They took a cruise Monday evening on a forty-foot catamaran, run by a company called Sunset Cruises. It was really just a one-man band—a deaf guy in his sixties called Ernie, using private boat charters for retirement money. Miles thought he was on to a winner. He took you out with a chiller full of alcohol and cruised south, let you sit there drinking and watching the sun get doused in the Gulf of Mexico.
The colors were acid-trip, and the ocean was flat enough it looked oiled. It was deep blue at the boat and red where it touched the sun, and the thin cloud layer was all tints of orange-yellow.
He lay on the foredeck with an empty bottle, and thought this might be coming close to perfection. The boat’s engine cut, and they drifted gently.
Lucy sat down beside him, legs outstretched and crossed, a full-length tan and a light sun-block glazing. She said, “You think maybe I could start a trend—bikini plus air tank?”
She always acted like it didn’t bother her, but then why mention it?
Miles said, “Looking like that, you could pull off a bikini plus anything.”
“Maybe you could pull it off for me.”
Miles said, “Yeah, I could do that.” He heard bottles clink as Ernie helped himself to a cold one.
They were quiet awhile, watching the sun disappear, and then Lucy said, “I told Nina what happened.”
Miles looked at her, not following just yet.
She said, “Sorry to wreck the atmosphere.” She glanced back at Ernie and said, “Right before I shot her, I said I’d killed Jack, and you’d just covered for me. Set it up to make it seem legit.” She picked her beer label, scored her thumbnail down the side. “I don’t know why I told her. All just part of the rush, I guess.”
It should’ve worried him, but the beer in him dulled his fear glands.
She said, “I thought I’d kill her. But if she makes it, she’ll be in on the secret.”
Add it to the list of things hanging over him. He didn’t want Nina Stone as the keeper of the truth. Secrets meant leverage.
He said, “We’ll be okay.”
He hoped he was right. He hoped he had some credit when it came to Nina. She owed him—a five-year debt and counting.
She’d been caught on film doping up a banker, and then walking off with a million dollars cash. He’d corrupted the footage with a kill-disk program, and blitzed the case against her.
She could have gone to prison, but fate gave her leverage off his life’s bad turn. Divorce: the end of love sent his moral compass haywire. Past the spinning dial, Nina’s theft resembled justice served. He’d take the shame to his grave.
He felt Lucy’s hand cover his. The boat turned slowly in a current, dipping and rising with the softest motion, water clacking on the hull. Maybe this was a bad habit, lying on your back, seeing the whole cloudscape turn. It was a false perspective of the world: Miles as the center of everything. He’d start thinking good luck was forever.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due again to the wonderful people at Thomas Dunne Books and Minotaur for their support of my novels and their hard work in publishing The Stakes. I’m especially grateful to Stephen Power and Janine Barlow for their careful and intelligent editorial guidance.
As always, my agent Dan Myers was an invaluable sounding board, and instrumental in helping to straighten up my first draft.
I’d also like to acknowledge the great team at Allen & Unwin, in particular Jane Palfreyman, Melanie Laville-Moore, and Angela Radford, for promoting me so well in my home market and in Australia.
ALSO BY BEN SANDERS
American Blood
Marshall’s Law
The Fallen
By Any Means
Only the Dead
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BEN SANDERS is the author of American Blood and Marshall’s Law, as well as three New Zealand fiction bestsellers: The Fallen, By Any Means, and Only the Dead. Sanders lives in Auckland, New Zealand. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Ben Sanders
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
THE STAKES. Copyright © 2018 by Ben Sanders. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by James Perales
Cover photographs: city © Alice Sundbom/Eyeem/GettyImages; holes © Caspar Benson/GettyImages
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-14011-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-14012-8 (ebook)
e-ISBN 9781250140128
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First Edition: March 2018