“Right,” said Hilary.

“Then it couldn’t have been Iggie,” she said. “Not past his bedtime on a Sunday night. And not in those clothes. He doesn’t own khakis. He doesn’t own anything anymore that’s not purple.”

From the floor, Ben gave another moan, his loudest yet. “It wasn’t Iggie,” he said. “God, my head hurts.”

We all turned, startled. Nobody had noticed him even stirring. “That’s my fault,” I said lamely. “Sorry.”

“But if wasn’t Iggie, who was it?” asked Hilary.

Personally, I’d been thinking all over again about a certain someone who probably had a closet full of khakis, not to mention a sore kneecap. And while that someone also had an alibi, as I looked around the cabin I felt another epiphany taking shape.

“It has to be Alex Cutler,” Ben said. “I got the names this morning of owners of Lamborghinis registered in California, and he’s not on the list, but the same set of letters from the vanity plate is: ACVLLC.” He struggled into a sitting position, wincing with pain. “Then I checked with hotel security again, and this time they let me look at the videos from outside the entrances, too. It turns out they’ll let you look at pretty much anything if you give them enough cash. The guy with the second Lamborghini talking to Iggie outside the main entrance was the same guy I saw getting off on our floor, and that’s whose car Hilary got into. Then I checked the tape from the other entrance, and I saw him go in and then come back out of that entrance fifteen minutes later, which is when he went to our room. He must have wanted to make sure Hil hadn’t left any of her notes behind. And then, just to be sure, I found a picture of Cutler on his firm’s Web site. It’s definitely him.”

“What gave you the idea to look for Hilary here?” I asked.

“I was talking to Caro about sailing when Alex joined us. He mentioned that he’d been out on Caro’s boat, and I figured that if I were in his shoes and had to quickly come up with an out-of-the-way place to hide somebody a few hours later, the boat would come to mind. Caro hadn’t told me where she docked, but I got a list of marinas from the Yellow Pages, and then I called around, pretending I was supposed to deliver a new jib and was double-checking the address. That’s how I figured out where to go.”

“But it can’t be Alex. Alex has an alibi,” Peter reminded us. “He was with Caro.”

I was about to tread over some very dangerous ground, and I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. “You know, I’ve been thinking. It’s possible, if you look at it in a certain light, and this is just a theory, and you never really know-”

“Spit it out already, Rach,” said Hilary.

“Maybe Alex didn’t have an alibi. Maybe he had an accomplice instead.”

Peter looked at me. “What are you trying to say?”

“Well, Iggie probably knew Alex was up to something. He probably told Alex about Hilary’s suspicions, and that’s how Alex knew to follow him to the Four Seasons. But I think somebody besides Iggie was aiding and abetting.”

“Who?” asked Luisa.

“Caro,” I said. “What if she was in cahoots?”

“Caro wasn’t in cahoots,” said Peter without skipping a beat. There was a note of warning in his voice, one I couldn’t remember ever hearing before. But somehow it made me want to say more, not less.

“Then why did she lie about Alex driving her home from the party?” I asked. “She must be in cahoots.”

“Rachel, I know Caro too well. She would never be involved in anything like this. And would you stop saying cahoots?”

“Ben, was the hatch down to the cabin locked when you got here?”

“Yeah, but picking locks is part of our basic training. It didn’t give me much trouble.”

“But whoever brought Hilary here in the first place must have had a key,” I said.

“Probably,” Ben agreed. “I didn’t see any of the scratches around the lock that you usually see if somebody had already tried to fiddle with it.”

“Who but Caro would have a key?” I said to Peter.

“I can’t explain it, but there has to be some sort of mistake,” he said. “Maybe she hides a copy somewhere on deck, and Alex knew where it was.”

“Do you think she has stock in Igobe, too? She handles the company’s PR, right? What if Iggie paid her in shares instead of cash? If that’s the case, she wouldn’t want Hilary’s article to come out, either.”

“Rachel,” Peter repeated, “Caro doesn’t have anything to do with this. Maybe Alex is involved, after all. He must be, given what Ben saw on the tapes. But not Caro. It’s impossible.”

There was an awkward silence as Peter and I stared at each other, and it continued even after I broke eye contact. Everyone else was studiously averting their gaze the way people do when they don’t want to interfere in another couple’s fight, and I found myself with nowhere to look but down. My eyes fell on the needlepoint pillow we’d used to cushion Ben’s head, still lying on the floor next to where he sat. The pillow was monogrammed, which didn’t surprise me. Caro seemed exactly like the type of person who’d have a lot of monogrammed belongings. But what did surprise me was the monogram.

“Peter, what’s Caro’s full name again?”

“Caroline. Caroline Vail,” he said. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Does she have a middle name?”

“Caroline is her middle name. She has a first name that she never uses.”

“Why not?”

“Because she hates it.”

“Why does she hate it?” I asked.

“How would you feel if your name was Agnes?”

“Agnes? Really?”

“Yes. But why is that so important?” Then his eyes followed mine to the pillow. “Oh,” he said.

The initials were there, stitched in red wool on a blue background: A.C.V. For Agnes Caroline Vail.

“Oh,” he said again. Then, a moment later he continued a little more quietly, “It’s a coincidence. That’s all. It has to be a coincidence.”

And another awkward silence fell over the room.

Hilary didn’t have much patience for silences, awkward or otherwise. “What time is it?” she asked.

Ben checked his watch. “A little past seven.”

“We can argue about accomplices later,” she said. “Right now I need to go. There’s somewhere I have to be.”

“Where do you have to be? We need to figure out how we’re going to catch this Alex person and bring him to justice,” said Luisa.

“Can we figure that out on the way? I promised Petite Fleur I’d be at the club at eight. And he’s an elusive guy-I wouldn’t want to miss him.”

“I’d like to meet Petite Fleur,” I said, glad of the diversion. “Maybe he can even help us with more than your article.”

“I’d like to meet Petite Fleur, too,” said Abigail.

“Does this mean we’re all getting back in the car?” asked Peter. His voice had almost returned to normal now that we’d tabled the accomplice question.

“I guess so,” I said.

“All right. But we need to lay down some ground rules first,” said Peter.

Given Ben’s recent head injury, it didn’t seem safe to let him drive, so he left his rental car in the parking lot and all six of us piled into the Prius. It was a bit cramped as a result, but Luisa should have known better than to agree to do Rock Scissors Paper with me to determine which of us was going to squeeze into the hatchback.

The return trip to the city took nearly as long as the trip to the yacht club, but it was far less stressful now that we weren’t worried about anybody killing anyone else in the immediate future, and since Peter’s first ground rule was that Luisa and I weren’t allowed to speak directly to each other while in the car, there was no bickering. Instead we spent the time brainstorming about ways to prove what had happened since we lacked the hard evidence or eyewitness testimony we needed to officially incriminate anyone. It was good to have Hilary back, but that didn’t mean we should let her abductor and any coconspirators he might have get away with everything.