loan nodded at one of her neighbors who was walking his dog on the beach, and she smiled at another couple who were talking with friends in their front yard, but the minute she stepped into her own living room, she dropped the charade. "Why am I under FBI surveillance?" she demanded.

"How about that cup of coffee while I explain?"

"Yes, of course," Sloan replied after a startled pause, and led him into the kitchen. If he was willing to stay long enough for coffee, then he must be planning to give her a genuine explanation, rather than the brusque brush-off she'd feared.

She went over to the sink and filled the coffeepot with water. As she spooned coffee into the basket, she looked over her shoulder at him, watching as he removed his navy cotton jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. He was about forty, tall and athletically built, with short dark hair, dark eyes, and a square jaw. Clad in a white polo shirt, navy slacks, and navy canvas deck shoes, he would easily pass for an attractive, clean-cut, casually dressed businessman—except that he was also wearing a brown leather shoulder holster with a nine millimeter Sig-Sauer semiautomatic protruding from it. Since he seemed to be unbending a little, Sloan kept her tone very polite and even gave him a little smile of encouragement as she prodded him to begin. "I'm listening."

"Two weeks ago, we discovered that your father was going to make contact with you," he said, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down at the table. "We know he planned to telephone you today. What did he tell you?"

Sloan plugged the coffeepot in, turned around, and leaned against the Formica countertop. "Don't you know that, too?"

"Let's not play games, Detective."

His clipped, autocratic reply irked Sloan, but she had a peculiar feeling that if she kept her cool and played her cards just right, he was going to tell her everything she wanted to know. "He said he'd had a heart attack and he wanted me to come to Palm Beach for a few weeks."

"What did you tell him?"

"I don't even know the man. I've never laid eyes on him. I told him no. Absolutely not."

Paul Richardson already knew all that. He was interested only in her attitude and her spontaneous, unguarded reactions to his questions. "Why did you refuse?"

"I just told you why."

"But he explained to you that he'd had a heart attack and that he wants to get to know you before it's too late."

"It is already thirty years too late."

"Aren't you being a little too impulsive here?" he argued. "There could be a lot of money in this for you—an inheritance."

His notion that Carter Reynolds's money should, or could, influence her decision filled Sloan with scorn. "Impulsive?" she challenged. "I don't think you could say that. When I was only eight years old, my mother lost her job and we ended up living on hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches for weeks. My mother wanted to call him and ask him for money, but I looked up peanut butter in a schoolbook and proved to her that it was one of the most nutritious foods on earth; then I convinced her I loved peanut butter more than chocolate. When I was twelve, I got pneumonia, and my mother was afraid I was going to die if I didn't go to the hospital, but we didn't have any insurance. My mother told me she was going to call him and ask him to guarantee the hospital bill, but I didn't have to go to the hospital. Do you know why I didn't have to go to the hospital, Agent Richardson?"

"Why?" Paul asked, unwillingly touched by the fierce pride, the ferocious dignity emanating from her.

"Because I got better that very night. And do you know why I made such a miraculous recovery?"

"No, why?"

"I made that miraculous recovery because I refused to do anything that would ever, ever force us to accept one cent from that creep."

"I see."

"Then you'll also see why I wouldn't touch his money now, when I'm neither sick nor hungry. In fact, the only thing I'd turn down faster than his money at this moment is his invitation to spend time with him in Palm Beach so that he can soothe his conscience." She turned back to the counter and reached into a cabinet for two coffee mugs.

"What would it take to make you change your mind about visiting him?"

"A miracle."

Paul remained silent, waiting for her curiosity to rise to the surface once her animosity ebbed. He thought it would take her several minutes to make the emotional transition, but in that he had also underestimated her. "Did Carter Reynolds send you here to try to change my mind?" she demanded. "Are you here officially for the FBI, or is it possible that you're doing a little moonlighting for him on your vacation?"

Her suggestion was completely off-base, but it told Paul she had a clever imagination and the ability to make quantum leaps in logic on her own. Unfortunately, he did not regard either of those qualities as an advantage to him in the particular role he had in mind for her.

"The bureau is interested in some of Reynolds's business activities and in some of his business partners," he replied, ignoring her accusation. "Recently we uncovered information that indicates he's involved in certain criminal activities, but we don't have enough evidence yet to prove that he's directly or even knowingly involved."

Despite her genuine indifference to her father, Paul noticed that she went very still at the realization that he was probably a criminal. Instead of feeling some understandable gratification at the news, as he'd hoped and expected she would, she evidently didn't want to believe that of him. She got past it within moments, however, and sent him a quick, apologetic smile; then she poured coffee into the mugs and carried the tray over to the table.

"What kind of activities do you think he's involved in?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

"I don't understand what any of this has to do with me," she said as she slid into a chair across from him. "You can't think I'm involved in whatever he's doing," she added with such sincerity in her voice that Paul smiled against his will.

"We don't think that. You were of no interest to us until a few weeks ago. We have an informant close to him in San Francisco who tipped us off about you and about his intention to contact you. Unfortunately, as of yesterday, that informant is no longer accessible to us."

"Why not?"

"He died."

"Of natural causes?" Sloan persisted, unconsciously reverting to the detective she was trained to be.

Richardson's almost imperceptible hesitation told her the answer even before he spoke. "No."

While Sloan was still reeling from that, Richardson continued. "We've had him under surveillance, but we haven't been able to get enough evidence to persuade a judge to authorize a wiretap. Reynolds maintains an impressive suite of offices in San Francisco, but he transacts the business we're interested in elsewhere, possibly at home. He's cautious and he's clever. He's leaving for Palm Beach and we'd like to have someone in place close to him while he's there."

"Me," Sloan concluded with a sinking feeling.

"Not you. Me. Tomorrow, I'd like you to have a sudden change of heart and call Reynolds. Tell him you've decided you would like an opportunity to get to know him, and that you'll join him in Palm Beach."

"What good will that do you?"

He gave her an innocent look that wasn't innocent at all. "Naturally, you'll want to bring a friend along so you won't feel all alone and self-conscious in your new surroundings, someone you can while away the time with when you aren't spending it with your newfound father."

Appalled by what he was suggesting, Sloan leaned limply against the back of her chair and stared at him. "That friend would be you?"

"Of course."

"Of course," she repeated dazedly.

"If Reynolds objects to your bringing this friend along, tell him that we were planning to spend your two-week vacation together and that you won't change your vacation plans unless I can come along. He'll give in. He has a thirty-room house in Palm Beach, so an extra guest won't matter. Besides, he's not in any position to impose limitations on you right now."

An overpowering weariness settled over Sloan. "I'll have to think this over for a while."

"You can give me your answer tomorrow," he stipulated; then he glanced at his watch, took a few swallows of his scalding coffee, and stood up, reaching for his jacket. "I have to get back to the hotel for a phone call. I'll come back here in the morning. You're off tomorrow, so that will give us time to work out a story that will satisfy everyone here and everyone in Palm Beach. You will not be able to disclose the truth to anyone, Sloan. That specifically includes Sara Gibbon, Roy Ingersoll, and Jessup."

Sloan found it a little odd and unsettling that he "specifically" included those people, but when he added, "That also includes your mother," she felt a little better.

"I can't overemphasize the need for absolute secrecy," he continued as they walked through the living room. "No one is to be considered trustworthy here, or when we get to Palm Beach. There is more at risk than you know."

"I haven't agreed to go to Palm Beach with you yet," Sloan reminded him very firmly at the front door. "Also, it isn't a good idea to meet here tomorrow. Sara will be bursting with questions about you, and my mom is going to try to talk me into going to Palm Beach, even though I left a message on her answering machine saying that I absolutely wouldn't go. Both of them will probably appear here first thing in the morning."

"In that case, where can we meet?"

"How about the same place that we met tonight—at the dunes?"

Instead of replying, Paul shrugged into his jacket and studied the young woman waiting for his answer. In the last hour, she'd dealt calmly and efficiently with a man she believed to be an armed attacker, and with only moments to make the adjustment, she'd adapted to the need to pass her attacker off as her friend. A few minutes ago, he'd watched her adjust to the fact that her socialite father could actually be a criminal. Despite her small frame and delicate appearance, she was physically fit and mentally agile. Even so, he could see that the day had taken its toll on her. She looked tense and exhausted, and he felt an unaccustomed pang of guilt for having doused her vitality and warmth. He made an effort to lighten her mood a little. "When you see me at the dunes, could you be a little gentler with me this time?" he asked dryly.

"Are you going to attack me again?" she countered, managing a smile.

"I didn't attack you; I tripped."

"I like my version better," she jauntily informed him, and Paul laughed despite his worries.

As he crossed her front yard, however, his amusement gave way to concern over the problems she was likely to cause him in Palm Beach. Originally, he'd rejected the idea of using her in such a complex undercover scheme. He'd seen enough inept, inexperienced, and corrupt small-town cops to have developed an instinctive mistrust of them all, and the fact that this particular small-town cop had turned out to be a remarkably savvy, squeaky-clean young idealist who looked like a wholesome college cheerleader wasn't totally reassuring to him either.

He wasn't the least bit worried that she'd refuse to go to Palm Beach with him. Based on everything he'd read about Sloan Reynolds in her FBI file as well as his own personal observations, he was certain she would go to Palm Beach. The same stubborn integrity that had made her choose peanut butter as an eight-year-old, rather than contacting her father for money, would now force her to swallow her pride, reverse the upright, moral stance of a lifetime, and go to him in Palm Beach.