Lance Whitaker crept up the stairs looking for his prey, not unlike a cat toying with an injured mouse or bird. Yet, he was cautious because this time, instead of a little, snot-nosed ragamuffin, or a knobby-kneed, skinny teenager with acne, he was going to bring down a full-grown man in tiptop condition. He had killed an adult male before, but he had been over sixty and out of shape.

His father had been an absent father who had worked long hours and let his domineering wife dictate him and their only child. When Whitaker had killed his mother, his father had cried and begged for his life. He had been such a weakling both physically and mentally his son had found little joy dismembering him.

A.J. Simon would be different though. Whitaker was determined to get the most out of this fine specimen.

Standing in the anteroom, he scanned the area and saw some spots on the floor: droplets of blood. They led to the stateroom, the last drop, only inches from the closet door. His brow furrowed. Had he overestimated A.J. Simon? This was too easy.

Nonetheless, he trod softly to the closet. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

He threw the closet door open—only to find the twisted black hat on the floor. The PI had wrung out the blood from the hat to mislead him with a false track.

He grinned, more delighted than disappointed. He enjoyed the thrill of the hunt as much as cutting up his game. He took the stairs again to climb up to the sundeck.

Whitaker pushed open the hatch and poked his head out to survey the small area where only a couple of people could comfortably stretch out for sunbathing. At the moment, there was no one on the top deck.

Then, in the corner of his eye, he saw a pair of hands latched on the handrail. He stepped onto the deck just in time to see the hands loosen their grip and sink below.

Whitaker trotted to the end of the deck and saw his current plaything sliding down the gentle slope that the exterior and the expansive windows of the cabin formed.

A.J. slid down feet first on his back, but he was not going as fast as he wanted to. The grade of this oversized slide was not very steep, and the blood-soaked trouser fabric was becoming sticky, somehow creating traction and slowing him down.

Halfway down the slope, he could not help looking up. As soon as he caught the sight of the handrail, Whitaker's face with a scary clown's smile materialized above it. Just when he thought he would be caught in mere seconds, the law of gravity kicked in; the descending speed picked up at long last. Landing was tricky—he did not want to aggravate the leg injury by landing on both feet.

By the time he hit the foredeck, however, he had gathered so much momentum he was afraid it would be too much for one foot to bear all his weight and the force of gravity. If he twisted his left ankle, it would be the end of everything: chances of survival, his life… At the last moment, A.J. curled his body and landed on left foot and hands. He rolled on the deck to defuse the impact, and his body collided with a pile of building materials and carpentry tools under a tarpaulin. When his injured thigh hit something hard under the tarp, the pain like a bolt of lightning coursed through his body. For the next several moments, the agony consumed him, putting him out of action temporarily.

Standing on the top deck, Whitaker leisurely watched A.J. writhing in pain after crashing into a pile of junk. The PI would be out of commission for a short while at least. The hunter unhurriedly observed the hunted considering the options. He did not want to finish him off too soon though. Oh no, he was going to make Rick Simon watch his brother die. Then he would make him pay for what he had done to him, to his hand and his lifework. The younger Simon was only an appetizer. It was the other Simon who was going to suffer the most and the longest.

He took a step back to collect himself—he had always been proud of his ability to keep his emotions in check. As he turned around to climb down the stairs, he saw something—or someone—move down below, a slight movement that only his heightened state could detect. He moved quickly over to the other end of the deck to have a better look.

Rick approached the yacht keeping his eyes peeled for any movement on the lower deck. He had seen his brother and Whitaker climbing the ladder on the side, but he opted for the swimming platform and the stern ladder to be less conspicuous. When he grabbed the top rung of the ladder, he drew his Magnum.

From the top deck, Whitaker had a bird's-eye view of Rick coming up from the swimming platform. He was certainly surprised to see him to say the least, but this could be a blessing in disguise, enabling him to kill two Simons with one stone, or one knife. He reached for the gun he had taken from A.J. and released the safety. Although knives were his personal choice of weapon, he was also an excellent marksman. It was one of the skills he had picked up by hanging around gun enthusiasts at trade shows. He took careful aim and squeezed the trigger.

Rick heard and felt the report of the gunfire and the effect of its destructive force instantaneously. As the bullet from A.J.'s gun nicked his arm, he felt it jerk involuntarily and lost his grip on the .44. It bounced off the platform below and fell into the water. He ducked hanging on to the top rung of the ladder with one hand.

A.J. ducked and flattened his body on the deck reacting to the sound of the gunfire though he could tell it was not aimed at him. Who was Whitaker shooting at?

Whitaker smiled when he heard a clunk and the following splash. Mission accomplished; he had just disarmed Rick. "I don't remember sending you an invitation for our private party, Simon."

A.J. suddenly felt cold all over. Rick?

"But the more the merrier, so you might as well as join us. We started our entertainment event without you though."

Rick had not seen or heard his brother since his return from Danny's rescue. "A.J.! Are you all right?"

It IS Rick! "Rick…" A.J. tried to yell, but his throat was dry and scratchy. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Go back, Rick! Leave us alone!"

Rick was elated and relieved when he heard his brother's voice coming from the front end of the yacht. "Don't worry about Danny! He's safe now!"

Whitaker scowled though he did not believe what Rick had said. "You're bluffing, Simon. You'll never…"

"Conference Room 1 in Building 2, storage space, eyes duct-taped, handcuffed behind his back! Bomb on the shelf!"

Couldn't be true! Whitaker stubbornly refused to believe Rick's claim.

"He's probably called the police by now."

Intense, blind fury he had never known before engulfed the serial killer, and his entire body shook with the uncontrollable, unfamiliar emotion. Rick Simon had thwarted his quest for greatness not just once but for the second time.

A.J. was certain Rick was telling the truth. Although his brother was known to bluff from time to time, Whitaker's silence was an eloquent testament. That meant he would not have to stay on the yacht any more.

The sight of A.J. resuming his struggle to get back on his feet set Whitaker in motion. He imagined he could hear the faintest sound of police cars' siren in the distance. He tucked the snub nose under the belt behind his back and stepped over the handrail to slide down to the lower deck.

Rick hazarded a peek when Whitaker held his fire and tongue. Seeing no one on the top deck, he climbed aboard watchfully. Thanks to another burst of adrenaline, he hardly felt the injury. Just a flesh wound, anyway, he told himself. All of a sudden, the silence was broken by a loud crash, and a racket ensued. "A.J.!" His own safety measures completely forgotten, Rick raced to the bow alongside the cabin.

A.J. knew the only way to escape from certain death was jumping off the ship into the water down below. He had grown up in and around water, swimming and surfing along the Southern California beaches. Water was his element. He picked himself up and started hopping on one foot to the right side of the yacht.

Whitaker flew into the pile under the tarp and pounced back on his feet. He caught up with A.J. when they were only a couple of paces away from the starboard handrail. His flying tackle brought the PI down hard knocking the wind out of him. Before A.J. could catch his breath, Whitaker pulled up his upper body and put a chokehold on him with his right arm. He then drew the hunting knife out of the sheath on the belt.

"Whitaker!" Rick, who had just run the length of the port side, hollered when he saw a knife in the serial killer's hand. "Let him go!"

Whitaker's laugh sounded more like a dog's bark than the sound of merriment.

"It's not A.J. you want to kill. You want me dead 'cause I shot you and ruined everything for you."

Whitaker stopped laughing and scowled. Rick Simon might be smarter than he had given him credit for.

"Rick, don't…" A.J. tried to dissuade his brother but was simply ignored.

"Besides, you have enough time to kill only one of us." Right on cue, everyone on the deck heard the sirens of squad cars, ambulances and what have you approaching. "If you kill my brother, I'll jump into the water, and you'll never catch me before the police get here."

Emboldened by Whitaker's indecision, Rick pushed him a little further, "Let my brother go and come and get me. Or, do you prey only on small kids, young girls and the maimed 'cause you don't have the guts to take on the able-bodied? 'Cause you're a coward?"

Rick's mocking chuckle grated on Whitaker's already frayed nerves. It was becoming harder and harder to control his rage, and he hated the older Simon even more for it.

"Or, we can stare at each other in stalemate until the cops get here if that's what you want."

Abruptly, A.J. felt the arm around his neck loosen. Before he could react, Whitaker kicked him in the kidney.

A smirk returned to the killer's face when he saw Rick flinch at the sight of his brother falling and curling up in pain on the deck. He casually took a few steps and viciously kicked the PI in the head this time. A.J.'s body twitched then went limp.

Rick tore off his jacket with bullet holes and lunged at Whitaker with what sounded like a war cry. When Whitaker brandished his knife, he tried to swat it with the jacket, but the killer batted it away with his right hand.

Whitaker thrust his weapon at Rick several times in rapid succession. Rick fought hard, but it was not a fair fight to go up against a knife-wielding lunatic with bare hands, to say the least. He started to back off to avoid the blade when it nicked him in the shoulder. As Whitaker made another knife thrust, Rick jumped back and landed and slipped on the tarpaulin. When he took another step back to keep his balance, he tripped over A.J.'s still body sprawled on the deck.

Whitaker grinned from ear to ear seeing Rick fall on the pile of crates and tools that ensnared him. It reminded him of the time he had cornered A.J. in his garage several months earlier. This time, there was another crucial difference: the brothers were both disarmed. Too bad he would not be able to take his own sweet time to cut them up. The sirens of emergency vehicles were coming closer and closer. Still he had ample time to slit their throats or cut them open one after another.

Raising the knife over his head, Whitaker smiled a hideous smile. "Good-bye, Simon."

As the knife started its descent, Rick curled his body into a tight ball, half resigned to accept the agony and death that, for a certainty, would follow, but when that moment never came, he looked up.

Whitaker was stunned when A.J. Simon, who he'd thought had been incapacitated at his feet, sprang up to jump between him and Rick Simon. Instead of fleeing instinctively from the deadly weapon like others would, he embraced it willingly. While doing so, A.J. wrapped his arms around Whitaker's torso, grabbed the gun, which was tucked under the waistband, and tossed it behind him. Whitaker staggered backward but managed to remain upright.

Sitting up, Rick caught the gun in midair with one hand, released the safety catch, positioned it while raising his hands to take aim and fired a single shot without the slightest hesitation, all in under a couple of seconds, as the serial killer stood frozen, bewildered.

The last thing on Whitaker's mind before the back of his skull exploded was the crushing realization and the subsequent wrath that he was being cheated out of what he believed to be his entitlement.

The impact of the gunfire knocked him off his feet. When his body, to which A.J. was still clinging, slumped over the rickety handrail on the deck, it gave way. For a barest moment, they seemed to be suspended in midair.

"No-o-o-o-o!"

Rick screamed as they plummeted towards the black water below like a tragic couple in each other's arms taking a lovers' leap. As he heard the splash ten, fifteen feet down, he blindly dove into the vast, unyielding blackness.