“I have things that are important to me.”

“Things. OK. Like what?”

He sees Charley, Marty, and Luke glaring at him as he walked away from them earlier that day. The memory pokes a strange tangle of feelings inside him. Frustration, anger, and a tinge of self-loathing; if the last one isn’t how a parent feels when they let down their kids, it’s got to be damn close.

“I want you to move him,” Cole says.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I want you to move Jordy off the project.”

Emotion enters Donald’s expression for the first time, clear enough that no wavery video transmission can blur it out of evidence. Now he looks dazed and anxious, like someone wondering if they left the stove on at home just as their plane reaches cruising altitude. “I don’t have any other projects. Anywhere. I turned down two so I could do your tunnel in record time.”

“Maybe Jordy can help you take on another one. Somewhere else.”

“What the hell is this? You want me to punish my son for having bad taste in women?”

“No, I want you to punish your son for bringing unwanted attention to a project neither one of us wants going under a microscope.”

“Whose microscope, the Altamira Sheriff’s Department? What, do they have three people working for them? Come on. She walked out! She didn’t even bring charges, probably because she sobered up and realized she was full of it. The only one making a stink about this is you.”

“She’s missing, Donald. She’s been missing for two days.”

“She left. She left like she always leaves because she’s a drug addict. And it’s not like her family’s going to come looking for her; they hate her damn guts.”

You’ve certainly done your homework on Lacey Shannon, Cole thinks. Or you’ve just listened to your son complain about her a lot.

“That’s not how it looks,” Cole says.

“To who?”

“To anyone who has the presence of mind to ask why a young woman suddenly disappeared a few hours after walking into a sheriff’s station and claiming your son was responsible for the bruises all over her face. Right now, that person is me. What happens if the next one works for the LA Times?”

“What’s done is done. Taking Jordy off the project isn’t going to change anything. It’ll just look more suspicious if somebody does come sniffing around. And besides, given the nature of our agreement, I’d hope you’d protect him rather than hanging him out to dry at the first sign of trouble.”

“My arrangement is with you, not your son. He’s been strutting all over Altamira like he owns the place. Everyone in town knows who he is, and if he can’t keep his nose clean, he needs to go somewhere where he can.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Why don’t we table this for now and tomorrow we can check in and—”

“I said, I’m not doing it. My son is a patriot who served this country in a never-ending clusterfuck of a war most people have forgotten about. I’m not going to have his integrity questioned by some little . . .” Donald catches himself.

“Some little what?” Cole asks.

“Let’s just say we can do business together, but we’re not going to share a beer anytime soon.”

“Good. I don’t drink after other people. It’s a good way to get sick.”

“Yeah, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

Cole’s used to his fair share of vaguely homophobic ribbing in business, but this is something else, and there’s no amusement in Donald’s expression. Maybe if Cole hadn’t seen all those screen captures on Jordy’s computer, this moment would seem like nothing. But it doesn’t. And suddenly he feels as if he’s breathing through a straw.

Donald says, “I meant, because you make medicines and all.”

“Yeah, sure you did.”

“Look, before either one of us crosses the Rubicon here, let me just lay it out for you, real simple. You make me pull my son off that project, I pull all my men off that project. And if I do that, I start talking to folks about how weird it is doing business with Graydon Pharmaceuticals. How’s your board going to feel about that?

“I’ve done my homework on you, Mr. Graydon. Your track record as a CEO? Spotty at best. Your company hasn’t made headlines with a new drug since your father died. So I don’t know what in Sam hell this resort is for, but it’s important to you for some reason; otherwise you wouldn’t have put your ass on the line for it. So let’s just work together, all right? And we’ll start by you never saying my son’s name to me again with anything less than the total respect he deserves from someone like you. Got it?”

Before Cole can answer, Donald reaches for his computer. A second later, Cole’s laptop goes dark.

For a while, he just sits there.

Finally, Scott Durham says, “You OK?”

“I’ll live,” Cole answers.

He closes his computer. It’s silly, but the gesture makes him feel like he’s enclosing Donald’s infuriating parting words inside a titanium box.

“So,” he finally says, looking right into the eyes of his new security director, “what’s your take on all that, Mr. Durham?”