Cross Fire

alone out there.” She was already working on my pants.
    We left our clothes on the sand and swam out. I could hear steel drums coming from the hotel somewhere, but it was as if we had the whole ocean to ourselves. We kissed in the water for a while and then ended up making love again, right there on the shore. It was a little risky, and sandy, but just the kind of danger I’ll take any day of the week.

Chapter 112

    WE SLEPT IN LATE the next morning and took our time getting ready for the day. Bree was just looking over the room-service menu and I was pulling on a T-shirt when the phone rang. It was still early for the kids to be calling, but I didn’t mind. Actually I was looking forward to taking some razzing from them.
    “Good morning!” I answered.
    “Yes, it is.” Kyle Craig’s unmistakable voice wormed into my ear. “And how was the wedding?” he said.
    I should have seen it coming. Should have taken more precautions. These calls had become a signature of Kyle’s.
    Before I said another word, a plane roared overhead — and I realized with a sudden jolt that I could hear it over the phone, too.
    I ran to the front window to look out. “Kyle? Where are you? What’s going on?”
    “Did you notice I kept my promise?” he said. “I told you I’d let you get married, and I did.”
    “Let me?”
    There was no sign of him outside, but that didn’t mean anything, did it? He could have been hiding anywhere. Clearly, he was here. And close, too.
    “And do you want to know why?” he asked.
    My breath was heavy in my chest as I continued to check out the grounds. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”
    “Because
I believe in marriage,
” he said, aping Nana’s voice. “Isn’t that what she said the other night?”
    Suddenly I couldn’t breathe at all.
    “And besides,” he went on, “a wife’s so much more fun to take from a man than a girlfriend. I’ve been patient, Alex, but it’s time to move on.”
    “Move on? What the hell are you talking about?” I said, but I was afraid I already knew.
    “Enlightenment, my friend,” he said. “Look down toward the water. See what you see.”
    I threw back the glass door and looked out. It took me a second, but then I saw them.
    Jannie and Ali were down on the beach, waving my way. A few steps behind them, somehow, impossibly, stood Max Siegel. He was in shades and a loud shirt, with a beach towel covering his right hand and a cell phone in the other. He smiled when he saw me, and then as his mouth moved, I heard Kyle Craig’s voice in my ear.
    “Surprise,” he said.

Chapter 113

    IT FELT AS if my heart stopped and then started up again. My mind was racing. Kyle must have had some kind of major procedure.
His face wasn’t Kyle’s at all.
    “That’s right,” he said. “Everything you’re thinking right now is true. Except for the part where you save everybody. That’s not happening.”
    Farther up the beach, Nana was watching from under an umbrella. Damon, the only one not to have met Max Siegel, was on a lounge chair beside her, listening to his iPod.
    “What do you think, kids?” Kyle said, putting some Siegel back into his voice. “Want to go give your dad a good-morning kiss?”
    He pocketed the phone and took up Ali’s hand, making sure to show me a flash of whatever was under that towel. A gun of some kind.
    God, no. This wasn’t happening.
    We’d left our own weapons back in DC, very much on purpose. Now that seemed like a horrible mistake. I’d have to improvise. But how? Using what as a weapon?
    I whispered fast and low to Bree as they came across the beach. There was no time to consider options. There was just my instinct, and a quick prayer that we got this right.
    “Hey, Daddy!” Ali called out as they came toward the terrace stairs. He tried to pull ahead, but Siegel — Kyle! — kept hold of his hand. It was everything I could do to stay where I was.
    Jannie ran ahead of them. “Can you believe Mr. Siegel is staying here, too?” she said, and kissed me on the cheek. “Is that crazy or
what?
”
    “Unbelievable,” I said. Neither she nor Ali seemed to notice how hollow my voice sounded.
    “Sorry to drop in like this,” Kyle said, as Max. He was grinning at me, daring me with his eyes, obviously wanting me to make some kind of move. And the voice — it wasn’t Kyle’s, but it
was
Kyle’s. How could I have missed the similarities before? It’s amazing how the brain follows what the eyes see — or don’t