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HOPE LEANED AGAINSTthe bridge wall and kept the gun on Jenny, watched out the windows as the other yachties lounged and talked on their own vessels. Soon the cops would swarm the piers looking for her, a black and poisonous cloud rolling out over the water, stifling the afternoon sun. She’d be long gone before they arrived. Jenny was not in good shape. She clung to the helm shakily, her head nodding gently as waves of exhaustion rolled through her. Hope told Jenny to fire the engines and guided her on the throttle. The older woman’s hands were so slick with sweat she could hardly grip the wheel.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” Hope said. “This is probably going to be awful for your family.”

“Where is Ken?” Jenny whimpered.

“Put on port five.” Hope waved at the helm. “Bring the throttle back a bit.”

“I have two grown sons,” Jenny said. “They have children.”

“I don’t care.”

“Just tell me if Ken is still alive,” Jenny pleaded. “Tell me what happened. I have to know.”

Hope hardly heard the sick woman at the helm. For many years, Hope had been thinking about people in terms of how they related to her “Circle of Care.” A wide ring around her shut people out, or welcomed them in. It encompassed the people who were her responsibility, those she could trust, those it was safe to love. The circle had shrunk a little when she was a child every time her father had beaten her, so that the man had slipped out of it completely over time. When he’d grown old and mild, always moaning about forgiveness and mistakes, Hope hadn’t been able to bring herself to pull the man back inside the circle. For a while, in her teenage years, there had been friends and boyfriends inside the circle, but they’d walked out steadily as she’d taken to drinking and partying. When she’d started working in the Cross, she’d looped that small but loving circle around the other girls in her brothel. Together they’d gotten through the long nights and sleepy days, pulled each other up from the depths when it all became too much, watched out for the telltale track marks that meant someone was losing control.

But when Hope had been kicked out of the brothel for hiding profits from her madam, she’d found herself and Claudia the only two people left in the circle. And Hope was so used to people walking out, or being squeezed out, that she had really just been waiting all the time for Claudia’s turn to leave. And that turn had come when she’d fulfilled her role in taking down the Spellings. Hope had had no use for her after that. She wasn’t part of the glorious plan.

The circle was closed. Strangers like Jenny didn’t have a chance. Hope directed the older woman to rev the engines when the bow was pointing to clear, empty horizon. Behind them Hope could see cops arriving on the pier. They’d stopped the taxi driver before he could get out of the marina. It was a close call, but Hope was getting ahead of them. Maybe she’d make it. There were plenty of heavy things on board to tie Jenny to if she got in trouble.