The Reef

instant.” Perhaps he could just snap her neck. He considered it, toyed with it, discarded it. Murder could wait. “An instant later I’m in the water and away.”
    “What do you hope to prove by this?” The words were weak and gasping as he squeezed her throat. “The Isabella and everything she held is out of your reach. You can kill me, kill all of us, it won’t change that. You’ll be hunted down, thrown in prison for the rest of your life.”
    “Don’t you know that no one will be able to touch meonce I have the amulet? You know the power it holds, you’ve felt it.”
    “You’re insane—” Her scream was involuntary and carried no more than a foot when his fingers crushed brutally over her windpipe.
    “It’s mine. Has always been mine.”
    “You’ll never get away. They’ll know it was you. All your money and all your influence won’t be able to protect you this time.” She wheezed out a breath as he loosened his grip.
    “The amulet will be enough.”
    “You’ll have to go into hiding for the rest of your life.”
    As she spoke, she shifted her eyes wildly in search of a weapon. The champagne bottle with its thick heavy glass was out of reach.
    “We have the tapes, we’ve announced the find.” She hurried on. “Hayden and Lorraine know, as do dozens of others. You can’t kill them all.”
    “I can do anything. I can do anything, and there’s nothing and no one to touch me. Give me the amulet, Tate, and I’ll spare your parents.”
    Her head whirled as she remembered. She closed her hand protectively around the stone. It seemed to pulse quietly against her palm.
    “I don’t believe you. You’ll kill me, you’ll kill all of us, and for what, some wild notion that a necklace will bring you power and impunity?”
    “And perhaps immortality.” Yes, he’d begun to believe that, begun to see the truth of that. “Others have believed it, but they were weak, unable to control what they held in their hands. I’m different, you see. I’m used to command, to harnessing power. That’s why it belongs to me. What would it be like to live with every wish, every thought possible? To win everything. To live forever if you wanted it.”
    His breath quickened, coming hard against her ear. “Yes, I’ll kill you for that. I’ll kill all of you for that. Do you want me to make you suffer first?”
    “No.” She closed her eyes, straining her ears for the sound of the returning tender. If she could somehow signalthem, or Matthew, there might be a way to stop VanDyke from killing all of them. “I’ll give it to you, and pray to God it gives you the life you deserve.”
    “Where is the amulet?”
    “Here.” She lifted the stone she still held in her hand. “Right here.”
    Stunned, he loosened his hold enough for her to jerk away. But she didn’t run. There was nowhere to run. Instead she faced him, eyes cold and defiant, her fingers still circling the brilliant center gem. She could see his face go lax, soften like glass heated. But the gun never wavered.
    “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said quietly. She couldn’t appeal to his reason. So she would appeal to his madness. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had a weapon after all.
    “For centuries it’s waited to be held again, worn again, admired again. Do you know there wasn’t a mark on it when I took it from the sand?”
    She turned the stone so that it caught the white beam of the moon. Light and shadows danced. It was quiet, suddenly so quiet, she could hear each separate whisper of the waves kissing the hull.
    “Time, water hadn’t touched it. It would have looked just like this, bright and gleaming, the last time she wore it around her neck.”
    When he continued to stare, his eyes locked, hypnotized, on the amulet, she inched back, still holding the stone out. “I think she wore it that morning. The morning they came to execute her. And he, the man responsible for condemning her, waited outside the cell, and took it.”
    Her voice was quiet, almost soothing. “He couldn’t have her, but he could have that last physical link she had to the man she loved. Or so he thought. But he just couldn’t break that very intimate connection between them. Neither could death. She spoke his name in her mind as the smoke filled her lungs and the flames licked at her feet. Etienne’s name. I can hear her, VanDyke, can’t you?”
    Caught like a rat by the gaze of a snake, he stared. His tongue darted out to lick his lips. “It’s