The four Duprees had reoccupied their table when Emerald Ciano slunk past in a very sexy, very revealing dress. All four Duprees were staring at Emerald, but she made eye contact only with Greg.

Emerald casually dropped a note on the table and left. Four hands slapped the table for the note, but Stefan took it.

"What is it?" Irene asked him.

"Greetings from one of Gregory's babes," Terry quipped.

"I got no babes," Greg protested.

"Not this trip, Fabio," said Irene.

Stefan squinted at the note and frowned.

"Probably a phone message," said Greg.

Terry scoffed. "Yeah, right. That chick's an operator if I ever saw one."

"That lady," Greg corrected her.

"We don't know that, do we? Who is this mystery madam, hmm?" Terry responded.

"Someone with terrible penmanship, I'm afraid," said Stefan, deciphering the note. "This appears to say, 'The halibut's an unsanitary jalopy. Stog awog.' And it's signed with a backward three."

He put down the note and looked puzzled.

Irene picked it up and read it. "No, it says, 'Thy bastard is unseemly jardoop. Slag avop.'"

Terry took the note from Irene, saying, "Give me that." Terry studied it. "It says, 'My ... husband is ... insanely ... jealous.  Stag,' – No, it's 'Stay.' 'Stay away.' Signed 'E.'"

She looked at Greg, who took the note from her hand and looked at it fondly.

"Poor Emerald," he said, his voice redolent with nostalgia. "I had to type all her papers for her in high school."

"You knew that broad in high school?" Terry said.

"That lady," he said, pointedly.

The Duprees did not know, but would not have been surprised, that their conversation was being carefully monitored in the Emerald C's surveillance center. There, a technician in headphones listened to the family's table talk as they continued.

"Well, however it is that you know her," fatherly Stefan pointed out, "she has taken the trouble to ... scribble ... a warning, and you would do well to heed that warning."

Greg mused, "Like to meet her husband. Lucky guy."

Terry snarked, "Yeah. Maybe he's got a brother for you ..."

The surveillance technician made a notation on his duty log.

Terry continued, "...unless this 'insanely jealous' guy is stupid enough to think that a Fruit Loop like you'd prefer a female – specifically, his semi-literate, semi-clothed, slut of a wife."

Greg stood, folded his napkin, placed it softly on the table, and leaned down to whisper pleasantly in Terry's ear. "Hope you don't kiss our mother with that same filthy mouth."

To Stefan, he said, "Please entertain the ladies. I have a date with that oversized boathouse out back."

Terry sat in an angry pout. Irene and Stefan exchanged a look of concern, but they seemed at a loss for words. Greg smiled at them all and left.

One of the vultures, Irving, saw Greg go and discreetly followed him.

Irene told Terry, "Don't worry, dear. He'll be very careful. And you must be careful not to look at him like a grizzly bear after a fresh salmon." She turned toward Stefan. "And you too, Dad."

Stefan said, "I think I'll order that brandy now," and he gestured toward a waiter while Terry and Irene smiled, feigned after-dinner contentment with their body language, and observed the dancers circling between their table and the orchestra.

Outside, in the dark, Greg strolled along the seashore, confident that he would eventually reach the boathouse.

Inside, in the restaurant, sister Teresa was dancing with the charming, pleasant vulture named Gino.

On the shore, Greg finally reached the boathouse, but found the shoreside doors locked.

In the restaurant, Irene was being extremely charming and pleasant toward her dance partner, Big C.

Greg clung to the side of the wooden structure, walking a narrow ledge that would take him to the seaward doorway of the boathouse.

While Big C continued dancing with Irene, Emerald Ciano looked worried. She twisted her napkin and scanned the room as if seeking someone she could not find.

Greg reached the seaward end of the exterior wall and swung around the corner into the side of the boathouse that was open to the water. He found a narrow wooden pier abutting the inside of the exterior wall, and on it he proceeded into pitch darkness.

Stefan was flirting with their waiter when Irene returned from the dance floor and shooed the waiter away. She slapped Stefan's hand.

Terry and Gino danced together until another guest, a sort of dance-floor Lothario, tapped Gino's shoulder and cut in. Gino the watchdog backed off and, of course, watched.

Greg was feeling his way along the wall of the boathouse building, grumbling, and clattering over loose ropes and metal mooring cleats in the blackness. Nothing jumped out at him to announce, "Here it is! The secret door to the hidden illegal casino! Yay!"

A wedge of light split the thick darkness and widened slowly as a shoreside door opened. A painfully bright light speared Greg's eyes, and he froze mid-step.

Whomp! A big shadow, from behind the vicious light, knocked Greg flat. Loose boating gear clattered again when Irving dragged Greg, by his collar, across the floor and out the shoreside door.

Irving continued away from the door until he reached the deep, white sand of the beach. Then he dropped Greg's head, whump, onto the soft, white sand. Greg moaned and opened his eyes. He saw Irving's considerable bulk outlined against the stars.

"What's going on, buddy?" said Irving casually.

"Did you hit me? My, you are very strong. Very strong. Why did you hit me?"

"Don't be cute. Who are you?"

"My name is Gregory Dupree, and I am a guest here, with my parents and my sister, Teresa. We just arrived today. I was looking for the sauna and got turned around in the dark—"

"You're lying."

Greg sat up, brushed sand from his hair and dinner clothes, and heaved a sigh. "Yes. I'm lying. I am Greg Dupree, and my family is staying here, but I was ... well ... there was this guy at the piano bar. We kinda connected, y'know? And he said he'd meet me in the boathouse.

"I see now, it was all a joke to him. I get that a lot. ... Teases." He turned sad puppy-dog eyes upward to the vulture looming above him.

"I know I must've looked like a prowler to you. You're just doing your job ... very well, I might add. No hard feelings, okay?" Greg extended a hand.

Irving looked a little disgusted, but he seemed convinced. He took Greg's proffered hand and helped him stand.

"Maybe you better just stay away from locked doors and dark corners while you're here, Mister Dupree."

"Thanks. I will. Can I buy you a drink?"

"No. Please go back inside, Mister Dupree."

Greg nodded and left, swiping sand from his clothes as he went.

Irving wiped his hand on his trouser leg and made an euwww face.

When Greg re-entered the dining room, he immediately noticed Emerald, alone at her table. He moved to stand near her table, looking toward the dance floor. Neither of them looked at the other.

"You look great," he murmured, just loudly enough for Emerald to hear.

"So do you. Now go away."

In the surveillance center, a machine labeled "Mr. C's Table" recorded the conversation.

"Did you stop dating cops after you dumped me, Emerald? Just curious."

"I never dumped you. You moved to Florida. I stayed in Montana. Then Teddy came hunting moose one winter, and I followed him home to Vegas." She sighed. "Then his business moved to Florida, and here we are."

With his back to Emerald, Greg reached behind him and found her hand. He squeezed it, then walked away, murmuring, "Just testing a theory. Thanks."

As he approached his family's table, Greg observed the dance-floor Lothario re-seating Terry in her chair and using every excuse to touch her or brush against her. Greg waited until the Lothario had left the table and was halfway to the dance floor.

Greg snagged the man's arm and pulled him aside, behind a ten-foot potted palm. "Listen, Romeo, you seem like a nice guy. I feel I'd be doing you a favor to warn you about Sister Teresa over there."

"Her? She's a nun!"

"Might as well be."

"Oh, you mean, she hasn't, like, taken final vows yet or something?"

Greg's grip nearly crushed the bones in the man's arm. "No. I mean she's, like, my sister or something. Clear?"

Lothario suddenly developed a perspiration problem. He swallowed hard. "Y'all close?"

"Tells me everything."

"W— ... well ... there'd be nothing t—... nothing to tell about, about me, 'cause we, she and I, we were, that was just dancing was all it was. Just dancing."

"Good." Greg smiled, released Lothario's arm, and smoothed the rumpled jacket sleeve.

Lothario's stroke-level blood pressure dropped twenty points, and he could breathe again. He left promptly.

Greg rejoined Terry at the family table. Stefan and Irene were on the dance floor, dancing together now.

Terry gestured toward the quickly-departing Lothario. "I can take perfectly adequate care of myself, Brother Dear."

"Just tellin' 'im to treat you right."

"Oh, I see. And you feel you must do this because you're a big, strong man, and I'm just your dainty, defenseless, little sister."

"No. 'Cause you're a lady, okay."

Terry looked at him as if he had grown a third eye. She nearly smiled at him, then suppressed it. Then she did smile just a little.

After a pause, she said, "Boathouse thing didn't work out, huh?"

"I'm going to bed," he said, his tone emotionless. He rose and left the restaurant.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Stefan better stop acting gay, and Greg better start, or they will blow their cover and end up at the bottom of the swamp, or the ocean, or wherever all the previous failed undercover cops ended up. Irene has her hands full trying to act married and still keep an eye on her three partners' misbehavior. And how much trouble are they in because their table conversation is bugged? We'll find out more in the next installment of Emerald's Secret.

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