Charlie and Jazz had been asleep that night, the night before last. Charlie, snoring. Neither had stirred as he’d walked past them, and it had been harder than hell not to take the gun from Jazz’s splayed hand and shoot him beyond recognition.

He’d held himself back. He might have been outside the cabin, but the boat was still mostly unknown. With Tate so vulnerable, he had to make sure. If he’d been killed, her chances for survival were slim. So he’d inched around quiet as a mouse as he’d used the full moon to check for possibilities.

Last night hadn’t gone quite as well.

He’d made it halfway to the cockpit when Ed had come up from below. For what felt like an hour Michael had stowed himself in a ridiculously narrow gulley behind a couch. He’d learned nothing except that Ed Martini liked to cuss at televised sports.

When he finally got a chance to get back to the room, his leg had cramped and he’d missed being caught by a quarter of a second.

Tate had slept through it all, which was what he’d wanted.

He couldn’t be sure when they’d reach Grand Cayman, but both of them had to be ready, starting tomorrow. He had to have plans made, with contingencies. The one he hated the most was where they would take Tate away, off the boat, alone.

She thought she was ready. That she could handle it. He knew better.

He finished the rudimentary diagram of the boat, but he knew if there was a cache of weapons on board, they would be below and they’d be under lock and key. But if he had a gun, any kind of gun, their chances of surviving this would be a lot better.

He turned to the bed. She looked beautiful with her hair in a halo on the pillow. Odd, a woman of such privilege and she never complained about the living conditions. He knew, far too well, all the things that made her life so different from regular folks’. She had a cadre of beauticians, aestheticians, nail people, wax people, makeup people who came to the penthouse on a steady schedule. He didn’t know what half of them did except make her look great.

Aside from her looks, she had maids, cooks, him. She never had to get her hands dirty. Someone was always there to clean up her messes.

She looked better here, though. He’d never even known her hair was wavy. Or that she really liked peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

As he watched her sleep, he let himself think about after. Once they were back in New York, on her turf. Would she be embarrassed by the fact that she’d slept with her bodyguard? Would she pretend nothing had ever happened? Would he?

It wasn’t as if they would ever be anything. Not a couple, that’s for sure. William would have heart failure if such a thing were even suggested. Too bad. He’d liked her from the start, and being with her in this cramped cabin for all this time had just proved he’d been right in his earliest assessments.

Tate was an unusual woman, and not just because of her social standing. One thing he’d seen in his travels was that the children of the truly rich didn’t understand the rest of the world. They made noises about helping out the disenfranchised or the handicapped, whatever, but it was all posing. They lived in rarefied air, and those who weren’t like them were as foreign as Martians.

Tate was the exception to the rule. She’d never made him feel as if he were the help. Not intentionally, anyway. Hell, she hadn’t even wanted to admit how badly he’d bungled things with her, even though his mistakes might cost her her life.

So what was a man supposed to do with a woman like that? Save her, that’s what. Make damn sure she had the opportunity to find out what life would be like without her fear of being kidnapped overshadowing everything.

He had to find those weapons. Now.

THE FBI AGENT’S NAME was Webber, Nick Webber, and he called Sara at four in the afternoon on the ninth day. “We might have something.”

“Go on.”

“We think it might be her purse. There’s no ID, but there’s a GPS tracker sewn into the lining. The security people said that’s where Caulfield hid his trackers.”

“I’ll know if it’s hers,” Sara said. “But let’s meet somewhere. I don’t want Mr. Baxter to know.”

“Fine.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In Jersey, by the GW Bridge.”

“That could mean anything. They could have her anywhere.”

“It’ll help to know if this is her bag.”

“Give me twenty minutes and meet me at Sarabeth’s. You know where that is?”

“Yes.”

“Twenty minutes.” Sara hung up the phone, her heart so heavy she could barely breathe. Was this all they were to have of Tate? A purse washed up from the East River? Was Tate in that murky water right now with the punctured tires and the polluted fish?

William was withering away before her eyes. He wouldn’t eat, and the only sleep he got was drug induced. She’d taken her fair share of tranquilizers, too.

How long was she supposed to hang on? She wanted to believe so badly. So when was the cutoff? Ten days? Twenty? Or were they always supposed to feel that jolt when the phone rang? A year, two years, what did it matter? A purse was not proof. It was simply a purse.

THE DOOR HAD BEEN unlocked for a good thirty seconds, but Michael didn’t turn the knob. He pressed his ear against the door, trying to decide whether the noise he heard was just the television-which was on all the time, as far as he could tell-or actual conversation.

At one-twenty in the morning, he couldn’t imagine who’d be chatting. Those first few days they’d made a point to keep themselves awake, guns at the ready, especially after his first attempt at escape. But the last couple of nights Jazz and Charlie had both been sound asleep and not even the louder-than-loud commercials from the satellite system had made them budge.

He couldn’t tell whether tonight would be an exception, so he opened the door. Not wide-Jesus, no-but just enough so he could let his eye adjust to the light as he peered through the gap.

He didn’t see Jazz, but there was Charlie, leaning back in the big man’s favorite leather chair, mouth agape, snoring like a freight train. Even now, after everything, Michael’s first instinct was to get Charlie out of that chair. If Ed saw him there…

It was just so goddamn typical. Charlie would never change. If Michael could figure out a way to get him out of this mess, it wouldn’t matter because there would be the next mess and the one after that. It made him sad-but not sad enough to forgive. That wasn’t going to happen.

Another few seconds of absolute stillness, then he opened the door another inch. Still no Jazz. Surely they wouldn’t leave Charlie on guard duty by himself? No one was that stupid.

Someone else had to be there. Or in the head or maybe getting something to eat in the galley. Whatever, it meant that tonight Michael wasn’t going to make it below. He wasn’t going to get a weapon, at least not yet.

He closed the door, locking it behind him, then debated the wisdom of getting into bed. Tate was hard to resist, but he wanted to check back in an hour to see if he could make it out. An hour of either sleep or something better wouldn’t be prudent. He’d get too sleepy. Too satisfied.

“Are you just going to stand there all night?”

Tate’s whisper scared the crap out of him, making him glad for the darkness. “What are you doing up?”

“Watching you be superspy. Like last night. And the night before.”

He grinned as he headed to the bunk. “It’s not nice to fool superspies.”

“Hey, you’re not the only one who can do that stealthy stuff. What’s the matter? Someone’s up?”

“I only saw Charlie. But they’d never leave him on his own. I’ll check again in a while.”

“Hmm,” she said, scooting over as he sat on the edge of the bed. “How long is a while?”