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  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “For your time and services. Plus expenses, of course. You’re worth it.”

  When I didn’t respond right away, he applied some pressure. Or was it leverage?

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, John, but your suspension is without pay, correct?”

  “You certainly do your homework.”

  “What about your boys?” he asked. “Do they do their homework? I mean, are they good students?”

  “So far,” I said, a bit hesitant. He was bringing my children into this. “Why are you asking about my boys?”

  “Because I didn’t mention the bonus. You should know what it is before you give me your answer,” he said. “It’s what you get if your work helps give me the only small measure of relief that I could ever have in this situation,” he said. “Justice.”

  And then Warner Breslow told me exactly what justice was worth to him. He specified my bonus.

  And I’ll tell you this: the man really knew how to close a deal.

  Chapter 9

  THREE THOUSAND MILES away, on the seventh floor of the Eagle Mountain Psychiatric Hospital on the outskirts of Los Angeles, thirty-one-year-old Ned Sinclair lay in his bed counting the white ceiling tiles above him for maybe the one millionth time. It was a mindless routine, all in the name of self-preservation—and, well, sanity. Counting the tiles, over and over, was his only escape from this godforsaken hellhole.

  Until now.

  Ned heard the squeaking wheels of the drug cart heading down the gray linoleum floor of the hallway, as it always did for what the nurses sarcastically called the nightcaps—the various narcotics used to keep the psychiatric patients nice and quiet during the night, when the hospital employed a skeleton crew.

  “Time for your meds,” came a voice at the door. “No playing games tonight, Ned.”

  Ned didn’t turn to look. He kept counting the ceiling tiles. Twenty-two…twenty-three…

  For the past four years, ever since Ned arrived at Eagle Mountain, the same female nurse had pushed that drug cart on weekday nights. Her name was Roberta, and she was about as friendly and engaging as one of the hospital walls. She was built like one, too. She hardly ever spoke to her fellow workers, and certainly didn’t chat up the patients. All she did was what she got paid to do: dole out drugs. Nothing more. And that was fine by Ned.

  But two weeks earlier, Roberta had been fired. Sticky fingers with some of the pills, it was rumored. It’s always the quiet ones.

  Her replacement was a guy who liked to be called by his nickname, Ace. Asshole would’ve been more fitting. The aide was loud, obnoxious, ignorant, and didn’t know when to shut up. Clearly, the applicant pool for the graveyard shift was as shallow as a California puddle in August.

  “C’mon, Ned. I know you can hear me in that screwed-up little head of yours,” said Ace, wheeling in the cart. “Say something. Talk to me, dude.”

  But Ned had nothing to say.

  Ace didn’t let up. He hated being ignored. He got enough of that in the L.A. bars, where he would hit on women with the deft touch of a wrecking ball. Glaring at Ned, he wondered, Who the hell is this dickwad patient to give me the silent treatment?

  “You know, I did some asking around about you here,” he said. “Found out you were some kind of math genius, a hotshot college professor. But something bad happened to you. What was it? You hurt somebody? Hurt yourself? Is that why you’re up here on the seventh floor?”

  The seventh floor at Eagle Mountain was reserved for the PAINs—staff shorthand for “patients abusive in nature.” Accordingly, they were never—not ever—supposed to get hold of anything that was sharp, or could be made sharp. They weren’t even allowed to shave themselves.

  Ned remained silent.

  “Oh, wait, wait—I remember what it was now,” said Ace. “They told me you lost your shit when your sister died.” He smiled wickedly. “Was she hot, Ned? I bet your sister was hot. Nora, right? I’d tap that sweet ass if she were here. But of course, she’s not here, is she? Nora’s dead. She’s a bony ass now, that’s all she is!”

  The aide laughed at his own joke, sounding like the kids who used to taunt Ned for his stutter all those years ago in Albany.

  That’s when Ned turned to Ace for the first time.

  He finally had something to say.

  Chapter 10

  “MAY I PLEASE have my pills?” Ned asked calmly.

  Ace’s puffed-out chest deflated like a bounce house after a church carnival. After all his goading, his baiting, his outright cruelty, he couldn’t believe this was the best Ned could do. Nothing. The supposed hotshot professor had no fight in him.

  “Do you know what? I think you’re a pussy,” scoffed Ace, reaching for the pill cup on his drug cart.

  The night before, though, Ace wasn’t thinking at all. He’d been asked to cover for Eduardo, who usually delivered the dinner meals to all the patients. Eduardo had called in sick. Ironically, the reason was food poisoning, perhaps caused by sampling one of the hospital’s entrées.

  So Ace made the rounds the previous evening, mindlessly dropping off trays to every room on each floor. Including the seventh floor. That’s when he forgot that the PAINs were supposed to get a different dessert from the rest of the patients. It was a simple mistake.

  Then again, sometimes the difference between life and death is as simple as the difference between an ice cream sandwich and a cherry Bomb Pop…

  On a stick.

  “Here you go, take it,” Ace said, pill cup in his hand.

  Ned reached out, but it wasn’t the cup he grabbed. With a viselike grip, he latched on to Ace’s wrist.

  He yanked him toward the bed as if he were starting a lawn mower. In a way he was. Let the cutting begin.

  Ned raised his other hand, viciously stabbing away with the popsicle stick, which he’d honed to razor sharpness against his cinder-block wall. He stabbed Ace’s chest, his shoulder, his cheek, and his ear, then went back to his chest, stabbing over and over and over again, the blood spraying high in the air like fireworks.

  Then, for the finale, Ned plunged the stick deep into the incompetent aide’s bloated neck—bull’s-eye!—slicing his carotid artery as if it were a piece of red licorice.

  How’re you holding up there, Ace?

  He wasn’t. Falling to the floor, Ace tried to scream for help, but all that came out was more blood. The guy who couldn’t shut up suddenly couldn’t say a word.

  Ned stood up from the bed and watched Ace bleed out on the floor, counting how long it took for the aide to die. It was just like counting ceiling tiles, he thought. Almost soothing.

  Now it was time to go.

  Ned gathered his personal items, the few things the hospital allowed him to have in his possession. He was checking out. He would slip past the skeleton crew as quietly as a mouse.

  Or a little boy with his daddy’s gun.

  But before leaving, Ned took one last look back at Ace, lying dead on the floor. The guy would never know the real reason why Ned had killed him—he would have no clue whatsoever. It didn’t matter that he was a mean son of a bitch. Ned couldn’t have cared less.

  Instead, it was something Ace did his very first day on the job that set in motion something terrible deep inside Ned’s brain.

  Just awful, hideous…

  Ace had told Ned his real name.

  Chapter 11

  A RUSH OF hot air—whoosh!—hit me as I stepped off Warner Breslow’s private jet at Providenciales International Airport in Turks and Caicos, where the temperature was ninety-six and climbing.

  Immediately, my jeans and polo shirt felt as if they were Velcroed to my skin.

  Breslow’s jet, a Bombardier Global Express XRS, had a maximum occupancy of nineteen passengers plus a crew, but this flight barely carried the minimum. There was only a pilot, one flight attendant, and me. Talk about extra legroom…

  I no
sooner had one foot on the tarmac than I was approached by a young man, thirtyish, wearing white linen shorts and a white linen short-sleeved shirt.

  “Welcome to Turks and Caicos, Mr. O’Hara. My name’s Kevin. How was your flight?”

  “It was Al Gore’s worst nightmare,” I said, shaking the guy’s hand. “Otherwise, the flight was pretty amazing.” He smiled, but I was pretty sure he didn’t get the joke. Carbon-footprint humor is pretty hit-or-miss.

  I didn’t yet know who Kevin was, but everything else up to that point had been made crystal clear. I’d already spoken with Frank Walsh at the Bureau, who confirmed that he had indeed approved my working for Breslow.

  As for the nature of his and Breslow’s relationship, he declined to elaborate. To know Frank was to know not to press the issue. So I didn’t.

  Meanwhile, Breslow had dispatched one of his expensive attorneys, who arrived the following morning at my house to give me a signed contract. It was only two pages long, and was clearly more for my benefit than his. I hadn’t asked to have our agreement in writing, but Breslow insisted.

  “Trust me when I say you should never take anyone at his word,” he said in a tone pregnant with meaning.

  In addition to the contract, I was also given a sealed envelope. “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” said the attorney, smiling. “It might just come in handy.”

  He was right.

  My only regret of the morning, however, was not being able to join Marshall and Judy on the drive up to the Berkshires to drop Max and John Jr. off at camp. After giving the boys huge hugs before they left, I promised I’d see them in a couple of weeks for the camp’s Family Day.

  Max, eager to make sure I wouldn’t break my vow, made me “super quadruple promise” I’d be there. “No crossies, either,” he warned me as John Jr. rolled his eyes.

  I already missed them both like crazy.

  “Shall we get going?” asked Kevin, motioning over his shoulder to a silver limousine parked nearby. When I hesitated for a second, it dawned on him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I assumed you knew. I’m with the Gansevoort resort,” he explained. “Mr. Breslow has arranged for you to stay with us while you’re here.”

  I nodded. The Mystery of Kevin had been solved. Happily, too. I’d seen the Gansevoort featured in the New York Times travel section, and it was absolutely beautiful—top-notch. Not that I was down here to enjoy it. After I dropped off my bag and grabbed a quick shower, I was heading straight over to the Governor’s Club to begin my investigation.

  Breslow had initially assumed I’d want to stay there—the “scene of the crime”—but I told him I’d be more comfortable somewhere nearby. By “comfortable,” of course, I didn’t mean the thread count of the sheets.

  It would’ve been different if I were flashing a badge, but I wasn’t Agent O’Hara down here, I was just John O’Hara. And for the time being, I didn’t want the Governor’s Club to know even that.

  Same for the local police. Soon enough, I’d pay them a polite visit and compare notes with the detectives on the case, if they were willing. With any luck, they would be. Until then, though, I’d travel as incognito as possible.

  But before I could take a step toward the limo, I saw a flashing light out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a white sedan speeding toward us. I mean, really speeding. If it had wings, it would’ve taken off.

  The question now was, Did it have brakes?

  The car wasn’t slowing down. If anything, it was getting faster as it got closer.

  Finally, pulling a move straight out of the Starsky and Hutch school of driving, the car skidded to a stop right in front of us, the back wheels drifting across the hot asphalt of the tarmac.

  On the side of the car it read ROYAL TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS POLICE.

  I glanced over at Kevin, who looked as if he were about to soil his linen shorts. “Mr. Breslow didn’t arrange for an escort by any chance, did he?” I asked.

  Kevin shook his head no.

  And I just shook my head, period.

  So much for incognito. Apparently, I was going to meet with the police a little sooner than I expected.

  Did I mention how hot it was down here?

  Welcome to Turks and Caicos, O’Hara.

  Chapter 12

  POLICE COMMISSIONER JOSEPH Eldridge, whose jurisdiction was every square inch of all forty islands and cays that made up Turks and Caicos, lit a cigarillo behind his spotless desk, blew out some smoke, and stared at me as if he knew something I didn’t.

  Undoubtedly, he did. Namely, why I’d been “escorted” from the airport straight to his office.

  In addition to him, there were two other men in the room: the chairman of the tourism board and the deputy police commissioner.

  I didn’t get their names, but it didn’t matter. They were sitting off to the side and showed no intention of talking. This conversation was strictly between Eldridge and me.

  “I didn’t know what to expect from Mr. Breslow,” began Eldridge. “Only that it was going to be something. Or, I should say, someone.”

  Clearly, Breslow’s wealth and reputation preceded him. I smiled. “Well, it’s always good to be someone, right?”

  Eldridge leaned back in his chair, letting go with a deep laugh. He looked a little like an older Denzel Washington and sounded a lot like James Earl Jones. All in all, he seemed to be a pleasant enough guy.

  Still, there was a fine line between my being welcome or unwelcome on Turks and Caicos, and I was obviously straddling it like a Flying Wallenda in boat shoes.

  “So what are your intentions while you’re here?” he asked.

  If Eldridge was savvy enough to anticipate Breslow hiring a private investigator, and thorough enough to check the manifest of every arriving private plane until he found one owned by Breslow, I wasn’t about to get cute with him. My personal circumstances aside, I was an FBI agent “on leave” from the Bureau trying to help a man who had suffered an incredible loss.

  That’s what I told him, adding: “I’m simply here to make sure no stone is left unturned in the investigation. No harm in that, right?”

  Eldridge nodded. “Are you carrying a firearm?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Does the FBI know you’re here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you working alone?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Your willingness to share information with me,” I said. “For starters, what has your investigation uncovered so far? Any suspects? Results of the autopsy?”

  Eldridge tapped his cigarillo into a large conch shell on his desk that was doubling as an ashtray. He had a decision to make.

  On the one hand, I could be a help to him and his investigation. It’s not likely he had anyone with my background and experience working under him. On the other hand, we’d only just met. I could be cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs for all he really knew. Oh, and did my boss happen to mention I was seeing a shrink, Commissioner?

  Eldridge held my stare for a moment before glancing over at the two men sitting against the wall. It was the first time he’d even acknowledged their presence.

  Maybe it was the look he gave them, or maybe it was the plan all along, but the two men suddenly stood up and exited the room as if they were double-parked outside.

  I now had Eldridge all to myself.

  Or maybe it was the other way around.

  Chapter 13

  I WATCHED AS Eldridge took another puff of his cigarillo, the smoke leaving his lips in a perfect thin line.

  “Agent O’Hara, when you arrived here, what did you see outside my office?” he asked.

  “A horde of reporters from all over the world,” I answered. “Even the Middle East.”

  “And how did they look?”

  “Hungry,” I said. “Like a pack of wolves that hadn’t been fed enough for the past forty-eight hours. I’ve seen that look before.”

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p; He smiled. “Yes, exactly. So please don’t take this personally when I tell you I can’t divulge any details of the investigation. If for no other reason than I’d like to think I’ve learned from other people’s mistakes.”

  Right away, I understood what he was talking about: Aruba.

  So much information and misinformation had leaked in the Natalee Holloway case that the Aruban authorities ultimately came off looking like the Keystone Kops. Eldridge seemed determined not to let that happen under his command.

  Still, I had a job to do here, and he knew it.

  “Can I at least assume that you have your entire CID working on the case? Every inspector? Every person, down to your last constable?” I asked.

  I’d already done a little homework on the setup down here. Whereas NYPD detectives were ranked by grade—first, second, and third—on Turks and Caicos there were four levels of seniority to the CID, or Criminal Investigations Division: detective inspectors, then sergeants, followed by corporals and constables.

  Hell, the way I saw it, even the janitor should’ve been trying to catch the killer.

  “Yes, you can assure Mr. Breslow that we have everyone working on the case,” said Eldridge. “Everyone including you, too, now. Can I assume you’ll be heading over to the Governor’s Club as soon as possible?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’m sure you know that the Governor’s Club is a private resort, and they can press charges for trespassing, if they so desire.”

  I stared at Eldridge again, trying to get a read on him. I couldn’t. Was he really trying to stand in my way?

  “Do you think that’s a possibility?” I asked. “I mean, would they really consider my being there to be trespassing?”

  “It’s very possible,” he said. “They cater to a high-class clientele, people in the know, and are very sensitive about respecting the privacy of their guests.”

  It suddenly dawned on me what Eldridge was doing. He was actually trying to tell me something, only not in so many words. This was off the record. Between the lines. Code.