Chapter 2

Kenny Torres came around from the dock side with his radio already in his hand. Fifty-something, broad through the shoulders, a name tag that read K. TORRES, and the flat, patient face of a man who had walked people out of buildings before.

"Problem, Mr. Voss?"

"Trespasser. Walked in off the street."

"I walked in the front door," I said. "Same as everybody else."

Kenny looked at my boots, then at my face. He didn't like the job he'd just been handed. I've seen that look my whole life. It's the look of a man enforcing rules he didn't write.

Derek woke his tablet with his thumb. "You've got ten seconds to tell me who you work for."

I took the check out of my shirt pocket, unfolded it, and laid it on the counter between us, face up.

He didn't look at it. He looked at my hand.

"Cashier's check," I said. "Made out to Halcyon Yacht Group. It covers 48-207, the electronics package, and a year of dockage. The bank's open until five. Call them."

Derek laid his palm flat and slid the check back toward me without reading a word of it.

"I don't take paper from people who wander in off the street."

"You take it from everyone. That's what money is."

The young woman at the desk made a small sound and covered it with a cough. Derek heard it anyway.

He leaned in. "Let me explain something. That boat has a buyer. He's a man whose face you've seen on magazine covers, and he'll be standing in this room in about ten minutes. I'm not having him walk past a situation."

My hand went up to my throat. It's a habit. There's a leather cord around my neck and there's been nothing on it for twenty-five years, and when I'm tired I touch it the way you touch a scar.

The young woman noticed. Her eyes went to my hand and stayed there a beat too long.

"Trespassing," Derek said. "That's what I'll write."

I folded the check and put it away.

"Then I'll wait," I said.

I sat down in the leather chair by the window, where the light was gold and the water was doing its late-afternoon glitter, and I put my hat on my knee. Nobody in that room spoke for me. Not one person.

Ten minutes. I'd waited a lot longer than that for worse things.

The young woman came over with a bottle of water and set it on the table beside me. Her name tag said PRIYA. She glanced back at the counter, then at me.

"Forty-eight twenty-seven," she said quietly. "How do you know the keel was hand-laid?"