music grew louder. The din of excited voices reached them as the dance floor came into view. A man in a dark suit identical to Pierrot’s pushed his way toward the stairwell. Simon stopped. Options for escape were dwindling rapidly. Turning, he told Lucy to retrace her steps, placing a hand in the lee of her back. “Faster.”
Lucy ran up the stairs, pausing at the top to remove her shoes.
“To your right,” said Simon, praying that his memory of the location’s layout held up.
A glance over his shoulder proved the security guard was following. Ten feet away a door blocked their progress. Lucy struggled to open the latch.
“Let me.” Simon threw the lock, sliding the door open. A stiff breeze rushed over them. A spray of water. The sharp scent of salt, brine, and rain. “After you.”
Lucy stepped onto the fourth deck of the ship, seventy feet above the Mediterranean Sea. Two miles distant, across an expanse of sea, the lights of Juan-les-Pins and Cannes glimmered like diamonds. “Which way?”
“Aft.” Simon noted Lucy’s puzzled gaze and pointed to the rear of the vessel. “That way.”
The vessel was the Yasmina, a 503-foot mega-yacht built by Blohm+Voss shipyards of Hamburg, Germany, with a crew of seventy, including two full-time skippers and room for thirty guests, powered by a triple-screw diesel engine with a maximum speed of thirty knots and a range of three thousand miles.
Lucy jogged across the deck, stopping alongside the elevated helipad. Simon stared into the night sky, hope over reason. A gust knocked him back a step. He saw no flashing lights, only a bank of clouds approaching from the Maritime Alps. There would be no miracles tonight.
Behind them, the security guard emerged onto the deck, pistol drawn and held to his thigh. “Excuse me, monsieur. Would you mind stopping for a moment?”
Simon deftly handed Lucy the carrier. “Oh, hello. Is there something the matter?”
The guard spoke a few words into his lapel mike, then holstered his weapon inside his jacket. “Can you both accompany me?”
“We were just enjoying the night air,” said Simon, as a drop of rain struck him in the eye.
“Of course you were. I’m sure it won’t take more than a minute.”
Simon looked toward Lucy. “Honey, can you come here? This gentleman would like to have a word with us.”
“Really? What for?” A look of confusion for Simon. A smile for the security guard. She took Simon’s hand and leaned her head against his shoulder.
Not bad, thought Simon. Not quite ready for the BBC production of Romeo and Juliet, but well done, all the same.
“Happy to,” he said to the guard. “We just left the auction. I never knew dinner and a boat ride could cost so much.”
“I’m sure Mr. Sun will be grateful.”
“I certainly hope so.” As Simon spoke, he stepped toward the guard, placing one foot inside his stance, then attacking—as nimble as a cat, as fast as a cobra—taking hold of the man’s lapels, pivoting sharply, launching him over his hip and shoulder, and out over the railing of the boat. The guard’s cry and subsequent splash was drowned out by the pounding music emanating from the open-air dance floor. The Yasmina was underway, making 10 knots. In moments, the man had disappeared in the roiling sea.
“Will he be all right?” asked Lucy.
“A mile to shore,” said Simon. “Give or take. He’ll be fine.” But he wasn’t sure. A mile at night was an eternity. With the storm…
“We need to get off the boat. Pronto.”
He directed her to the far side of the helipad and down a flight of exterior stairs, calculating the time until the painting was discovered missing, if it had not already been. At the bottom of the stairs, guests spilled onto the main deck. Most were dressed similarly to him and Lucy. Men in dinner jackets, women in cocktail dresses. Inside, the grand salon had been transformed into a mock-up of Studio 54, the fabled New York discotheque. A raised dance floor lit from below, DJ booth, mirror ball, go-go dancers on pedestals. Earth, Wind, and Fire blasted from the speakers. The only thing missing was Bianca Jagger riding a white stallion and Andy Warhol huddled in a booth with Halston and Elizabeth Taylor.
Simon led the way across the salon, happy for the anonymity afforded him by the throng of revelers. He stole a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and downed it. There was no reason to believe anyone would be looking for them. One guard