Monday evening, probably at about the same time the teenaged thug instructed the Widow Scott on the finer points of cybercrime, I sat in my study, blissfully unaware that a new adversary had appeared on the hazy horizon of my life. Sipping seventeen-year-old Eagle Rare Bourbon, I gazed out at the full moon shining bright in the cool, cloudless sky and enjoyed the subtle notes of toffee and caramel in the amber liquid. The haunting tones of Chopin's Nocturne Number Twenty in C Sharp Minor drifted from the Bose speakers, crystal clear as the sparkling stars.

I had every reason to be restful and at peace.

The forefinger of my right hand tapped against the mahogany arm of the chair. I forced it to be still. Sipped. Took a deep breath. My leg bounced up and down, my leather slipper creating a soft susurration as it brushed the antique fibers of the oriental carpet that covered the hardwood floor.

Restfulness and peace eluded me.

When I placed the Glencairn whiskey glass on the delicate top of the side table, it thunked unpleasantly. For a moment, I worried that I'd cracked either the glass or the table, but, no, thankfully both remained intact. I paced the length of the room two or three times before catching sight of myself in the full-length mirror in the corner. The Burberry lounge pants I'd changed into after working out cost five hundred dollars at Nordstrom. Made of cotton as soft as rose petals, my tee-shirt had been over one hundred fifty dollars at Saks Fifth Avenue. My socks and underpants accounted for an additional hundred bucks worth of apparel. Good lord, my hair product cost more than some Americans earned in a week.

Lazy, uninnovative Americans.

That thought caused just enough of a grin to deepen the dimple in my left cheek. I was lazy, too, but certainly not lacking in innovation. In my youth, more than one person had told me I'd amount to nothing, yet here I was, a master in my chosen field, a man with more money than anyone I'd known in childhood and most I've met in adulthood.

The smile faded away, and I stepped closer to study my eyes in the mirror. Tiny lines had begun to appear around the corners. Youth slipped further away each day.

"Fifty million." I spoke the number aloud, tasting the words the same way I'd tasted the fine bourbon. Fifty million dollars more would allow me to live into extreme old age in the style to which I'd grown accustomed, and I'd need never do another job, and fifty million was so close I could smell the money.

Still, I should have been even closer to that lofty goal.

I had been hired to do an impossible job, and I'd executed my mission flawlessly. Police detectives wandered around questioning people and getting in each other's way without gleaning so much as a single clue as to how the crime had been committed. My end of the bargain was done, completed to perfection, at least as far as the client knew. No matter, I had yet to be paid.

That payment, and just one or two more as large, would put me past my target.

How could I expect the next client to pay in a timely manner if I allowed this to slide? In this business, word had a way of getting out. If people didn't pay, how could I ever retire? How could I continue to enjoy the luxuries of life that I had earned through decades of creative thinking and cleverly calculated risks?

I removed a box from a high shelf and returned to my favorite chair. The lid lifted on sturdy brass hinges, displaying a clutter of semi-valuable bric-a-brac that I'd grown rather sentimental over--an old Rolex watch, a gold money clip, a tie pin with a sparkling emerald in the center, and other such items. These things could be sold for quick cash if things ever went seriously sideways. I'd stashed them in the box long ago, in the days before the off-shore accounts and caches of banded hundred-dollar bills had been established. Beneath the clutter, lay a well-constructed false bottom. Using the trick the antique dealer had shown me, I lifted it and set it aside. The Dobson rubies gleamed in the soft, indirect lighting.

To be fair, I hadn't completed my end of the deal, either. The deal was, I would toss the ancient bracelet in some deep ocean trench, never to be recovered--at least not in this lifetime. The client and I had shared a chuckle about how these things had a way of finding their way back to human hands over time. By then, everyone involved would have returned to dust. Who cared what happened with the famed jewels then? Let some future generation wonder how it all had come to pass.

It was my intention to do that. In fact, I'd thought of a place even better than the ocean, a lake so deep and so remote that only a few select men and women had ever seen it. I had plans to travel there by helicopter over the Christmas holiday.

But maybe that would be a mistake.

I had the bracelet.

That put me in a sticky situation, no one could dispute that, but it also gave me an element of power.

What I wanted most in the world was to quit and be done with serving the criminal whims of the ultra-wealthy.

What my client wanted most in the world was for that bracelet to be gone and to stay gone. I held his future in my hands. Not literally, of course. It wouldn't do to get my fingerprints all over it. A man did not get to my position in life by being careless in these small matters.

My right hand drifted toward the side table and found the glass. I lifted it and inhaled the fragrance, tipped it against my lips, let a few sweet drops touch my tongue. Delicious.

The peace I'd sought descended on me, once I knew the answer. Nothing had been lost. I simply needed to adapt. And to get that bracelet out of my possession. I knew just what to do with it--a way to keep it safe and remove it from any possible detection without losing it forever.

Or so I thought in my ignorance of the determined widow and her strong-willed children.

Truly, ignorance is bliss.