The Reef

walk away from this?” Shaking with fury, VanDyke snarled at his bodyguard until the man sat silently on the sofa again. “Do you think you can cheat me, amuse yourselves at my expense, take what belongs to me by blood right? I can crush you.”
    He couldn’t quite get his breath, could see nothing but Matthew’s cold and calm eyes. James Lassiter’s eyes.
    The dead came back.
    “Everything you have can be mine within a week. I’ve only to whisper the right words in the right ears. And after I have, after you’ve lost everything you own, I’ll have you hunted down, slaughtered like animals.”
    “This is as close as you’ll ever get to Angelique’s Curse.” Matthew folded the sketch, slipped it into his pocket. “And you’ll never touch me or mine.”
    “I should have killed you when I killed your father.”
    “Your mistake.” Matthew could see the boy he had been, sick and trembling with grief, with rage, with helplessness. Now, it seemed the boy was dead as well. “I’m going to make you a proposition, VanDyke.”
    “A proposition?” He all but spat it as his head threatened to explode. “You think I would do business with you?”
    “I think you will. Come on out, Buck.”
    Red-faced from crouching in a jungle of decorative palms beside the breakfront, Buck puffed his way into the clear. “I tell you, Matthew, them Japanese are geniuses.” He grinned at the palm-sized video recorder he held, then flipped out the tiny tape. “I mean to tell you, the clarity’s crystal, and the sound? I could almost hear the ice melting in that sissy drink of LaRue’s.”
    “I really prefer my brand.” Stripping a huge, floppy brimmed hat from her head, Marla strolled to the table. “The zoom is superior. All the way across the lobby, and I could count the pores in his skin.” She too ejected the tape. “I don’t think we missed anything, Matthew.”
    “Technology.” Matthew bounced the minicassette inhis hand. “It’s amazing. On these little tapes we have video and sound recording, from two angles, of you confessing to racketeering. You know what racketeering is, don’t you, VanDyke? That’s when you pay somebody to do the crime.”
    He smiled thinly as he palmed the tapes. “I guess they’d get you for conspiracy to murder along with it.” He considered. “That would be two counts. Then there’s murder, that would be the first-degree murder of James Lassiter. Last I heard there was no statute of limitations on murder. Nobody forgets,” he added quietly.
    He handed the cassettes to LaRue. “Thanks, partner.”
    “My pleasure, I assure you.” Gold flashed in his grin. “My very rich pleasure.”
    Matthew looked at his uncle. “Buck, you and LaRue go take care of these.”
    “On our way.” Buck paused, looked back at VanDyke. “I thought the necklace was evil. I figured it had done in James, and that it hounded me and the boy here all our lives. But it was just you. Now we’ve done in you, VanDyke, and I gotta figure James is having a good laugh over it.”
    “No one will take you or your tapes seriously.” VanDyke blotted his mouth with a handkerchief and sent a subtle signal to his steward.
    “I think they will. Hold on a minute.” Wanting the entertainment, Matthew swiveled in his chair. He was in time to see LaRue bend down as if to tie his shoe. He came up like a bullet, directly between the legs of the bodyguard.
    Two hundred and sixty-eight pounds of muscle bounced off the glossy floor, with barely a whimper, then curled up like a boiled shrimp.
    “That was for Tate,” LaRue told him, then fluttered his hands helplessly as several staff members rushed over. “He just fell over,” LaRue began. “A heart attack perhaps. Someone should call a doctor.”
    “You always underestimated the Canuk.” Matthew swiveled back. “Thanks,” Matthew added as the nowvisibly nervous waitress brought the drinks. “Marla, looks like you’ve got a mai tai.”
    “Why, I’d love one, honey.” She settled at the table, smoothed the full skirt of her sundress, then aimed her frosty Southern gaze on VanDyke. “I really want you to know this was my idea. The rough idea,” she temporized. “It had to be refined a bit. You’re very pale, Mr. VanDyke. You may want some cheese, a quick protein lift.”
    “Isn’t she terrific?” Madly in love, Matthew snatched Marla’s hand and kissed it lavishly. “Now, business. There are going to be copies of those tapes in various