The Adventurer

back into business with him and you wanted out of that kind of work?"
    Gideon hesitated. "That was part of it, I guess, but not all of it. I could have resisted the pressure easily enough. But the truth is, I just didn't want to deal with him ever again. Or any of the people from that old life." He searched her face. "Does that make sense?""
    "Of course. You had a right to try a new path. What better way to do it than under a new name? But why did Jake change his name when he came out of the jungle? Oh!" Sarah clapped her hand over her mouth as the realization hit.
    "What is it, Sarah?"
    "Yes, I see now. He had to change his name, didn't he? He thought you were either dead or determined to stay missing and he knew that with you gone Savage and Company was effectively out of business. He knew he couldn't run it without you. Better to go out a legend than to go on as a has-been who can't hack it on his own. He had his image to think of and from what you've said, his image was everything to him. He couldn't bear to destroy it by proving how incompetent he was to run Savage and Company without you."
    Gideon studied her. "You really think that was the reason he changed his name?"
    "It makes perfect sense when you think about it."
    "I always figured he used a new name because he was afraid of running into those smugglers again," Gideon said slowly. "Or someone like them. Who knows what other deals he had cooking behind my back?"
    "That may have had something to do with his decision to change his name, but I doubt that's the reason he made it permanent." Sarah leaned forward. "Tell me something. You say you've been keeping tabs on him. What's he been doing in the past five years?"
    "Small-time stuff for the most part. Nickle and dime guide jobs for tourists who want to picnic in the jungle near an old ruin. That kind of thing," Gideon said vaguely. "I haven't paid close attention. All I cared about was having him stay out of my way."
    Sarah bit her lip. "But now he's very much in your way, isn't he? And it's all my fault. I led him straight to you."
    Gideon gave her a wry look. "Just how many so-called treasure hunters, salvage operators, amateur adventurers and assorted riffraff did you contact when you first started doing research on
Glitter Quest
?"
    "A couple of dozen, at least," she admitted. "I wasn't sure what I was looking for at first, you see."
    "A couple of dozen. Hell."
    "Don't worry," Sarah assured him hastily, "I only mentioned the Flowers to you and Slaughter, or Savage, or whatever his name is."
    "That's something to be grateful for, I guess." Gideon gave her a direct look. "Two dozen. What made you pick me out of the pack?"
    "Two reasons. First of all, I knew as soon as your letter arrived that I wanted you and no one else to help me in my research."
    "The famous Fleetwood intuition strikes again."
    "Don't laugh. It was true. But there was a second reason I picked you. You didn't ask for money. In fact, after I mentioned the Fleetwood Flowers, you actually tried to talk me out of wasting my time, remember?"
    "I remember. For all the good it did me."
    "All of the others turned out to be screwballs or outright frauds who wanted me to invest in their various schemes. I was invited to pour money into every lost gold mine from here to Australia. Jim Slaughter, I mean, Jake, turned out to be more persistent than the rest, though. He liked the idea of teaming up with a writer. I got the feeling that, in addition to wanting me to finance him, he had visions of me doing a book on him or something."
    "Or something," Gideon agreed coldly.
    She ignored that, frowning intently. "What did your family think about you changing your name?"
    "That wasn't a problem."
    "No family?"
    Gideon shook his head. "No."
    "And no wife," Sarah said as she put the rest of it together for herself. "Because Leanna had already divorced you by that time, hadn't she?"
    "Yeah."
    "And she was waiting for Jake Savage, wasn't she?"
    Gideon was silent for a long moment. "That's about the size of it."
    "Savage and Leanna. Those were the two people who betrayed you."
    "Don't make it sound so melodramatic. Leanna fell in love with Jake and I was in the way. That was all there was to it."
    "Hah." Sarah was incensed all over again. "It was an outright betrayal. The worst kind. How dare they do that to you? Your wife and your best friend. Impossible to forgive or forget."
    "I wouldn't put it that way."
    Sarah glared at him. "Have you forgotten?"
    "No,