The October List

the restaurant.’
    He grinned.
    ‘No,’ she said, stifling a laugh. ‘Not on purpose.’
    ‘You sure? Maybe for another chance to see me again?’
    Gabriela said, ‘Sorry. I wouldn’t risk losing a pair of Stuart Weitzmans just to see a man again. Any man.’
    Daniel said, ‘How’s this? We can avoid the phone call issue altogether. We’ll commit now. The restaurant’s on the way to my loft. I’ll pick them up and deliver them tomorrow at breakfast. How’s Irving’s Deli, Broadway. Nine?’
    She paused then said, ‘I suppose.’
    ‘I know,’ he said, his face growing grave. ‘You’re thinking: Will breakfast be as dull as tonight?’
    ‘Nothing could be as boring as the past three hours,’ Gabriela replied and disappeared down the subway entrance.

CHAPTER
6
     

6:30 p.m., Friday
3 hours, 30 minutes earlier
     

 

 
     
    The Aquariva Super cut an uncompromising swath through the dusk of New York Harbor, Daniel Reardon at the helm.
    ‘How fast are we going?’ Gabriela called over the sexy rumble of the engine, the wind, the waves.
    ‘About forty.’
    ‘Knots per hour?’
    Daniel shouted, ‘You don’t say that. Knots include miles and hours. Forty knots. It’s about forty-five miles an hour.’
    Gabriela nodded, smiling at the speed. ‘Feels faster.’
    ‘Then you’d like the boat I keep in Connecticut. It’ll do seventy.’
    She didn’t bother to ask knots or miles. Probably didn’t matter at that velocity.
    There was no passenger seat in the front of the beautiful Italian speedboat as such – just a leather U-shaped banquette encircling the rear of the open cockpit. Gabriela could have squeezed in next to Daniel on the driver’s seat but she preferred to remain standing behind him, close, gripping his seat back, her head near his ear.
    The thirty-three-footer, with her black hull and rich wood deck, plowed effortlessly through the temperate waves. The surface of the water was like dark linen and the cloudless sky over New Jersey glowed lava orange from the vanishing sun, the vista split by two purple exclamation marks of fume from distant smokestacks.
    It was a photograph waiting to happen, though not to be shot by Gabriela. She worked exclusively in black and white, and this scene was about color only, without substance. Pretty didn’t interest her.
    She turned her attention back to Daniel. He was a superb driver – which is what pilots of boats like this were called, she’d learned. He anticipated the drift and power of each wave, as if it were an opposing player on a sports field. Sometimes he crashed over it, sometimes he eased up onto a crest and used the mound of water itself to speed the boat forward.
    She found his handling of the wheel and chrome controls intensely sensual, and felt that low unfurling within her as she noted his firm grip, half smile, utter concentration. The blue eyes were focused on the water, the way a lion sights for prey.
    Gabriela leaned closer yet and smelled past his aftershave to his hair and scalp and skin.
    ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
    ‘I’ve been on rowboats in Central Park,’ Gabriela told him. ‘I’m not qualified to judge performance.’
    The words might have been taken as flirt. He gave no response. She wondered how she felt about that.
    She continued in a shout, ‘But on the surface – so to speak—’
    He laughed.
    ‘Incredible.’
    Daniel throttled back and for a time they cruised. They could speak without raising voices now. He said, with a grim expression, ‘Well, hate to ruin the mood, but I don’t have much time left. I really need your help.’ A reminder of the conundrum he’d mentioned earlier.
    He nodded at a thick binder sitting on the floor of the boat between them.
    She said firmly, ‘You have to go with the Princeton formula.’
    ‘Princeton?’ He frowned.
    ‘Look on page thirty-eight. That’s the answer.’
    He balanced the binder on his lap and flipped through pages. At one he stopped and stared down. ‘You’re sure? Princeton?’
    ‘Absolutely no doubt.’
    ‘That’s pretty risky, don’t you think?’
    ‘Which is why I suggested it.’
    He seemed uncertain.
    Gabriela said, ‘But it’s your decision.’
    ‘No, no.’ Daniel looked around him. ‘Okay. I’ll go with it.’ He laughed. ‘The Princeton Solution.’ He added, ‘You’re a lifesaver.’
    She blinked at the word. ‘Could you pick another figure of speech? I mean, considering we’re in the middle of New York Harbor