ITH HER HAND on the doorknob, Kate hesitated, nervously bracing herself to confront the virtual stranger she’d agreed, in a moment of obvious insanity, to spend the night with. She fixed a bright smile on her face, and on the chance he intended to kiss her hello, she purposely took three steps backward while pulling the door open.

Mitchell’s tall, wide-shouldered frame loomed in the doorway. Clad in casual black slacks and a black polo shirt that deepened his tan and turned his eyes the color of blue steel, he looked lethally handsome and incredibly sexy.

Kate took another cautious step backward. “You’re right on time,” she said brightly.

He paused momentarily, measuring the distance she’d carefully put between them; then he lifted knowing eyes to hers and slowly walked inside. “Punctuality is one of my very few virtues,” he replied with a shrug, glancing casually around the room. Kate watched him register her blue suitcase lying on the bed; then he transferred his attention to the dog, who was directly in front of him. “How is Max?”

“He seems to be feeling fine,” Kate replied, looking at the bag in Mitchell’s hand. “I hope you have a leash and collar in there. I had to tie together two belts from bathrobes to take him outside this morning.”

“I noticed. He looks like he’s escaped from a spa for canines,” he quipped, handing the bag to her.

Memories of the laughter they’d shared last night came flooding back, drowning out some of the uneasy unfamiliarity Kate had felt all morning. “I’ll lock the doors,” Mitchell volunteered, starting toward the terrace.

“There’s lots of food left over from breakfast on the table out there. Help yourself,” Kate said to his back as she unrolled the top of the flat, almost weightless paper bag.

“I couldn’t find a store that sold leashes and I ran out of time, so I bought those instead,” he said, walking outside to inspect the covered plates on the table.

From the bag, Kate extracted two of the gaudiest neckties she’d ever seen, one with palm trees on it, the other with the words St. Maarten emblazed in neon yellow on a background of electric blue. With an inner smile, she crouched in front of Max, blocking him from Mitchell’s view, while she swiftly removed the makeshift terry-cloth leash. Kate had learned to tie a Windsor knot in a man’s necktie when she worked at Donovan’s during college, and her fingers worked rapidly as she wrapped the palm-tree necktie over Max’s neck and duplicated the procedure. She glanced over her shoulder as Mitchell lifted the lid off one of the breakfast dishes. “Call me overly fastidious,” he remarked, “but I refuse to be the second one to chew on a steak bone.”

Moments later, she heard him close and lock the terrace doors, and she straightened the ends of the necktie with an expert tug; then she pulled her sunglasses off the top of her head and perched them on top of Max’s head, giving him a reassuring pat so that he wouldn’t shake them off.

“I’m not sure your ‘tourist look’ is an improvement over my ‘spa look,’ ” Kate said as Mitchell came to a stop directly behind her. Swiveling on her heels, she gave him an unobstructed view of Max.

“At least the ties are lightweight—” he began; then he gave a shout of laughter and looked down at Kate, his eyes warm, his grin lazy and appreciative. “Very clever.”

Kate stood up slowly, smiling back at him, her eyes locked with his, and she felt the spell of the night before begin to wrap itself around them. He obviously felt it, too, because he slipped his hands around her waist in a light caress, and his deep voice acquired a husky, intimate note. “Hi,” he said, smiling into her eyes.

“Hi,” Kate whispered back. The telephone rang, and she jumped; then she looked guiltily at it. Mitchell glanced at the ringing phone, mentally grimacing at the lawyer’s irritating sense of timing. Instead of kissing her as he’d intended to do, he dropped his hands and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Kate nodded and bent down to remove Max’s necktie; then she knotted it together with the other necktie in the bag, creating a long, makeshift leash.

“He was a little uneasy about being on a leash when I took him outside in the garden this morning,” she told Mitchell as they walked down the path from the villas toward the hotel’s main entrance, “but he didn’t try to get away from me.”

“Which proves he knows a good steak when he eats one,” Mitchell replied, but he noticed the big dog seemed content to walk close by her side, rather than trying to test the length of his makeshift tether, and he thought it surprising that a wild stray would come so willingly to her heel. Evidently, he decided wryly, Kate Donovan had that same effect on male “strays,” whether they were canine or human. “Let’s hope he’s just as docile about getting into a car and riding on a boat,” he added.

Mitchell had already put the convertible top up so the dog couldn’t jump out of the car, but no amount of urging or shoving from Kate could get the animal to climb into it. After tossing her suitcase into the trunk, Mitchell went around to the passenger side of the car to help Kate, and ended up standing back, enjoying the view instead. She was bending over the dog, trying to plant his front feet onto the floor of the backseat, and for the first time, Mitchell realized that, from the rear, Kate Donovan looked adorable in snug jeans. “If you get in first,” he suggested finally, “Max may be willing to follow you.” The ploy worked, and Mitchell closed the passenger door behind the dog; then he walked around the car and opened the driver’s door so Kate could climb out of the backseat and get into the front.

IN THE PARKING lot on the other side of the driveway, Detective Childress watched Wyatt’s vehicle pulling away from the curb and glanced at his watch. Reaching for the surveillance notebook lying on the seat of the little white rental car, Childress jotted down the exact time of Wyatt’s departure while Detective MacNeil emerged from the hotel lobby and jogged across the driveway. “Did you find out who the redhead is?” Childress asked, shoving the car into gear the instant MacNeil’s door closed.

“Not yet. The doorman gave me the same answer I got last night from the manager and the other doorman—that it’s against hotel policy to divulge the names of hotel guests to anyone.”

Wyatt’s convertible was already making a right turn onto the main road, and Childress accelerated sharply. “Did you slip the doorman five bucks before you asked?”

MacNeil snickered. “I slipped him ten bucks, not five, and that’s the answer I bought. However, the assistant manager, Mr. Orly, is in charge today, and Orly looks very flustered. While I was in the lobby, a couple named ‘Wainwright’ checked in, and Orly couldn’t find their reservations. After he got that ironed out, he sent for a bellman to show them to their villa and referred to them as ‘Mr. and Mrs. Rainright.’ I didn’t ask Orly about the redhead while I was in there because he wouldn’t have told me, but maybe ‘Mr. Wainwright’ can get it out of him.”

As he spoke, MacNeil pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and called the Island Club. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Orly,” he told the hotel operator.

After a significant delay, Orly answered MacNeil’s call, sounding so harassed that his sentences ran together. “This is Mr. Orly I’m sorry to have kept you waiting How may I be of service?”

“This is Philip Wainwright,” MacNeil lied, trying to sound authoritative and, at the same time, willing to overlook Orly’s earlier screwups during the check-in procedure if he cooperated now. “When my wife and I were on our way to breakfast, we met a young woman who remembered us from when we were here before. My wife and I both recall spending an enjoyable evening with her last spring, and we’d like to invite her to have cocktails on the beach with us later, but we cannot—for the life of us—recall her name. She has red hair and she mentioned she’s staying in villa number six. What the devil is her name, anyway?”

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Wainwright, but it’s strictly against hotel policy to reveal the identity of a guest to anyone.”

“I am not just ‘anyone,’ I’m another guest!” MacNeil exclaimed indignantly.

“The hotel’s policy applies to other guests, as well as to outsiders.”

“Let me speak to Maurice,” MacNeil demanded, knowing the manager was absent. “I’ve known him for years, and he won’t hesitate to tell me who she is!”

The assistant manager hesitated. “Maurice is away... however, if you’re certain he wouldn’t hesitate to tell you...”

MacNeil smiled to himself as he heard the sound of pages being flipped back and forth, but Orly’s next words were frustrating, rather than informative. “Villa number six is registered to a gentleman, and there is no indication of the lady’s name. I’m sorry, but I have another phone call—”

“What’s the gentleman’s name in villa six?” MacNeil said quickly. “That might jog our memory.”

“His name is Bartlett, and I don’t mean to be rude, but I really must answer another call now.”

“Well?” Childress asked expectantly.

MacNeil turned off his cell phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “Villa number six is registered to a gentleman named ‘Bartlett,’ ” MacNeil replied, repeating Orly’s words. “There is no indication of the lady’s name.”

Traffic on the island moved at a lazy pace, and the black convertible was mired in it, less than a quarter mile ahead. “I’ll bet you Wyatt is heading for Blowing Point,” Childress predicted, referring to the wharf where ferries and charter boats picked up passengers and returned them to the island. A minute later, the black convertible’s right turn signal began to flash. “Shit, I was right—Wyatt is heading for Blowing Point and we’re in for another damned boat ride. I’m already getting nauseated.”

“Take a pill.”

“I can’t take them, they make me groggy.”

“Then you should have taken one last night, instead of hanging over the edge of the boat, barfing your brains out.”

“When you report in to the state’s attorney today, you tell Elliott that if I have to sleep on a boat tonight because the yacht Wyatt is on is out in the middle of a harbor, then we need a bigger boat—one that doesn’t bob like a cork every time there’s a ripple in the water. I don’t mind being seasick for half an hour when we chase him from island to island, but I can’t do my job when I’ve been up all damned night blowing chunks.”

That last remark doused most of MacNeil’s amusement, because Childress was truly superb at vehicular surveillance. Behind a steering wheel, Childress could maneuver through any kind of traffic, darting and ducking in and out of it, without attracting any notice. He also had an almost uncanny knack of knowing when he needed to close the distance between Wyatt’s vehicle in order to see where Wyatt was about to go, and when it was safe to drop far back and stay completely out of Wyatt’s rearview mirror.

Because of that, Childress did most of the driving on land, while MacNeil handled piloting their boat. As a precaution, they rented different cars and different boats each day, but MacNeil was far more confident of Childress’s ability to handle his job than he was of his own ability to pilot a boat larger than the twenty-four-foot outboard fishing craft they were using today.

“How big is the boat Wyatt is using today?” Childress asked as he flipped on his right turn indicator.

“I don’t know—thirty-six feet, maybe thirty-eight feet.”

“If I have to sleep on a boat again, I want one that size.” He waited until Mac finally looked directly at him and said, “I’m not kidding, Mac.”

MacNeil opened his mouth to make a joke but bit it back. Beads of sweat were already popping out on Childress’s forehead at the mere anticipation of another boat ride, and beneath his newly acquired tan, Childress’s skin was turning a grayish-green. Rather than admit he didn’t think he could handle a larger boat, MacNeil said, “Wyatt left his luggage at the hotel in St. Maarten this morning. I don’t think he plans to sleep on Benedict’s yacht tonight.”