//WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE/ The Internet...a world without rules, without boundaries. Where you can be anyone you want, whoever you aren't. And it's all just a click away.... Nick Annunciato wants to impress his new girlfriend's father. So when he flies to Key West with his own father, who's a cookbook author and chef, and his stepsister, Annie, to attend a local food festival, he places an notice on the Internet: "I'm in Key West looking for the obvious contraband." Nick does get a response. But what he doesn't realize is that he has unwittingly thrown himself and Annie into a dangerous swirl of murder, mayhem, and Cuban cigars. Who is the dead man missing a hand? Can Nick and Annie find the killer before he cooks up more trouble? Will this adventure be their last? Different people in different places. The one thing they have in common is a new address on the Internet: danger.com. Where all your fears come true. Jordan Cray is the author of Gemini7, a Simon & Schuster book. 1//some break On the morning we left for Key West, my stepfather, Joe, poked his head into my room. "Annie, you ready?" I zipped up my suitcase. "I've been ready my whole life for this. Get me off this island of the dead before I implode!" Joe grinned. Even though he'd showered and dressed, he still looked rumpled. My stepfather always looks as though he's unraveling. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel comfortable tucked in, or with shoes on. Even on his wedding day, he'd spent half the reception in his socks. "I know how tough it is for you to tear yourself away from Scull Island," he said. Don't get me wrong. I love where I live. Scull Island is this tiny place stuck out in Long Island Sound. There's no bridge to the mainland, so we're pretty isolated. All this can be great about half the year. The beaches are uncrowded, and you can hike and swim and eat an ice-cream cone without 60 million people rubbing their suntan oil against you and yelling, Yo, Pete! Whaddya want on your hot dog? But in the winter, we kids call it Dull Island. The year-round population shrinks to ten people. Well, okay -- maybe not ten. Maybe about three hundred. But the island feels desolate, and wind comes off the water like a frigid Arctic blast, and everyone just wants to stay inside their house, inhaling central heating. I spent one entire weekend in February perfecting my Nerf basketball hook shot. No lie. Which is why I was totally bummed that Nick had bagged weekend after weekend, Nick's electric presence can jazz up even Scull Island. I call Nick my "sort-of stepbrother." He's Joe's son, but we've never lived in the same house. Nick lives in Manhattan with his mom, who is this incredibly busy assistant district attorney. We're more like friends than steps. We're both the same age, sixteen-and-a-half. Joe and my mom just got married last summer, and Nick visited us at Christmas. We had a major adventure, but it's a long story, and I don't want to pull a Grandad Gus. Grandad Gus is my mom's father. He'll start to tell you something easy, like how to get to downtown Hartford, and he'll wind up telling you this long story about what happened to him in 1956. Not that the story isn't interesting, but you're really more interested in directions. Are you still with me? If you haven't wandered off to turn on the TV, let me return to my conversation with Joe. "I am so out of here!" I said, just as Mom arrived, two suitcases slung across her shoulders. "Kate! Let me do that!" Joe tried to untangle the straps from Mom's shoulders and nearly made her topple over. Mom started to giggle. Joe turns her into a twelve-year-old, I swear. She was just a nice, normal mom a year ago. She worked downtown in the real estate office and wrote short stories in her spare time. She tried not to say bad things about my dad, who lives in Montana and makes about a million dollars buying up ranch land and selling it to movie stars. She cried at romantic comedies and laughed at my jokes. She cooked things like hamburgers and meat loaf for dinner. Then she went out on a blind date with an Italian chef. The very next day, she threw our green can of processed Parmesan cheese in the garbage and grated a huge hunk of cheese that smelled like vomit on our spaghetti. I knew I was in trouble. You may suspect that I am not the easiest person in the world to please. So it was a complete surprise to me that about five minutes after Joe Annunciato walked into our front door the very first time, I just about fell for him, too. "If we make it to the ferry on time, it will be a miracle," Mom said as she dropped the suitcases on the floor with a thump. "Did we lock the garage and toss out the rest of the milk and turn off the hot water heater...what am I missing...oh, water the plants?" "Check," Joe said. "We'd better hurry. If we miss the ferry, we miss the plane," Mom fretted. "I should doublecheck the stove." She hurried away. "Annie, make sure you unplugged your hair drye