come? I asked Mr. Kilcorse if they could, but he said not now because they are going to see friends in Sarasota tomorrow. Isn’t that something that he knew that? Mommy, why are you crying?”

“Just so happy to see you!” Claire choked out, hugging her harder. But she felt even more distraught to realize Ames’s web could extend to her sister and her family.

“I saw the pretty dress I’m going to wear,” Lexi chattered on as Claire held her at arm’s length to look her over. “Oh, there it is on this bed, next to yours, see?” Claire had hardly looked at the stunning pale silk bridal dress lying next to one in a matching color for a flower girl.

“Yes, I see,” was all she managed.

“I like light blue! It fits me good. This turtle is mine too. And Eleanor and Ginger gave me this yellow dress, and Jemma let me eat lots of ice cream.”

“So they treated you really well? The ladies and Mr. Kilcorse too?”

“He said he is kind of Mr. Nick’s uncle. These people you hired are real nice. I didn’t like that man who grabbed me, but he ’splained it all real fast. And guess what? There was a lady named Lucille hiding in the backseat that took good care of me. She talked funny. She said she was from England. We got on an airplane, but not a real big one like Daddy flies. And when we got to the Car-been, and Lucille went back to Florida on another plane, I practiced with your and Mr. Nick’s rings on a pillow for the wedding. Yours has a big diamond, Mommy! Tied with a ribbon, so I won’t drop them, ’cause it’s like a slippery pillow.”

“Yes, yes, fine,” Claire said, finally letting go of her to wipe away tears. So much said. Thank God, they hadn’t hurt her. Ames had someone who resembled Jace. Could that have been him on the beach and not Jace? She bet the woman from England was the one on their plane and at their hotel door. Then there were the two with Lexi on the beach—Eleanor and Ginger. And Jemma. How many guards and spies did Ames have working for him here?

“But did you tell Daddy?” Lexi suddenly demanded, hands on her skinny hips. “I mean about this lope-ment wedding? I like secrets, like Mr. Kilcorse’s name is really Mr. Clayton Ames, ’cause I overheard him talking to another man about that. You know, like in that Disney movie, Mulan. Daddy told me he wants us to be a family again, but we can’t if Mr. Nick is my new daddy, can we? I don’t think my first daddy will be happy!”

Claire’s rising panic kicked up another notch. What else had Lexi overheard here? And if she blurted things out, would Ames try to keep her or silence her?

“Lexi, that’s too much to talk about right now. Later, okay? We’ll talk later.”

Claire hugged her daughter to her. She had Lexi back but at what price for her and Nick? And Jace.

* * *

As Claire stood with Nick under the trellis on the balcony to take their vows, she had to admit that the setting for the wedding was beautiful. And, at least she and Nick were still alive and she—they—had Lexi back and would be able to leave soon. She glanced at Nick standing so close, holding her hand. He looked stoic but fuming. Trying to control her trembling, she gazed out toward the darkness of the night again. The staff had been assembled except for the property guards she’d seen when they first arrived. The so-called celebrant was reading the marriage vows she and Nick repeated. She tried to calm herself, but thoughts and fears ate at her as she responded.

The celebrant was a midsixties, gray-haired, distinguished-looking judge whom Ames—alias Paul Kilcorse—not only knew but seemed quite tight with. So had he really put a fake name over on him, or was the judge on the take like the staff and guards here?

Worse, earlier Claire had learned the other price Nick must pay to get them out of here. Before they had separated to shower and change prior to the ceremony, Nick had stopped her in the hall near the room where Lexi was waiting. He’d whispered, “You know that friend of mine, Chet Hazelton, I told you about on Goodland—the guy whose family’s had that old artesian well that’s locally rumored to be the real fountain of youth? The local papers do occasional articles on it.”

“You mean that water that’s in the Youth Do drink and some kind of face cream? That new Marco Island paper’s been attacking that.”

He seized her hands in his. “Haze Hazelton’s been accused of murdering Mark Stirling, that Marco journalist who’s always stirring things up. Ames wants me to defend Haze—and tout the anti-aging products very publicly because they’re part of his conglomerate. I had to swear I would. But despite this all being blackmail and forced on me—on us—I do care for you. I promise, we will work together. Let’s remember how we really feel and get through this, get out of here, sift things out between us, even if he still controls—”

“Mommy, why are you whispering in the hall?” a little voice had cried through the cracked door. “We have to get our pretty dresses on!”

Ignoring that outburst, Nick had kissed Claire’s cheek, and they’d held tight. When he’d hurried to his room and Claire had gone into hers, Lexi had said, “I can see you love Mr. Nick. Should I call him Daddy too or Daddy number two? Mr. Nick doesn’t sound so good anymore, does it?”

Claire bit her lower lip before she answered, “Let’s all talk about it later—after the wedding and reception. When we leave here.”

Now, here during the wedding ceremony, Claire knew that Ames had one of his lackeys—the one she’d first seen in the yard by the fountain—recording everything on video, and there was an occasional click and flash of a cell phone camera or two. Would Ames give them remembrances of this forced ceremony for posterity?

She tried to concentrate on the lovely surroundings again rather than the service itself. The palm trees in the yard, with their fronds at this level, swayed and sighed. The cup of sky beyond the beach seemed set with pavé diamonds, like the ones in the stunning wedding ring she’d just accepted. It felt heavy on her finger, but you might know, it fit. She’d almost dropped Nick’s band when she’d slid it on his hand. They were about halfway through their vows. An Anglican Church ceremony, no less. What did God think of this sham of a service?

The wind had shifted, and she could hear the crash of distant surf on the south shore. She was a bit dizzy, so the full moon seemed to roll along the invisible, watery horizon like a huge, watchful eye. It threw a lighted, trembling path across the tops of the waves. If only she, Nick and Lexi could escape on that to safety.

Here on the balcony, the moon, candle glow and lighted torchères not only illumined the scene but kept the bugs away. She was continually aware of Clayton Ames, standing on Nick’s other side. If she shot a glance sideways, it seemed that devil’s dark silhouette was etched by fire.

She jolted alert again, forcing herself back to this strange reality. After a prayer, Nick said his vows, and then it was her turn.

“Claire Fowler Britten, will you take Nicholas James Markwood to be your husband? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and protect him, and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

She hesitated a moment. Nick squeezed her hand. Ames cleared his throat. Nick had readily said his part.

But she wanted to refuse. She cared deeply for Nick, wanted to help him, was grateful to him. Was that enough for ever-after? She glanced down at the single orchid on the now empty pillow Lexi held. Ames had given the child a nosegay to carry too, four nightshade blooms, but Claire had thrown them under the tablecloth and fished an orchid out of the punch bowl for her, and the satin pillow was speckled with pink. Rebellion rose in her.

But fear and caution made her answer, “I will.”

She could smell fragrant nightshade blossoms mingled with the sea air. They seemed to crowd around her from her bouquet and trellis, into which someone had woven the stems of the pale blue blooms. She’d taken all those flowers as a warning. Clayton Ames was poison, and he wanted them to remember that.

The celebrant began reading a prayer from the book he held. The final words in the ceremony that had legally joined her and Nick rang out as he addressed Ames and his staff who stood in a half circle around them. “Will you, friends of Nicholas and Claire, support and uphold them in their marriage now and in the years to come?”

“We will!” everyone—strangers and enemies all—declared. Did this intelligent-looking judge not at least sense this was all a fake? But if he was Ames’s puppet, it hardly mattered.

“I therefore proclaim that they are husband and wife till death do them part,” he announced with a big smile. “Nicholas, you may kiss your bride.”

He kissed her cheek lightly and whispered for her ears only, “Later.” People applauded. The deed was done. Now they faced a reception, in a place she’d never seen before a few hours ago here in the devil’s lair with his minions. She glanced down at the wedding ring on her finger, a large, emerald-cut diamond with smaller diamonds on the band. It looked more like an engagement ring than a wedding band.

Someone behind her called out, “Happy honeymoon!”

Insane! She was terrified. And she knew there would be no real honeymoon, and certainly no happily-ever-after.

* * *

With his motorbike, Jace waited in the darkness of South Sound beach for a car to emerge from Nightshade. Surely, Nick had met Clayton Ames’s price by now and Claire and Lexi would be sent home. If he could intercept them safely somewhere, he’d fly them home himself. Jace hoped Nick wasn’t hurt by all this, but Claire and Lexi were his first concern. If he could help—yeah, even rescue Nick—he would.

As different as this was, he remembered a night near Ramadi in 2006 when he’d had to bail out of his fighter jet over pitch-black terrain, real die-in-the-desert Iraqi territory. But thank God for his comrades’ motto to leave no man behind, because a Black Hawk chopper saw his flare before the enemy did.

He wished he had a sort of flare as backup now. The hair stood up on the nape of his neck, and he shivered. However this tropical place was different from the desert, the odds were great: no way he’d leave Claire and Lexi behind in enemy hands. But just who was the enemy? This cloak-and-dagger Clayton Ames or Nick himself? Had he set this up to scare and seduce Claire?

He jolted when the driveway gates opened and a car came out; its headlights sliced across the sand near him. But it was driven by an older gray-haired man who appeared to be alone. Praying Claire and Lexi weren’t hidden in the backseat—or even the trunk—he hunkered down and waited, watching the car’s taillights. The vehicle drove only a couple of houses toward George Town, then turned in. Jace toyed with the idea of going after the driver and questioning him. He had to be an ally of Ames’s, but Jace figured he’d better just camp out here.

Some sort of party was going on up on the second-floor balcony, but the chatter wasn’t loud enough to decipher. The noise seemed stilted—jerky at times, a silence followed by forced conversation. At this angle, he couldn’t see people unless they walked right up to the edge of the balcony. He’d seen Nick once, since he was so tall, but he couldn’t spot Claire or certainly Lexi, so were they still inside? Not knowing what was happening was driving him nuts. Could that be a celebration for Lexi’s reunion with Claire? But who were the guests?

Finally, one of the women who had been with Lexi earlier on the beach emerged from the downstairs driveway gate and started to walk back toward town. She was the older woman of the two, the one with silvery hair in a bouncing braid halfway down her back. If she was just a worker at Nightshade, maybe he could pretend to be a passerby and ask her what the party was for. He couldn’t risk alarming her, but he’d love to question her.

He lifted his bike from the sand and, walking it along to keep from making noise, followed her.

6

After the ceremony, Nick stuck tight to Claire and Lexi as the guests mingled, enjoying champagne and food. Lexi was already working on a bowl of strawberry ice cream. He stood with a drink in one hand and his arm around Claire’s waist. She leaned slightly into him. She looked as shell-shocked as he felt.

Silver trays of hot and cold seafood and a decorated two-layer cake adorned the buffet table. He thought the reception was elegant but as bogus as the anti-aging claims of Fresh Dew and Youth Do. As far as he was concerned, this was a party for Ames’s extensive local and permanent staff, mostly, as far as he could tell, bodyguards, accountants and domestics.

He knew none of the guests except Ames. Their celebrant had hit-and-run, so to speak. Just as well, although Nick had been hoping to ferret out from him whether it was easy to live in grand style on Grand Cayman under a phony name. If Ames thought he’d broken Nick’s spirit and made him into a robot who would forget his father’s murder and how Ames toyed with the lives of others, he was dead wrong.

Nick stuck to wine instead of the martinis Ames was drinking at a steady pace. His brain was already on overdrive. He not only had to protect Claire and Lexi, but he wanted to be part of their lives. He always kept an eye on Ames, so last year he’d researched Ames High, Inc.’s products that used the supposed fountain of youth. He’d also done some work on what reputable doctors—not the ones making millions from phony claims—said about the water from the well on a small piece of Marco Island land that Haze had inherited. The site had actually been mentioned in Ponce de León’s sailing log from the sixteenth century. But the water was anti-aging only in that it was fresh and great-tasting from a deep aquifer, and water was good for people. Truth in advertising? No way.

Somehow, some way, he was going to defend Haze, keep his new little family safe, but beat Ames at his own game.

“A toast to the bride and groom,” Ames said, lifting his martini glass. Guests raised crystal goblets of champagne and cut-glass tumblers of stiffer stuff. Nick forced a smile while Claire nodded and stooped to whisper something to Lexi. He wished he could whisper to Claire without all these ears and eyes.

When Claire stood, he put his arm around her waist again and steered her over to look at the cake as an excuse to get away from Ames. He wanted to assure her that, from now on, he was making decisions—he was going to change their hotel room, get tickets to fly them home, assert himself with Ames, even though he’d promised to do his bidding. He wanted to tell her that he valued her, that they would make key choices together. But, you might know, Ames was right behind them.

“That’s a local wedding cake, so it’s a bit different,” he told them, pointing. “It’s more like the consistency of a fruitcake. Well, we all have to learn to like new things, right? It’s called heavy cake here, quite an island delicacy. What’s in it again, Ginger?” he asked the beautiful, chocolate-skinned woman overseeing the buffet table.

“Coconut, sugar, breadfruit, spices. No flour or eggs,” she told them with a slight smile, “but cassava instead to hold it all together. Mr. Kilcorse,” she addressed Ames, “Eleanor felt funny, so she went to her car, at the other house where she works, to get her medicine.”

“Felt funny? She’s not sick, is she?”

Ginger shrugged. “I can cut the cake instead of her.”

“Actually, Mr. Kilcorse,” Nick said, “as nice as this all is, I’d like to take Claire and Lexi back to our hotel to get some rest. I have new responsibilities now, as you know, so we’re going home tomorrow. I’m sure your staff will enjoy the evening even more than we have.”

“Ah, but Lexi’s been having such a good time. And haven’t we all?”

Nick and Ames stared at each other. Claire, God bless her, stood steady by his side, though she’d been trembling earlier. In the heels she wore, she was slightly taller than Ames, and Nick towered over the man. For one moment, he was sure that bothered the bastard, but what a tiny victory.

“Well,” Ames said, as if he’d blinked first in a staring contest, “of course, I understand how hectic this has all been. And it is your wedding night. Nick, I send you out to take no risks, but to do your duty, as they say. I’m pleased I could stand in for your father tonight. He would have been proud of you too and of your lovely wife and stepdaughter.”

That was almost the last straw. Nick wanted to deck his father’s murderer, the murderer he now worked for and had to find a way to outsmart and stop.

* * *

Jace began to whistle, because he didn’t want to startle the woman from Ames’s mansion who walked ahead of him. When she evidently heard his fast footsteps and turned to look at him in the moonlight, he said, “Hi! Sorry if I startled you. Wow, that’s some party goin’ on up there, isn’t it? How’s a guy going to sleep on the beach with all that noise and those lights?”

“Oh, ya,” she said, starting to walk again. “Mr. Kilcorse’s house.”

Her accent made her sound German. But Mr. Kilcorse’s house? Could he have been watching the wrong mansion? He thought he’d seen which driveway the cab that delivered Claire and Nick had come out of. No, he’d seen Nick up on the balcony so either Ames was using someone else’s house or a different name.

“I thought that was Clayton Ames’s place,” he told her, pushing the motorbike faster to keep up. “I know a guy who works for him,” he added, making things up as he went. “I thought maybe I could get a job too.” He could tell she looked confused, nervous. He didn’t want a scene here or her running back to the house. What if she screamed and people rushed out?

“And I saw a friend of mine up on the balcony too, from the old days, Nick Markwood, so could you just tell me...”

It all happened so fast. She turned and started to run back toward the mansion. He dropped the motorbike and grabbed her arm. Couldn’t let her tell on him but he needed her to tell him what was going on. He was so worried and frustrated, he’d just exploded.

She opened her mouth to scream, but Jace clapped a hard hand over it. He lifted her and pulled her back into the dark space between two buildings about four doors down from the lighted mansion.

“Look, I’m not going to hurt you,” he told her. “Nothing like that. I just want to know what’s going on at Nightshade.”

Her eyes were white and wide in fright. He realized he’d really blown it, but he had to know if Claire and Lexi were all right. If they could leave, he wanted to be waiting back at their hotel to fly them home.

“Mmmph,” she said against his hand, which he loosened and lowered. “I tell you, you let me go. I show you pictures on my phone from the party, you let me go now.”

“All right,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I have to know. I—like I said, I have a friend there.”

He saw for the first time she had a cell phone in her hand. He was lucky she hadn’t called for help. She touched the screen a couple of times, held it up and thrust it at him. The picture was so bright at first it hurt his eyes. He blinked, blinked again.

Claire and Nick stood holding hands under a flowered trellis with Lexi next to Claire. All dressed up. Exchanging rings and vows, it looked like. Till death do us part stuff.

He felt like someone had kicked him in the gut. He had a gun on him. He felt like shooting his way into that balcony party at Nightshade. He might as well be dead. Had they been tricked or had he?

The woman flipped to another picture, another. Same scene. An exchange of rings. Reality. A wedding. Surely, Claire hadn’t known, but at least she had Lexi back. Or was Markwood really behind all this? He knew she felt for the guy.

He heard a man’s voice, close, call “Eleanor? Where are you?”

Jace turned to run for his motorbike out in the street, but someone big tackled him from the darkness. He hit the grass, got a mouthful of it, went for his gun, but couldn’t reach it when another big man stepped on his arm.

“I think he’s a spy,” the woman’s voice said. “Danke, you got my distress call. He was watching the party from the beach, says he knows Nick Markwood, ya.”

The two burly men hauled Jace to his feet. One punched him in the stomach so hard he doubled over and retched. They dragged him to his feet, holding one arm bent painfully up behind his back, and walked him down the street between them.

“Bring his bike,” one man called to the woman. “And don’t go off alone like that. You know the rules and consequences.”

Jace had wanted desperately to get into Ames’s Nightshade, but not this way. Damn, but he was probably going to be the one to suffer consequences for breaking the rules.

* * *

Even though one of Ames’s guards drove the car, Claire was grateful to get away from Nightshade. She still wore her silk wedding dress and the pair of Manolo high heels, no less, outrageously expensive ones, of course. It spooked her that every item of clothing had been her and Lexi’s correct sizes. Had one of Ames’s spies who planted listening devices been in their closets and drawers at home?

“Mommy, I’m tired and my tummy hurts.”

“You didn’t eat anything from the garden with the fountain, did you?”

“No. I don’t eat flowers, but I think they were pretty.”

Claire shuddered. She was grateful to escape Ames’s Nightshade with its weird fish and poison plants. She recalled again the research she had done on deadly nightshade and the mistake she’d made of bringing some in when she presented her paper. She had learned the hard way that merely rubbing against the plant raised pustules on the skin.

“Just too much ice cream and excitement for your tummy then,” she told the child, who was cuddled up between her and Nick on the backseat of the car. “You’ll sleep tonight, and we’ll go home tomorrow.”

“Mr. Nick, will you live with us now? I don’t want to move too far from Aunt Darcy and Jilly.”

“We’ll work everything out, Lexi, promise,” he told her. “We’ll have to explain some things to your family.”

Some things, Claire thought. How much? What could they say? What would Jace say and do when he heard? She could hardly explain all about Ames or that could endanger Darcy’s family. He’d evidently already been spying on them too.

When they got back to the Sand and Sea Club and Ames’s driver left them with a “Best Wishes,” as if they hadn’t heard that enough from strangers tonight, Nick went up to the desk to see if they could change rooms. Claire wasn’t sure what he was going to tell them as they waited for him in the lobby by the Line Up Here for Cemetery Reef Scuba Trip sign. She felt she was underwater right now, looking through a mask, swimming against the current—with Ames’s hungry fish surrounding them. No way was she going into their earlier room with Lexi. Who knew what other surprises awaited them?

Nick, looking a bit relieved for the first time in two days, came over and told them, “I got one just down the hall, a smaller room with one bed, but Lexi can sleep between us or I’ll sleep on the sofa. Anything to get away from hidden cameras and bugs.”

Lexi came alert at that. “Did you have bugs in your room? Ick.”

“Not those kind of bugs,” Nick assured her as he unlocked their first previous room, flicked the light switch and looked around, then gestured to Claire. “Looks the same,” he said.

They scooped up their things and carried the small brown-and-black checkered Vuitton suitcase that carried Lexi’s things—which Claire intended to go through thoroughly in case there was a bug planted there—and changed rooms.

She and Lexi took showers first, then joined Nick out in the room. He was on his laptop. “Leaving orders for a couple of junior lawyers,” he told her. “Some wedding night, huh?” he added, crossing his arms over his chest as Claire hustled Lexi into bed. The child was still holding on to the green stuffed turtle. “I’ll sleep on that couch daybed thing tonight,” he said, gesturing at the navy blue folding sofa along the wall.

Although Claire had thought Lexi was almost comatose, she piped up, “You know when I said Mr. Ames who is really Mr. Kilcorse or something like that was like a Disney movie, Mommy? Then you said tell you later. Is this later?”

“Yes,” Claire said, darting a look at Nick, who came over to stand by her at the side of the bed. Somehow Lexi had picked up on both names. Claire needed to question her about other things she could have overheard. She intended to help Nick—her husband—somehow defy and defeat Ames. “I guess this is later,” she told Lexi.

“I’d like to hear about that too,” Nick said. “Anything you can remember about things you saw or thought when you were at Nightshade, you just tell us.”

“Okay. I think Mr. Ames has two names like in that Disney movie. Did you see Mulan?”

“No,” Nick said. “Sorry I didn’t, but tell us both anyway.”

“Okay. Mommy saw it. Mulan was just a girl like me, but when men had to go to war and her daddy couldn’t fight, she dressed up like a boy and learned to fight. She took his place. She fought the bad people, but she had a little dragon named Mushu to help her. I have this turtle, so he’s like my dragon. Mommy, if you and Mr. Nick have to fight bad people, I will help you. I think you are both afraid of something, and I will help you even if I have to change my name and what I look like—even where I live—I will help you.”

Claire collapsed to her knees in tears, bending over the bed and hugging her daughter. Nick knelt too and put his arms around them both, and all three of them held tight.

In that double embrace, for the first time since she’d seen the ransom note, Claire felt, not calm or in control, but courageous. She prayed Jace would understand that this was the way things had to be for now. And her heart skipped a beat to think she really was Mrs. Nicholas Markwood, come hell or high water, and she was praying she wouldn’t have to face either of those.

7

When Nick came out of the bathroom after his shower, Lexi was sound asleep, and Claire was standing by the sliding glass doors, looking out at the dark sea. He wore only jockey shorts and had an extra bath towel over one arm. She’d thrown a T-shirt over her knee-length nylon nightgown. She’d been agonizing, not only wishing they had a way to let Jace know they were all right, but about facing Nick on their wedding night.

“Is she a sound sleeper?” he whispered, with a nod toward Lexi.

Her heart thumped harder. “Usually. Almost as much as me.”

“Good. Don’t want this to wake her.”

He dropped his clothes on his carry-on bag and tossed the towel on the sofa bed where he’d said he’d sleep. Then he bent and shoved the sofa about five feet to block the door to the hall.

“I think we’re in the clear,” he whispered. “But right now I’m trusting no one but you two. And Heck,” he added as he came to stand beside her at the glass doors. He was referring to Hector Munez, his tech guru from Naples who had helped them on the St. Augustine case and did a lot of Nick’s online research, including the frustrating task of trying to trace Ames and his spider’s web of companies. “I’ve got him searching for Paul Kilcorse’s permanent residence as well as Clayton Ames’s now.

“Have you taken your night narcolepsy meds yet?” he whispered. “I know you skipped them last night, so you must be really strung out. But, I hope, the worst of this waking nightmare is over.”

“Part of it, at least—until we really get out of here. No, I haven’t taken the meds yet tonight. You changed the airline tickets from the ones he bought for us?”

“Yes. Midmorning flight out. And we’ll call for our own cab for once instead of just waiting for one that’s probably waiting for us. But first, soon as the sun’s up, the three of us will take a walk on the beach together. We can’t leave Grand Cayman without that. He’s not going to ruin—or run—everything for us. Want to sit out on the lanai for a few minutes?”

“I know I said she sleeps well, but I don’t want her to wake up in a strange place without me in sight.”

“Okay. I know you’re worried about Jace too. Frankly, so am I, but we can’t risk cell phone contact in case that lets them trace him.”

“I thought I saw him on the beach, in disguise, looking like a bum when Lexi was coming in from flying the kite. But then when she said the guy who snatched her looked like him, I realized it could just have been another of Ames’s gofers. Like, you know, right now your job is to go kidnap a child.”

“Listen. Jace is a big boy and insisted on coming. You said he’s been in tough spots, in combat.”

“Yes, but he’s a pilot, not some undercover agent!”

“Okay, okay.”

He pulled her to him, maybe a mistake this time. Her breasts through the T-shirt and nightgown pressed flat against his crisp chest hair. Her hips tilted into his thighs. As exhausted as she was, her entire body came alert. Oh, no, but oh, yes. She cared for this man in more ways than one. Thank heavens he set her back fast and kept his hands on her shoulders, as if holding her away.

Some wedding night, she thought. They certainly weren’t strangers, but they had not been lovers, and they had to figure out some rules and regs for this forced marriage—didn’t they? When they got back and could really hash things out, what would Nick want and expect? They would have to live together for appearance’s sake, to keep Ames’s spies at bay, to protect themselves and Lexi. She didn’t fully grasp what that devil was expecting of Nick and her either. She dreaded facing her family at home, probably having to lie to them, having to move, to uproot Lexi.

“Don’t cry. I know things look dark in more ways than one,” Nick whispered, raising one hand to lift her chin.

He gently rubbed his thumb along her sensitive lower lip she chewed too much when she was upset or scared. Her lips parted. He skimmed the slick part of her lower, inner lip. His hand smelled of pine-scented soap and his breath of mint. She felt prickly hot all over from his merest touch.

“You know—like I said, we can work things out,” he went on, suddenly seeming to stumble for words. His gaze devoured her. “We’ll work together. I promise to take good care of both of you. I—we’ll take things slow between us,” he promised, his voice not only quiet now but rough.

She began to tremble as she whispered, “We need to talk about what our marriage means. I won’t hold you to it once we do what he says, once you can get him arrested or whatever it takes to stop him. But that means we have to be so careful now.”

“If I’m too careful, you will drive me crazy. Good night, wife. Let’s both get some sleep, so I don’t do something out of my mind right now.”

He kissed her hastily but hard on her mouth, reached down to pat her bottom and headed to the sofa bed in front of the door. He yanked the single throw pillow there under his head and flapped the big bath towel over himself, waist to feet.

Claire hurried to the bed and downed the dose of her bitter-tasting sedative on the bedside table. Surely her narcolepsy, the medicine and her physical and emotional exhaustion would knock her out.

She carefully tugged the sheet Lexi had pulled away over both of them. The room had seemed cool before but not now.

For once she didn’t sleep right away. She was worried about Jace, but it was Nick’s tossing and turning and heavy breathing that made her thoughts and heart race.

* * *

Jace’s captors half dragged, half marched him through the wrought iron gates of Nightshade, into the service entrance of the house. In what was obviously a laundry room, they turned on the overhead light and tied his arms and legs to a wooden chair with a couple of clotheslines from a plastic basket. The small, windowless room held a washer, dryer, sorting table and one chair beside his.

“Go tell the boss,” one goon said to the other.

“I have others who know I’m here,” Jace told the man who stayed with him.

“Yeah, well, I do too and I’m betting on them,” he said, going through Jace’s pockets. Luckily, he’d taken his ID info out. His passport was still in the plane parked in a rented hangar. Man, he’d really blown this but when he’d seen those pictures of Claire and Markwood—with Lexi—getting married he’d lost his mind, lost control.

The man pulled out the key to the motorbike, the one to his room, American dollars and his cell phone. “We know who you are and where you’re from,” he said. “But I’ll let the boss decide where you’re going.”

Jace’s insides did a nosedive. What if this Clayton Kilcorse-Ames was not only a kidnapper but a killer? Blinded by his passion to save Lexi and help Claire, he had not realized it could come to this. Could they still be on the premises? He figured not or he would have been gagged as well as tied in case he shouted for help.

His guard turned on his cell phone and started to skim through something on it. He stopped a moment to lay the keys and cash on the washing machine and sat down in the other chair to glare at the phone.

“Nice pics you got of the outside of Nightshade from across the street,” the guy said. “Looking to buy multimillion-dollar property here? Coupla good ones of the balcony with the party.”

“Were you at the wedding?” Jace dared to ask.

“Part of the reception. Great coconut shrimp and lobster with hot sauce,” the guy replied as if they were just buddies shooting the breeze. But when he’d been hustled in here, pressed between the two goons, he’d felt both carried pistols under their jackets.

Jace tried to get more out of him, but the guy clammed up. He wasn’t sure how long he waited. He had no idea what time of night it was and couldn’t see his watch. Finally, he heard footsteps in the hall. The door opened. A short, white-haired man stood there in a white terry cloth robe over what looked like black silk pajamas. He motioned for the man guarding Jace to step out in the hall, where he also glimpsed the other man. They closed the door, and Jace faced the man he assumed was Clayton Ames alone.

“Well, the third leg of the triumvirate,” the man—the boss—said. “That is, if we don’t count your little girl, Lexi.”

“Is she all right? Did you let her and Claire go home?”

“And your nemesis Nick Markwood, Claire’s new husband. You see, he’s my nemesis too, so I think you and I might be able to do business, Jason—Jace—Britten. Frankly, I can use a man of your skills and connections. You can call me Mr. Kilcorse as I’m known around here.”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Kilcorse-Ames, I’m previously employed. I’m an international airline pilot, but I suppose you know all that. You’re the one who sent me the photos of Claire and Markwood together when they were in St. Augustine.”

“Brilliant deduction. I see we have your cell phone, so I’ll be sure to send you a few of the wedding pictures.”

“I’ve seen some and that was enough.”

“I’m sure you’d like a few reminders of why you’ll want to work for me. But to answer your first question, Lexi is fine, a little charmer. She will be going back to Naples soon, with her mother and new stepfather. And I need you to leave that alone, for now, at least.”

“Meaning what? And why would I work for you?”

“Ah, let me count the reasons. One, because you like to fly and are a skilled pilot and are likely to be asked to take a leave from your assignment flying to Singapore, which you like so much. By the way, Singapore’s getting to be quite a tax haven, and I’d like to have a man on my payroll who knows his way around there. I might have you fly me there yourself. Much better than those crowded public planes, even in first class.”

“I’m not on that run anymore. I’ve asked for assignments closer to home, so if you don’t know that, you’re slipping.”

“Actually, I think the airline has pegged you as unstable in general.”

Jace just gaped at him. This guy thought he was God, with his all-knowing information—or just the opposite of God, Satan himself.

His captor went on, “You’d be best off flying a second new Learjet I just bought. It seats eight, and for long flights you’d have a copilot, not be one. I’d pay you about four times the salary you’ve been making now with a big bonus up front. You can keep the Lear in Naples until I need it somewhere, keep an eye on your little girl and ex-and-future wife if you play your cards right.”

“Future wife? What the hell are you talking about?”

“By your dangerous presence here, you’ve proved you love your daughter and would risk anything for her, and I believe, despite your frustration and anger, you feel that way about your ex too. You’ll never get Lexi away from Claire or really be a part of their lives unless by eventually marrying her again. Oh, let me tell you, Nick Markwood is a take-charge guy in every way. But who would Claire and Lexi run to if it doesn’t work out with Nick or if something happened to him?”

“You’re not—not thinking I’d kill him for you?”

“Of course not. You’d be the first one they’d look at. But I am thinking that the third reason you’ll work secretly for me is that if you don’t agree, I’ll have the two gentlemen who brought you here take you out in a boat to Cemetery Reef and feed you to the fish. Now let’s talk business.”

* * *

“I wish my daddy was flying this plane,” Lexi told Nick as their flight took off from Grand Cayman the next morning.

Claire silently wished he was too, that she knew he was all right, at least.

“I’m sure he’s a very good pilot,” Nick said.

Lexi was in the seat between them with Claire next to the window. They had made a few hasty plans during their beach walk earlier this morning and agreed again not to talk about serious strategies until they were home. They’d learned to put nothing past Clayton Ames, including trusting no one on the plane, even if Nick had arranged the tickets.

Claire was grateful he was handling Lexi so well. She sighed and pressed her forehead to the window and watched below as the plane circled to head north. In a stretch of blue-green water, she glimpsed the outline of what might be one of the many wrecked ships that had run aground on the rocks or reefs here over the years.

“Lots of sailboats out today, and new cruise ships are putting in,” she observed.

“I like boats,” Lexi said. “Ones with sails like big wings, lots bigger than Tinker Bell’s wings in Peter Pan.”

“So you like boats?” Nick asked her. “You know, that gives me an idea about where we could live for a while. And it would be lots of fun.”

Claire’s head snapped around. If he meant on a boat, at least that might keep Ames’s lackeys and their eyes and ears away from them.

“But your boat isn’t big,” she said.

“No, but I know someone whose boat is.”

“Mr. Kilcorse doesn’t like boats,” Lexi said, still holding her green stuffed turtle they had checked again for listening devices, though Nick intended to have it x-rayed too. “Just like Daddy, he likes airplanes. I heard him talking on his cell phone, walking back and forth. He was telling someone he had to pay a lot of money to fly into Cubes.”

“Cubes?” Nick asked. “Could he mean Cuba?”

“Maybe. They locked me in a bedroom and said to sleep but I was too scared and peeked and listened under the door. And then he said—”

“Okay, enough for now,” Nick said with a pointed look at Claire. “You and Mommy and I will talk about this later.”

Claire nodded. It was going to be interesting to use her forensic psychologist training to depose her own daughter as a witness. She’d vowed she was all in to help Nick solve his two cases. One, what was Ames up to and how could they expose and stop him? They had to get something on Ames so the FBI or IRS could step in.

And two, she’d told Nick she’d question witnesses or people of interest in the so-called Mangrove Murder case he’d promised to take to defend his friend. So much for her promise to herself that, after surviving the St. Augustine murder/suicide case, her next Clear Path assignment would be for a local department store that wanted her to question office workers about possible embezzlement.

While Lexi had skipped shells into the water this morning, Claire had told him that she’d help. This trip to Grand Cayman had been bad enough but communist, Castro-held Cuba? That sounded more risky than any other offshore hideout Ames could have holed up in.

Since Nick had said that Ames just disappeared sometimes, could it be to Cuba? The place was off-limits for American businesses and visitors, but Claire knew Cuba had tourists from Canada, so an American could surely sneak in, especially one with money and clout. She’d ask Nick if people had to do big business with the Castro brothers to get a foothold there. No one was going to play with people’s lives—forcing them to marry, kidnapping children—not if she could help it. She knew Nick was dedicated to that devil’s demise, and surely Jace was too.

As if Nick had read her thoughts, he leaned over Lexi and said in a quiet voice, “I’ll get Heck on it, since he has Cuban heritage, but I’ve learned to put nothing past ‘Uncle Clay.’”

“I see that now. I understand.”

“Do we have to whisper?” Lexi asked. “I can’t hear good with the sound the jet engines make. And I know we’re not there yet, ’cause Daddy says you can always tell when you’re going down to land. Mr. Nick—I mean, Nick—sometimes Mommy says, don’t keep asking this, but are we there yet?”

“Mommy is absolutely right,” Nick said with a laser beam look at Claire. “We are definitely not there yet but we’re going to be soon, in more ways than one.”

8

“You did what?” Claire’s sister, Darcy, cried. She jumped up to close the kitchen door to the living room where their daughters were playing.

“It’s no secret. Lexi knows, and she’s happy with it,” Claire insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “We just got back last night, and I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. I’m surprised Lexi didn’t blurt it out. It was all rather rushed, but—yes, Nick and I got married in Grand Cayman at the house of a—a friend of his.”

Her blue eyes wide in her freckled face, Darcy collapsed in her seat across the kitchen table and raked her fingers through her spiky blond hair. “Claire, you eloped once before but you were young and crazy. And look what happened to you and Jace—”

“That’s way in the past. I wanted you to know about this.”

“How thoughtful, after the fact, after all we’ve been through together. So you won’t be an almost neighbor to us anymore. How can I watch Lexi for you, how can the girls stick together—how can we?” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch and tears clumped her eyelashes together.

“I’m so sorry I let you down—all of you, Steve and Drew too. But it was—it happened and it was necessary, and you’ll just have to trust me on th—”

“Necessary! You’re pregnant?” she gasped. Finally, Darcy leaned across the table and reached for Claire’s clenched hands when her body language before had been stern and standoffish. One of Claire’s skills was reading body language and Darcy was hurt as well as mad.

“No, not that kind of necessary,” Claire assured her.

“I guess not, now that I think of it.” Darcy sat back again. “You’ve barely known the man three weeks. You could be pregnant, but you wouldn’t know this fast. Don’t tell me you married him for his money. For financial security? You said you were going to build your consulting company. But it looks to me like you can’t even walk a straight line right now, let alone a clear path. You’ve been bound and determined to be self-sufficient. I get it that the guy is Nick Markwood, eligible bachelor, great-looking, well-off and all that but—I—I just wish I’d been there.”

Blinking back her own tears, Claire got up and went around the table. She was almost afraid to touch Darcy at first, but she leaned close and put a hand on her shoulder. She’d always leaned on Darcy. Right now Claire hadn’t exactly lied, but she could hardly tell her the truth. She prayed she wasn’t endangering Darcy, her husband, Steve, and two kids by sharing even this much. But word would get out, and her family—what was left of it—had to know.

Worse, wait until Jace heard. Once he’d arrived back in US airspace, he texted her from the plane that he’d heard they were headed home with Lexi so he was coming back too. But he’d go absolutely ballistic when he heard his daughter had a new stepfather. He’d feel so betrayed if she couldn’t explain it to him—and could she?

“M-m-maybe,” Darcy said through sniffles, “I’m more like our mother than I wanted to admit—like, I mean, maybe I’ve had my head in the sand, like she always had hers in a book.”

“No, it isn’t that. I—I just didn’t level with you about Nick. This is all on me.”

“And here, I was psyching you out that you still cared for Jace and vice versa, but then you’re the psych major, not me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. Please don’t cry. You’ve been so great to me, always. As the older sister, I should have been the strong one, but it’s been you, and I’m trying to catch up on that.”

“Stop talking in the past tense, like we’re over! Like we won’t see each other, or someone’s dead. But I guess things have changed.”

“Not my feelings for you, for Jilly, Steve and Drew. Darcy, I know I’ve made a mess of things, and my narcolepsy and cataplexy have been a burden, but—”

The kitchen door banged open, and Darcy’s daughter, blonde Jilly, Lexi’s age, rushed in sobbing, sucking in huge breaths. “Mom!” she cried and circled around Claire to cling to Darcy on her other side. “Aunt Claire got married, and Lexi was a flower girl, and we weren’t invited!”

Darcy shrugged off Claire’s touch and held Jilly tight. Lexi came in, hands on hips and tears on her cheeks. “She’s not happy for us, Mommy! She’s mad at me and you too!”

All four of them sat at the table and cried. Claire hated Clayton Ames even more right now. She made her vow to herself again: she’d do everything she could to help Nick ruin Clayton Ames, if they could find a way—and a way to stay alive.

* * *

Jace was glad to see his flying bud, Alex “Ace” Rutherford waiting for him when he taxied Ace’s Cirrus SR22 into a back lot hanger at the Naples Municipal Airport. Ace had married money and also had a cabin cruiser and a house in Grey Oaks, a ritzy, gated clubhouse community in Naples. He worked in stocks and bonds for his father-in-law, though he always said he’d rather be fishing.

“Hey, my man,” Ace called out as soon as Jace popped the door, “at least you brought my baby back in one piece.”

At least, Jace’s thoughts echoed, Claire and Nick had brought my baby back in one piece. Ames had assured him they had taken off from Grand Cayman just this morning. When he’d texted Claire, she’d texted back to say they were okay and not much else except to say thanks for the backup help and stay safe. That’s a joke, he thought. He’d nearly gotten himself killed.

“Hope you didn’t doubt me,” Jace told his friend, but he doubted himself. Not that he’d had a choice, but he’d agreed to work for the man who had ordered his daughter abducted, who had evidently set it up for Nick and Claire to get hitched. And if Lexi hadn’t been kidnapped, he wouldn’t be so sure that they weren’t in on that.

“Doubt you? No way,” Ace said. “Not after we were such a success with ‘The Ace and Jace Show’ that bombed the hell out of the Taliban. No problems down or back?” he asked, clapping him on the shoulder after Jace climbed down onto the concrete hangar floor. “You look like you haven’t slept. You okay, guy?”

“Sure, sure. Your new toy handled great. Hey, I got a new gig from a high roller I met down in the Caymans. Going to fly his new Learjet that will be delivered here in a couple of days. The damn thing’s worth about sixty-five million.”

“Sweet! He got a company here? Would I or ‘Daddy Dearest’ know him?”

“He’s an expat, lives down there but needs people flown around from here sometimes.”

Ace cocked his head and squinted at him. “No lie? Thought you loved the international airline gigs and were set on making pilot’s chair.”

“I’ll be more my own boss this way,” he told Ace as they watched the mechanic who oversaw private planes walk in to check out the Cirrus.

But, Jace thought, as Ace went over to talk to the guy, that was a lie. He’d put himself under Kilcorse-Ames’s very tight thumb to save himself. There were perks to the job, but sky-high risk too with very little leeway about taking orders from the top. He’d be flying Ames High, Inc.’s staff here and there on call as well as keeping a close eye on the murder case Ames said Nick would be taking. And he’d sworn to keep an eye on Claire and Nick—which galled him to no end, especially since that’s exactly what he wanted to do.

Though he had the perfect excuse to drop in on them to see Lexi, he hated being another of K-A’s spies. Still, Claire had betrayed him, maybe not to marry Markwood if she was forced to in order to save Lexi, but to get involved in the first place with that too-clever criminal lawyer. Jace wasn’t even sure he’d take Claire back if Markwood dumped her, or, as K-A had hinted, if something bad happened to him. The fact that Markwood took on the man’s murder case provided at least temporary life insurance for him.

But what K-A didn’t figure on was that Jace was big on paybacks.

* * *

“Your eyes are red,” Nick observed when he picked Claire up at Darcy’s in yet another rented car, this time a Jeep Cherokee. “Did your sister take it hard?”

“Very. Her little girl, just Lexi’s age, did too.”

“But she said she’d keep Lexi for a little while?”

“We all cried, then made a tenuous truce. Nick,” she said as she closed the car door, “I knew it would really hurt her that I more or less eloped. But what Ames is planning to do is dangerous to know, so I couldn’t tell her any of that. So where are we going that Lexi couldn’t come along? To meet with your endangered species friend Haze?”

“I’ll take you to meet him as soon as I can figure out a battle plan. Time’s a-wasting since the police may arrest him soon. But first, I wanted you to see a place I think we can live. I didn’t want Lexi falling in love with it first, so you can hear me out and decide. You said Jace borrowed his wealthy friend’s jet to come down to Grand Cayman. Well, this is a yacht that belongs to a friend of mine who has been after me to return a favor I did for him. That, and Lexi saying she loves boats, made me think of it.”

“A yacht? He must owe you a big favor.”

“I saved his life—or life without parole—by proving he didn’t murder a woman on this boat. A woman who wasn’t his wife. I established she was trying to shake him down, that he wasn’t having an affair with her and that someone else came on board and killed her before he even got there.”

“I remember that in the papers, and on Nancy Grace’s TV show too. She always digs up sensational stuff like that—screwed-up lifestyles of the rich and famous. So you’re going to show me a yacht where a murder took place?”

“True, but once you see it, you’ll forget about that. He hasn’t used it much since. He and his wife are still barely speaking. It’s a beautiful boat with six cabins and a small back deck pool, no less. It’s been just sitting at a marina in Naples Bay.”

“It would give us freedom to move around and keep strangers out, at least until you—we—work on this so-called Mangrove Murder. Lexi doesn’t start preschool until the New Year. Maybe she’d see it as a vacation.”

“We’ll tell her it’s an extended honeymoon. However hard we have to buckle down,” he said, reaching out to take her hand from her lap, “maybe it can be that.”

* * *

As Claire stood on the dock, she thought the Sylph looked like a floating palace. Sleek lines, pale gray-and-white hull. It had a Jacuzzi as well as a small pool. She could see that much from where they stood on the dock, so what must it be like inside? She could tell that its owner Dylan Carnahan was excited to have Nick use it for a while, at least. But it had stunned her to hear the man call the yacht his “twenty-million-dollar baby.”

Dylan was about Nick’s age and almost as tall. He had much lighter hair and seemed to have a—well, a jumpy, nervous persona.

“I owe you everything, pal,” Dylan told Nick after they were all introduced where he greeted them on the dock. The man was very talkative. Sometimes that meant a person was hiding something, but this man actually seemed lonely. “I’m happy to hear you have a ready-made family, and the Sylph’s all yours for a while,” he went on. “I’m gonna probably sell it, but not yet. Despite everything, it’s hard to let her go. I’ll get you a crew too, as it only has a captain and cook right now. I’d love to have her go out again. She doesn’t deserve her bum rap. You know what a ‘sylph’ is, Claire?”

“Some kind of water nymph?”

“It’s a slender, graceful woman. In short, Nick,” he said, bumping Nick’s upper arm with his fist, “an appropriate ship for your new bride and first mate.”

“Fated to be mated—Claire and me and the ship?” Nick countered.

“You got that right. Sorry, Claire,” Dylan said, “about the bad publicity here, but Nick saved my hide—not that I was guilty. I know you’ll do the same for that guy on Goodland too, pal.”

Nick’s head snapped around. “How do you know about that?”

“In the paper this morning, made you sound like the attorney from heaven. Don’t ask me how they got the word you’re defending Hazelton if you didn’t tell them. You know, the victim got let go from the staff of the Naples newspaper, but now they sound like they’re really into this story, fellow journalist and all that. I saw something on CNN’s Headline News about it too. I sympathize with the guy, ’cause I know how it feels to have the media mavens on your tail, even if you’re innocent.”

Nick and Claire looked at each other. The master in distant Grand Cayman was pulling strings again, using the fact Nick was well-known and respected here to set this all up. Local newspaper articles were one thing, but a national TV cable network?

“So, hey, let me show you newlyweds around,” Dylan said with a sweep of his arm toward the gangway. Claire almost felt she was boarding one of those Grand Cayman cruise ships.

She tried not to gawk at the opulence of the Sylph’s layout and decor. Lexi would absolutely flip out. The wall and fabric color scheme was stark black-and-white with touches of gold throughout. Chrome gleamed everywhere she looked, except in the stainless steel galley, where, Dylan said, the cook would be happy to not just be cooking for himself and the captain.

Everything was so modern, sharp and clean. Two suites and four bedrooms—though Dylan corrected her to use words like staterooms and cabins; to say heads for the four stunning bathrooms; and passageways for hallways. It was another world but it would provide privacy and safety.

While the two men huddled at the dining room table over details, Claire stood at the point of the prow, remembering Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the movie Titanic shouting, “I’m the king of the world!” What a love story but a tragic one.

She had not been able to say yes, she’d marry Nick, because he hadn’t asked, and it had been out of her control. But she’d said yes to living here, despite the fact the lounge had been the scene of a murder. At least this would work until Lexi started school and for the time it took them to clear Hazelton and tout Ames’s Youth products.

But what if Hazelton wasn’t innocent? She’d have to help Nick find out the truth. As for keeping Lexi safe, they planned to hire an au pair, a sort of nanny, a Hispanic woman related to Heck Munez. They would be docked here, but possibly move to different island ports, or maybe even go to sea.

She went back in and wandered to the master suite again. She’d insist that Nick take this stateroom, and she’d stay in the slightly smaller one next door. They could put Lexi next to hers and each have a cabin to use as an office, when they were here and not onshore at Goodland and beyond, working on the murder case. There would still be a guest bedroom here for Darcy and her family—if they would visit.

As much as Claire feared and hated Clayton Ames, this part of their new situation was working out well. He wouldn’t know exactly where they were, and if they saw his drones hovering, Nick had joked, they could shoot them down with the setup for skeet shooting at the back—the aft—of the boat. They could move about at will without cameras and listening devices.

She glanced at the king-size bed decked out in stark black-and-white with gold lightning strikes jagging across the pattern. She couldn’t recall much about the murder of the woman that had happened on this ship, so maybe she should try to find that episode of Nancy Grace on YouTube again. No, she wouldn’t think about all that. She had a lot to do, to get ready for.

She stopped at the doorway to look back once again at the big bed. For the first time she noted there was a mirror on the ceiling over it.

Her insides cartwheeled. She hurried out, closing the door behind her.

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