With that in mind, Jack punched Gia’s number into Abe’s phone. “Hi, it’s me,” he said when she picked up.

He heard a long, tremulous sigh. “Jack… what’s happening to you?”

“That wasn’t me,” he said quickly. “Someone drugged me.”

He went on to explain about Nadia’s coffee and what the drug did to people, finishing with, “Even you’d be dangerous with a snootful of that stuff.”

“I don’t know about that, Jack,” she said dubiously.

“I do know that I never dreamed I’d ever be afraid of you.”

That cut. Deep. “You’ve got to understand, Gia, that wasn’t me; that was the drug.”

“But what about the next time you show up unexpectedly? How can I be sure someone hasn’t slipped you another dose?”

“Never happen.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“Yes, I can. Oh, yes, I can. Berzerk is going to be yesterday’s news.”

Add one more task to his to-do list: Take down GEM, and Monnet and Dragovic with it. Tonight.

Fresh rage percolated through him—not Berzerk-fueled, his own vintage, the dark stuff he kept bottled in his mental cellars. This morning he’d told Nadia that he didn’t care about drugs, that they weren’t his business. But this was no longer business. This was personal now.

10

Nadia was running late. She’d missed a turn and found herself heading toward Lattingtown instead of Monroe. But now she was in downtown Monroe—a whole five blocks, from what she could see—and it was almost two and she couldn’t find a trace of this seafood restaurant anywhere.

Wait… there… an old pub-type hinged wooden sign hanging over the sidewalk with a fish on a plate… and the name: MEMISON’S. And there was the public phone, right in front as Doug had said. But not a parking place in sight.

Then she saw a man in baggy clothes and a soggy-looking cap leave the restaurant and jump into an old panel truck. The truck pulled away, leaving her the open spot right in front of the phone. Talk about great timing.

Nadia pulled her rented Taurus into the space and hopped out. No sooner had she reached the phone when it began to ring. She snatched up the receiver.

“Doug?”

“Nadia! You made it! I knew I could count on you.”

Thank God it was him. She looked around. Was he nearby? She felt eyes on her. “Where are you?”

“About a mile and a half away. I’m hiding in a tent show out on the marshes.”

“A what?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not running off with the circus. You can be here in a few minutes.”

She memorized his directions, then hurried back to her car and made a U-turn. She followed the waterfront—sailboats and sport fishers in the water, blue-plastic weatherproofed craft still in dry dock, waiting to be launched for the season. After a quarter-mile she turned left. The houses and shops vanished first, then the pavement: she found herself on a dirt road running through a marsh. To her left a small harbor lay still and gray like pocked steel under the overcast sky. A small ramshackle cabin sat dead ahead at the end of the marching line of roadside utility poles; and to her right, a small cluster of tents, just as Doug had described.