I noticed the man as soon as Denny and I stepped into the bar. His eyes were so unnaturally blue, like polished sea glass, they didn’t belong in that leathery, tanned face. He had a head of thick, white hair brushed straight back, his cheeks creased beneath a two-day bristle of beard, a blue bandanna loose around his throat, probably covering a tortoise-skin neck.
He appeared to be alone in a red vinyl booth against the back wall, one hand wrapped around the stem of a martini glass, the other rolling a short cigar between his lips.
I saw all this in a few seconds. I’m good with detail. I have a quick eye and a good lockup memory. For a while, I thought I wanted to be a journalist, before I decided to write novels, before I decided to be a wife.
Some people think having a father with a fortune of money makes life easier. But for me, it made it all so much more confusing and difficult because it opened up so many possibilities, I found it impossible to choose.
So I chose Denny. And now, I had no business studying the man in the back booth because I had to devote myself to celebrating our honeymoon, true love and all. I really was acting head-over-heels and the whole cliché. And not just because Dad was so against Denny and so opposed to my rushing to get married.
He was right. I’m only twenty-three, and I’d only known Denny for a month, after all. But Dad didn’t understand. I knew he was posing as a father figure, doing what he thought he was supposed to do, his duty to warn me away from the man who could only be after our money.
But I’ve always thought of my father as an offshore adviser. He was two wives past my mother and most of the time barely remembered that I—Ashli Bennett—existed, except as a name on a bunch of trust accounts (which don’t start paying off till I’m twenty-five).
Denny wasn’t after my money. He just wants us to be happy. He’s so adorable and eager. He hardly ever lets go of me, and I love that. As much as I love the dimples on his cheeks, so boyish, and his dark eyes, and his expression, so appreciative and humorous at the same time, as if he’s enjoying the world’s best joke.
Oh, God. Listen to me. Am I a living romance novel? Is that what I’ve become? No wonder Dad was appalled and refused to be a witness at our city hall wedding.
But so what? Here we were, our arms tangled around each other, leaning together on tall stools at the bar, a wall of dark bottles gleaming in pink light in front of us, and the soft shusssh of the ocean through the open windows. The air felt salty and cool against my burning cheeks, and Denny’s light kiss at the back of my neck sent me shivering back to romance-novel world.
Cameron Cay was my dream honeymoon spot. I didn’t have the nerve to tell Denny the island was named after my father, Cameron Bennett. Yes, Dad was chairman of the partnership that owned it. Mom and I came here every winter of my childhood—until Dad took his profits and dissolved the partnership—and suddenly our winter destination became a resort in Anguilla.
Not bad, either. But Cameron Cay lingered in my fantasies. If you want to psychoanalyze me, you’ll probably drag up something interesting in my wanting to honeymoon with Denny in a place my father once owned. But so what?
The bartender was a slutty-looking young woman with white-blond bangs, dark raccoon-eye makeup, and balloony red lips like everyone in the movies. She wore white short shorts and a sleeveless tee that showed off her blue tattoo of a grinning monkey head. I wanted to ask her why she chose a monkey. But she only looked at Denny (as if my head wasn’t leaning on his shoulder).
He ordered two glasses of Prosecco, and I said, “Come on, Denny, it’s our honeymoon,” and told her to bring a bottle of Cristal. He was pouty after that. He doesn’t like it when I make him look cheap. So I kissed him a lot and ran my hand slowly up and down his thigh, and he got over it pretty quickly.
We carried the bottle and glasses to a table. Except for an older couple staring out at the water in silence by the window and the blue-eyed man in the back booth, the bar was empty. Lovely steel-drum music played from a speaker somewhere above us. The breeze off the ocean made me shut my eyes. I wanted to remember this, remember all of this.
We clinked glasses. “To us,” I said.
“To us forever,” Denny added.
The champagne was perfect. Denny squeezed my hand. He leaned across the small round table, brought his face close to mine. “Maybe we should take the later snorkel boat, Ashli. That way we could spend the morning… in bed.”
I tilted the slender flute and took another long sip. “I like the way you think, Mr. Sparano.”
“Hey, thanks, Mrs. Sparano.”
We clinked glasses again, kissed, and drank. I felt as bubbly as the champagne. I’m not embarrassed to say it. We ordered popcorn shrimp and fried calamari, finished the bottle of Cristal, and ordered another one.
It was late and my head was fizzy, a little hard to focus, when I realized the blue-eyed man had joined our table. The cigar was gone but the martini glass remained in his hand. He raised it across the table to Denny and me. An opal ring gleamed on his pinkie finger. “I just want to offer my congratulations,” he said, a smile creasing his weathered face. “Your honeymoon, right?”
We clinked glasses.
His glassy blue eyes were trained on me. I’m used to men staring. I’m not exactly a loser in the looks department. But his hard gaze made me glance away. The sea air had suddenly grown colder. I shivered.
He slicked down his white hair. I turned back. I liked the way his eyes crinkled at the sides. And I liked the deep crevices down the sides of his face. Made me think of a movie cowboy. He smelled of cigar smoke and a strong spicy aftershave.
He and Denny were chatting about something. The ocean was too loud in my ears. I couldn’t make out the words. Was it the champagne? I was swimming sitting up. I gripped Denny’s wrist. My life buoy.
“Clay Davies,” the man said. “Everyone calls me Davies.” It took me a short while to realize he was telling us his name.
“Where you from?” I asked. I poured the last of the second bottle into my flute.
He shrugged. “Here and there.” He gave me a lopsided smile, almost an apology.
“What do you do, Clay?” Denny asked. I squinted at him. My new hubby was definitely more clear-eyed than me.
“I’m a gambler” was the reply. He watched us for our reactions. But we both just nodded.
“You came here for the casino?” Denny asked.
He shook his head. “No. No casinos for me. I gamble for high stakes. No cards or dice or horses. High stakes.”
I struggled to clear my head. “You mean—?”
He emptied his martini glass and set it down on the table. He twirled the opal ring slowly with his other hand. “I bet on people,” he said. He licked the last of his drink off his lips. The smile had disappeared. The crazy blue eyes moved from Denny to me.
“High stakes?” Denny giggled. Maybe he was as drunk as me after all.
“Do you like to gamble?” Davies asked Denny.
Denny tilted his head. Like when a dog thinks hard about something. One of his cute habits. “Sometimes.”
Davies reached into his white beachcomber pants, then slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. He glanced around. “This place is dead.” He climbed to his feet. “Come to my room. I’ll show you what I do.”
I made a face at Denny. I shook my head. I didn’t want to go to this man’s room. I wanted to go to our room. Had Davies forgotten we were honeymooners?
Davies took my arm and helped me up from the chair. His hand felt like dry sandpaper against my skin. “I think you’ll find it interesting. Really. Only take a minute.”
Denny was on his feet. He tugged me aside. “Let’s just see what he wants to show us.”
“No, honey, I really—”
He put a finger on my lips. “Our honeymoon, right? We want to come back with some good stories. This will be a story. I know it.”
I started to giggle. The champagne, I guess. I held a hand over my mouth, trying to stop. I planted a sloppy kiss on Denny’s neck. He gave me a conspiratorial wink.
He held on to me as we followed Davies out of the bar to the elevator. The steel-drum music followed us, and I could still hear the steady rush of the ocean. I realized it must be late. The lobby lights had been dimmed. A white-uniformed woman bent over a vacuum cleaner.
Davies walked with a slight hitch, as if one leg was longer than the other. He hummed to himself as we walked. The back of his neck was crisscrossed like lizard skin. I couldn’t stop staring at it.
As the elevator doors slid open, a young couple in matching blue sweat suits staggered out, holding hands. I guessed they were heading for a late-night walk on the beach. We rode up in silence. I didn’t feel like giggling anymore. Something about this adventure had sobered me. I knew I should try to be alert.
Still humming, Davies opened the door to a suite on the fourth floor. The front room was all white wicker, a sea-blue carpet, and seashell designs on the wallpaper. French doors were open to a balcony that overlooked the beach. My eyes swept past the couch, a few chairs, a glass dining room table.
“Come in, come in.” Davies scurried about, turning on lamps.
“We… can’t stay,” I said, my eyes on Denny.
Davies motioned to a closed door on the right. “That’s my friend’s room. He’s on the mainland tonight.” His blue eyes flashed. “So, while the cat’s away…” He rubbed his hands together.
Weird, I thought. While the cat’s away? What does that mean?
Denny had a blank smile on his face. I couldn’t read his thoughts at all.
A gust of wind made the curtains leap at the open doors. I grabbed Denny’s arm. I saw a tiny lizard scamper across the dining room table. “Let’s go,” I whispered. Denny waved me away.
“This way,” Davies said with a short bow and a sweep of his hand toward the door on the left. He pushed the door open. I felt a wave of frozen air. He had the air-conditioning on full blast. He clicked on a ceiling light as we followed him in.
I blinked. I saw a king-sized bed piled high with pillows. The same shell pattern on the bedspread as on the wallpaper. A wicker dresser against one wall.
“Whoa.” A low cry escaped my throat when I saw the coffin. It sat on the other side of the bed. The dark wood gleamed under the ceiling light.
Denny burst out laughing. “Davies, do you sleep in that thing? Are you a vampire?”
All three of us laughed. Davies laughed longer than we did. He pressed his hands over the front of his Hawaiian shirt, as if holding himself in. “I hope not,” he said finally. He strode toward the coffin. “Isn’t it the most beautiful wood? Have you ever seen mahogany like this?”
He waved us closer and reached to tilt up the lid. The inside was silky and red. I thought of my satin sheets back home.
“It’s actually crushed velvet,” Davies said. He ran a hand along the side. “So soft. Want to feel it?”
“What is it doing here?” I asked. The shrillness of my voice surprised me.
“You sell coffins? You’re an undertaker?” Denny made another joke, but this one fell flat.
Davies’s grin didn’t fade. “I told you. I’m a gambler. I thought maybe you might also be a gambling man, Danny.”
“It’s Denny.” He took a few steps toward the coffin. “I don’t get it. What kind of game—?”
Davies had his eyes on me. He saw me back up toward the bedroom door, but I didn’t care. “It’s quite simple, really,” he told Denny. “I make a bet with people. A high-stakes bet.” He rubbed the bristly white stubble on one cheek.
I could see he was spelling it out slowly, building suspense. Toying with us. “What exactly is the bet?” I couldn’t keep the impatience from my voice.
He gazed hard at Denny. “I bet that you can’t spend a night in the coffin. That’s all. That’s all there is to it.” He tapped the edge of the box.
I knew he wasn’t telling us something. Hey, I grew up in New York City. I’m a Barnard girl. No way I’m going to be taken in by a cheap carnival trick. “You mean—?”
“Most people are too claustrophobic,” he said. “They panic. They don’t last the night. Or the fear overwhelms them, the fear of being dead, of spending eternity in one of these.”
Denny walked up and slid his hand along the smooth wood. “I still don’t understand. Do people run out of air? Is that it? They have to get out or suffocate?”
Davies shook his head. “No. Look. Vents. I put air vents on both ends.”
“You pump in poison gas or something?” I asked. I don’t know where that thought came from. “You put something through those vents and the person has to jump out?”
“No. Nothing like that,” Davies insisted. “You come in at seven or so. You lie down. I close the lid. I lock it. You have a nice sleep. No torture. No tricks. At seven the next morning, if you’re still inside, I pay you a million dollars.”
I rushed forward and tugged Denny’s sleeve. “That’s insane. Let’s go. Good night, Mr. Davies.”
To my surprise, Denny shrugged me away. “A million dollars?” he asked Davies. “Is that the bet?”
Davies nodded.
“That’s wild,” Denny said, eyes on the casket bottom. “Too easy. I mean, I’m not claustrophobic at all. I could sleep in there for a week. You’d totally lose your money, Davies.”
Davies adjusted the bandanna around his neck. “Sometimes I lose. But sometimes I win. Want to try it? We can both go to the mainland tomorrow and get bank checks. Mrs. Sparano, tell you what—you can hold the two checks.”
“Denny, please—” I wanted away from there. But the color on Denny’s cheeks told me he was excited. He was even breathing hard.
He pulled me back into the front room, and we argued about it. My point of view was there had to be a catch. Denny’s point of view was, even if Davies was crazy, it was easy money. No way Denny could lose.
I pleaded and whined. “I don’t want to do this. Even if you want a honeymoon story to come home with. He’s a creepy man, and the whole idea is creepy. Keeping a coffin in his hotel suite?”
“Sure, it’s weird, Ashli. But that’s how the man makes his living.”
Lame.
But then Denny had the clincher. “This money can be my contribution to the marriage, Ashli. A million dollars. Not your money. My wedding gift to you. My contribution. Money I earned for us.”
My head still wasn’t clear. But I could see how important this was to Denny.
I turned and saw Davies watching us from the other room. “Well?” he called. “Do you want to wager with me?”
“Oh, what the hell,” I said. “It’s our honeymoon. Let’s make it two million dollars. Can you do two million, Mr. Davies?”
In the sober light of morning, it still seemed like a crazy idea. But Denny’s excitement hadn’t worn off, and it was catching. I actually felt giddy, totally light-headed, as we took the taxi boat to the mainland to pick up the bank check. And we joked about how making a profit of two million dollars on our honeymoon would definitely make a good story to tell our friends—and even our grandchildren.
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Denny asked over our lunch of shrimp and crab salads and a nicely chilled Chablis, served in the shade of our beach cabana.
“Davies could be a penniless fraud and not have his half of the bet?”
Denny shook his head. “I checked him out online, Ashli. He’s loaded. He owns diamond mines in South Africa. I’m serious.”
It took a few seconds for that to soak in. I stared out at the ocean and watched a white, skyscraper-tall cruise ship inch by, out where the water met the sky.
“The only downside,” said Denny, “is it’ll mean I’ll be separated from you for so long.”
That tender line won him a delightful afternoon of lovemaking. We took a short break for one phone call. I called the bank and asked about Davies’s bank check. At first, they refused to violate his privacy, but I finally managed to wangle them into saying that the check was good.
Okay. So, by the time seven rolled around and we made our way up to Davies’s suite, we were both happily exhausted, even a little dazed, and Denny assured me he’d have no trouble at all sleeping through the night.
Davies met us at the door. He was dressed entirely in white, a crew-necked white sweater, very fleecy and luxurious-looking, over white cargo pants. He had shaved, exposing his crinkled and creased tanned face. He shook hands solemnly with both of us. Very businesslike now. No offers of a drink or chitchat about the weather.
We compared bank checks. Davies folded the checks together, then handed them to me. “I know you’ll keep them safe till tomorrow morning.”
“No worries.” I tucked them into my bag.
Davies squeezed Denny’s arm as we walked into the bedroom. “Nervous?”
“Not at all.”
“You shouldn’t be. It’s easy. An easy two million. Unless you panic.”
“I won’t panic,” Denny told him.
The coffin lid stood open. I gazed into the red interior and suddenly felt queasy. I guess from thinking about Denny lying like a corpse all night. Not sure if I could do it. I need a lot of room to roam around in. Always have.
A lingering kiss, and then Denny hoisted a leg over the side of the coffin and lowered himself to the red velvet. “See you in the morning, Ashli.”
“Sweet dreams.” The words sounded stupid, like I was making some kind of joke. But Denny smiled and stretched out on his back.
Davies carefully closed the lid. He clicked the silver latch and locked it. “You okay in there?”
“I’m enjoying it immensely.” Denny’s muffled voice from the air vents on both ends. “Ashli, go ahead and deposit his check. We’ve already won.”
Davies uttered a humorless chuckle. He led me to the door. “I admire his confidence. Really.”
I didn’t know how to reply to that. So I just said, “See you tomorrow morning,” and strode quickly down the hall to the elevator.
The sun was red but still high in the sky. I took a walk along the ocean, letting the spray cool my face. The water churned with high waves, and whitecaps frothed onto the shore. I took off my sandals and let the cold water wash over my feet.
I felt more tense than I’d expected, all knotted up and unable to think of anything else but that crazy-eyed Davies and Denny flat on his back in that narrow box. Two tall white cranes stared at me from a flat rock ledge. The air grew cooler as the sun lowered itself over the water.
I returned to the room for an hour or so and tried to take a nap. But I couldn’t get comfortable. I realized I was hungry. We hadn’t had dinner. I walked down to the coffee shop, slid into a sea-green booth, and ordered a grilled cheese and a glass of Pinot Noir.
I was sipping the wine, still waiting for my sandwich, when a young man burst through the restaurant door, his eyes taking a fast survey of the nearly empty room. He had scraggly blond hair over a pink-cheeked face. He was short and pudgy and had a red-and-white-striped polo shirt half-tucked, half-untucked over baggy white tennis shorts.
His eyes stopped on me. He nodded, his lips moving, and hurried over to my booth. “Mrs. Sparano?”
I set down the wineglass. “Yes?”
“Is your husband with you?” He had a hoarse, almost comical voice. His cheeks had darkened to red.
I gestured across the table. “Obviously not. Actually, he’s lying in a coffin right now.”
I expected him to show some surprise at that. But his face showed only alarm. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. He slid into the seat across from me. “Mrs. Sparano, my name is Kyle Jeffrey. Did your husband make a wager with Clay Davies? Did Davies make him lie down in a coffin?”
I nodded. “Yes. Is something wrong?”
I saw beads of sweat form a line on his forehead beneath the blond hair. “Well, yes. I’m so sorry to interrupt your dinner. But I’d say we have a situation here.”
My hand bumped the wineglass, nearly toppling it. “A situation?”
“You see, I’m Davies’s caretaker.”
I swallowed. “Caretaker? Meaning he’s… sick?”
“Yes. He’s uh… unbalanced. I mean, mentally. He’s been a patient at our hospital. But we’re transferring him. We decided to give him a short holiday here. He insisted on bringing his coffin with him.”
Kyle shook his head. “Unfortunately, I left him alone. I had to go to the mainland yesterday. I left him alone for one night and—”
I felt my throat tighten. “He’s really nuts?”
He pressed clammy fingers on the back of my hand. “He isn’t dangerous. But he likes to play these crazy games with people. And sometimes…”
The waitress arrived with my sandwich on a large pink plate. I shook my head and waved her away. “Is my husband in danger? Would Davies harm him?” My hand shook as I pulled the two checks from my bag and waved them in front of him. “We made a bet. He gave me his bank check and—”
Kyle took the checks from my hand and tucked them into his shirt pocket without looking at them. “Let me hold on to these. I’m so sorry. We’d better find your husband. I’m sure he’s okay, but—”
“Find him? What do you mean find him?”
But Kyle was already on his way out of the coffee shop. I climbed to my feet and hurried after him. I heard the waitress call out, but I didn’t turn around.
“I don’t understand.” I had to run to catch up to him. “What do you mean find him?”
As we reached the lobby, I saw the front doors swing open, and Clay Davies strolled in. His white sweater was pulled down over his rumpled white pants. The sweater had a long dark streak on the front, some kind of stain. His face was red, hair damp, matted to his forehead.
Kyle moved to block his path. “Clay? Where’ve you been?”
The older man blinked, startled to see us. “Out,” he said. He made a vague gesture toward the doors.
I stormed up to him. “Is my husband okay?”
He studied me for a long moment, as if he’d never seen me before. The blue eyes, so jewel-bright before, suddenly appeared cloudy. “Is he okay?” He repeated my question, as if he didn’t understand it.
Kyle took Davies’s arm, not too gently. “Upstairs, Clay. Come on. Let’s discuss this upstairs.”
It seemed to take forever for the elevator to appear. I pressed the button three or four more times. “Is Denny okay? Just tell me that,” I pleaded.
The door finally slid open. A herd of chattering people stepped out. I followed Davies and Kyle into the car. We rode in silence to four. Kyle kept shaking his head unhappily, moving his lips as if talking to himself.
Down the long hall to their suite. Clay dropped the room key card. He fumbled for it on the carpet. Then it took three tries to click in and open the door.
The front room was dark. I didn’t wait for them to turn on a light. I went running to the bedroom at the back. “Denny? Are you all right? Denny? Can you hear me?”
I flung the door open and lurched into the brightly lit bedroom. “Denny? Denny?”
Then I tried to utter a scream, but my breath cut off. I stared hard at the far side of the bed.
“Where is it?” I gasped. I spun around. Davies had stepped up behind me. I gripped the front of his sweater. “Where is it? Where?”
He twisted his face in an expression of disdain, as if the answer was obvious.
“I buried it,” he said.
I could feel myself go into a kind of shock. I knew from the beginning Davies had a trick up his sleeve. But the idea of Denny lying helpless, buried underground in that locked coffin, was too much to bear.
Luckily, Kyle took over. Maybe the caretaker had had to rescue victims of Davies’s insanity before. He quickly arranged for a resort bus, a driver, and two workers to accompany us with shovels. The bus rattled and shook as the driver followed the rutted one-lane road toward the tiny cemetery on the harbor end of the cay.
Kyle sat up front, leaning over the driver, urging him to make the old bus move faster. Davies sat calmly on the seat across from me, hands in his lap. He kept giving me puzzled glances. “What is the hurry? There’s no problem here. We made a bet, didn’t we?”
His nonchalance made me want to scream, to grab him by the throat and strangle him. “You buried my husband!” I uttered the words through clenched teeth. I cried out as the bus hit a hard bump and my head hit the ceiling.
“He can breathe,” Davies insisted. “I put air vents in the front and back.”
“But it’s underground!” I shrieked. “You buried him underground. How is he supposed to breathe underground?”
I glimpsed the two workers sitting in the back. They avoided my eyes, pretended to gaze into the blue-black darkness out the window. Kyle moved quickly to the aisle between Davies and me. “Let’s not panic.” He patted my shoulder. “I’m sure the coffin holds enough air to last your husband at least a few hours. We’ll be there in time.”
I grabbed his wrist. “But can you imagine what he’s thinking? His fright? He must be clawing at the lid. He must be screaming and clawing and pounding. He’ll use up all the air.” I turned to Davies. “You killed him! You killed him!”
Davies’s face kept its vague smile.
The bus jolted to a hard stop. Out the window, I saw a stretch of bare ground, then the outlines of small graves in crooked rows, black against the inky, starless sky.
The driver opened the door and leaped out. The two workers moved silently past me, shovels in front of them. Davies made no move to get up. “I don’t see what the fuss is about,” he murmured. “We made a wager.”
Kyle pulled Davies into the aisle and motioned him to the bus door. “Hurry, Clay. Show them where you buried that coffin. Stop arguing. Just hurry.”
Kyle turned to me. “Maybe you should stay on the bus until we have the coffin up and know everything is okay.”
“No way,” I said. I hoisted myself up and shoved past him to the door. I stumbled to the ground, my eyes on the men climbing the low, sandy hill to the gravestones. A pale sliver of a moon drifted out from behind a cloud and sent a cold, silvery light over the rows of tiny graves.
The chill air felt heavy and damp. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself as I jogged to catch up to Davies and the men. My shoes sank into the wet sand. I hugged myself tightly as if holding everything in, protecting myself from any horror ahead.
His white linen trousers fluttering in the steady wind, Davies motioned to the end of a row of graves. As he pointed again, his white hair flew up around his head. His eyes were wild in the silvery light.
Crazy. Of course, he’s crazy. Why did Denny want to do this?
I’ll never forget the sound of the shovels cutting into the wet sand. And then the soft thud of the sand clumps tossed to the side. Repeated as if in slow motion. Slow motion to me. Everyone appeared to be in slow motion.
The wind blew my words back into my face. I stepped between the men bent over their shovels, cupped my hands around my mouth, and screamed into the hole. “Can you hear me? Denny? Are you okay? Denny?”
No reply.
The only sounds were the grunts of the two men, digging deeper into the sand, and the rush of wind that swirled around us. Davies stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes on the deepening hole. Kyle had dropped to his knees beside the hole. Again, his lips moved as if he were talking to himself. Or was he praying?
I jumped at the sound of a shovel hitting something hard. One of the workers murmured something in Spanish. I lurched to the edge of the hole. Both shovels were sweeping sand off the top of the coffin.
“Denny? Denny? Can you hear me?”
Silence.
“Denny? Are you okay? Please tell me—are you okay?”
A gust of wind swirled sand back into the hole. Silence from the coffin. Silence. I was holding on to myself now, holding on tightly, the only way I could remain standing.
I stumbled back as the two men hoisted the coffin up from the hole. Clumps of wet sand clung to the sides and the top.
“Denny? Answer me! Denny! Why don’t you answer?”
I glimpsed Davies on the other side of the hole. He was watching me, not the coffin, a blank expression on his face. No worry. No concern of any kind.
And then his caretaker stepped between the two workers. Kyle moved to the coffin, unlocked the latch, snapped it open, gripped the lid with both hands. He shut his eyes, as if he was praying. And then he shoved the lid open.
“Denny? Denny?”
And then I screamed.
The coffin was empty.
Half an hour later, a sleek Gulfstream G650 took off into the night sky from the small mainland airport. Sy Wells, the man Ashli had known as Davies, settled back in a white leather seat and sipped his martini.
He hadn’t had time to change. The stained sweater and mud-soaked pants cuffs seemed inappropriate in the pristine white-and-chrome luxury of the private jet. But he was more than willing to overlook it.
Sonny Clarke, who had played the part of Kyle Jeffrey, slumped in the chair across from Sy, his feet raised, a can of beer in one hand. In the row behind them, Johnny Angelini—aka Denny Sparano—had his eyes shut, hands gripped on the white chair arms. He wasn’t a good flier.
Grinning, Sonny raised his beer can in a salute to Johnny. “She loved you, man. Did you see the look on her face? I thought she was going to drop into the empty coffin and just die.”
“She wasn’t bad,” Johnny murmured. He snickered.
Sonny took a long drag on the beer can. “Next time I want to be the husband. Why does Johnny get all the extra benefits?”
“Because he’s a stud,” Sy replied. He swept a hand through his white hair and turned back to look at Johnny. “You okay?”
“I’ll survive. Maybe.”
Sonny reached across the aisle and bumped Johnny’s shoulder. “Forget about airsickness. Think how much richer you are.”
“This one was perfect,” Sy said, twirling the martini glass. “She’ll be searching for you for days, Johnny. I’ll bet she’s on the phone with the island police right now.” He took a gentle sip. The plane jolted. He protected the glass with both hands. “She’s sick with worry. Did you see how frantic she was?”
Sonny let out a whoop and raised his beer in another toast. “Johnny did his magic! He put a love spell on her!”
“It’ll be days before she remembers she doesn’t have the checks,” Sy continued. “We’ll be back in New York in three hours. And we’ll have her check deposited and sent on its way to the account before she remembers Sonny took it.”
“This one was cake,” Johnny said. His sweaty hands left prints on the chair handles. A wave of nausea made his whole body tense up. Sonny is right. Just think about all that money.
Sy turned to Sonny. “Where are the checks? Let me see them.”
Sonny reached for his shirt pocket. “She just handed them to me. It was hilarious. I said let me hold on to them, and she didn’t say a word.”
Sy laughed. “Two million dollars and she just handed it over? Well… we knew she wasn’t too smart. I mean, she married Johnny—right?”
Sy laughed at his own joke. He took the checks from Sonny. And then his laughter stopped abruptly.
“Sonny, don’t mess around. Give me the real checks.”
Sonny blinked. He felt his shirt pocket. “Those are them, Sy. She handed them right to me. I saw they said Chase Bank at the top.”
Sy’s jaw clenched and his eyes bulged. He waved the checks in Sonny’s face. “These aren’t real. Look at them. Look at them!”
Sonny took the checks. He read the bank title in dignified black type across the top: CHASE Your Tail Bank.
“Hey! What the hell! Sy, they’re both signed Minnie Mouse.”
Johnny groaned. He fumbled in the compartment at his side. “Is there a barf bag? Here comes my lunch.”
Sy covered his face with both hands. “She was onto us. We’ve been conned.”
Johnny’s head was between his knees. He vomited like a volcano erupting.
“She got our two million,” Sonny said. “Our seed money.”
“Yeah,” Sy murmured, his face still covered. “And now we got one more problem. How do we pay for this jet?”