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when she visited. Then I’d have to swap out my Van Gogh for that monstrosity. Make sure she noticed it proudly displayed in my office.”
    “Johnny…”
    “And then she died, and I got sentimental. I sold Skull with Burning Cigarette and put My Horse, Bella on that wall permanently. It’s been there for five years, and every time I look at it, I think of my mother. I’ve even come to appreciate certain aspects of it.”
    Fitch took a step forward into the splay of light emanating from the desk lamp. He looked clear-eyed. He held a large-caliber revolver in his right hand. His glass of Macallan in the other.
    “There are similarities between you and Van Gogh, Letisha. Both fiery redheads, with a nasty predilection for self-injury. Suffering from what the psychoanalysts would best describe as daddy issues. And perhaps most pityingly, both masters of a trade you would never be appreciated for. At least, not in life.
    “You look confused, Letty.” Fitch smiled. “Yes, I know your real name. I like it more than your alias, if you want to know the truth. Although I did prefer you as a redhead . ”
    He sipped his scotch.
    “Did you call the police?” she asked.
    He laughed. “I’m going to see my fair share of law enforcement for the rest of my life, don’t you think? The notion that you’d try to steal from me? Come onto my island and steal from me? You brazen girl.”
    “Johnny.” Letty thought she might be just drunk enough to scare up some real emotion. She had disarmed her fair share of men in the past with a few tears.
    “Oh, don’t cry, Letty.”
    “I’m sorry, Johnny. I tried to take advantage of you, and—”
    “No, no, no. I should be the one apologizing to you.”
    She didn’t like the sound of that. Something in the tone of his voice suggested a piece of knowledge she wasn’t privy to.
    “What are you talking about?” she asked, starting to get up.
    “No, you just stay right there, please.”
    She settled back into the chair.
    “My life,” Fitch said, “has been so rich. So…fragrant. I went to Yale undergrad. Harvard business. I was a Rhodes scholar. Earned a PhD in economics from Stanford. I lived in Europe. The Middle East. Argentina. I rose as fast through the ranks of PowerTech as anyone in the history of the company.”
    Fitch edged closer, his hair trembling in the breeze stirred up by a pair of ceiling fans.
    “By thirty-five, I was the youngest CEO of a global energy company in the world. I had a family I loved. Mistresses on six continents. I was responsible for twenty-four thousand employees. I brokered multibillion-dollar deals. Destroyed both domestic and foreign competitors. I’ve fucked in the Lincoln bedroom under three separate presidencies. I’ve been adored. Demonized. Admired. Copied. I’ve played hard. Made men and ruined men. Had the finest of everything. More money than God. More sex than Sinatra. Trust me when I say I go to federal prison for the rest of my life a happy man. If the masses knew how much pure fun it is to have this kind of power and wealth, they’d kill me or themselves.”
    He walked to one of the windows and stared out across the moonlit sea.
    “You’re a beautiful woman, Letty Dobesh. In another life…who knows? But I didn’t allow you to come into my home for sex. I’ve had plenty of that.” He held up his tumbler. “And I don’t really even care about this forty-thousand-dollar bottle of single malt. On the last night of a man’s life, before he reports to prison for a twenty-six-year stint that will likely kill him, he has to ask himself, What do I do with these last precious moments? Do I revisit the things in life that most made me happy? Or use this last gasp of freedom to have a truly new experience?”
    Letty eyed the staircase.
    If she hadn’t been drunk, she could’ve probably reached the steps before Fitch turned and fired. But he was holding a beast of a gun. A . 44 Magnum or worse. Taking a bullet from something of