The Reef

these years, working like a dog when he could havelived like a prince. Still, he slipped when he resumed his partnership with your parents, and you. Women often cause a man to make foolish mistakes.”
    “Firsthand experience, VanDyke?”
    “Not at all. I adore women, much in the same way I adore a good wine or a well-played symphony. When the bottle is done, or the music over, one can always arrange for another.” He smiled as Tate tensed. The boat had begun to move.
    “Where are we going?”
    “Not far. A few degrees east. I’m expecting a show, and I want a closer seat, so to speak. Have a snifter of brandy, Tate. You may feel the need for it.”
    “I don’t need brandy.”
    “Well, it’s here if you change your mind.” He rose and crossed to a bench. “I have an extra pair of binoculars. Perhaps you’d like them.”
    She snatched them, rushed to the rail to scan east. Her heart leapt when she found the dim outline of the boats. There were lights glowing on the New Adventure, another holding steady on the bridge of the Mermaid.
    “You must realize if we can see them, they’ll be able to see us.”
    “If they know where to look.” VanDyke stepped beside her. “I imagine they’ll scan this way eventually. But they’re going to be very busy shortly.”
    “You think you’re clever.” Despite her best efforts, her voice broke. “Using me to lure them here.”
    “Yes. It was a stroke of luck well used. But now plans have changed.”
    “Changed?” She couldn’t stop staring at the lights. She thought she saw movement. A tender? she wondered. Cutting away toward shore. LaRue, she thought with a sinking heart, taking the amulet to some hiding place.
    “Yes, and I believe the change is imminent.”
    The excitement in his voice shivered over her skin. “What are you—”
    Even at nearly a mile’s distance, she heard the blast. The lenses of the binoculars exploded with light, dazzlingher shocked eyes. But she didn’t look away. Couldn’t look away.
    The Mermaid was engulfed in flames.
    “No. No, God. Matthew.” She’d nearly leapt over the rail before VanDyke yanked her back.
    “LaRue is efficient as well as greedy.” VanDyke wrapped a wiry arm around her throat until her frantic struggles drained into wild weeping. “The authorities will do their best to piece it together, what there is left to piece. Any evidence they find will indicate that Buck Lassiter, in a drunken haze, slopped gas too near the engine, then carelessly lit a match. As there’s nothing left of him, or his nephew, there will be no one to dispute it.”
    “You were going to get the amulet.” She stared at the fire licking at the dark sea. “You were going to get it. Why did you have to kill him?”
    “He would never have stopped,” VanDyke said simply. The flames dancing toward the sky mesmerized him. “He stared at me over his father’s body, with knowledge and hate in his eyes. I knew then that one day this would come.”
    The pleasure of it shivered through him like wine, iced and delicious. Oh, he hoped there had been pain and understanding, even only an instant of it. How he wished he could be sure.
    Tate sank to her knees when he released her. “My parents.”
    “Oh, safe enough, I imagine. Unless they were onboard. I have no reason at all to wish them ill. You’re terribly pale, Tate. Let me get you that brandy.”
    She braced a hand on the rail, leveled herself up on her trembling legs. “Angelique cursed her jailers,” she managed. “She cursed those who had stolen from her, who persecuted her and cut off the life of her unborn child.”
    Fighting to speak over her shuddering breaths, she watched his eyes in the glow of candlelight. “She’d have cursed you, VanDyke. If there’s any justice for her, and power left, the amulet will destroy you.”
    There was a chill around his heart that was fear anddeadly fascination. With the flickers of the distant fire behind her, grief and pain dark in her eyes, she looked powerful and potent.
    Angelique would have looked so, he thought, and lifted the brandy to his suddenly icy lips. His eyes were almost dreamy on Tate’s. “I could kill you now.”
    Tate gave a sobbing laugh. “Do you think it matters to me now? You’ve killed the man I love, destroyed the life we would have had together, the children we would have made. There’s nothing else you can do to me that matters.”
    With the grief trapped inside her, Tate stepped forward. “You see, I