ISSDONOVAN, I’MDetective MacNeil and this is Detective Childress.”

Seated behind the desk that had been her father’s, Kate took one look at the detectives’ grave faces and an awakening terror, unlike anything she had ever known, sent her slowly to her feet. “Danny?” she said, automatically naming the most terrifying reason of all for their visit. “Where’s Danny? What’s happened? Where’s Molly?”

“Danny was kidnapped from the park about an hour ago—”

“Oh, my God. No. Please!” she cried. “Not Danny. Please, not Danny!”

Across the hall, Marjorie bolted from her chair at the sound of Kate’s anguished cry, and she bumped into Drew Garetti, who’d rushed down the hall from the other direction.

“Where’s Molly?” Kate asked in tones of rising hysteria. “Is she with Danny? He won’t be as scared if—”

“Mrs. Miles was knocked unconscious in the park by the kidnappers,” Detective MacNeil said, “but she regained consciousness and managed to attract notice and get help. She was taken by ambulance to Parkston General with a suspected skull fracture. However, she was able to give us a pretty detailed description of a young woman who we think was part of the plot.”

In her mind, Kate was screaming in tormented fear, but all she could do was stand there with her knees knocking together and her body trembling so violently that she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold herself still. Detective MacNeil continued in a calm, reassuring voice. “We stand an excellent chance of getting Danny back safely, but we need to move very quickly now, and we need your help.”

Kate nodded jerkily, her teeth chattering. “What?” she asked. “What do you need?”

“We’re going to issue an amber alert right away. For that, we need a recent picture of Danny, a description of his clothing, his age, weight, and height.”

Kate picked up a framed picture of Danny from her desk, started to hand it to Detective MacNeil, then pulled it back, clutching it to her heart and wrapping her arms around it. “My baby,” she whispered brokenly. “My baby!”

“I’ll get one of his pictures from upstairs,” Marjorie volunteered, already on the way at a run.

“Please try to stay calm for the next few minutes so we can get the alert out,” MacNeil said. “We need Danny’s height and weight.”

Kate made a valiant effort to do what he said and turned to her computer to locate Danny’s pediatrician’s phone number on her electronic address book. “Danny just went to the pediatrician’s for his checkup,” she babbled. “He’ll know Danny’s height and weight exactly.”

“What was he wearing?” Detective Childress asked from behind her, his notebook and pencil poised.

Kate glanced over her shoulder. Childress was younger than MacNeil, Kate noted, and not quite as good at pretending everything was going to be fine. “Danny was w-wearing a red shirt and blue denim overalls....” An image of Danny grinning at her in his red shirt and overalls just a little while ago broke down her fragile barrier of control, and she began weeping while she tried to find the pediatrician’s number. “I can’t—”

“I’ll get it for you, Kate,” Drew volunteered, squeezing past the detectives and coming around her desk. “What name am I looking for?”

When Kate told him, he found the phone number, made the call for her, and explained the situation to the receptionist who answered. Two minutes later, he hung up and gave the detectives the details.

MacNeil’s cell phone rang, and Gray Elliott strode past the detectives while Childress was writing down the information Drew gave him.

“Kate, stay calm,” Gray said, putting his arm around her shaking shoulders. “This is going to be okay. You’ve got the best detectives in Cook County in charge, and a task force is already being organized. Is there somewhere else we can go with more room?”

“Upstairs,” Kate said, and led the way up the steps and into the spacious living room where Danny and Molly and she played or watched television whenever Kate could get up there during working hours.

MacNeil paused in the doorway, talking on his phone. When he hung up, he looked at Gray and said with what sounded like relief, “There’s a ransom note. The paramedics found it stuffed down the front of Molly Miles’s dress. The kidnappers said they’ll make contact here at eight o’clock tonight with instructions for the drop.”

Kate sank onto a sofa, letting the conversation swirl around her, dimly aware that word had spread downstairs and the doorway was filling up with worried faces.

“Excellent,” Gray said.

“Excellent?” Kate repeated numbly, but hopefully, trying to understand.

“Kidnapping for ransom has a much better outcome than other types of child abduction,” Gray told her, and looked back at MacNeil. “Anything significant about the ransom note?”

“Nothing that’s apparent, but I’m sending a uniform out there to get it and rush it to forensics. All I know right now is that it’s printed from a computer on white paper.” He looked at Childress and said, “Go ahead and get the wheels in motion for an amber alert.” To Marjorie, he said, “Please give that photograph to Detective Childress.”

Marjorie handed it over, rubbed her hands on the sides of her skirt, and whirled on her heel, heading for the apartment’s kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee for everyone.”

“Good idea,” Gray said, then he exchanged a speaking glance with MacNeil, who followed her and stopped her near the kitchen entrance.

Sitting on the sofa, Kate watched Marjorie nod in reply to whatever MacNeil said, then she asked him a question, and his answer made her cover her mouth as if she was stifling a cry. “What’s wrong?” Kate cried, half rising from the sofa as Marjorie headed for Danny’s bedroom.

Gray put his hand on her arm and drew her back down. “We need to get a sample of Danny’s DNA from his hairbrush or toothbrush.”

“Why?” Kate demanded, unable to think as clearly as Marjorie had.

“After the amber alert goes out, we’ll start getting calls from all over the country that children matching Danny’s description have turned up. We can avoid false alarms if we have Danny’s DNA to send to the local authorities for a match.”

In her heart, Kate knew there was some other reason, other than healthy children turning up and needing to be ruled out, for the police to want a sample of Danny’s DNA, but her brain refused to follow that terrifying path. Gray’s next words distracted her from all of that.

“The ransom demand is for ten million dollars, ready by nine o’clock tonight.”

Gaping at him in disbelief, Kate said, “Ten million dollars? But I don’t have that kind of money. I could raise two million dollars if they’ll give me a little time to arrange for loans and—”

“The kidnappers aren’t going to give you that time.”

Nausea welled up in Kate’s throat, and she got up to make a dash for the bathroom.

Gray watched her walk back to the sofa a few minutes later, her face the color of chalk, her arms wrapped around her stomach again. In the middle of the room, she paused and looked around. “I keep expecting Danny to dash out of the kitchen or his bedroom,” she whispered, looking at Gray, her green eyes swimming with tears. “I want my baby. I want to see him smile at me. You have to p-promise me you’ll get him b-back. Please, promise me you will.”

“Let’s talk about the ransom money—”

“I don’t have it!” she cried. “Weren’t you listening to me? I can’t raise ten million dollars. I’m not sure I can raise two million dollars, but I’ll start trying.” Suddenly she launched into feverish haste, heading for a telephone on the table beside the sofa. “I’ll call our banker—”

“No, you won’t,” Gray said shortly. “You’ll call Danny’s father.”

She wrinkled her forehead as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Are you certain Mitchell Wyatt is Danny’s father?”

“Am I certain—” Her mouth dropped open, and she glared at him through her tears. “Of course I’m certain!”

“Then get him on the phone.”

Kate felt as if her heart were breaking and her mind were splintering. “Do you think for one minute that if I knew how to reach him—and if he actually took my phone call—that he would believe me or come up with the money?”

“Do you have any other choices?”

“That’s not a choice. That’s not even a long shot.”

“I repeat, do you have any other hope of raising the ransom money?”

Kate stared at him, frozen in a trance of stark terror, anguish, and helplessness. Slowly, the realization began to penetrate that she could take action now, and that any action—no matter how futile—was a way of doing something to help keep Danny safe. In the space of seconds, her realization became resolve, and she threw herself into desperate action. Crossing swiftly to the sofa, she picked up the phone, then she stopped and looked at Gray. “I have no idea how to reach him. Do you?”

“I have various addresses and phone numbers for him, but it could take hours to track him down. He has close friends here in Chicago—Matt Farrell and Meredith Bancroft. Matt Farrell heads Intercorp. He may be able to head us in the right direction.”

Kate bit her lip as she dialed information for the phone number of Intercorp. Leaning forward, she jotted it on a pad, then she handed the phone to Gray. “I’ll talk to him, but you’ll need to get him to take my call first.”

He nodded, dialed the number, and shot her a quizzical look.

“The last time I saw Mitchell,” Kate explained in answer to his unspoken question, “Meredith was with him and she heard the things he accused me of being. When she walked away, she looked at me as if I’d just become invisible. Believe me, she told her husband all about it, and Matt Farrell won’t want to give me the time of day.”

“I’ll get him to take your call. There’s one more thing,” he added after he asked Intercorp’s operator to connect him to Matt Farrell’s office. “Wyatt is going to want some form of proof that Danny is his before he forks over ten million dollars. I have Wyatt’s DNA on record, and we’ll have Danny’s DNA in a few hours. If you will guarantee me that there is no way Danny is anyone else’s child, I’ll vouch for a DNA match now, on this phone call. If it turns out you’re wrong, I’ll retract my statement before Wyatt hands over the money and tell him there was a mistake.”

“There’s no mistake!”

He nodded, then spoke into the phone. “This is Gray Elliott,” he told Matt Farrell’s secretary. “Is Matt in? This is an emergency.”

Kate unconsciously held her breath while the seconds ticked by, and she thought of Danny out there somewhere with strangers.

“Matt,” Gray said suddenly into the phone. “I’m with Kate Donovan. Her little boy was kidnapped this morning. You’ll hear an amber alert any minute now if you turn on a radio or television set. Kate needs to talk to you.”

Kate stood up as she took the phone. “Mr. Farrell,” she said formally and firmly, “Mitchell Wyatt is Danny’s father.” Kate paused, waiting for some reaction, and when there was none, she forged ahead. “The kidnappers are demanding ten million dollars by nine o’clock tonight. I can’t even come close to paying that much money.” Again Kate paused, and again there was no reaction, so she drew an unsteady breath and said shakily, “Would you please ask Mitchell to call me. I’ll give you my phone number. Tell him... tell him I’ll sign over the restaurant to him in return, and I’ll find some way to pay him back the rest.” Tears constricted her throat, and Kate grasped the telephone harder. “Please, you have to find Mitchell and tell him. Danny isn’t even two yet and he’s out there somewhere with—” She broke off, swallowed, and got herself under control. “Tell Mitchell that Gray Elliott will talk to him when he calls and will assure him that Danny’s DNA matches the DNA in Mitchell’s file at the state’s attorney’s office. Here’s my phone number at the restaurant. I have an apartment above it,” Kate added quickly so that Matt Farrell wouldn’t think she was working as usual while her son was missing.

Finally, the silent man on the other end of the phone spoke. “I will call him,” he said, “and I’ll give him your message.”

“Thank you,” Kate said weakly. She’d started to take the phone from her ear when he added, “I’m very sorry about your son.”

That snapped Kate from pleading to ire. “Danny isn’t just my son; he is also Mitchell’s son.”

“I’ll remind Mitchell of that,” he said to her surprise.