Key West was actually Wonderland, I thought. The theory made a lot of sense, especially if you've ever been to Duval Street after midnight.

Chapter 36.

I RETRIEVED MY MOPED and got back to the house twenty minutes later. I went straight to the bedroom closet and took down a suitcase. I opened it on the floor of the closet and threw in some underwear, my s.h.i.+rts, my jeans.

I glanced up at the top shelf at the big white box that contained my wedding dress and shook my head. That was staying. All yours, Peter!

By Greyhound bus, it would take about four or five hours to get back to Homestead, my small Florida hometown. My mom was gone, but I knew a couple of people there. I had a grandaunt I could crash with for a few days. I lifted the phone to call a taxi. Maybe I could get a job at the Gap, where I'd worked summers, until I figured things out.

I dropped the phone back into the cradle.

Wait a second. What was I doing? That would be the first place Peter would look for me.

I was a.s.suming Peter would just accept the fact that I had left him. But hadn't the Boston cop said that Peter had stalked his wife when she tried to leave? I held my head in my hands as I sat down on the bed.

Was that what I had to look forward to? Would Peter stalk me now? Murder me in a staged robbery?

My hand covered my mouth.

Wait a second. No.

Just like Elena.

Jamaicans hadn't killed Elena and the store clerk.

Peter had.

It all clicked into place. Peter had shot Elena with the machine pistol I'd seen on his boat and made up the story about the robbery.

It was over drugs, I realized, nodding my head. Which had to be why the FBI was involved. Peter was under investigation!

As I sat there, I knew it was true. All of it. I couldn't believe how much denial I'd been in.

Peter wasn't my hero. He wasn't the love of my life. He was a corrupt, drug-dealing cop and an ice-cold-blooded killer.

What now, Mermaid? I thought, dropping onto the bed. I lay there for a while, staring up at the ceiling.

Then I sat back up and took out the FBI agent's card.

I turned it in my hand as I stared at the phone.

Maybe I should call him? He knew the jam I was in. He could help me. He said so.

No! I thought, tapping the card to my forehead. Then everything would come out. What I'd done. How Peter had gotten rid of Ramon Pena.

I held my stomach in my hands. Staring down at the bulge that had already started to take over my belly, I envisioned myself giving birth in jail.

Unbelievable! I crumpled the card as I curled up on the bed. I couldn't call the FBI either. I might as well get a taxi to the nearest prison.

It took a little over an hour for the third option to finally dawn on me: What I needed to do. How I could try to go about doing it. It was an absolutely insane idea.

Right up my alley, I thought, getting to my feet.

Chapter 37.

THE FIRST THING I did was carefully put all my clothes away. After I replaced the suitcase, I went into the bottom of my sock drawer and shook out every nickel of catering-tip money I'd put aside to buy Peter a watch for our anniversary. Two hundred and eleven dollars wasn't much, but it would have to do.

I quickly put the money into the pocket of my jogging f.a.n.n.y pack and changed into a gym s.h.i.+rt and sneakers and shorts. Finally, I went into the bathroom and put on some lip gloss before doing my hair up in a cute ponytail.

I needed to look my best.

I was, after all, going to be abducted by the Jump Killer this afternoon.

It was the news story at the hospital that had inspired me. The missing Marathon woman. The fact that the serial killer was now supposed to be in the Lower Keys.

Nineteen young women had gone missing, as if they'd disappeared into thin air.

I was going to be number twenty.

Peter wasn't stupid, I knew. If my plan was going to work, it would have to be flawless, perfect in every way. The second he found out, he was going to be suspicious. So was my new FBI friend.

But I didn't have a choice. If I wanted to get away from Peter, to get out of the immense hole I'd dug for myself, I had to try. It was my only shot.

I checked myself in the bathroom mirror one more time and then looked at my watch. It was just coming on noon. I went into the bedroom and stared out the sliders at the sunlit water. There was no sign of Peter's boat. At least not yet. I'd have a six-or seven-hour head start.

I didn't want to be late to my own funeral.

After I locked the front door, I pulled up my gray jogging T and patted my belly.

"Wish us luck," I said to my baby. "Mommy's sure as h.e.l.l going to need it."

Chapter 38.

TEN MINUTES LATER, I was cruising at full throttle along Smathers Beach on my moped. Surprisingly, there were only a few people on its sugar white sand. A woman braiding her daughter's wet hair and a couple of pudgy old men the color of leather, casting sea poles into the almost gla.s.s-still water. I looked up as a biplane sputtered by: COME TO THE GREEN PARROT! RIGHT BESIDE US 1'S MILE ZERO! THE MOST SOUTHERN BAR IN THE US! read its ad banner.

Mile Zero, I thought. That's exactly where I was. Make that Mile Less Than Zero.

I suddenly put on the brakes as I spotted what I was looking for. A tall, skinny white kid with dusty blond dreadlocks was sitting on the concrete boardwalk in what looked like a yoga position. Yet another one of Key West's many street kids and skate rats and punk rockers. A young beach b.u.m come down to the country's lower right-hand corner G.o.d knew why, escaping G.o.d knew what.

I was escaping, too, in the opposite direction, and I needed his help.

"Excuse me," I said, stepping in front of him.

The kid held up a still finger, his eyes closed. After a moment, he stood, a guileless smile on his tan face.

"Mornin', ma'am," he said in a Texas accent. "Just doing a little Zen breath counting there. Sorry to make you wait. What can I do for you?"

Oddly enough, this was the way most Key West conversations went.

"I know this sounds weird," I said, "but I was wondering if you could buy something for me."

"Drugs?" he said, looking at me suspiciously.

"No, no," I said. "Nothing like that. I need you to buy me some cord."

"Cord?" he said, eyeing me. "Like rope? You gonna hang yourself? I don't go for that kinky stuff."

"Of course not," I said. "It's nothing like that. I need paracord. It's a special kind of rope for parachuting. I use it in my parasailing business, and I'm out. My ex-husband owns the only marina supply store on the island that sells it, and I don't want to give the son of a b.i.t.c.h the satisfaction of going in to buy it myself."

I needed the cord for my escape plan, of course. The ligature was linked to several of the Jump Killer cases.

I knew the request and my explanation sounded fishy, but I also knew it didn't matter. Despite its small size, Key West had a healthy big-city, screw-the-cops, left-wing street vibe. Even if this stoner put two and two together after my disappearance, there's no way he'd go anywhere near the cops. Who better than some burnt-out street kid to be a go-between?

"What do you say?" I nudged him.

"Paracord, huh? That does sound pretty weird," the kid said, adjusting his dreads as he stood. "But I've been down here for a month now and have heard a lot weirder. I happen to be in the cord-buying business this morning. Ten bucks do it for you?"

"Ten bucks, it is," I said, waving him toward my scooter.

Chapter 39.

AFTER MY YOUNG ZEN-COWBOY FRIEND scored the paracord for me, I hit a vintage clothing store in Bahama Village and then a CVS. A thin, homeless, twenty-something girl with sun-and-drug-wasted eyes holding a baby asked me for money as I exited the pharmacy, carrying two br.i.m.m.i.n.g bags.

Though I could hardly spare it, I stopped and gave her a dollar, praying that I wouldn't be her pretty soon.

I took the Vespa back over to Flagler Street and stopped at my favorite bodega for lunch. I ate my cubano slowly as the sun crested almost directly overhead.

I figured it would take until probably midnight for Peter to come looking for me. If I was lucky, he might even wait until morning.

After I finished lunch, I drove back to Smathers Beach, which ran along the southeast side of the island. Near its most deserted end, by the airport, I pulled over and got off the bike and stepped across the sandy path to the dunes.

I walked along the beach to where the beach gra.s.s grew about chest high and hunkered down.

There was no one on the beach, no one in the water.

It was time.

The first thing I did was upend my f.a.n.n.y pack, which contained my keys and wallet. Then with a pair of scissors that I'd bought, I cut a length of the paracord and dropped it on top of my CD Walkman.

The next part of the plan was the one I'd been dreading. It was also the most crucial. I took a small package out of the CVS bag and opened it.

It contained razor blades. They flashed like mirror shards in the bright light as I retrieved one and looked down at myself, debating. I swallowed as I finally decided on the back of my left calf.

I bit my lip as I lowered the blade down and sliced myself open. I hissed as I started the incision a little down from the back of my knee. Then teared up as I dug in harder with the blade, parting my skin.

At first, only a little blood dribbled out of the wound, but after I began to flex my calf over and over again, more came until I had a nice red stream going. It began to drip down my leg and off my heel, darkening the sand. I hopped around on one foot, flicking the blood on my f.a.n.n.y pack, the sand, the sea gra.s.s, the piece of paracord.

After about ten minutes, the area looked perfect, a total b.l.o.o.d.y mess.

Why not? Peter had shot himself to make his crime scene look good. The least I could come up with was a bit of self-mutilation.

I hopped back a few feet and sat down in the sand. I cleaned and bandaged myself carefully with peroxide and gauze and bandages that I'd bought at the pharmacy. I was even more careful to retrieve every sc.r.a.p of trash.

After I was bandaged, I went over and kicked some more sand over everything. Then I stared at the scene for a minute, resting my chin on my thumb like a painter before a canvas.

Finally I stood.

It would have to do.

I crossed my fingers as I turned and walked away.

Chapter 40.

IT WAS AS DIM as a cave. The concrete floor was littered with cigarette b.u.t.ts and some wriggly-looking thing I didn't even want to think about. The smell of urine made my eyes water.

Perfect, I thought, locking the door of the public beach bathroom a ways from my fabricated crime scene.

It was skeevy and scary, but the most important things were that the women's side had a lock on the door and the sink worked. I turned on the sink's rusty tap as I opened the CVS bag.