Spada looked me over, saw that I was soaked to the skin, then grinned maliciously. “Nice try.” He tightened his hold around Jung’s neck. “No one saw anything, not even that idiot in the boat next to Tim’s. No witnesses, no proof.”

Eldon Reese heard what sounded like a buoy hitting the side of Tim’s boat. That had to have been Spada and Darby boarding the Safe Passage. That fixed the time. Reese would have it all written in his little book.

“Edward! That is your name, isn’t it? Edward Horvat?”

The name pulled him up short, surprised him. He lowered the gun a bit and his taunting smile disappeared. The boat rocked and angry waves slapped against the sides, the smell of the lake mixing with the sweat of fear—mine. I flicked a look at Jung. Nothing.

“You were in my home.”

“And I met your wife. Lovely woman. Too bad about the fake kids, though.”

He appeared lost in thought for a moment. Was he trying to figure out a way to cover up my discovery? He’d have to kill me, of course, which he already planned on doing, but then he’d also have to kill his wife, and even then he couldn’t be sure I or she hadn’t mentioned his true identity to anyone else, in my case the police. How many more would he have to kill? He had to know he was sinking further and further into the hole he’d dug for himself.

Horvat. It came to me then, after niggling at the edges of my brain since the Spada house. I knew now why it seemed so familiar. It was “Tavroh” spelled backward. Tavroh, the company that owned the building Leon’s chop shop ran out of. Spada owned the building. He owned Leon. Leon owned the goons. Funny how the brain worked, not so much when you wanted it to, but almost always when you needed it. “You’re an ex-con, aren’t you? You, Darby, and Leon. Did you serve time together? Is that how this whole thing got hatched?” I thought of Tim, Peter Langham, Stella, and all the others. All of them denied the chance to die in peace. That’s what Tim argued with Darby about.

Spada said nothing.

“This boat’s going nowhere,” I said. “All I have to do is hold you till the cops come.” I could hear a helicopter approaching, the roar of boat motors. Finally. But Spada heard it, too. He backed up along the railing, dragging Jung with him.

“Don’t do it,” I warned. “Don’t make me.”

He wet his lips, sweat beading on his brow. “Without Darby, you can’t pin anything on me.”

“Is that why you killed him?”