Walking around to the back, he caught his first manmade sound. A waterfall. Probably a large cascade into an oddly shaped pool, one of those designer types with natural stone accents and romantic grottos. He’d ignored that part of the photo.
Peering around the corner from the inside edge of the flagstone path, he spotted three faces he knew well but had never seen in person. Aria, Pierce, and David. They were seated in floating pool chairs, the kind that looked like contoured chaise longues. Each held a Champagne flute and a large white straw in one hand. All were actively engaged in conversation.
Who drank Champagne from a straw?
Tory took a sidestep into concealing vegetation. The waterfall was drowning out their words, but whatever they were saying, it was obviously fraught with emotion. Faces were scrunching. Tears were streaming. Fingers fidgeted nervously.
He’d picked a bad time.
The discussion stopped while Tory stood contemplating his next move. Some kind of an agreement had been reached, or decision had been made. David placed his Champagne and straw in his cup holder and carefully paddled his chair over next to Aria’s.
Now Tory could see that it wasn’t a straw. It was a syringe. They looked similar enough from a distance, when you had only one eye.
Aria downed the rest of her Champagne, then dropped the flute in the water. She passed David her syringe and held out her arm.
While he found a vein, she leaned back and closed her eyes.
He completed the injection quickly, then kissed her hand, long and slow. He held onto it while she relaxed. The whole scene resembled some taboo ceremony, and Tory found it fascinating.
He had always known that there was something odd about his clients. The random nature of their replacement requests made no sense. Then there was their lax attitude toward money, which clashed with their extremely disciplined informational security. At last he understood. They’d developed some kind of new narcotic. They were white-collar drug dealers.
Tory felt the thrill of pulling back a big curtain. This new theory explained everything.
They were making money by the boatload, no doubt with elite clientele. Going exclusive was the only way to keep such a special product below the radar. Sure, there would be rumors, but if there were no deaths, law enforcement wouldn’t get involved.
The cartels, however, would.
They’d consider any illegal drug to be unacceptable competition. And their preferred method for dealing with competitors was cutting them out. Quite literally. With machetes and chainsaws. Hence his clients’ obsession with secrecy and need for identity swaps. It all made perfect sense now.
So what should he do?
He definitely did not want to get tangled up in the narcotics business. Best to hit them hard for a payout, then disappear.
Tory studied Aria. She wasn’t moving. He would wait until the others were off in whatever la-la land their product took them to, then he’d put them at his mercy. Nothing painful or even overtly hostile, just precarious enough to make it clear that his offer was one they couldn’t refuse.
74
Pointed Argument
SOMEWHAT TO OUR SURPRISE, nobody came running as the C’est La Vie approached the big pier on Seven Star Island. How could people so obsessed with their informational security leave their home unguarded?
I knew we’d have that answer within the hour.
I brought the yacht in straight and slow as Captain Stewart had advised, then hit reverse as the bow broke even with the end.
Skylar jumped off and did a masterful job with the ropes, first securing and then tightening them.
“You look like you’ve done that before,” I said, hopping off the yacht to join her.
She linked my arm, playing for the audience if one was watching. “Once or twice, on smaller boats. Triathlons are on the water, so I spent a fair amount of time around boaters. Occasionally I scored an invitation.”
The pier was long and large, designed to accommodate yachts twice our size. We walked along it toward the seagrass-speckled shore, wearing hats and sunglasses, armed only with our drone’s remote control.
Following the KISS principle, we had decided to present ourselves as boaters retrieving a downed drone. It was a plausible scenario given the propensity of the leisure class to play with expensive toys.
We followed the flagstone path around the side of the house, through the manicured garden, and toward the pool where the drone had shown people lounging.
“What exactly should we say?” Skylar asked.
“We can start with ‘Sorry to disturb you. We just need to pick up our drone.’ Then we’ll try to charm them into talking.”
“How should I act?”
The burbling swish of cascading water grew louder as we closed in on the pool. It camouflaged our conversation, but I kept my voice quiet anyway. “Act like a pampered society girl with good genes. Compliment the house and garden. Ask about activities in this area. The best places for snorkeling. Restaurants on nearby islands. Stuff like that. Luxurious as it is, living here has to be lonely. If we come across as friendly members of the club, it shouldn’t be hard to get them talking.”
“What do we want them talking about?”
“In a word—Aria. The goal is to get her measure and take the lay of the land in preparation for a future confrontation.”
We rounded the side of the house and came face-to-face with Tory, who was walking in our direction. He held an aluminum briefcase in each hand and had a big black duffel slung over one shoulder. The Finn looked just as surprised as I was when our eyes met. But his reaction was quicker.
Before I knew it, one of the briefcases was spinning toward my head. I ducked as Tory lunged.
Skylar was not so lucky.
As I dodged left, my ears were struck by the sound of a projectile smacking bone. I stole a sideward glance and saw my partner drop like a ripe coconut. She was undoubtedly unconscious, but whether stunned or dead, I couldn’t tell. Nor could I check. Not at that moment. Not if we were to survive the assassin’s wrath.
Tory didn’t immediately continue his attack. In fact, he backed off.
For a second, we sized each other up like gladiators waiting for the king to commence our battle. Then Tory grinned and reached around to the small of his back.
He came out with nothing but a puzzled expression. Clearly he’d gone for a gun that was missing.
I am not a boxer or a wrestler or a martial artist. I rowed crew in college. But standing two steps from Skylar’s limp body while staring at our would-be killer, I found myself feeling entirely different than I had the last time Tory and I had grappled. This time I was fueled by all the world’s anger—and half an idea.
Tory had a weakness. A sore spot. A chink in his armor. His left eye was painfully swollen and probably sightless. Surely I could capitalize on that.
But how?
I circled right, moving into the blind spot and forcing him to adapt. Tory was new to the whole blind-in-one-eye thing, especially when it came to combat. That had to be disconcerting, although I wouldn’t put it past the fitness freak to have honed some eyes-closed fighting technique back when he learned to ignore pain.
Whatever the reason, Tory soon tired of toying around and attacked. He leapt forward, launching into a torrential punching combination that led with his left and followed with his right. Had I not been prepared, I would have gone down—probably never to rise.
I dodged back and launched a punch packed with fury and powered by rage. Everything I had. All the frustrations, all the anger, all the pain and sorrow and suffering. I put every ounce of unspent emotion into that swing. Thanks to the blessed combination of my superior reach with his inferior sight, my right-armed roundhouse skirted his defenses and collided with his jaw. The connection was solid and square, creating a supremely satisfying crunch that sucked the strength from his killer combination.