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attention. He
     could be in Miami in a week, any loose ends wrapped up.
    Stoney was the one remaining problem.
    He lay back down on the bed and began to imagine various deaths for Stoney Vaughn. Quick ones. You didn’t want to spend any
     extra time with Stoney if you could help it.

7
    In the clear sunshine of the Gulf of Mexico, the blood and gore painted sparkles across the green waves. Filmy scales glistened
     like jewel dust. Torn shrimp pinwheeled down from the surface, pink and brown and white, a kaleidoscope of flesh. Slivers
     of fish guts bobbed, the light shifting their colors from red to green to gray as they sank beneath the water.
    ‘Beautiful,’ Claudia said.
    ‘Gross,’ Ben Vaughn said. ‘But I mean that in a real manly way.’
    Thursday morning Claudia stood at the open back of
Jupiter,
a forty-eight-foot luxury craft, fishing rod in hand. She usually preferred fishing on the open deck of a boat, but
Jupiter
offered the cool shade of the cabin, a cushioned wicker chair, a glass of grapefruit juice at her elbow. She watched a heavy
     Gulf shrimper chug away from them, its wake now colored with the pool of chum Ben had poured overboard.
    Ben hoisted himself up the ladder from the swim platform. He washed his hands of brownish film at the sink. ‘You ready to
     fish the buffet?’
    Claudia smiled. ‘Am I ever.’
    ‘Sort of glad my brother didn’t tag along.’ Ben sat down next to her, relaxed, grinning. ‘I’m not sure what a third wheel
     is on a boat.’
    ‘Sweet of him to let us use the boat.’
    ‘Stoney’s too busy to play with his toys. I’m glad I’m not. Summer vacation.’ Ben leaned over and kissed her, easy. ‘That’s
     for luck.’
    She cast her line into the spreading heart of gore,nailing its center. He cast after her, his line hitting the edges of the chum smear.
    ‘You don’t need any coaching.’
    ‘I just need someone to vouch for my unbelievable fish stories if I end up not catching a thing,’ she said.
    ‘We each caught a whale, right?’ Ben sipped at his soda.
    Claudia watched sleek figures dart and turn beneath the bloody cloud. Within seconds a thick-bodied yellow-fin hit her line.
     She jerked once, setting the hook, and then let the monofilament line spin out as the yellowfin raced away, revving along
     for a hundred and fifty feet. The tug and play went on for ten minutes, and soon the strength at the other end of the line
     faded. Claudia reeled her prize in and carefully held the bullet-shaped yellowfin aloft for inspection.
    ‘A real beauty. You’re gonna outfish me, aren’t you?’
    ‘The day is young.’ Claudia eased the heavy yellowfin into the customized live well in the salon’s corner and cast her line
     out again.
    But her luck didn’t hold. Her next cast caught a fight-filled bonito that tired after ten minutes. As Claudia reeled the bonito
     toward the boat a dark shape flashed beneath the faded slick of chum and her line went slack.
    Ben pointed into the murk. ‘Shark. Grabbed your fish for lunch.’
    Claudia watched a ten-foot silky rocket underneath the boat. Sharks. An odd tickle touched the base of her spine. ‘I hope
     he enjoys the lunch I caught him.’
    ‘Let’s find less crowded waters.’ Ben went up to the flying bridge and steered
Jupiter
away from the shrimpers’ wakes, moving far out past a weather buoy marking seventy-five miles from the Texas coast. They
     spent the next hour or so hooking king mackerel and ling.
    Ben pulled up a big ling, inspected it, let it go. The fishhit the water and dove down into the hard blue dark. ‘Best catches I’ve had lately. That kiss worked.’
    ‘All mine do,’ she said. ‘So I got a question. Why’d you call me, Ben, after all these years?’
    He cast his line again, let it settle. ‘You aren’t with David anymore.’
    ‘It’s funny. Now I actually never feel I was with him.’
    ‘You didn’t love him?’
    ‘I did. But not the way you’re supposed to.’
    ‘There’s a