Prologue

Death Is a Lonely Business.

I'd expected him to tie up at the little pier a few yards away, which would have put him fully in the moonlight while I stayed partially in the shadows. Instead, he tips his motor up and lets the skiff's momentum carry it up onto the beach. We'll both be fully in the light.

He starts walking toward me.

"That's close enough," I say when he's about ten feet away.

He frowns but stops. "Where's the money?"

"You've been fully paid. You won't get a bonus by blackmailing me."

He snarls and his hand twitches toward the gun. "I can destroy you!"

It's true, unfortunately. He somehow got a partial client list from a delivery driver. The driver has already been dealt with, but Luis is still very much a problem. My problem. "But it won't be just ten thousand tonight, will it? You'll want another ten thousand after you've spent the first one. And your friends will ask where all the money came from, and you'll brag about how you outsmarted the gringos. The other smugglers will hear about it, and they'll figure it's safe to blackmail us too. We can't start down that road. You must see that."

"Give me ten thousand," he says again, but with less conviction.

"No."

His face hardens. "Give me ten thousand!"

"No."

He puts his hand on the butt of his pistol. "Give me—"

"Take the gun out slowly and drop it. Keep your finger away from the trigger."

My heart races and my breath heaves in deep gulps, like I just finished a marathon. I blink away the afterimage of the muzzle flashes and turn in a quick circle, scanning for lights or movement. Nothing. The only sounds I hear over my pounding pulse are the surf and a fitful sea breeze.

I reach an area popular with sharks and put the motor in neutral. I search the stiffening corpse for wallet, watch, phone, and anything else that might identify him and survive the scavengers. His phone lights up at my touch, displaying a snapshot of a young woman holding a little boy. She's wearing a simple white dress that sets off her black hair and caramel skin. The boy has on a Pikachu T-shirt and is reaching toward the camera. They both have beautiful smiles. Their large brown eyes are just like the eyes that have haunted me ever since I saw them watching me from a medieval crucifix in an Italian church years ago.

I click off the phone and put it down, willing myself to forget the picture.

"A lonely business," I say to the darkness.