With his body mostly hidden from them by the companionway hatch, Ridgeway held their gaze and slowly reached for the Magnum. Trying to keep his movements as unobtrusive as possible, he pulled the Smith & Wesson out of his robe pocket and held it out of sight at his side ready to shoot through the wood of the boards. The .357 would easily go through the boards, the chauffeur, and the transom of the Valkyrie and still have enough power to kill.

“Mr. Ridgeway?” The woman’s voice was cultured, soothing, unthreatening.

“Yes?” Who the hell would show up on his boat with a machine gun? Someone he had arrested? Ridgeway tried unsuccessfully to match the woman or her chauffeur with a face from a bust, from a courtroom. But revenge had a longer memory than a street cop. And people didn’t always do their own dirty work.

“I’m Rebecca Weinstock,” the woman said, extending a long bony hand with a pencil-thin wrist behind it. “May I come in? It’s rather inhospitable out here.” She saw Ridgeway looking intently at his chauffeur.

“This is my chauffeur and bodyguard, Benjamin.” Benjamin nodded toward Ridgeway, gave a little half bow that looked comical performed by such a huge man. “My life has been threatened on a number of occasions,” the woman said. “Benjamin is here to make sure I come to no harm, not to harm you.”

Unconvinced, Ridgeway glanced suspiciously from Rebecca to Benjamin and back again. “I’m not used to seeing machine guns this early in the morning.”

An annoyed look passed briefly across Rebecca’s face. Then she shivered as a blast of wind howled through the rigging.

“Could I trouble you for a bit of shelter?” she persisted. “The sort of proposition I have for you should not be discussed in a doorway.”

“Only if your man Benjamin gets off my boat with that portable cannon.”

She turned and nodded to the chauffeur. “Go wait in the car. It’s unlikely they’re prepared to launch an attack from the water.”

Benjamin looked angrily at Ridgeway and worriedly at his employer.

“Go on,” Rebecca insisted. “Mr. Ridgeway here isn’t going to hurt me.” The chauffeur, still dubious, slipped the machine pistol into a holster inside his coat and climbed onto the dock. He stood there for a moment, and with the hand that had held the gun, reached inside his coat and pulled out a portable walkie-talkie.

“Please take this, Miss Weinstock. I’ll listen on the radio in the limo. Call me if you need me.” He leaned over to hand the radio to the woman, then walked off in the direction of the limousine. Ridgeway watched him climb the steep incline the gangplank made when the tide was out, then stand for a moment on the land looking back at them. Rebecca waved, and Benjamin, who still looked larger than life across the distance, opened the limo door, got in, and firmly closed it.

Ridgeway’s eyes lingered on the limo, hesitant to return to the blond woman. He listened to the beat of the rain on the cockpit awning, felt himself growing angry, and tried to fight the emotion. Fear to anger. It happened to every street cop ten thousand times in a career. The fear of a life-threatening situation turned into an emotional hangover of anger as the body tried to figure out what to do with all the adrenaline. Ridgeway had learned early to recognize it, to deal with it so he wouldn’t take it out on other people.