like a silent shadow in the dark marina parking lot. Somehow I managed to keep it together long enough to say—
“Yeah. You were a SEAL, all right.”
“I didn’t scare you, did I?”
“Were you trying to?”
“No. But a little payback is probably in order. You were trying to scare me, weren’t you?”
“When?”
“When do you think, Clare? When you sent the Suffolk County police to my house.”
I swallowed uneasily, didn’t expect to be put on the defensive. “I had to, Mr. Rand. You must have known that I would.”
“That’s why I’m very surprised to see you here. I’d already convinced myself you’d been playing me.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
He smiled. “Guess we think alike, you and I.”
“So are you going to take me out?”
He waved for me to follow him. We approached the rows of docks. But we didn’t go down the one I’d just left. Instead, he gestured to a lit boat on the far side of the marina.
“That’s not Rabbit Run,” I noted as we walked up to the slip.
“I never rent the same boat two nights in a row.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Throws off the scent.”
We boarded tonight’s rental, Rabbit Is Rich, and headed out. This yacht was about thirty-five feet, too, but unlike Rabbit Run, the helm on this vessel was open to the air. It was a nice night, warm and clear, and the smell of the ocean was strong as we motored slowly out of the marina then picked up speed on the open water.
“It’s a nice night.” I had to speak loudly, over the sound of the rushing wind. But I knew it was important to start the conversation. Any conversation. As Quinn once put it, “The best way to get a suspect to talk, is to get him to talk.”
Unfortunately, Rand had no reply to my riveting weather report. So I tried another subject.
“You know, Rabbit Run and Rabbit is Rich…those are both titles of novels.”
“Yeah, I know,” Rand said. “Updike.”
“Have you read John Updike’s Rabbit novels?”
“Do I strike you as the kind of guy who reads suburban angst novels?”
“Uh…”
“Don’t strain yourself. I read nonfiction. Geopolitical history mostly.”
“So who’s the Updike fan?”
“Byron Baxter Monroe, he owns the marina, he’s also a former college professor. He named all his rentals after favorite Updike novels and short stories.”
“You know him pretty well?”
“The guy’s bi-polar and mildly depressed, which he remedies via what he calls ‘self-medication,’ usually alcohol. The man likes to belly up to the bar and pontificate about the vacuity of the conventional upper-middle class suburban existence in general and Updike in particular. Why do I know this? Because as long as he’s buying, I’ll listen.”
“So you ‘self-medicate’ too? With alcohol?”
“I down the occasional beer. But risk is my kick. I’m an adrenaline junkie. Like you.”
“Like me?”
“Don’t you remember what you told me this morning? You get your nerve from eight to ten cups of coffee a day. Caffeine’s your drug, isn’t it?”
I bristled. “It’s a legal one.”
“And what I found you doing today in my rental house. That was legal, was it?”
Shit.
“You know, Clare, I could have told the police about what you did.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because…” He smiled. “I knew if they arrested you, then you wouldn’t be able to keep our date.”
Date. My god. Was he being sarcastic? Or playing me again?
I watched him drive the boat for a few minutes. We were paralleling the shore now. I could see faint lights from the Hamptons’ mansions on our left, which meant we were heading away from Manhattan, toward the tip of Long Island. If we kept going much longer, we’d be away from all land. We’d be out to sea.
“We’re traveling east, right?” I asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice.
“Northeast.” He tapped the compass, just one gauge on the fairly dizzying array in front of us. There was sonar, global positioning, and a host of other technology I could only guess had something to do with communications and weather.
“Northeast,” I repeated. “And your fuel tank is full. That’s about all I can recognize on this dashboard, besides the steering wheel.”
Jim smirked. “Dead reckoning is more your style, right? Or, judging from what you’ve involved yourself in, maybe just the dead part?”
I didn’t know whether the man was making a bad joke or a threat, but I took it as the latter. “Don’t menace me, Rand. Ten people know I’m with you right now.”
Jim said nothing. He continued to drive for a few minutes and then