cards. He is, at his core, a businessman. And no businessman would light a match to millions of dollars. If there’s any chance he can get the money later, he’ll take it. After years of working with him, I know how patient he can be. He never rushes a job. And if I walk out that door, I become his next job.
“There was no need to do this,” I say. “There was plenty for both of us. I never would have betrayed you.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Marco says. “There’s no honor among thieves.”
“There should be.”
I turn my back on him and walk to the Jeep. The sun is gone now, casting a dying orange afterglow into the darkening sky.
“Good-bye, old friend,” I call over my shoulder.
“Good-bye,” Marco says. “For now.”
Chapter 1
Two Years Later
Hannah stares out at Lower Echo Lake, a long, feather-shaped sheet of blue glass with forested mountain peaks rising up around it. In the early morning, the lake is calm. The still water reflects the brilliant blue sky like a mirror. The land is silent.
She steps out of her car and inhales deeply, filling her lungs with the cool mountain air. Hannah’s lived in the Lake Tahoe Basin for a year now, but she’s never hiked here.
There is a path that runs four miles along Lower Echo Lake and Upper Echo Lake, twin alpine bodies of water lined with vacation cabins. Then the trail ascends into a remote area called Desolation Wilderness, a beautiful terrain of pine forests, granite rock formations, and ice-cold lakes. Her destination today is Lake Aloha, which, she’s been told, gets its name from a series of islands resembling Hawaii that brave hikers can swim out to.
She doesn’t expect to do any swimming today. It’s mid-September, and there’s already a chill in the air. And she’s never gotten used to the cold water in this mountain community. Even on the hottest summer day, she will barely dip her toe in Lake Tahoe. But she wants to see Lake Aloha for herself.
As a reporter for the Lake Tahoe Gazette, she works long hours and doesn’t get out nearly enough to enjoy the place she lives in. She has no real friends—no boyfriend—and as her first summer here draws to an end, she recently realized she wasn’t actually getting out and doing enough in her spare time. She knows numerous people in town, but they’re all coworkers or sources for her articles. She’s decided her lack of friends shouldn’t stop her from trying to have fun.
This short hike is an attempt to do just that.
She pulls her daypack from her backseat and double-checks to make sure she has everything she needs: water, food, sunscreen, first-aid kit.
The parking lot is empty, but suddenly a Jeep Wrangler pulls into a nearby space. She recognizes the driver, a man she’s seen at the gym. He is cute, probably in his early thirties like her, with sandy blond hair and the body of an athlete. She doesn’t know his name. They’ve never spoken. But as he steps out of his vehicle, his eyes meet hers, and he offers her a smile. His expression is friendly, maybe even a little flirtatious, and it seems to say, I know you from somewhere, don’t I?
Hannah returns his smile, but then she feels self-conscious. She turns away, throwing her pack over one shoulder. She saunters down to the general store, wondering if the mystery man is watching her.
Her plan is to take the water taxi across the two Echo Lakes, cutting four miles off what would otherwise be an eleven-mile one-way hike. There is a kid, probably no more than twenty, with a patchy beard and acne bumps on his forehead, waiting behind the counter.
She asks him about the water taxi, and he explains that he can take her. She pays and then goes outside to wait in the taxi, a long wooden motorboat with benches along the port and starboard sides for passengers.
Today, it looks like she’s the only passenger.
The guy from the gym has one leg propped up on the bumper of his Jeep, and he’s rubbing sunscreen onto his muscular legs. He’s obviously going to hike around the lakes. No shortcut for him. Hell, Hannah thinks, he might run the eleven miles to Lake Aloha. He looks like he could do it.
The kid comes out and hops into the boat. He grabs the starter cord to start the motor but hesitates.
“Hey, man,” he calls up to the guy from the gym. “You