Risky Business

checked and rented. She filled out invoices and accepted credit cards as if there were some importance to daily routine. She wished for the day to end. She hoped the night would never come.
    A thousand times she thought of telling Moralas she couldn’t go through with it. A thousand times she called herself a coward. But as the sun went down and the beach began to clear, she realized courage wasn’t something that could be willed into place. She would run, if she had the choice. But as long as she was in danger, Faith was in danger. When the sun went down, she locked the shop as if it were the end of any ordinary day. Before she’d pocketed her keys, Jonas was beside her.
    “There’s still time to change your mind.”
    “And do what? Hide?” She looked out at the beach, at the sea, at the island that was her home. And her prison. Why had she never seen it as a prison until Jonas had come to it? “You’ve already told me how good I am at hiding.”
    “Liz—”
    She shook her head to stop him. “I can’t talk about it. I just have to do it.”
    They drove home in silence. In her mind, Liz went over her instructions, every point, every word Moralas had pushed at her. She was to follow the routine, make the exchange, then turn the case with the money over to the police who’d be waiting near the dock. She’d wait for the next move. And while she waited, she’d never be more than ten feet away from a cop. It sounded foolproof. It made her stomach churn.
    There was a man walking a dog along the street in front of her house. One of Moralas’s men. The man whittling on her neighbor’s porch had a gun under his denim vest. Liz tried to look at neither of them.
    “You’re going to have a drink, some food and a nap,” Jonas ordered as he steered her inside.
    “Just the nap.”
    “The nap first then.” After securing the lock, Jonas followed her into the bedroom. He lowered the shades. “Do you want anything?”
    It was still so hard to ask. “Would you lie down with me?”
    He came to her. She was already curled on her side, so he drew her back against him and wrapped her close. “Will you sleep?”
    “I think so.” In sleep she could find escape, if only temporarily. But she didn’t close her eyes. “Jonas?”
    “Hmm?”
    “After tonight—after we’ve finished, will you hold me like this again?”
    He pressed his lips to her hair. He didn’t think he could love her any more. He was nearly certain if he told her she’d pull away. “As long as you want. Just sleep.”
    Liz let her eyes close and her mind empty.
     
    The case was small, the size of an executive briefcase. It seemed too inconspicuous to be the catalyst for so much danger.Beside it, on the counter of Liz’s shop, was an envelope. Inside was a slip of paper with longitude and latitude printed. With the slip of paper were twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills.
    “They kept their part of the bargain,” Jonas commented.
    Liz merely shoved the envelope into a drawer. “I’ll get my equipment.”
    Jonas watched her. She’d rather do this on her own, he reflected. She’d rather not think she had someone to lean on, to turn to. He took her tanks before she could heft them. She was going to learn, he reminded himself, that she had a great deal more than that. “The coordinates?”
    “The same that were in Jerry’s book.” She found herself amazingly calm as she waited to lock the door behind him. They were being watched. She was aware that Moralas had staked men in the hotel. She was just as certain Manchez was somewhere close. She and Jonas didn’t speak again until they were on the dive boat and had cast off. “This could end it.” She glanced at him as she set her course.
    “This could end it.”
    She was silent for a moment. All during the evening hours she’d thought about what she would say to him, how she would say it. “Jonas, what will you do?”
    The flame of his lighter hissed, flared, then was quiet. “What I have to do.”
    The fear tasted like copper in her mouth, but it had nothing to do with herself and everything to do with Jonas. “If we make the exchange tonight, turn the second case over to Moralas. They’ll have to come out in the open. Manchez, and the man who gives the orders.”
    “What are you getting at, Liz?”
    “Manchez killed your brother.”
    Jonas looked beyond her. The sea was black. The sky wasblack. Only the hum of the motor broke the silence. “He was the trigger.”
    “Are you