Prologue

The three-wheeled truck, having weathered World War II and every day after, carried its battle scars proudly as it hovered on the curb of Via del Plebiscito. Its V-shaped bumper was as jagged as a saw. Behind the wheel its latest owner, Zbysek Bailin, waited patiently, as though he were long accustomed to assassination on a rainy Wednesday evening.

A red umbrella rounded the corner from the Piazza del Gesù. Zbysek took in a breath and turned the ignition key. The engine coughed to an idle, purred raggedly awaiting further command from its driver. The silver-haired man ambled toward the intersection of Via degli Astalli that flanked the rear of the massive church. Purposely leaving his headlight off, Zbysek shifted into gear and bounced into the street. His foot pressed on the reluctant accelerator, the ancient vehicle climbing all too slowly up to speed.

The man had reached the intersection, and as he passed beneath the streetlight Zbysek thought he might well be deaf—he was so lost in thought he didn’t seem to hear the rumbling truck, even as it barreled toward him at full speed.

Clutching tight to the shaky steering wheel, Zbysek was hunched forward in the cab, eyes intent on his target. All he could see was the man’s bent back, crawling up Via Astalli like a praying mantis.

In seconds the truck had jumped the curb and was upon him.

The man swung around with his books and umbrella, a look of sudden shock on his face—the smile erased. His coat fell open.

For the first time, Zbysek saw his victim clearly in the light of the street lamp—the crisp white collar and the purple piping on his black vest.

His target was a monsignor!

Zbysek hauled at the wheel—but it was too late. His head struck the roof as the vehicle jerked over the body and slammed straight into the lamppost, thrusting Zbysek into the windshield and cracking his head on the glass. He climbed clumsily out of the cab and fell to his knees beside his victim. “Forgive me, father,” Zbysek finally choked out.

The old man’s face was twisted with pain. His narrowed eyes were glistening, blood trickling from his lips. He reached his hand toward his Angel of Death. He seemed to want to speak. Zbysek lowered his head to hear. The monsignor’s final whispered words confused and frightened him, and he leapt for the three-wheeler and fled from the scene.

I/1

Unholy Thursday

Father Ryan McKeown’s mood was less than reverential as he headed for the confessional where he was to perform his priestly duties. The lines of penitents in Gesù were short today. Perhaps because there’d been no major holidays recently or any coming soon, the “occasions of sin” were easier to avoid. Just as Ryan was about to step into the polished mahogany cubicle, a bedraggled man burst into the nave. The man headed for the first confessional, and knelt briefly. Moments later he unceremoniously leapt to his feet to join a short line at the next confessional booth, causing bowed heads to look up in curiosity. Ryan was bemused. Could a man’s sins be so grave he feels the need to come clean of them to several confessors?

Ryan settled himself behind the ivory baffle and listened, in turn, to an old man cursing God because his arthritis no longer allowed him to play bocce; to a teenager who abused himself fourteen times in the past seven days, using the image of his teacher, a nun, as inspiration—Father Ryan, doing his best to repress a smile, told him to say the rosary and promise never to sin again; and to a seminarian barely out of high school who asked if having concerns about his faith meant he should quit the seminary.

“Doubts are not in themselves a sin,” he told the young man. “Thomas, though he doubted, went on to become a great apostle and martyr. Not to mention Mother Teresa, whose troublesome doubts dogged at her heels even more persistently than Calcutta’s poor. I can tell you, it’s what you do with doubt that matters.” He questioned whether his comments had been of any service, or whether he should have simply referred the seminarian to a therapist. He’d often wondered where he’d be today if he himself hadn’t rejected psychotherapy as an option.

He was removing his stole to leave when a tardy penitent thumped down on the kneeler and activated the tiny red light. Ryan slid open the grate. In the obscure light he could see only enough to determine that his supplicant was a male. “Yes, my son?”

“Are you Father Ryan?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Ryan answered, before he could consider how the penitent could know his name.

“Thank God I’ve found you.”

Ryan realized he was speaking with the lost soul who’d been playing musical confessionals. “How long has it been since your last confession?”

“I killed a priest.” Ignoring the sacramental protocol, the man blurted it out in a coarse accent that Ryan had never heard before. Then, remembering the ritual formalities, the man added, “I don’t remember my last Confession. Many years ago, in Tirana.”

So the accent was Albanian. “What do you mean you killed a priest?”

“I hit him with my truck. He was a monsignor. I tried to help him. His eyes…oh my God! I got scared and drove away.”

Ryan’s heart went out to the man on the other side of the grate. The anguish in the man’s voice was dreadful. “An accident, no matter how grievous, is not a sin,” he said. “You simply have to—”

“It wasn’t an accident,” the immigrant interrupted. “I was paid to run him down.”

Ryan fell silent. What fate had led this man to his confessional today among so many hundreds in the Holy City?

“They didn’t tell me he was a monsignor.” Now the man was choking, the guttural sound poignantly wretched. “Oh, my God, I am damned to hell for all eternity.”

“Why would you accept payment for such an act?”

“I was desperate—I am desperate. My family has no money, my children need doctors—” The man’s explanations gave way to wrenching sobs. Then he regained control. “He looked at me. He told me words I didn’t understand. But I will hear them for the rest of my life.”

Reflexively Ryan slipped into his persona as an investigative scholar. “What were his words, my son?”

The poor man’s scream echoed in the hollowness of the empty church. “No!”

“It’s all right to tell me,” Ryan said. “You’re protected by the Seal of the Confessional, Holy Mother Church’s—”

“You don’t understand! It was Holy Mother Church…that paid me!”

          It wasn’t all that difficult to find Leah, once Jack set his mind to it.  Since the beginning of time, when she’d been troubled, she’d been drawn to two things.

Him.

And the ocean.

She hadn’t come to him.  That was new.  There’d been a time when she’d have come to him no matter what was troubling her.

Except, of course, at the moment he was the source of her trouble, even though it was of her own making.  The last time that had been the case, she’d left Lucky Harbor.

But he knew she couldn’t leave now.  She was here for her grandma, and though Leah had plenty of faults, her grandma meant too much to her.  Unlike himself…  He tried not to resent that, but there was no getting around the fact – he did resent it.  He was pissed off that she had no idea what she meant to him, back then.

Or now.

His heart squeezed a little, making room for a few other emotions besides his temper.  Empathy.  Maybe even reluctant affection.  He could’ve gotten into the water with her, but it was after midnight and Christ, he was tired.

Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

His mom had always said so, and in this case, he was willing to bet it was true.  So he sat on the sand, positioned halfway between her car and the water, giving her no easy escape.  And waited.

And brooded. Because he was having lots of odd and unexpected urges as it pertained to Leah, and he didn’t know what to do about them.  Once upon a time, she’d been the only highlight in his day, the only one to make him smile.  She was still that person, but there was something new between them, and he wasn’t sure if it was good.  In fact, he was pretty sure he should be running like hell.

Finally, she swam in, and then she was standing up in the water, and he nearly swallowed his tongue.  It’d been a damn long time since he’d seen her in a bathing suit.  Maybe since high school, when she’d been a head taller than all the other girls and skinny as hell.

She was still tall but she’d filled out in all the right places and then some.  She wore a black bikini, nothing but a few straps low on her hips and two triangles over her breasts, and as a wave knocked her around a little, everything jiggled enticingly.

And suddenly he went from slightly chilled to very overheated.  Good Christ, she was … beautiful.  It should’ve assuaged his simmering temper just looking at her, but instead it stoked it, making him tense as hell.

Leah, on the other hand, was looking pretty carefree as she lifted her arms and shoved back her hair.

At the sight, his brain utterly clicked off.

She saw him then.  He could tell because, from one blink of an eye to the next, she froze every single muscle.  It’d have been fascinating to watch, except for the fact that she was freezing up over him.  She’d never reacted this way before.  He didn’t like it.  And besides, he was the wronged party here.  He was the one who got to be pissy.

“You’re still here,” she said flatly. “You scared me.”

“You need to be more aware of your surroundings.”

Dripping water everywhere, she crossed her arms over herself.  “It’s Lucky Harbor.”

He rose to his feet.  “Bad shit can happen anywhere.”

She met his gaze for one brief beat and then looked away.  “What are you doing here, Jack?”

“I figured as your ‘almost fiancé,’ I should see how you’re doing.”

She winced but didn’t respond.

“What the hell is this all about, Leah?”

“You know it’s about your mom’s cancer,” she said, hugging herself a little tighter.

She always got defensive when she screwed up, and since she’d screwed up a lot, she had a lot of practice.

“My mom has enough going on,” he said.  “She doesn’t need to be lied to.”

“Maybe not.  But she does need to be happy to heal.  And this made her happy.  All week she’s been glowing.”

He knew it was true, and a stab of guilt hit him that he hadn’t been able to make her happy without help.

Leah didn’t say anything more but she didn’t have to.  Yeah, she’d gotten them into this mess, but he knew damn well it’d been out of the goodness of her heart.  Jack knew that she thought she owed him for all those years ago, when he’d done his best to protect her, the chivalry having been deeply ingrained by his dad.

But they were even.

In the dark, Leah shivered, and that chivalry had him torn between enjoying the sight of her cold and wanting to wrap her up in his arms.  “Where’s your towel?”

“In the car.”

He pulled off his sweatshirt and tugged it over her head.

“I’ll get it wet,” she said.

“It’ll dry.”

“I’m—”

“Just wear the damn sweatshirt, Leah.”

There was an awkward silence while they stared at each other as behind her the water pounded the shore.

“I realize that this is really hard for you,” she finally said, pulling on his sweatshirt.  “Having everyone think you like me that way.  You’ll just have to pretend.”

He narrowed his eyes.  Had that been sarcasm?  Or…

Hurt?  “There was a time when I wouldn’t have had to pretend anything,” he said.  “But you flaked out, remember?  You pretended, and then you left.”

She grimaced, swallowed hard, and looked away.  “We were just kids.”

Was that how it played in her head?  Seriously?  “Does it make you feel better?” he asked quietly.  “To downplay what we were to each other?”

She closed her eyes.  “We were friends, Jack.  Friends who’d made a quick, knee-jerk, stupid decision to become naked friends and sleep together.”

“Yeah.  And then one of the friends didn’t show,” he said, much more mildly than he felt.

“It was a bad idea.  I was leaving.”

“Which you forgot to mention.”

She dropped her head back and stared up at the sky.  “I couldn’t stay, Jack.”

He took in her expression, filled with memories, and nodded.  “I know.  But you should have told me you were going.”

“You had another girl in your bed by the following weekend.”

Had he?  Hell, probably.  But she wouldn’t have meant anything to him.  Not like Leah had.  His chest tightened at the memory of the hole she’d left in his life.  He didn’t want to go through that again.  “I missed you.”

She said nothing, and he shook his head.  Fuck it.  He started to walk away, and then she spoke.

“Brandi Metcalf.”

He stopped.  “What?”

“Brandi Metcalf was the one in your bed by the next weekend.”  She turned her head and glared at him.  “Pretty blonde Brandi with the perfect boobs.”  She emphasized this by cupping her hands out in front of her own breasts.  “So don’t even try to tell me you missed me.”

He shook his head.  Apparently he wasn’t the only pissed-off one tonight.  “Okay,” he said.  “Let’s have it.”

“Let’s have what?”
“Well, I know why I’m pissed.  Why the hell are you pissed?”

“It’s not like it’s going to be a walk in the park for me either,” she said, giving him a little shot to the chest.  “Pretending to like you.”

“Me?” he asked, flabbergasted.  “What the hell is there not to like about me?”

The sound she made assured him that she had volumes on the subject.  “Don’t get me started.”

“I want to know,” he said.

“Fine.  You watch that stupid ice fishing show like it’s a religion, you’re a horrible backseat driver, you drink out of the milk carton – and fyi, so does Ben – you don’t put the cap on your toothpaste, or put the lid down on the toilet, and you shush me when you’re watching sports.”

He stared at her.  “That’s quite a list of shortcomings,” he eventually said.  “Is that all?”

“No.”  She shoved her wet hair from her face, though she managed to keep her regal stance, nose firmly in the air at nose-bleed heights.  “I held back because I didn’t want to be overly rude.”

He laughed softly.  “Don’t hold back, Leah.  Let’s hear all of it.”

“Well, your truck has more sporting goods than a store, you never say you’re sorry, and your girlfriends look like super models.  I mean what is that?  There’s nothing wrong with real boobs, you know!”

He took it all in and had to admit that he couldn’t say she was wrong, about any of it.  “And yet you call me The Picker.”

She ignored this.  “And your mom told me that you need knee surgery again.  You’re just too stubborn to get it done.  So you can add ornery to the list.”

He blew out a slow breath.  “It’s not ice fishing,” he said.  “It’s crabbing.  And sometimes I lose the cap on the toothpaste, or my dog eats it.  And I don’t need knee surgery, I’m fine.”

Leah snorted.  “You’re always ‘fine’.  Your knee could be falling off and you’d say you were fine.”

“I fail to see the problem.”

She snorted again, and he was starting to feel greatly insulted.  “You’re not exactly a walk in the park, Leah.”

“No?”

“No.  You’re flighty, you live for your every whim, you downplay any real emotion you feel.”

She hugged herself tight.  “Good thing this is all pretend then, isn’t it,” she said softly.

“Yeah.”

She was freezing.  And hauntingly gorgeous, so damn gorgeous standing there wet and silvery by the moon’s glow, like a goddess.  It’s Leah, he had to keep reminding himself.  Leah, who’d once beaten him in a marshmallow eating contest only to puke all over him.  Leah, whose dark green eyes had a way of telling the world to bite her.  Leah, who’d run off on him and left him heartbroken.  He took a step into her – for what exactly, he had no idea– and she poked a finger into his chest.

“God,” she said.  “You’re so …”  Words apparently failed her, but she let out a sound that managed to perfectly convey how annoying he was.

“Ditto,” he said, and then grabbed the finger drilling a hole between his pecs and tugged her hard enough that she lost her balance and fell against him.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, entangling a hand in her wet hair.

She went still as stone and stared into his eyes.  And then lowered her gaze to his mouth.

Yeah, they were in sync there.  Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.  Hers caught audibly in her throat, a good sign he decided.  Maybe she wouldn’t knee him in the balls.  Testing the waters, he grazed her jawline with his teeth.

She shivered.

Then he slid his mouth to the very corner of hers and was rewarded by the clutch of her hands on his shirt.  Having her hold on to him like this, like he was her only anchor, sent a bolt of lust straight through him.  “Leah,” he murmured, hearing the surprise in his own voice, feeling the heat course through him as he finally, God finally, covered her mouth with his.

Her lips parted for him eagerly, and he groaned, drowning in the erotic collision of her hot tongue and chilled, wet body.

Serious trouble.  He was in serious trouble.

Because he had a taste of her now, a damn good taste, and it was better than he could have imagined, making him want the rest of her.  With his fingers still in her hair, he pulled her in tighter, slanting his mouth across hers for more.  She moved with him, into him, making the connection all the sweeter.

No.  Sweet wasn’t the right word.

Hot.  She was so hot she was turning him inside out.  And then she made another of those soft, surrendering sighs deep in her throat, the sound slaying him.  She still had a death grip on his shirt and had managed to catch a few chest hairs while she was at it.  He didn’t care.  Sliding a hand beneath his sweatshirt, he cupped her ass over her wet bikini bottoms, rocking into her.

She had to feel what this was doing to him.  And given that she was breathing like she was running out of air, and still holding onto him tight enough to bruise, she also had to know where this was going.

Jack kissed Leah some more, sinking deeper into her taste, her softness, her scent, all while wondering how the hell she could drive him crazy and made him ache at the same time.  It was a feat that totally wrecked his equilibrium.  Maybe it was just the kiss.  Because holy shit, the kiss.  He still had a handful of her sweet ass, and he squeezed, wanting more.  But they were outside and the night’s temp was quickly dropping.  She was wet, trembling with the chill, and there was absolutely nowhere to go with this.  Not here, not now.  He’d had no business kissing her like he had an end game, and knowing it, he regretfully pulled back.

She blinked as if waking up from a dream.  “What—”  She cleared her throat.  “What was that?”

“Insanity.  It’s going around.”

Chapter 1

Julia

Of all the places Julia Stilwell thought she might be on a September afternoon, less than a year after the accident, this was the last she would have imagined. College. A freshman headed out on a first date. It was too normal. She felt like she’d snuck into the wrong movie, like any minute a guy in a little hat would come running up the aisle, shine a flashlight in her eyes, and ask to see her ticket.

But here she was, ten minutes to two, fixing her hair, getting her shoes on, smiling at her reflection so she could paint blush on her cheeks, going back and forth in her mind about whether to bring a backpack or a purse. It was all the usual stuff girls do before dates, but to Julia it felt like a test, a set of pictures she had to line up in the right order. Wrong answer sends you back to go. It was a blessing her roommate Leanette was in class and not around to witness the chaos of these final preparations. Leanette had dates every weekend and went to all the parties, and Julia was sure this fussing would have seemed amateur to her, like a kid playing with an adult’s makeup kit.

In the end, she decided on a messenger bag. She slung it over her shoulder, flipped the lights off, and left the room.

Outside, it was gorgeous. Cloudless and warm, the air felt like a shirt just out of the dryer. Julia lived in an off-campus dorm, and though the building was musty, with cinder block walls and a dull gray carpet that gave off a smell like boiled milk, there was a pretty courtyard out here, a cement bench, a trellis wrapped with vines and bright flowers. She took a long breath, enjoying the weather and her anticipation, perched for a moment on the fragile edge of happiness.

Julia was headed to campus, and she decided to take the path through the woods. She could have gone through town, but didn’t know whom she’d run into, and whether they’d ask what she was up to. The date with Marcus didn’t have to be a secret, but for some reason she wanted to keep it to herself, like a note in her pocket.

Before the accident, it would have been different. Julia would have had to tell Danny and Shana about how Marcus had asked her out, making little jokes to play it down. They wouldn’t have let her get away with the secrecy. In high school, when she wasn’t practicing the trumpet, Julia had spent most of her free time with these friends. She knew everything about them, from what they’d gotten on their last history tests to what their boyfriends had whispered in their ears the first times they’d had sex.

Julia had always been a bit of an oddball, with her quirky sense of humor, the flat way she delivered jokes that caught people off guard and sometimes made them smile, sometimes give her confused looks. She was never a star in the classroom, and didn’t go in for all the primping and social striving most of the girls did. She didn’t need it; her music and her plans for the future had been enough. They’d given her distance, kept her insulated from the storms of teenage social life. When her friends were worked up over a boy or a conflict with parents, Julia was always the first to jump in with a silly line to relieve the tension. She wore thrift store T-shirts and frayed corduroys and didn’t try to be the prettiest or the smartest or the most popular, just didn’t care that much about it.

But all of that was gone, that old life. She didn’t talk to any of those people anymore. She’d gotten rid of her cell phone, tossed it into a lake, actually. Burial at sea.

Marcus had suggested they meet at two-thirty, since the snack bar would be less crowded then, between lunch and dinner. As usual, Julia was early. She couldn’t help it. She’d always been the type to arrive ten minutes before a meeting, and none of the tricks she pulled to delay herself ever seemed to work. If she were ever sentenced to execution, she’d probably arrive ten minutes early for that, just to get a good seat.

She tried to slow down, scraping her shoe soles on the dirt and rocks in the woods.

As a way to distract herself, she started thinking about how the date had come about. “You have this way about you,” Marcus had said that night in the library, when they were working on the counterpoint project. “It’s like you live in your own self-contained world. I’ve been wanting to know what’s going on in there since the first time I saw you.” After he said it, he smiled in a teasing way, and she wasn’t sure if he was being genuine. She almost made a quick joke back, her habit. Nothing going on in here. My world’s in a budget crisis. But then she noticed he was blushing, all the way from his ears down to the base of his neck. There was something reassuring about his discomfort. Seeing it, she’d felt a protective tenderness for him, the way you might watching a child pedal a bike up a steep hill.

“You want to get lunch on Thursday in the snack bar?” he’d said after that, so casually anyone listening would have thought he’d just tossed out the offer, not even caring what her answer would be. But he’d given a specific day. He’d mentioned the snack bar, as if an off-campus date would have been too much to ask.

“I’d love to,” Julia had said. “But are you going to be there?”

And Marcus had smiled.

When she got near the top of the hill, where the woods let out, Julia heard a train clacking away from the station at the base of campus. She checked her watch: ten minutes early. Of course. She walked onto the train platform, into the warm bright sunshine.

That was when it happened, suddenly, in the midst of all that sparkling weather. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on the day, and all the excitement just drained out, like water from a tub.

She knew what it was, this feeling. She’d told El Doctor about it, these aftershocks, as she thought of them, reminders of events she couldn’t change, events she would have preferred to snip out of the cloth of her memory. She closed her eyes, and there it was again, her brother’s face, pale with shock at what he was witnessing, his lips opening and closing, making no sound, until finally he’d asked, “Is that mine?”

But she couldn’t do this now, couldn’t let herself get dragged under. If you want to move forward, you have to stop looking back. Positive thinking, positive results. She stood straight, pushed her shoulders back, breathed, fixed the strap of the messenger bag like a seatbelt across her chest, and continued across the tracks, up the tree-lined path to campus.

Inside the snack bar, Julia couldn’t spot Marcus. She looked around at all the tables and booths. Most were empty. At one table, two women in suits were smiling over something one of them had said, then they got up to leave, carrying stacks of paper. Inside a booth, three muscular-looking boys sat talking over empty plates and balled napkins.

They made Julia nervous, these people. The way they moved and talked and smiled seemed foreign, like they were all doing a dance she’d never learned. The thought surfaced again that maybe she wasn’t fit to be here, at a college, so soon, no matter what El Doctor said.

But it’s best not to overthink things. That’s how you get yourself into trouble. When you stop and think about how vulnerable you are, or how strange the world is, it’s easy to end up feeling confused and lonely.

In the corner, next to the doors where people walked in to order their sandwiches, a man in a red shirt and white apron was standing beside a trashcan. Julia recognized him as the guy who usually made her sandwiches. She remembered thinking more than once that he was cute. He had shaggy brown hair, and could have passed for a student if he were a couple years younger. He always smiled when he saw Julia, and offered her an extra handful of chips or a second spear of pickle with her order. She didn’t know if he did that for other girls, but it was such a simple and plainly sweet gesture that it charmed her. A pickle for your thoughts, my dear.

When she looked at him, though, smiling, ready to wave, he looked down, like he was embarrassed. She wasn’t sure if maybe he didn’t recognize her, or was surprised at meeting her without the lunch counter between them, or if he was just socially awkward, but whatever it was, she felt disappointed. She wanted to give him a signal that it was okay to be friendly, wave to her when she came in. I won’t bite.

She didn’t have a chance to do anything, though, because just as she was considering it, Marcus walked in.

“Jake!” Grandma peered around the mannequin and yelled. “Help her out of that dress! We have a wedding emergency! Hurry!”

“Right.” Jake released Char’s hand and shook his head as he took a step away. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve helped you out of your clothes, huh, Char?”

And special moment gone.

Ignoring the burning sensation on her face, Char walked into the dressing room and pulled the curtain.

“Don’t you need help?” came Jake’s voice.

“I think I know how to undress myself, Jake.”

“Yes.” His warm chuckle made Char want to smack him. Shivering, she reached for the zipper. “But when I do it, it’s unforgettable. That’s all I’m saying.”

Fine. She’d had enough. Refusing to let him think she was afraid of him touching her, she took his challenge. With a huff Char pulled open the curtain. “Prove it.”

His eyes widened and then a wicked smile curved his lips. “My pleasure.”

The way the man said “pleasure” did really unfortunate things to Char’s body, things that made her re-think her rash decision.

“Where’s the zipper?”

“Aww… can’t find it? That happen to you often, Jake? Can’t find the zipper, where does my equipment go…”

“Oh that, I never have problems with. You should know.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits as she watched him close the curtain and then do a turning motion with his finger.

She turned around and faced the mirror. Jake placed his hands on her shoulders then ran them down both of her arms. She would not shiver, she would not react!

He placed his hands on her hips, then unzipped the dress. Slowly he ran his hands back up the sides of her body, all the way until he hit just below her breasts. Her breath hitched as he winked at her in the mirror, bypassing her breasts and finding the fastener behind her neck.

Char chewed on her lower lip as she watched him delicately undo the fastener and then held the dress to her body so it wouldn’t fall.

“You have beautiful hair.” He ran a few pieces through his fingers and sighed, locking eyes with her in the mirror.

He wasn’t smiling. Was he seriously paying her a compliment? To her face? Or her reflection?

“I, uhh—”

“It’s just a compliment, Char. Not a proposal.”

She blushed profusely. “Thank you.”

The way he looked at her made her feel naked. And now she remembered why things had gone haywire in the first place. She never knew which Jake she was talking to. The one who had been her friend when she was little, or the millionaire playboy who had no soul.

Char doubted he even knew which one he was. She just needed to make sure she remembered, lest she end up with a broken heart again.

“Everyone decent?” Grandma called from the other side of the curtain.

Jake stepped back and winked. “Unfortunately.”

Char felt her face heat.

“Damn,” Grandma called. “You’ve lost your touch, son.”

“Don’t I know it.” He licked his lips and nodded one last time at Char before stepping on the other side of the curtain.

From Chapter 1.7 – The House Checks and Raises

Steyer’s temper had been worsening as the clock ticked. It was only a few hours to the 6:00 p.m. ultimatum, and he had no idea what might happen next. He had been told by Hussaini, Henderson, and every subject matter expert he trusted that the board made the correct decision not to negotiate, that Ben and Jerry would inevitably break down with no other alternatives. As soon as they showed weakness, the FBI would pounce. Of course all that was before Balthazer had made the location public, welcoming the media circus that arrived on cue.

Steyer was in his understated but refined garden office suite at SugarSpring Ventures, two blocks off University Avenue in Palo Alto, about half an hour from EnvisionInk’s offices in Santa Clara. Most of the Silicon Valley Investor Class made camp in a renowned axis of low rise clusters along Sand Hill Road in adjacent Menlo Park, but Steyer always wanted SugarSpring to be a little different, physically annexed to Stanford’s academia, a less traceable place for entrepreneurs to be seen coming and going with their endless pitches. Sitting across his new world composite desk when the Balthazer advisory notice came from Hussaini was Atom Heart Entertainment CEO Sol Seidelmeyer. Steyer had not planned on Seidelmeyer’s visit, he just happened to drop by a few minutes after the studio’s Falcon 2000 landed in San Jose and a town car delivered him unannounced to SugarSpring’s beveled glass door. Steyer knew that to turn him away upon his unscheduled visit would not have made for a more productive dialogue—full service private jets these days, with operating costs above $5,000 per hour, had to be justified, even by CEOs—but he needed to consider what lines he might be crossing having Seidelmeyer on his sofa when the call came from Hussaini.

“We share this mishegas, put him on speakerphone,” said Seidelmeyer, gazing around Steyer’s unadorned working space, likely looking for anything that might be useful. “I promise to stay quiet.”

Steyer looked past his own bruises at Seidelmeyer’s primal, piercing eyes. What else could he do? He took the call with Hussaini live, but did not announce Seidelmeyer’s presence.

“So a fully masked worker bee blurts out the location on internet radio, just like that?” continued Steyer into the polycom. “Aren’t there laws that stop that sort of thing?”

“You know the internet as well as I do, Mr. Steyer,” said the special agent, his tone of displeasure professionally ambiguous. “You’re aware we can’t enforce laws if people are anonymous. That caller is long gone from Best Buy, which is as far as we could trace the IP.”

“What about the moron host, Balthazer, where was he?” asked Steyer.

“As far as we can tell, at a McDonald’s in Stockton,” answered Hussaini. “We haven’t completely tied down that piece, but we’re working on it. We do know he was fired from his last radio job in Fresno over a month ago. He burned his landlord for the rent, has a hearing pending with the FCC, and drives an Infiniti M. But he hasn’t really broken any law, certainly no federal statute that would let us bring him in. According to our lawyers, he’s safely within his First Amendment rights, particularly as a journalist.”

“A journalist, are you kidding me, where’d he study, the WikiLeaks School of Ethics?” blurted Steyer.

“Talk show hosts have the same halo,” qualified Hussaini. “As long as he doesn’t incite violent action, he is within legal bounds.”

“Outstanding,” proclaimed Steyer. “When they bring out Choy and Finkelman sideways on a stretcher, you can tell their moms all about the First Amendment. What happens now?”

“It’s their move, they set the deadline. If we don’t hear from them by 6:00 p.m., the Director should give us the order to move in. We are readying for position on that. We have a well-trained team on the ground and will do what we can to keep civilian impact at a minimum, including your guys. My crew is tight and will be ready to do what they’re good at. If we go in, it will be quick. Hopefully Ben and Jerry will negotiate and we’ll talk them out, but that’s their call. If they want to negotiate, they’ll let someone know.”

“Keep us apprised,” said Steyer as he clicked off the polycom. He probably had not noticed that he had said “us” instead of “me,” but then, Hussaini likely presumed others were listening in, though not corporate competitors bound by SEC regulations. Steyer shook his head in derision after another unneeded jolt, looking to the sun-worn Seidelmeyer for anything encouraging.

“You got a tough situation on your hands,” offered Seidelmeyer. “I’m not sure what I would do if I were you.”

“After this deal, you are me,” said Steyer. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“We don’t have a deal,” replied Seidelmeyer. “Last I looked we were about $6 billion apart, which I know in your world is not big money. Heck, you got almost half that on the lift this morning. My offer is still above market. The stock’s adjusted to a price the Street can swallow. I’m doing better than that, the deal should be easy for you. If you want to tell me the gap is closed, we can talk about what happens next.”

“Sol, don’t try to use this string of events to tell me you’re not paying the expected premium. That’s unbecoming, even for you.”

“I’m a showman, what do I know about asking for the wrong thing?” quipped Seidelmeyer. “You have a point of view and I have a point of view. The difference is, you have a problem and I really don’t.”

“Sol, you do have a problem. You’re old, and your company is old. Without EnvisionInk, you have no growth story. Your board tosses you out, sells to someone else and blames you for blowing the deal. Your legacy will be that of a failed Neanderthal. No one will remember what you did to put that company on the map, all those movie openings, all those shows and networks, all those dividends. All they will remember is that you were brushed aside, bitter and dusty, because you missed the shift to digital. No one remembers obsolete.”

“You’re a putz,” said Seidelmeyer. “You may have more money in the steel vault than me, but you haven’t created anything lasting. Dollars come, dollars go, who remembers, who cares? My company touches lives and we make a fine profit.”

“Sol, we can agree to disagree, or we can piss on each other, which isn’t going to win you another Academy Award. You want an Act Three, we’re your Act Three. You become chairman of a goliath industrial, my partners get liquidity and I go away, everyone’s happy. You want to retire as a goat, walk out the door and leave me to figure this out on my own. Right now I can’t even think about price. If I don’t get those kids back alive, we have nothing.”

“Funny, the Street doesn’t see it that way,” said Seidelmeyer, regaining an even tone. “The kids are tied to a bomb, you leaked our deal, and the Street is sending up balloons.”

“That’s because they’re confident we will get them back, and get a deal. That’s what we hinted. For big institutional holders to dump volume with Choy and Finkelman an unknown, and a clear path to a combination viable, that leaves money on the table, so arbitrage is indulging us. But we only have a few hours.”

“Those bumpkin punks are bluffing,” said Seidelmeyer. “The special agent has a mirror on the crown moldings behind their cards. They don’t even know what game they’re playing. This is ours to lose. You hold tight, they’ll cave. I’ve played at this table before.”

“You’ve had top executives kidnapped?” asked Steyer.

“I’ve been held hostage by the likes of you, not a lot different. We just have to figure how to get out.”