Amy Dey had gone missing again.

The Dey Breeze sat motionless on the Pacific, the huge yacht suggesting not even the slightest influence from the world’s largest ocean just beneath her. Her eighty-foot length, four decks, and a three-story cabin, were caked with revelers, gorgeous women and sculpted men drinking and dancing to the pulse of European dance beats blasting out of the huge, hidden speakers.

Jonathan Dey stood at the helm, a stern expression under his short, black hair. Beyond the tinted windows, people his own age danced and laughed, many of them his own friends there by his own invitation. There was nobody older than thirty, and if the lawyers had done their job right, nobody under eighteen either. But Jonathan could only shake his head and take a sip from his vodka tonic. At just twenty-eight, Jonathan felt like he was decades older than Danny, not merely two years, and their sister Amy seemed more like a teenager than a woman in her early twenties, though Jonathan knew that had a lot to do with the way she’d been raised.

“Hey, bro!” Jonathan turned to see Danny Dey step into the cabin. His younger brother could hardly have been more of a contrast to himself. Danny’s colorful Hawaiian shirt and cut-off jean shorts were nothing like his brother’s Navy-blue Polo and sharp beige dress pants, instead of Jonathan’s rod-straight posture, Danny’s was casual, sloped and always leaning; more a question mark than an exclamation point. Where Jonathan’s hair was short and well-kept, Danny’s was a long, brown mop of straggly strands.

“Danny,” was all Jonathan said.

“What ‘cha doin’ in here, man? C’mon out, it’s a party!”

“It’s not my party,” Jonathan said. “Where’s Amy?” Danny shrugged, but Jonathan barked, “Whaddaya mean?” before shrugging to mock his kid brother. “We’re supposed to be keeping an eye on her, Daniel.”

“So why aren’t you doing it? You’re just sitting around in here anyway.”

“You’re out there mingling, it’s easier for you.”

“Check her cabin, I’m sure she’s in there, or around here somewhere. Jonathan, nobody can get to her here. Relax! You sound like the old lady.”

“Don’t call her that,” Jonathan said. “Our mother is right to be worried about Amy, I shouldn’t have to explain that to you, of all people.”

“That’s right you don’t, so don’t bother.” Danny turned to shamble out of the cabin. “I’ll go find her.”

“And lay off the pot, will ya?”

“Oh fuck off.” Danny slammed the door behind himself, Jonathan shaking his head and taking another drink of his cocktail.

Danny took the spiral staircase to the main cabin below, couples sitting on the couches in each other’s laps, hands glancing over breasts and thighs. White lines were cut out onto a little square mirror on the coffee table. Passing, Danny paused and leaned over the coffee table. Without asking, he picked up a straw and snorted a big line up each nostril. He dropped the straw and leaned back, tense and shuddering before wiping his nose and throwing out a big, enthusiastic, “Whoooo!” Taking a breath and shaking it off, he said, “You guys better get rid of that. My brother sees it, he’ll go apeshit.” Danny stepped away, his guests chuckling at him and waving him off, returning their attentions to each other and themselves.

The coke charged through Danny’s system, his heart instantly beating faster, mind moving faster as he wormed his way through the crowded yacht. He only recognized a fraction of the faces in the crowd, most of them Amy’s friends.

Friends, Danny thought, Amy doesn’t even know most of these people. Mom’s minions, Danny chuckled to himself. But there was little mirth in his heart, and to see the parade of faux friends filling their yacht only made Danny feel every bit as empty.

Well, at least we know they’re safe. But as Danny moved from deck to deck, failing to spot his kid sister’s face in the crowd made Danny think twice. All the Dey kids had been raised under the shadow of their mother’s constant worry and suspicion, but her determination and logic had a powerful effect on all three. For all of Amy’s twenty-three years, he and Jonathan had been assigned the task of protecting Amy from Margaret Dey’s worst fears come true, and it was easy to see how that shaped the adult that each of them became. Poor Amy was sad and isolated, more and more as she got older. Jonathan was more strict, the presumptive heir apparent of the family.

Danny just wanted to get high, just to take a break from the constant worry. But the more he searched that yacht, the more his mind wandered, the more his worry increased and his high waned.

These people may have been screened, but that doesn’t mean somebody couldn’t have come up in a dinghy.

Oh, come on, Danny told himself, now you sound like Jonathan! She’s probably in her cabin, moping as usual. Gotta stay away from the blow.

Danny cut down the hall toward the line of private bedrooms.

He knocked on the door, a bit more forceful than he’d intended. Female voices leaked out from behind the door, confirming Danny’s notion that he’d been right, that she was safe and sound.

Unless one of those goons is in there with her, taking advantage of her, forcing himself on her!

Danny knocked again, even louder. He knew he was getting carried away, but he no longer cared.

The door opened in front of him, but it wasn’t his sister’s pretty face and blonde hair, as expected.

“Isla,” Danny said, stepping back as the familiar girl closed the cabin door behind her.

Isla Reece had grown up next door to the Dey mansion in Beverly Hills and was one of the few people the family trusted.

Isla said, “What’s up, what’s going on?”

“Looking for my sister,” Danny said, instantly on the defensive. “Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Isla said, “she’s in here with me, so … congratulations, you found her.”

“I wanna talk to her.”

Isla looked up at Danny, her hand on her hip, short black bob shimmering over her big, dark eyes. “First of all, you’ve got cocaine crusted all over your nostrils. You wanna talk to Amy looking like that?” Danny wiped his nose with his fingers and the backs of his hands. “Anyway, you don’t want to talk to her all cranked up like this. So go tell the warden that she’s fine, then go up to the deck and smoke a joint, try ’n relax.” Isla opened the door, slid back into the cabin, and closed the door again, sliding the lock shut.

“Smoke, don’t smoke,” Danny muttered, “some days, you just can’t please anybody.”