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“Treat them gently,” said Holmes.

Virginia jumped up and put her hands on the containers. She looked at Marple. “Can I peek?”

Marple nodded. Virginia pried the cover off the first box and looked in. She pulled out one of the lobsters and hefted it like a hand weight. “Wow!”

Margaret brightened. She looked at Holmes. “You did good.”

Poe walked in and closed the door behind him.

“How was your chat with Stapleton?” asked Grey.

“Not an easy day,” said Poe. “All we got out of him were threats.” He walked over to Grey, wrapped his arms around her, and gave her a long, warm hug. Then he planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I missed you,” he whispered. Then he bent down and kissed her belly. “I missed all three of you.”

Grey looked a bit stunned, but in a good way. “Well now. If a trip to New York makes you this cuddly, you should do it more often!”

Poe gave her a slight smile. “I’m tired, Helene. I need to go lie down. I love you.” He kissed her again, stroked her hair, then headed slowly up the staircase. As soon as he closed the bedroom door, Grey turned to Holmes.

“Is Auguste okay?”

Holmes nodded. “He’ll be fine. Like he said, not an easy day.”

Marple concentrated again on her prep work. “So, what did you find out about Oliver Paul?”

Holmes took off his overcoat and hung it on a hook. “Exactly what we were afraid of. He’s not backing down. He wants his wife freed. And he’s willing to kill people to get what he wants. As far as he’s concerned, the ball is in our court.”

Marple took the lobster from Virginia, then reached into the container and pulled out the other one. She set them on the counter. “Then there’s only one thing to do,” she said. “We need to produce Agnes Matts.”

Holmes shook his head. “No way. That would be like reuniting Bonnie and Clyde. We have no idea what kind of criminal enterprise they’re planning. They have international connections. And they’re capable of anything. Besides, we have no idea where Agnes is.”

Marple turned to Grey. “Helene, can you get to your friend Raymond?”

Grey nodded. “Probably.”

“Tell him that I need a covert feed from Agnes Matts’s cell, video and audio. Live or recorded, doesn’t matter.”

“What if he doesn’t know the location?”

“I don’t need the location,” said Marple. “Tell him I just need to study her—like a recipe.”

Grey slipped off her stool and arched her back. “Give me a few minutes. If he’s where I think he is, I need to make it a secure call.” She headed for the comms room.

Marple arranged the lobsters side by side on a large cutting board. She crooked her finger at Virginia. “Come,” she said. “I have an important task for you.”

Virginia walked around to Marple’s side of the island. As Holmes watched, Marple handed her a spear-pointed knife. She tapped one of the lobsters just behind the eye stalks.

“The kindest kill,” Marple said softly, “is a quick stab through the brain.”

CHAPTER 68

AFTER JUST FOURTEEN hours aboard the Aquila, the new Pete and Ron already had their sea legs. The platform was so solid and expansive that it was almost like working on dry land. It was only when they looked up from wrangling equipment or lugging supplies that they were reminded the massive oil rig was a fixed pin surrounded by hundreds of miles of water.

They’d gone through orientation on Deck 2 as soon as they arrived that morning. Schedules, regulations, accommodations, safety protocols. They’d met their team manager, a dyspeptic giant of a guy named Joe-Don Brown, who’d hired them both over a Zoom call two weeks ago. Joe-Don hailed from Lubbock, and his accent was even thicker than theirs. Their fellow rookies were mostly from Texas, Louisiana, and the Florida panhandle. By 10:00 a.m. they’d been assigned to their crew.

As roustabouts, Pete and Ron were at the bottom of the platform pecking order, one step below the jobs they’d had in Midland under their previous names. But that was ideal for their purposes now. Their tasks took them all over the rig, from the drilling tower to the equipment bays. In just one day, they both had a pretty good idea of how the place functioned, and where the important modules were located.

Their orientation packet had included a map of the platform, deck by deck. But the schematic Oliver Paul had loaded into their Apple Watches was even more precise, marking off measurements as they walked, and indicating the locations of sensitive and vulnerable areas, tracing the flow of oil through the structure like blood pumping through veins.

The crew was so huge and the platform so vast that, as long as they walked with purpose, Pete and Ron realized they could go pretty much anywhere they wanted.