Gif let him have a full minute before continuing. “People in the marina saw the yacht leaving the harbor, wondered why anybody would be going out in weather like this. According to several witnesses, there, uh, there was a man at the wheel.”

“Jasper.”

“Unidentified.”

“It was Jasper.” Drex took one last deep breath and stood up straight. “While he had us looking the other way, he must have come straight here from the airport and boarded the yacht.” Turning only his head, he looked sternly at Gif. His friend knew the question he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t work up enough courage.

Gif raised his shoulders, looking apologetic. “It’s unknown if anyone else besides the man and Elaine were onboard.”

What went unspoken was that the last time Talia was seen, she had been in the company of her husband, but whether as a victim or an accomplice remained unknown. As though following Drex’s thoughts, Gif said, “The authorities have had no indication of another casualty, so the search is being referred to as a rescue, not a recovery.”

Drex stared out across the water. “They may find Talia, or her body,” he said in a voice scratchy with emotion. “But if they search till Doomsday, they won’t find a trace of him.” He pushed off the railing, turned, and started walking with determination toward the steps leading down. “The fucker can swim.”

He was pleased with his new appearance.

True, Howard Clement wasn’t as dashing as Jasper Ford, husband to Talia Shafer, friend to Elaine Conner, member in good standing of an exclusive country club, snappy dresser, and connoisseur of fine wine and cuisine.

But his new look and persona would do. He would never be recognized among the crowd of gawkers on the pier who watched as Elaine became a headline, her life reduced to a sound bite.

However, that was more notoriety than most people got. When looked at that way, Jasper had done her a favor. He had attained for her in death the attention she craved in life.

Her exuberance had been annoying at times, especially when his investment advice paid off in large dividends. On those occasions the two of them celebrated privately. Often Elaine had urged him to let Talia join in. He had refused.

“She’s a conservative investor and would never dare to take the gambles you do, Elaine.” Elaine had preened over that.

He didn’t have a one hundred percent accuracy rate, of course. Whenever his advice resulted in a loss, Elaine had accepted it philosophically, patted his cheek, told him she loved him anyway, then had asked where she should next put her money.

He would trot out inch-thick analyses of various investment opportunities in the US as well as in foreign markets. He would excite her with projections, then dampen that excitement by enumerating the risks. He’d enticed her with estimated yields, but cautioned her to give serious consideration to the volatility of international trade in an unstable diplomatic climate.

Her attention span had been that of a gnat. She’d been easily confused by the vernacular and eventually overwhelmed by the volume of information. “Oh, just pick one and handle it for me.”

Actually, it had been almost too easy. He’d grown a bit bored with her. Ever cheerful and optimistic, she’d rarely challenged anything he proposed.

That was up until tonight. He had called and told her about a squabble between Talia and him that had culminated in the cancellation of a getaway. He’d asked if Elaine would meet him on the Laney Belle. “I need a stiff drink and a good friend.”

He’d been assured that she would gladly provide both.

She’d welcomed him aboard with a sympathetic hug and an open bottle of bourbon. But when he suggested that they take a short cruise, she had balked. The weather wasn’t ideal, she’d said. They couldn’t sightsee with the mist so heavy, and the forecast was for conditions to worsen, not improve. She would rather err on the side of safety and keep the Laney Belle snug in the marina.

On and on, she’d whined, whined, whined until he’d wanted to strangle her. She hadn’t given in until he announced—irritably—that his coming to her for consolation after his quarrel with Talia had been a bad idea, that he was leaving.

“Oh, all right. But only for a little while.”

He’d promised to make it quick. That was a promise she had forced him to break.

He’d persuaded her to let him pilot the boat out of the marina because she’d had several drinks. He’d seen to it that she had two more before suggesting that they give the dinghy a test run.

“Tonight? Talia would scalp me if I let you do that.”

“That’s the point,” he’d said, giving her a conspiratorial wink. “She would never allow it. She’s afraid of the water, you know. Let’s misbehave and do it while she’s not looking.”

Elaine had been unable to resist the thought of misbehavior.

She’d giggled through the process of getting the dinghy into the water and climbing in. There had been a litany of “ooopsy-daisies” and hilarity over her tipsiness. She’d squealed like a little girl whenever the dinghy was rocked by a swell, and she’d been laughing when a wave sloshed into the boat and knocked her off balance.

She’d stopped laughing when he shoved her overboard. Ocean water had filled her mouth, silencing her scream as she went under. He’d gone in seconds after her and had hooked his elbow around her neck from behind as she’d struggled to the surface.

It was a lifesaver’s maneuver, which she’d relaxed against, until realizing that he wasn’t keeping her afloat, but holding her under. Then she’d begun to fight. He’d promised to make it quick, but she hadn’t allowed it. It had seemed to take for bloody ever for her to die.

He’d let go and pushed away from her, swum back to the dinghy, and hung onto the side of it until he’d regained his breath. Once recovered, he’d peeled off his clothes. He’d practiced doing this in shallower swells. It was harder to accomplish than he had counted on, and took more time, but eventually he was down to his Speedo.

He’d sent his shoes adrift and made a tear in his shirt before letting it go. Then he’d tied his remaining garments together and attached them to a fire extinguisher he’d taken from a cabinet on the yacht. He’d placed it in the dinghy while Elaine was pouring another round. The heavy canister sent his bundle of clothing to the depths.

The hardest part of the whole ordeal had been to overturn the dinghy, which, clearly, had been designed not to capsize.

Then he’d swum. He’d estimated that it would take him at least an hour to reach the shoreline, although he couldn’t be precise about how far the dinghy had drifted from the yacht. He’d rested periodically but pushed himself.

He was twelve minutes off on his timing, but had missed his destination by only thirty yards. As he’d walked to where he’d left the car, he’d watched the tide erase his footprints almost as soon as they were formed.

The car was a heap that he’d bought months ago off a we-tote-the-note lot. He’d paid in cash and had the title made out to Howard Clement. He hadn’t bothered to register it. He’d scraped off the VIN number. He was confident it could never be traced to him.

He had parked it in a clump of scrubby palmetto with a lacy overlay of kelp that had washed onto the beach. In the unlikely event that his tire tracks were ever detected, they would be difficult to imprint. He’d pulled on the pair of latex gloves, which he’d carried folded inside his swimsuit, then reached for the magnetic box he’d secreted beneath the car and used the fob inside to open the trunk. He’d lifted out the roll-aboard he had ostensibly packed for a getaway, but which actually contained everything he needed to undergo a metamorphosis.