“The first time I saw your picture in the paper—beside the article explaining the circumstances of your death—I didn’t feel you were a stranger.”

“Why?”

“There was something in your face. I can’t explain it.”

“Are you going to put me in jail now?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should. What happened tonight can get you in serious trouble. Let the blame fall on me if it must, I don’t care anymore.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then you have to forget about tonight. Neither of us was here. We leave my original plan with Amy in place. To the cops, to the FBI, David just got drunk and fell overboard.”

Kelly shook her head. “I can’t do that. You kidnapped your own child and you had reason to do so. I can bend the law for a moral dilemma. But Amy murdered her husband out of greed and malice. She has to pay for what she has done.”

“How are you going to prove it?”

“My word against hers. I’m an FBI agent. I saw her kill David.”

“How are you going to explain being out in the ocean in the middle of the night?”

“Let me worry about that,” she said.

“It might be better for all concerned if I just take off with her.”

“Are you crazy? She just tried to set you up for David’s murder.”

“You don’t know that for sure. I was the one who switched plans on her.”

“Matt! One day she’ll shoot you in the head and you’ll try to defend her. That girl is rotten to the core. You can’t be thinking of still staying with her.”

“Well, no.” He paused. “What do you suggest?”

“How were you going to get off the Stardust?”

“I have anchored a boat about five miles in front of us, slightly south. With Amy, I hoped to bail overboard and ride the Farallon to it. Just disappear, make it look like she was the one who died.”

“You honestly believed she would go for that?”

“Yes. She might have if I hadn’t sprung it on her at the last second. Killing David might have been a panic reaction.”

“Amy does not panic. Amy schemes. If you even talk to her again, she will try to pin David’s murder on you. She will do so anyway.”

“Are you going to arrest her?”

“Yes.”

“She could go to jail for life.”

“One can only hope. Matt, you have to let her go. I guarantee she’ll try to convince everyone you’re still alive. She’ll take the police and FBI to the apartment complex.”

“No one there will recognize me as Matt Connor.”

“You know better than that. You’ll have left hair or scraps of skin in your place. You’ll have to clean it thoroughly, every blessed inch. Then get your son, get the money, and get out of town.”