“From what? Must’ve been a healthy business.”

“I created some software that proved to be lucrative.”

Or did you accumulate a fortune by rooking women out of theirs?

That’s what Drex was thinking when Jasper smiled at him congenially and said, “I have lemon sorbet for dessert.”

Drex declined the sorbet. And since it was obvious that Jasper didn’t want to elaborate on his former field of endeavor, Drex let the subject drop. He also declined to have coffee, not wanting to outstay his welcome.

Although he offered to help with the cleanup, Jasper refused.

As Drex was about to leave, he mentioned that the apartment didn’t have air-conditioning. Jasper insisted on lending him a box fan. He fetched it from his garage and told Drex to keep it for as long as he needed it.

“Thanks. Thanks for everything.” Drex extended his hand.

As they shook, Jasper said, “Talia texted that she should be home by midnight. We’re taking a boat out tomorrow afternoon. Not too far offshore. Just puttering around. Why don’t you join us?”

Drex was anxious to meet his wife, gauge her, but didn’t want to appear too eager. “Nice of you to offer, but it’s been days since I looked at my manuscript. The move-in and all. I really should work tomorrow.”

“You can’t take off a Sunday? I’m sure the Lord would understand.”

Drex pretended to have been persuaded. Jasper gave him the name of the marina and the number of the slip. “Meet us there around noon. We’ll go ahead and get things ready. Come hungry. We’ll have a picnic lunch on board.”

“Sounds great.” Drex thanked him again for the evening and carried the box fan across the lawn and up the stairs.

He began undressing by reaching under his loose shirttail and removing the holster from his waistband at the small of his back. Call him a cynic, but surf and turf had seemed a little over the top for a first visit even if the meal hadn’t originally been prepared with him in mind.

Fifteen minutes later, he was stripped down to his underwear, the fan was on high, all the lights were off, and he was at the window watching through binoculars as Jasper went about cleaning up. When he was done, he locked the doors and turned out the lights. A few moments later an upstairs light came on. Minutes after, that light was also extinguished.

He hadn’t waited up for his wife. Talia.

Drex repositioned the fan so it would be blowing across the bed. He lay down on his back and stacked his hands on his chest. But, tired as he was, he was still awake when he heard a car. He returned to the window that offered the most advantageous view of the Fords’ house.

Turning into the driveway was a late-model BMW sedan. Drex checked his wristwatch. Mrs. Ford had overshot her ETA by twenty-seven minutes. She must have opened the garage door with a remote. She drove in, and the door went down.

Drex never distinguished more of her than a shadowy form, but by the lights being turned on, then off, he tracked her progress through the house. The last light to go out was behind a shade in a small upstairs window. He presumed it was a bathroom. Drex stayed at the window for several minutes more, but the house remained dark.

He returned to bed but lay awake, his mind troubled with thoughts of Talia Ford, lying beside her husband. When she got into bed with him, had she whispered good night, kissed his cheek, snuggled against him, reached for him, and initiated lovemaking? The thought of it made Drex ill.

At least she was alive. But for how long? Because if Jasper was the man Drex suspected him of being, his wife’s days were numbered. If Jasper Ford was the man Drex had first come to know by the name of Weston Graham, then this woman would be the next of many whom Jasper had befriended, wooed, and robbed of millions before they disappeared without a trace. Drex was convinced that he had disposed of those women.

How’d she die?

In pain.

The words, Jasper’s implacable doll-like stare when he spoke them, had made the hair on the back of Drex’s neck stand on end. In that moment, it had felt as though Jasper was baiting him.

Drex hadn’t taken the bait, but he’d wanted to.

He had wanted to lunge across the short distance separating them, grab the man—the good cook, the perfect host, the friendly neighbor—by the throat, and demand to know if he was the psychopathic cocksucker who had killed his mother.

Chapter 3

The vessel moored in the designated slip wasn’t just a boat, but a yacht. It wasn’t the largest in the marina, but it held its own among them, being impressively sleek and shiny. Drex felt like he should be wearing white pants and a blue blazer, maybe with a jaunty pocket handkerchief, and have a hat with gold braid and a shiny black brim.

Instead, he was in khaki shorts, a chambray shirt, and baseball cap.

Jasper waved to him from the aft deck. The woman beside him called down, “Ahoy, Drex. You’re just in time for Champagne.” She hefted a magnum by the neck.

He gave her his best smile and started up the ramp. “I’d settle for a beer.”

“We have that, too.”

A decade younger than her husband, she was very pretty in the soft and—what was the word Gif had used? Naïve? She had that dash of girlish naïveté that a con man would target. Her hair was blond, short, and artfully tousled. She was dressed in white capri pants and a bright pink sleeveless top with a scooped neckline that showed off a deep cleavage. The best that money could buy, Drex guessed.

As he joined them on deck, he and Jasper shook hands. “Have trouble finding us?”

“None at all.” He took in the yacht, then divided a look between Jasper and his wife, landing on Jasper. “You’re a lucky bastard. This is some beauty you have here.” Then he leaned in, adding, “The boat’s not bad looking, either.”

All three of them laughed. Mrs. Ford flattened a hand against the swell of her breasts, the diamonds on her fingers flashing rainbows in the sunlight. “Why, thank you. Jasper warned me that you were a charmer. I’m so glad you joined us today, even though I understand we’re dragging you away from your work.”

“Thank you for the invitation, and it didn’t take much arm-twisting to get me here. A writer looks for any excuse not to write.”

“I would be completely daunted by the prospect of writing a book,” she said.

“I’m completely daunted by it, too, Talia. I’m sorry, is it okay if I call you Talia?”

She and Jasper looked surprised, then both began laughing. She said, “You could call me Talia if that was my name. I’m Elaine. Elaine Conner.”

Taken aback, Drex was about to stammer an apology when Jasper looked beyond him and smiled. “Here’s Talia.”

Drex did an about-face.

A woman dressed all in white was coming up the steps that led from the galley, a tray of canapés balanced on her right palm. Hearing her name, she tilted her head back and looked up through the hatch, straight at Drex.

His stomach dropped like an anchor, because, in that instant, he knew: I’m so fucked.

As Talia cleared the doorway onto the deck, the tall stranger stepped forward. “You could use a hand.” He relieved her of the tray.

“Thank you.” The sun was behind him. She shielded her eyes against the glare to better see him. The bill of his cap cast his eyes in shadow, but his bristly jaw and smile were visible. He didn’t appear to be quite as “rough around the edges” as Jasper had described. “You must be our new neighbor.”