Sleepwalker by Karen Robards

had this conversation.”
    “Exactly. You don’t want to tell me anything about yourself. I don’t see why you should expect me to tell you anything about me.”
    “Big secret, is it? You his girlfriend?”
    “Of course not.” She blurted out the rebuttal before she thought, then eyed him with real hostility.
    “But you’re something to him, obviously. So how is it that finding out that he’s a murderous criminal seems to come as such a surprise?”
    “He is not a. …” Mick’s heated reply trailed off. Hard as she might find it to accept, the pictures, plus the money in the suitcases, proved otherwise.
    “Oh, yes, he is. Believe me, baby, I know.”
    “Crooks know crooks, is that what you’re saying?”
    He said nothing, just looked at her with the smallest of smiles. After a moment—smart guy!—he changed the subject.
    “So where we headed?” he asked.
    “I haven’t decided yet.”
    “Probably you want to put in pretty soon. They know we’re out here on the lake, which kind of simplifies the whole ‘find them’ thing.”
    “Yeah, well. Out here we have a vehicle. On land we have our feet,” she said.
    He made a face. “True that.”
    “Unless you want to call your friend back and have him pick us up.”
    “I don’t.”
    “You’ve already got plans to meet him somewhere, don’t you? Probably you have a set rendezvous point in case you got separated.” The first observation had been gleaned from what she’d overheard of his phone call, but the second was pure guess. But it hit home: she could tell by the narrowing of his eyes.
    “How about you just drive the boat?”
    The sharp
thunk
of something hitting the bow refocused their attention in a hurry.
    “What the hell …?” He moved to the port rail and peered over the side as Mick eased back on the throttles, slowing the boat way down. “That was a log. We hit a log.” He looked back over his shoulder at her. “I thought you said we were too far out to hit anything.”
    “I said we were too far out to hit a rock. I never said anything about logs.” From the way the boat was moving and the readings on all her instruments, she could tell that it hadn’t done them any harm. “Logs happen.”
    “Great. Good attitude.”
    “I don’t know what you want me to do about it.” Before he could say anything she added, “I’m not turning on the lights.”
    He seemed to see the sense of that, because he didn’t argue. Instead he said, “I’m going below to check for damage.”
    “What are you going to do if you find a hole? Stick your finger in it?” she called after him as he went below. He didn’t answer. She kept the boat throttled down, because hitting something at speed carried a lot more potential for disaster than just nosing into it, and where there was one log there were likely to be more. The boat rocked gently; the sound of the water was more gurgle now than splash. She could just make out the curl of whitecaps, pale against the jet-black surface of the lake, and realized the wind was picking up.
    Turning on the lights would draw the attention of whoever or whatever was searching for them, like, for example, every minor street hood in Detroit whom Uncle Nicco’s guys had probably alerted by now to look out for them. She knew most of Uncle Nicco’s guys from way back, she knew they were connected, and how that had failed to translate into having her take seriously the rumors that Uncle Nicco was a big-time crime boss she couldn’t really say. Probably because he was family, because she was as fond of him as if he were actually her uncle, she’d never really even considered that the rumors might be true. But now—now she had to consider it. Had to accept it, in fact. As for his guys, they would be using their contacts in whatever way they could. They knew as well as she did that Uncle Nicco was going to be furious about being robbed, and even more furious that the thieves had been allowed to escape with his money, his