“What kind of freaking idiots would think for even half a second that Lieutenant Commander Paoletti could be part of a terrorist plot to assassinate the President?” Sam Starrett was incredulous.

Alyssa knew exactly what he was feeling. To anyone who’d worked with Tom Paoletti, the idea was inconceivable. “The kind of idiot whose job depends on him successfully blaming someone. There are a lot of frightened people out there who only know that three terrorists managed to get three very deadly weapons past the high-level security of a United States naval base and discharge those weapons at the U.S. President,” she told him as they headed downtown in her rental car.

The streetlight filtered in through the windshield, casting shadows on Sam’s face. This was surreal. That she was sitting in a car in Sarasota, Florida, with Lt. Roger “Sam” Starrett and discussing the fact that Tom Paoletti had been brought in for questioning in connection to a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was completely surreal.

“We’re the most powerful nation in the world, and those men came into our country, onto one of our military bases, and nearly managed to kill our leader,” she continued. “And here we sit, looking foolish, because we still don’t know much more about who was behind this attack than we did just a few days after it happened.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that those three shooters planned it themselves, without any outside help?”

“Only one of them wore a radio,” Alyssa told him. “The others didn’t. As far as we can tell, the radioman signaled the two other men to let them know that the shooting was going to start by putting on a white baseball cap.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

That’s right. Sam had been there.

“Maybe that radio was just a mindfuck,” he said. “Maybe there was no one else involved. Maybe the real terrorist act wasn’t the shooting. Maybe the real terrorism is in the way this investigation has tied up the FBI for all these months.”

Alyssa shook her head. “No,” she said. “There’s more. We know all three of the shooters entered the base as part of a group tour four days before the President’s visit. Someone helped them join that tour. We also found information on their computer hard drive that provides evidence to the fact they had help both obtaining those weapons and transporting them onto the base.”

“But nothing that IDs exactly who it was who helped, right?” Sam laughed. “If I were a terrorist, I’d leave shit like that behind, too, to confuse the hell out of the infidels.”

“We have an extra set of fingerprints on one of the weapons, belonging to a still unidentified person known as Lady X, believed to be female from the size of the prints.”

“Big deal. All that means is Abdul duk Fukkar got himself laid before he went to his heavenly reward. Just in case there really weren’t seventy-two virgins waiting there for him. ‘Hey, baby, want to touch my gun?’ It’s amazing how often that line gets results.”

“Okay, work this into your mindfuck theory, Starrett,” Alyssa challenged him. “We have a 911 call that warns of the attack. It came in right as the first shots were fired. It was made from a public phone on the base, also by an unidentified female. By the time we located that pay phone, we were unable to get any readable fingerprints—although there are some who theorize the voice on the tape belongs to that same Lady X.”

She glanced at him.

But Sam just shrugged. “If I were duk Fukkar, I’d leave the gun-toucher a little note telling her what’s going to go down. Just to add to the confusion. So maybe that tape is your Lady X.”

“So where is she?” Alyssa asked. “Why would she make that call and then drop off the face of the earth if she weren’t somehow involved?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to go down in history as the woman who laid some terrorist loser who then tried to kill the President.”

She braked as the traffic light in front of them turned yellow and then red. “Maybe she loved him. Maybe he conned her into believing that they had a future. Or maybe he loved her, too. Maybe he fell in love with her and left a note to try to explain.”

Sam laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what happened. No, thanks, I’ll stick to my mindfuck theory.”

“It’s just that we’ve traced the shooters’ trails back over the past two years of their lives, and we still have no clue as to how they got those weapons onto the base. We don’t know much, but we do know that none of the three terrorists was a rocket scientist. It’s hard to believe they’d be able to mastermind an assassination attempt on this scale. I mean, how did they even know that the President was coming to the base in Coronado?”

“Maybe it was just dumb luck,” Sam suggested. “Maybe their original target was Admiral Crowley.”

“Or maybe someone else was involved. There’s a theory out there that the weapons were placed on the base—hidden there, waiting for them. All they had to do was pick them up.”

“I can tell you who wasn’t involved,” Sam countered. “Lieutenant Commander Paoletti. He saved hundreds of lives that day. He should get a medal instead of being locked up and treated like some kind of criminal.”

“I’m with you on that,” Alyssa said. And when he looked over at her and into her eyes, she had another flash of unreality. She and Sam were in complete and total agreement about something.

Something that had absolutely nothing to do with sex.

They’d agreed quite passionately, and in rather loud unison, in the past when it came to having sex, but to little else.

The traffic light turned green, and she pulled her gaze back to the road.

“So how can I help him?” Sam said simply.

“You can start by providing a written and verified account of where you spent your time over the past few weeks,” she told him, “so we can officially cross you off Conseco’s list of suspected murderers.”

He understood why, and he nodded. “I’ll do that tonight.”

Alyssa glanced at him again. “Will you be able to account for all your time?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Yeah. I think so. I mean, I haven’t been doing much of anything. I was either out of the country with the team, or... shoot, I don’t know. Watching TV.” He glanced at her. “Either alone or with my neighbor Don DaCosta. Who’s mentally ill. The aluminum-foil-on-his-head-to-keep-aliens-from-reading-his-mind kind of mentally ill. He’s not the best alibi, but that’s what I did. Football, basketball, and hockey with crazy Donny DaCosta. Once or twice I went to Nils and Meg’s, or Savannah and Ken’s for dinner. They always wondered where Mary Lou was. It was... weird.”

She knew what he was telling her, and she found it very hard to believe. Sam Starrett without female companionship for six solid months? She purposely kept the conversation directly on topic. “Then we’ll have to provide an alibi from your work schedule.”

“That I can do. I went into the base early and stayed late. And I did some, you know, volunteer shit, too. Believe me, I was never home from the base long enough to get out to Florida and back. I’m pretty sure I can prove that.”

Volunteer shit. Wasn’t that interesting? Alyssa had heard through the Spec Op grapevine that Team Sixteen had done some kind of program at an inner city high school in Los Angeles. She tried to picture Sam with high school students and had to fight to keep herself from smiling.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about this,” Sam mused, “and it makes sense that it’s Janine, not Mary Lou, who’s dead. Janine just split up from her husband—a guy named Clyde Wrigley. Although, Jesus, I met him a few times and he’s like some kind of throwback to 1972. A real pothead hippie type. Soft-spoken, you know? I’m not sure I ever saw him get up off the couch. I can’t picture him getting closer than ten feet to a shotgun.” He laughed with disgust. “As far as shotgun-wielding types go, I’m the one who fits that bill, huh?”

Alyssa sensed more than saw him turn toward her in the dim light from the dashboard. His voice was soft in the darkness. “Thanks for believing me, Lys.”

“You’re not a killer.”

He laughed quietly. “You left off the first part of that—’You might be an asshole, Roger, but you’re not a killer.’ ” He did a very decent imitation of her voice.

She had to laugh. “You said it, I didn’t.”

“I made a shitload of mistakes in the past few years,” he told her. “But none of them involved a shotgun.”

What could she say to that? Alyssa just drove, wishing she knew where she was going. Her hotel was around here somewhere, but she was not taking him there. Maybe there was an all-night restaurant they could go to. Have a cup of coffee. Then go their separate ways for the night—and hopefully for the rest of their lives.

Sam cleared his throat. “This is where you’re supposed to tell me you’re not seeing Max anymore.”

It was too dark in the car for her to see his eyes. Was he actually serious?

“If Mary Lou’s alive, you’re still married.” Oh damn, why in hell had she said that? It sounded as if she were interested in—

“No, I’m not,” Sam said, still in that same quiet voice. “She signed those papers. As soon as the lawyer gets them, they’ll be filed, and our divorce will be official. I spoke to Manny Conseco about it—those papers are evidence, but they’ll get copies notarized and sent to San Diego.”

“Don’t you have better things to think about—like the whereabouts of your daughter?” Well, that came out a little more sharply than she’d intended. But maybe that was just as well.

Sam was single again, and, now that it was convenient for him, he wanted to get back into her pants. Like that was a big surprise.

But she only had to keep him at a distance for a while. Max would be in town tomorrow, thank goodness. And if she was lucky, he’d send her back to D.C.

Alyssa wasn’t one to run away, but this was so much harder than she’d anticipated. And she’d anticipated that seeing Sam again was going to be very, very hard.

“Sorry. I’m...” He rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. I’m just... a loser.” He looked at her with eyes that were clearly haunted. “Do you think there’s hope that Haley’s still alive?”

“I don’t know,” Alyssa had to tell him.

“I haven’t seen her in six months,” Sam said wearily. “I don’t even know if I’ll recognize her.”

“How could you have let six months pass without even having gone to see your daughter?” Alyssa shook her head both at him and at the disbelief that rang in her voice. “Don’t answer that. That has nothing to do with this investigation. I’m sorry for—”

“Getting personal?” he finished for her. “Like you said to Noah—we’re friends. And you were right. We are friends, Alyssa. I value your friendship very much, and what you asked was a very valid question for one friend to ask another.” He sighed. “I guess I have to tell you honestly that I didn’t try very hard to visit. I made plans a few times to come out here for the weekend, but every time I did that, the team either went OUTCONUS or Mary Lou canceled on me.

“I might be a lousy father,” he continued, “but just for the record, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t miss Haley.”

Alyssa was silent, afraid that he was going to tell her more, and afraid that he wasn’t.

“You know, Mary Lou used to go out to meetings. AA meetings,” Sam said. “She had one mapped out for nearly every night of the week. I spent a lot of those nights with Haley. And yeah, I know, it was only a few hours compared to the time Mary Lou spent with her during the day, but still.... We had this agreement, me and Hale. I wouldn’t put her in the playpen unless I was in there, too—I mean, who could put their kid in a cage like that?—and she wouldn’t crap in her diaper.” He laughed. “I kept my end of the bargain, but she didn’t. You should have seen me the first time I changed one of those diapers, you know the kind filled with that really special type of baby poo? It’s amazing how after the fortieth or forty-first time you pretty much get used to it.” He laughed again. “God, you know you’re pathetic when you even miss your kid’s dirty diapers.”

He was silent for a minute, and then he said, “She used to fall asleep just, like, lying on my chest. You know, watching a football game or something. It was...” He stopped and cleared his throat. “It was something I missed very much when she was gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said softly.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Me, too.” He took a deep breath and blew it out hard. “I figure I’ll take a ride north tomorrow. Mary Lou’s mother lives somewhere up near Jacksonville, I think. I’m not sure where it is—I need to look at a map to jog my memory. I doubt that Mary Lou or Janine would’ve brought Haley there, but she might know something.”

“You should let the FBI handle this investigation.”

“Yeah, right.” He laughed his disgust. “You’ve done so well with the whole Coronado terrorist case. I’ll just sit back and wait for you to deliver Haley to me. Sometime before her eighteenth birthday.”

Her cell phone rang, and she flipped it open. “Locke.”

“Conseco,” the head of the Sarasota office said. “We’ve IDed the victim as Janine Morrison Wrigley. We’ve got APBs out on both her ex-husband and the missing sister and kid. I’ll keep you posted as we get more information.”

“Thank you,” Alyssa said. She hung up the phone and turned to Sam, who was watching her intently. “It wasn’t Mary Lou.”

“Oh, God, oh, Jesus, thank you,” he said, then covered his face with his hands.

He just sat there, head bowed, completely silent. Alyssa wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.

But then he drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a hard exhale as he ran his hands down his face. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m just... a little...”

“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to say anything.”

It was several long moments before he spoke.

“It was Janine?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she told him. “They’re looking for her ex-husband, Clyde.”

“You up for a drive?” Sam asked, finally looking over at her. “Because I know where to find him.”

Haley was gone.

Mary Lou Morrison Starrett’s mood went from euphoric to terrified as she searched the small au pair apartment that she shared with her daughter, and then ran down the hall to Amanda’s bedroom and then to Whitney’s suite.

The good news was that Whitney wasn’t lying dead on the floor, her hair soaked with blood.

In all likelihood, the girl had taken Haley and Amanda, her own daughter—born when Whitney was barely fifteen—to the beach.

Still, Mary Lou’s hands shook as she picked up the phone and dialed Whitney’s cell phone number.

The girl answered it on the third ring. “ ’Lo?” Amanda was wailing in the background.

“Whitney!” Praise God. The cell phone signal out here in Nowheresville was spotty at best. “It’s Ma— Constance.” Connie, not Mary Lou. Connie, Connie, Connie. She was Connie Grant, who had a son, Chris. Haley had balked at a name change until Mary Lou had suggested she pick one herself. Her first choice was Daddy, which had made Mary Lou pause. Her second was Pooh, which also didn’t work. The third time was a charm, thank the Lord, with Christopher Robin, which fit right in with Mary Lou’s plan to pass her off as a little boy. “Where are you?”

She never raised her voice to Whitney, and right now it took everything she had in her to keep from shrieking at the teenager.

“Almost home. We’re nearly at the gate. We’ll be in the garage in about three minutes,” Whitney reported. “Are you and Daddy through? Meet us down there and take the screaming monster out of her car seat. You know, I don’t get it. Chris doesn’t have shitfits in the middle of Starbucks.”

“Please watch your language in front of the children,” Mary Lou said, working hard to keep her voice calm and in control, closing her eyes and silently invoking Ihbraham Rahman’s gentle spirit. Lord, she missed him so much there were times she doubled over from the pain.

If she lost her temper and let on that foul words in front of Haley and Amanda were a serious problem, Whitney would use them more frequently, instead of less.

The truth was, Amanda’s misbehaving had more to do with the fact that she had been unlucky enough to be born to a rich spoiled brat who was little more than a petulant infant herself.

Whitney Turlington was the bane of Mary Lou’s existence—yet she was also her savior. In the past two years of Amanda’s life, more than two dozen au pairs had run screaming from the palatial Florida mansion where Amanda and Whitney lived with Whitney’s very wealthy father, Frank. They hadn’t run from Amanda, who wasn’t the terror everyone made her out to be, but rather from Whitney, who was barely seventeen and constantly at war with King Frank, Whitney Turlington was a bitch on wheels.

But because of that, King Frank hadn’t called a single one of Connie Grant’s faked references when Mary Lou had applied for the position. He’d just been downright grateful someone had showed up for the job interview at all.

Which meant that, at least for now, Mary Lou and Haley had found a safe place to hide in the Turlington’s private little compound just southwest of Sarasota—not twenty miles from the house where Janine lay dead in the kitchen.

No one had found her yet.

Mary Lou watched the local news every night, praying that someone would find her sister and give her a proper, decent Christian burial.

She also prayed that the men who killed Janine wouldn’t find her and Haley.

Her ex-husband, Sam, the Navy SEAL, had once told her that the smartest place to hide was back where everyone had already searched. So she’d maxed out her credit card in Jacksonville, making it look as if she were heading north, while at the same time buying everything she hadn’t been able to take from Janine’s house when she’d left town on that awful evening.

One of her first stops had been at a beauty parlor where Haley’s golden curls had been cut boyishly short. Mary Lou had her own hair cut, too, and went blond, telling the beautician to match the shade with Haley’s.

The next stop had been Sears, where, while Haley wasn’t looking, Mary Lou had bought a brand-new Pooh Bear. She’d given it to her daughter, pretending she’d found it at the bottom of her big purse. Haley had looked suspiciously at the new stuffed animal’s gleaming golden fur and clean red shirt, but Mary Lou had chattered on about how she’d taken Pooh to the beauty parlor, too, and had his fur “done” while they were there, same as Mama’s hair.

She’d bought them clothes—Haley’s from the little boy’s section of the store—and luggage on little rollers. They’d headed to Gainesville, ditched the car, and boarded a bus back to Sarasota, where Mary Lou had seen Frank Turlington’s desperate ad for an au pair hanging on the community message board in the grocery store where she used to work. It had been there close to six months ago, when she’d first started as a cashier, and a month later, when she’d been about to take it down, her assistant manager had stopped her. Even though the store managers had a rule against signs hanging on the board for longer than a few weeks, the woman gave her the scoop on the Turlingtons, telling her that King Frank—as he was called by the locals—might as well put in a revolving door at the front of his house. Because a few days after a new au pair went in, she’d come shooting out again.

Mary Lou had been here now for almost three weeks, which was breaking the official Turlington au pair stamina record by thirteen days.

And then word had come down from Mrs. Downs, the housekeeper, that King Frank had requested Mary Lou’s—Connie’s—presence at breakfast today. At 7:00 A.M. He’d even given the royal order for Whitney to wake up early and keep an eye on Amanda and Haley while Connie was meeting with him.

Before she’d made the marathon run to the wing with the dining room, Mary Lou had taken Haley to the bathroom at least two dozen times, cursing the fact that her daughter had been potty trained—early—for a full month now. She tried to put a Pull-Ups on Haley, tried to tell her daughter not to drink, tried to caution her not to ask Whitney for help in the bathroom, told her to wait to pee until Mommy came back.

Haley had blinked at her and then returned to staring at Sesame Street.

Whitney had staggered in at 6:57, and Mary Lou had sprinted to the dining room, risking one of Mrs. Downs’s “the hired help moves silently throughout the house” lectures.

She’d arrived at 6:59, dressed in Connie’s most conservative beige slacks and a pastel blue blouse. And then she’d sat off to the side and waited for more than ninety minutes while King Frank talked on the phone to someone in San Francisco named Steve about acquiring one of Wyatt Earp’s six-shooters for his vast gun collection.

Finally, King Frank got off the phone, ate half a corn muffin, and then turned his attention to Mary Lou.

At first she thought she was being let go, because he told her that he’d decided to send Whitney into a special rehab-type program. Starting in two weeks, she would be gone for three months. And she’d be taking Amanda with her.

But then he gave Mary Lou a contract that, if she signed, would give her five thousand dollars a month—including the months Whitney would be away—provided she stayed a full year. If she didn’t stay the year, she’d receive only five hundred dollars a month.

The catch was that King Frank was going to Europe this afternoon. Something important had come up, and he wouldn’t be back until August. And Mrs. Downs’s niece was getting married in Atlanta on Friday. She was leaving tonight, and would be gone most of the two weeks before Whitney and Amanda were scheduled to leave, too.

Starting in just a few hours, Mary Lou would be alone in the house with the devil child and her offspring. The security guards would remain on duty down by the gate, and although they did a daily check of the compound to make sure the two empty guest houses were secure, they rarely did more than walk in a circle around the main house.

Of course, she’d signed. She’d had her pen out and ready the moment King Frank had uttered the words five thousand. These next few weeks might actually be easier with no one around for Whitney to piss off. She’d try plenty, but Mary Lou had learned early on to let it bounce right off.

But now Whitney had taken Haley to Starbucks.

Mary Lou ran into the garage just as the convertible pulled inside.

And the reality of the situation hit Mary Lou. That girl had taken Haley all the long way to town. In a convertible with the top down.

Where anyone might have seen her.

You did not have my permission to take Chris into town. Mary Lou clenched her teeth over the words. If she uttered them, then Whitney would know that she’d found Mary Lou’s weakness. And then the girl would have the upper hand.

Lord help her, she needed a drink.

“Please ask me next time you decide to take Chris to town,” Mary Lou said instead.

“You were busy and I needed a cup of coffee.”

“There’s coffee in the kitchen.” Mary Lou worked to make her voice calm. Unaffected. She lifted howling Amanda out of her car seat and held her close. “Shhh, honey, it’s all right.”

“Yeah, well, I needed a Starbucks.”

What Whitney had needed was to see Peter Young, the loser of the moment, the boy who was currently using her for sex.

Had she left Haley and Amanda alone in the car, in the parking lot, while she and Peter had gone into the bathroom and...?

Mary Lou wanted to break Whitney’s nose.

But there was a gleam in her blue eyes that Mary Lou didn’t like. And Whitney’s smile was just a little too satisfied.

“You know,” Whitney said, “Chris had to pee on the way home, so we pulled off the road and—”

Damn it!

“—wasn’t that a surprise.”

Mary Lou made shushing noises as she hugged Amanda, crossing around to the other side of the car to get Haley out of the car, too.

“I’m going to tell my father that you’re a liar,” Whitney singsonged.

Mary Lou had both children in her arms now, one on either hip. She went to the far end of the five-bay garage and put them down near an open area dedicated to Amanda’s Big Wheel. Amanda, five months older, would ride, and Haley would watch, all big eyes.

Now what? The thought of murdering Whitney and hiding the body actually crossed her mind. Amanda wouldn’t miss her, and Frank would probably be relieved.

No, she and Haley would have to leave. They’d have to pack up and move on. Damn it. Five thousand dollars a month. She’d been so close.

Unless...

Lord, it was worth a try. She marched all the way across the garage, back to Whitney. “I need your help.”

Whitney blinked. Probably because no one had ever said those words to her before.

“My ex-husband wants me dead,” Mary Lou lied, saying a silent apology to Sam, who had never hit her and would probably die before laying a hand on a woman. “I left him before he could beat the life out of me, and now he’s hunting me down.”

She hoped that Whitney wouldn’t recognize the plot from that J. Lo movie she’d rented last week. The truth of Mary Lou’s situation was too complicated. But spouse abuse—now, that was something Whitney could relate to. Apparently Amanda’s father had had quite a right hook. “He’s crazy,” she continued, “and he says if he can’t have me, no one will, so I changed my name and got this job here with you so I could hide from him.

“He doesn’t know I’m in Sarasota,” she told the girl, who was definitely listening. “I left a false trail to make him think I was up north. But I used to live in Sarasota, so he might have people watching for me here. Or watching for Chris, who, yes, is a girl. Our lives depend on our being able to stay here, in this compound, where as few people as possible can see us. So I need you to promise that you will never take Chris anywhere again without asking me first.”

Whitney was silent for a moment. “What’s your real name?” she asked.

“Wendy,” Mary Lou lied, praying she was doing the right thing by telling Whitney this. “I’m not going to tell you my last name.”

Whitney thought about that a little bit longer. “I should still tell Daddy.”

“If you do,” Mary Lou pointed out, “you’ll find yourself with a new au pair. One who spies on you and tells your father when you sneak out at night to see Peter.”

On the other side of the garage, Amanda was driving in circles around Haley, who was laughing. Lord, she didn’t want to leave. Where would they go?

Early on, she’d found that the key to communicating with Whitney was to always be the one to end the conversation. Always be first to walk away.

“Who wants a snack?” Mary Lou asked Amanda and Haley as she crossed the garage toward them.

Please Lord, don’t let Whitney tell.

“So.” Elliot glanced over his shoulder toward the other members of Dennis Mattson’s yacht crew waiting for him farther down the dock.

“So,” Gina Vitagliano said, pulling a strand of sea-wind-whipped hair from the corner of her mouth and tucking it back into her ponytail. She was determined not to make this easier for him, the jerk.

Although to be fair, Elliot was the sweetest, kindest jerk she’d ever met.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us,” he said, and actually managed to sound like he meant it. Because he probably did mean it.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too. I was...” Come on, Gina, just be honest. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again in her entire life. “I was disappointed that we didn’t get together.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just... I couldn’t. Not after you told me...”

“Yeah, right,” Gina said. “Dead horse. I’m glad we were friends, Elliot. Good luck in St. Thomas, okay?”

“Thanks.” His eyes were such a warm shade of dark brown, it was impossible to tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. It was his eyes that had attracted her to him in the first place.

They’d reminded her of Max.

“So what’s your plan?” Elliot asked her.

It was funny, because other than his dark hair and eyes, Elliot looked nothing like Max Bhagat.

Max wasn’t as tall, and he wasn’t the same kind of handsome. He was swarthier—his father had been a native of India. And he was older. He had at least fifteen years on Elliot, twenty years on Gina. And Max was the head of an FBI counterterrorist unit. He was an experienced FBI negotiator who spent his days saving lives.

Elliot was the cook aboard a rich man’s racing yacht.

But, like Max, he’d listened when Gina talked. Or at least he’d listened to a point. But then Elliot had stopped listening, because he didn’t like what she was telling him. He didn’t really want to hear what she had to say.

“I’m going to do it,” she told him now, because this topic was relatively safe and he was listening again. “I’m going overseas. I’ve got a few more things to do for Dennis here in Tampa, and I’m doing that gig at the jazz club down in Sarasota, you know, filling in for a friend. But then I’m flying back to New York to spend a few days with my family, and after that... I’m going to Africa. I actually bought the airline ticket this morning.”

Gina still had enough money from the World Airlines settlement. She could kick around for two, three more years at least without having to make any decisions as to what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

“That’s great,” Elliot told her, his voice warm with sincerity. “I think that’s really great, Gina.”

Across the marina, his friends were getting restless. She smiled at him. “You better go.”

“I’ll miss you,” he said, giving her an awkward hug. “I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah,” she said with a laugh, trying to turn it into a joke. “Brave. That’s me. Wonder Woman. Right.”

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, don’t be. Too many people are too serious. Life’s too short. Didn’t I teach you anything these past six weeks?”

Life was indeed too short. And the next time she was thinking about getting naked with a guy she liked enough to get naked with, she wasn’t going to blurt out the fact that she’d spent four days as a hostage of Kazbekistani terrorists on a hijacked airliner. And she certainly wasn’t going to mention being violently attacked and...

“Still, when I think about what you went through...”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Gina lied. “Go.”

He went, taking his Max Bhagat knockoff eyes with him.

Gina climbed into the rental car and headed back to the hotel, hoping that sooner or later she’d find whatever it was that she was so desperately looking for.

Or that Max would call her again.