Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth by Christopher Golden

giving them a tour. Then Sully ducked out of sight, working the key switch off the ignition and pulling at the wires, figuring out which ones were for the starter. Drake kept watch out of the corner of his eye until the guard got a phone call at the booth. He was one of those people who paced while they were on the phone, and as he talked, he strolled back and forth between his security booth and the walkway that led from the dock to the marina club.
    The third time he strolled up the walk, Drake gave a nod and Sully twisted the wires together. The motor growled to life, and Sully grinned up at Drake.

    “You guys are a little too good at this,” Jada said.
    “Our line of work requires a lot of improvising,” Drake said.
    Jada gave him a dubious smile. “Right.”
    Sully backed the boat out of the slip. Just as he throttled forward, pulling away from the dock, the guard came running toward them, shouting and waving at them to pull back into the slip. Drake knew that even then the man wouldn’t know exactly what to make of it all. If he had believed Sully’s story—and it was clear he had—Mrs. Kurland might have just given her broker the key so he could take the prospective buyers for a spin. The guard would suspect, certainly. But he wouldn’t be sure, and he wouldn’t do anything drastic until he was.
    As they sped upriver, the boat whipping over the water, Drake watched the guard growing smaller in the distance.
    “That guy is having a bad day,” he said.
    “Could be worse for him,” Jada said. “He could be with us.”
    Drake and Sully both glanced at her, saw the sarcastic glint in her eyes, and laughed. She was right. Her father had been murdered, and they had encountered two other dead men today. Someone had sent men with guns to fire lots of bullets at them in hopes of making them very dead. Another someone—or maybe the same someone—had burned down Jada’s father’s apartment building.
    They were having a day far worse than the guard’s.
    “Still,” Drake said. “When we get back into the country, I’ll send him something. Wine of the month, maybe.”
    “Cigars,” Sully said, as if wine had been the stupidest suggestion Drake could have made. “Maybe steaks.”
    “Steaks?” Drake asked.
    “Man’s gotta eat. And did you get a look at him? You don’t get that big eating Brussels sprouts.”
    “You guys are unbelievable,” Jada said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind whipping past them as Sully throttled up and the boat went even faster.
    Drake nodded. “That is actually not the first time we’ve heard that.”
    Jada whacked his arm. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

    But she couldn’t quite erase her smile, and Drake was glad. After all she had been through since the discovery of her father’s remains, she needed all the distraction she could get. Now that they had a moment’s respite, though, he watched her amusement quickly fade until she gazed at the city passing on their right—lights coming on as evening arrived—her expression solemn and somehow lost.
    He hoped her stepmother wasn’t involved in her father’s death, but he had a terrible feeling that Olivia Hzujak was exactly as wicked a stepmother as Jada suspected.
    Troubled, Drake reached into the inside pocket of his ruined coat and pulled out the slim leather case that held a good portion of the reward money he’d earned in Ecuador. There was more in his bags, which were safe in a locker at JFK, and some in his wallet. The rest had been put into an account he sometimes used in the Cayman Islands. For now, what he had on him would be all they had at their disposal, so it would have to be enough.
    He dropped the coat overboard and watched it floating, soaking in the water as they swiftly left it far behind.
    So far, so good. They would ditch the stolen Chris Craft just north of the 79th Street Boat Basin—Jada’s suggestion—and stop by the apartment where she’d been hiding out just long enough for her