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"Mister! Hey, , female "Are you dead? You need so, but the sun was already searing and rippling orange on the water

He lifted his head, which throbbed angry above his left eye, touched the wound, sticky with blood He lay on the deck at an odd angle He wasn&039;t at an odd angle It was the deck

He&039;d hit a sandbar in the le, the stern dipping nearly below the waterline The engine was still running, blades spinning, churning in the water and propelling him nowhere fast

"Mister?"

He focused on the voice A teenage girl in a blue bikini A speedboat Five teenagers in all, boys and girls on the river for a good tin

Conner waved "It&039;s okay Not dead"

They waved The dude behind the wheel throttled forward and the speedboat shot down the river like a bullet

Last night&039;s ealed, lined up for inspection as Conner half slid down the deck into the cockpit He re the Webley at what ht have been an intruder He hadn&039;t been sure Then he remembered the trashed cabin Somebody had searched the boat There had definitely been an intruder Whoever had been there had probably not found the DiMaggio card, or else why had they stuck around waiting for Conner?

The Japanese? Maybe they wanted to question hier Tied to a chair

Conner killed the engine He checked the gas gauge Only a few gallons of fuel left He checked his watch and tried to estiainst the sandbar, but his head throbbed, his mind cluttered with other worries

He went below and forward to check the bilge, see if there&039;d been a hull breach No leaks No problems

The main cabin was a mess, dishes and bottles scattered, ite had been knocked off the wall The glass in the frame had shattered Conner would need to wear shoes until he could sweep up

He picked up the seagull painting The wooden frame had cracked too, and it al ain, Conner had fallen into thinking of the Jenny as his boat Somebody had violated his property, invaded his space He kicked the seagull painting where it leaned against the bulkhead The fra pulled away, folded over, and slid out of the broken fra smile held her white dress down as the hem blew up around her Red letters above her head: THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH

Conner frowned, focused on the film poster It took hi at, the letter and the DiMaggio card encased in hard, transparent plastic

Through the fog of his disbelief and pounding head, Conner alh, big boy

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Itchi shivered in the ht, welcomed the sun, which quickly baked hiht was over He&039;d been afraid to venture in the dark, the too-near sounds of furtiveHe&039;d heard that Florida swaators and venoht he should call Toshi on his cell phone and ask for rescue tempted Itchi more than once But he was ators Toshi tolerated failure poorly Itchi had been careless, had let Sa, Itchi&039;s reflexes had taken over He&039;d leapt into the water, and when he&039;d tried to cliled, been caught by surprise, had let Sa in fear and indecision No, Toshi wouldn&039;t be pleased Toshi, it see Itchi was supposed to have broken into Derrick Ja, but had been forced to kill James when the man had walked in suddenly Toshi had called Itchi a careless oaf

As a young man Itchi had been told he would be feared and respected as a Yakuza At the ry

He stood, stretched his legs, and looked about No path, no obvious way through the swamp and back to civilization He e, looked across If there&039;d been a house or so, Itchi would swim the river and make his way back to the hotel He scanned the far bank Nothing

The ancient gods, however, were occasionally randht nohen he saw the little inflatable dinghy hung up on a low branch and bobbing with the current

He gleefully waded into the river up to his thighs, grabbed the side of the dinghy and heaved himself into it He pulled the cord several tias Soods were not all they were cracked up to be He durabbed the paddle, and headed downriver

The river seeht&039;s quick journey in the speedboat He stroked, fell into a rhythm When he rounded the bend and saw the Jenny stranded on a sandbar, his heart leapt Perhaps all was not lost He could still board the sailboat, find Samson Toshi need not know the unfortunate details of Itchi&039;s h at the Jenny&039;s stern Itchi tied up and scrah the boat quickly No sign of Samson Had he marooned the Jenny intentionally for some reason? More likely Samson had fled wildly in the dark and ended up here by accident

Itchi jurew sore Itchi was in excellent physical condition, but paddling used a whole new set of muscles

Ten minutes later he saw activity on the left bank It was far ahead, and he could only ue shapes Another minute and three men came into focus A tow truck A car with its front end in the river One of thefrantically over the fate of the autoraph

He redoubled his paddling, headed for the riverbank