Yancy's colleague Rogelio Burton advises him to drop the arm on the roadside on his way home, but he rebelliously decides to keep it preserved in his freezer.

Yancy is currently on suspension, having assaulted the husband of his lover Bonnie Witt, and is forced to work as a health inspector for the Department of Hotels and Restaurants.

During their last night together before she moves to Sarasota with her husband, Bonnie confesses that she is really Plover Chase, a former Oklahoma high school teacher indicted for extorting sex from one of her underage students in exchange for giving him good grades.

Charles' distraught girlfriend Madeline admits to Yancy that a woman matching Eve's description gave him the arm and paid him to hook it on the tourist's fishing line.

Sonny has no desire to pursue the case any further, and Caitlin abandons her suspicions as soon as Eve offers her half of Nick's life insurance.

She agrees to accompany him on an undercover trip to the island of Andros, where Eve and a mysterious male companion are developing a vacation resort.

On Andros, Yancy finds an unexpected ally in Neville Stafford, a Bahamian fisherman whose property was sold against his wishes to the new development, after which his family's beachfront home was demolished.

Christopher is believed to be Eve's mysterious boyfriend, whom Yancy has tracked via his seaplane registry as well as a record of the last phone call Gomez made before his death, provided by Rosa.

While waiting, Yancy converses with Neville, who mentions that he stole some personal items from Grunion's garbage to give to the Dragon Queen, including fishing shirt sleeves that had been neatly cut off.

Fleeing the estate, Yancy and Neville run to the Dragon Queen's hut, where Nick's hired thug, Egg, has taken Rosa.

He also praised it for keeping the author from "becoming a prisoner of style and subject matter", adding that "he has escaped from the bondage of publishing concept and reader expectation to produce a novel that is as enjoyable to read as it seems to have been for him to write".