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himself—watching the footage of Deck putting his arm around Tess's shoulders at the memorial service, holding her hand as she leaned toward him for comfort. He'd gotten pissed off, imagining Decker kissing Tess good-night so that those fuckers who'd tried, numerous times, to kill Jimmy would believe he truly was dead.
    It sucked the biggest dick ever.
    Oh, what a tangled web we weave. …
    “I'm sorry,” Jimmy said again, because he was the spider who'd started this multi-level charade spinning in the first place.
    “I just think we all need a little space,” Decker told him quietly, pouring a cup of water from the pitcher on Jimmy's tray.
    “Fair enough.” Jimmy nodded. “We don't tell Dave. And sorry if I brought an unwanted picture to mind.”
    Decker handed him the water. “Drink,” he ordered as he headed back out of the room. “Lots. I want to get the hell out of here.”
    Jimmy drank.
    The place really was perfect.
    Eight bedrooms, ten baths, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, outfitted gym with a climbing wall, home theater, chefs kitchen, fully furnished and equipped—all sitting like a castle atop the summit of a mountain.
    And FBI agent Jules Cassidy had the key to the front door in his pocket.
    And, okay, this probably wasn't a mountain for most people, but Jules had grown up in the Northeast where the mountains were ancient and tree-covered and worn. Here in California—home of that nifty geological phenomenon known as the Sierra Nevadas—this thing jutting up between two desert valleys really was just a very steep, ragged little hill.
    But for Jules's intents and purposes—which were many and varied—a hill of this magnitude was mountain enough.
    “Two million dollars,” Sam Starrett mused as he stood at the wall of sliders that opened onto a deck overlooking the scenic desert valley to the south. “He's working for a month, and they're paying him two
million
dollars. That's… what? Over sixty-five thousand dollars a day. A
day.”
    “Yeah, but you see,” Jules pointed out, “after his agent takes his cut, and after taxes and expenses? It works out to be only about half that much, so, you know, it's not that big a deal.”
    Sam turned and looked at him, eyebrows up.
    “Kidding,” Jules said, laughing at his friend. “It's a huge deal. It amazing.”
    Jules's husband, Robin, had come ridiculously far in the years since he'd publicly acknowledged that he was gay, and had gone into rehab for his alcoholism. His had been a coming-out of epic proportions, since he was on the verge of becoming one of Hollywood's leading action-adventure stars.
    And while Robin's two-million-dollar paycheck for his role in this film was impressive, there had been a time, right before he first came out of the closet, that he could have demanded five times that amount. But Robin hadn't cared. He'd chosen sunlight and honesty over guaranteed fortune and fame. He'd chosen Jules, and had worked his ass off to stay sober. It was never going to be easy, but he now had over two alcohol-and drug-free years under his belt.
    The naysayers had assumed his career was over.
    The naysayers were not only freaking nincompoops, they were, as it turned out, seriously
wrong
freaking nincompoops. Proof was in the Emmy that sat on the mantel of the home Jules and Robin shared in Boston.
    Robin was psyched to be doing this movie—a science fiction action-adventure—during his hit TV show's summer hiatus. He was pleased to be making that much money, but he was
most
excited about using this opportunity to help out Jules with what they'd been referring to lately as “his little extracurricular project.”
    The film was shooting nearby in the desert as well as six hours away in San Diego. Robin wouldn't be staying at this fabulous fortress of a house every night, but he'd be here as often as he could. And he'd be footing the bill—a fact that he generously shrugged off as “no big deal.”
    “Do you think we should form a search