Michael’s heart leaped. “Our home?”

Ryder offered a soft smile. “If your invitation still stands . . .”

Michael could count on two fingers the times he’d felt the need to cry like a baby. One was the day he realized women did nothing for him. The second was when he and Karen decided to go forward with their divorce. Didn’t matter that Karen wasn’t his wife in the true sense, but he knew that relationship, the friendship day in and day out, would be gone for him.

Still, his eyes swelled with the need to shed. “The invitation is paved in gold.”

Ryder flashed the smile that undid him the first time Michael had really noticed it.

“We’re doing this.”

Michael nodded. “Yes. We’re doing this.” He leaned forward, captured Ryder’s lips, and knew the time had come in his life to move on.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“You think I fucking care what you want? You’re in this just as deep as I am. Now get in there, and make it look good.” Alonzo nodded toward the bed. His wife, for however short their marriage would be, was stoned and squirming on the bed.

Alba ripped his shirt from his shoulders, kicked out of his pants, but left his whites on. Pussy.

It sickened him, the look of her like this. Not emotionally, of course, he’d never loved the woman, but how weak she was in such a short time. Day two of mainlining, and she was his bitch. So easy. If he could make a living hooking innocent women on drugs he wouldn’t have to prove himself any longer.

Then again, if this worked out, hooking this woman would be the first of many.

Alba climbed into the bed, hid his hips with the sheets, and buried his head into Gabi’s shoulder.

Alonzo started snapping pictures.

Gabi turned to him, her eyes unfocused, her lips smiling. “Hey, what are you doing over there?”

“Smile, honey.”

She did . . . and he snapped a candid that would keep Val quiet forever.

Val wished the never-ending ocean below him would fade away to land. Then he’d know he was closer Gabi.

Closer to ending all of this.

Margaret reached over and grasped his hand for the umpteenth time since the photo had landed in his e-mail.

“He needs her,” Margaret whispered.

“She didn’t look like her.”

Margaret looked away. “I wish it wasn’t Gabi. We both know it was.”

There were two photographs, one with Gabi holding out her arm for an awaiting needle, and another of her in bed with a man Val didn’t recognize. The image left him physically ill, ready to murder. The images were captioned with a simple if you know what’s best for both of you, leave Italy message.

“How did this happen?” he asked. How would he ever look his sister in the eye again?

“It’s not your fault, Val. You didn’t know.”

The private jet, arranged by Margaret’s boss, carried them home. “I’m responsible for her. She’s my sister.”

“Blame me. Michael and I forced our way on your island . . . then the trouble began.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Margaret drew her hand away. “Are you giving your sister drugs?”

“No!”

“Did you arrange to take pictures of her in bed with a stranger?”

Val felt his blood boil. “No!”

“Then you didn’t do this. Now stop feeling sorry for her, for you, and let’s work this out. We’re three hours to Miami and we have nearly no plan as to what we’re going to do when we get there.”

Val pushed out of the plush leather seat of the private six-seater plane, and moved about the cabin.

All the time in an airplane left him with too many stagnant hours with nothing to do but question why he didn’t see this coming.

Even with all the pictures, the reconnaissance that Margaret and her friends had provided, there was still little to no proof that Alonzo was involved. Except that the man had his sister. Val had left messages for Gabi on her cell phone to call him. Left a message on Alonzo’s that Val didn’t expect them to be out so long, that if he didn’t hear from him directly in twenty-four hours, he would notify the authorities about a possible downed yacht.

Who was he kidding? Alonzo was the only connection with every dot. The wine, the winery passing off a vintage that wasn’t his . . . the crew member left on Sapore di Amore who could have taken pictures. If Captain Stephan was someone Alonzo knew . . . the dots were complete.

“There’s a missing link,” he vocalized for Margaret’s benefit.

“More than one. Let’s place our suspect in the role of the bad guy here. Stephan . . . what do we know about him?”

“He moves passengers on and off my island.”

“Sounds innocent enough. How long has he worked for you?”

“A few years, I think.”

“Longer than Alonzo has been in the picture?”

“Yeah,” Val told her. “According to Lou, none of my employees have skipped out of work since the pictures of you and I showed up. Stephan is still shuttling passengers.”

“Could he know Alonzo? Be working with him?”

“It’s possible. I guess. Why?”

While they talked, Margaret jotted notes down on a pad of paper. “We know Stephan is an alias. That makes him a suspect in something. Not what’s happening now with Gabi, since he’s not missing from his island duties. But he could have been someone behind the pictures early on.”

“That’s more probable than a housemaid.”

Margaret made a dark line on her notepad and started to question again. “When did Gabi meet Alonzo?”