The TV88s had a portal door on board, so as soon as the families had been winched up, they were brought into the twentieth precinct—seventy minutes after the South African Coast Guard had officially been asked to help. Alik was impressed.

The two families arrived like refugees from some disaster area, hunched up, hair and clothes sodden with seawater, a silver blanket around their shoulders, clinging to water bottles and candy bars. It wasn’t rescue workers triumphantly bringing the six of them in, but a trio of pissed-off cops.

Salovitz didn’t put them into interrogation; he was saving that for the first wrong answer. They sat in a row of chairs at the back of the case office. For people who’d just had their lives threatened then spent hours in the same lifeboat in the middle of an ocean, they certainly didn’t look like best buddies.

Delphine Farron had her arm around Alphonse’s shoulders. The boy was only ten, but he’d already perfected a teenager’s sulk. He scowled at Salovitz, pouting away like a runway model caught breaking her diet.

The Lorenzos were only slightly more civilized. Alik tried not to stare too hard at Rose. She was a real trophy wife; Shango’s splash told him she’d modeled for various brands a decade ago—couture and upmarket lingerie. Now she fitted into the perfect corporate spouse mold. Telomere treatments had preserved early-twenties looks, and surrogates had made sure her body wasn’t punished by pregnancy, allowing her to play the chic, sultry babe to perfection. Even disheveled from the ocean ordeal, she stayed classy. He guessed she was also a tiger mom; her kids were kept by her side as they sat, her arms around them. Kravis Lorenzo was the other half of the stereotype package deal family: Ivy League, preened almost as much as Rose, sitting stiff-backed and defiant, maintaining the kind of pose that said “my criminal law colleague is on fast-access call.”

“Quite a night,” Salovitz said. “Five people dead.”

Delphine Farron let out a short hiss of breath, but that was the only hint of emotion. Rose Lorenzo pulled her children in even tighter.

“So let’s be quite clear,” Salovitz continued. “Any smartass answers, any lies, and we take this way on down to the holding cells. City Social Division will claim the kids. And you know what they say. The difference between City Social and a rottweiler is that a rottweiler will eventually let go.”

“You can’t threaten us,” Kravis Lorenzo blustered. “My God, man, what we’ve been through!”

“It’s not just five, though, is it?” Alik said. “We can add Riek, whom they pulled out of the marina a couple of days ago. And Samantha—maybe not dead, but still in the hospital with a face cut up so bad a gorilla would puke at the sight of it.”

“Who are these people?” Kravis asked.

“Wrong answer,” Salovitz said. “Let’s get you down to holding. We’ll charge you and start the formal interviews.” He stood up, beckoned—