“Good to hear it,” Rupert says. “And how’s Maia?”

Huck tells Rupert about taking Maia to town with her friends and how that bothers him.

Rupert laughs. “It’s a goddamned island, Huck. How much trouble can she get in? All the West Indian ladies who grew up with your wife have eyes in the backs of their heads. If Maia takes so much as a puff of a cigarette, you’ll hear the crowing all the way up on Jacob’s Ladder.”

Huck shakes his head. “They don’t smoke anymore, Rupert. They vape. It’s electronic, thing looks like a pen. They put a pod in it—”

“Don’t tell me,” Rupert says. “I don’t want to know.”

“It’s all happening so fast. And I don’t like the timing, her getting so independent right after her mother dies.” This is when Maia would be most vulnerable to vaping and drinking and—Huck can barely let himself think it—sex. He has to find a way to make sure she grows up responsibly. Honestly, he could use some help.

They’re quiet a few minutes. The song in the background is Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.” Huck isn’t sure Rupert is listening to the music, but it feels like a natural segue. “So I had a visit this morning,” Huck says. “From the FBI.”

Huck can sense his friend’s invisible antennae rising.

“That’s why I called you, actually,” Huck says. “To see if you know something I don’t.”

“Funny you should ask,” Rupert says. “Because I heard federal officers paid a visit to the Welcome to Paradise Real Estate office.”

“Really?” Huck says. “Paulette Vickers—”

“Paulette and Doug Vickers and the little boy are gone,” Rupert says. “Rumor has it they left last night on the car barge.”

“Left as in …”

“Left as in left,” Rupert says.

Left as in left. Paulette and Douglas Vickers, who owned Welcome to Paradise Real Estate, pulled their young son, Windsor, out of school and packed what they needed into Doug’s pickup and left twelve hours before the FBI showed up. That was the story Rupert heard from Sadie, one of his many girlfriends, and Sadie’s gossip was generally known to be reliable.

On his way home, Huck drives past the office, and sure enough, there’s the black SUV parked out front, its presence as ominous as a hearse.

The question that bothers Huck is this: How did Paulette and Douglas Vickers know that the FBI were coming? Did they find out Huck had contacted Agent Vasco? Was Huck’s phone compromised? Was there a bug somewhere in his house? If so, would the FBI have found it this morning in their search? Huck lights a cigarette. He needs to get a grip. This is the stuff of movies and Connelly novels. This is not daily life in the Virgin Islands.

At three o’clock, he’s waiting out in front of the Gifft Hill School when Maia emerges with her cronies Joanie, Colton, and Bright.

Here we go again, Huck thinks.