ATE PACED SLOWLY back and forth across the living room, watching the clock on the wall tick off the seconds of each minute that passed without a return call from Mitchell. The second hand had made a full circle seventy-five times; one tormenting hour and fifteen minutes had passed without a sound from the heartless man she had once thought she loved.

Her uncle, Father Donovan, had rushed over as soon as Marjorie had called him, and now he waited helplessly on one of the sofas for the phone to ring. His head was bent, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. He was praying Mitchell would call.

Gray Elliott was sitting on a stool at the island counter that divided the kitchen area from the living room. He was Danny’s new best friend, intent on doing everything to ensure his safe return. If the darkening scowl on Gray’s face was any indication, he was fantasizing about yanking Mitchell from wherever he was, charging him with a gross lack of humanity, and throwing him in jail for life.

MacNeil was standing at the window overlooking the street in front of the restaurant, where police cars with flashing lights were parked at crazy angles. The sidewalk was packed with reporters, concerned citizens, and curiosity seekers, who were waiting and hoping for information. Kate wasn’t sure what MacNeil was thinking, but he kept glancing at his cell phone as if willing it to ring. He was probably hoping for a tip, Kate thought, a lead that would send all those police cars flying away with sirens wailing to rescue Danny.

Holly had left Maui in the middle of a veterinarians’ conference and was on her way back to Chicago. A task force had been set up in one of the dining rooms downstairs, and calls resulting from the amber alert were starting to come in on the newly installed phone lines. Kate had ordered the restaurant closed within minutes of learning Danny was gone, but most of the staff were still down there, keeping a silent vigil for the little blue-eyed boy with the bright grin who had long ago captured their hearts.

Childress was somewhere on the premises, Kate knew, and she supposed he was downstairs working with the task force.

MacNeil’s cell phone gave out a sharp chirp, and he snapped it to his ear so swiftly that the motion was blurred. A moment later, he turned around and looked from Kate to Gray. “Two lawyers are downstairs—David Levinson and William Pearson. They represent Mitchell Wyatt.”

Gray Elliott had straightened sharply at the sound of the men’s names, and he replied, “Tell the officer at the front door to let them in and bring them up here. Hopefully they aren’t here to threaten Kate with a lawsuit for claiming Wyatt is Danny’s father.”

David Levinson announced the reason for their appearance as he strode swiftly into the living room, carrying a large briefcase identical to the one Pearson held. “Mr. Wyatt has authorized us to transfer ten million dollars into whatever negotiable form the kidnappers demand,” he said.

Kate’s arms dropped to her sides and she stared. And then she smiled. And then she wept with joy and relief.

JOEO’HARA MANEUVERED Matt Farrell’s limousine as close to the restaurant as he could get it, then looked over his shoulder and said, “Do you want me to wait for you, Mitchell?” O’Hara had been with the Farrells so long he was a member of the family; he drove like a maniac, which the Farrells overlooked, and he did not bother with little formalities, such as addressing Mitchell as “Mr. Wyatt,” which Mitchell overlooked.

“No, thanks,” Mitchell said, passing a sweeping glance over the elegant restaurant that took up most of a city block and which Kate had once described as “a little Irish pub.” “I’ll take a cab when I’m finished. I may leave Calli here to keep an eye on things.”

“Matt said to tell you they’re expecting you to stay at their place, no matter how late it is when you get there.”

“We’ll see,” Mitchell replied, thinking a hotel might be better under the circumstances. The limousine’s presence was being noted by some of the reporters hanging around on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, and Mitchell ducked his head as he got out. Calli grabbed his suitcase when Mitchell reached for it. “This is my job. Besides, it’ll be better if the reporters think the suitcase is mine.”

Two years older than Mitchell and half a foot shorter, Giovanni Callioroso was one of the five Callioroso children whom Mitchell had mistaken for his brothers and sisters, until he turned five and was suddenly sent away to boarding school in France.

As a youth, Calli had liked martial arts, so he’d thrown himself, body and soul, into becoming a world-class contender. Five years ago, he’d gotten sick of it and suggested that Mitchell hire him as a driver-bodyguard. True to Calli’s personality, he had to excel in his new profession. At his request, Mitchell sent him to a special training course where sophisticated evasive maneuvers were taught to drivers of high-profile people subject to attack on the road or kidnapping.

Calli emerged as one of the finest drivers ever taught there, and he’d transferred all his ferocious dedication and loyalty to Mitchell. He would have walked in front of a truck for him, Mitchell knew. At the moment, however, Calli was uncertain about whether his loyalty to Mitchell needed to include getting into an automobile again with Joe O’Hara behind the wheel.

“Where the hell did he learn to drive?” he asked irritably as they crossed the street, wending their way around squad car bumpers.

“The demolition-derby circuit,” Mitchell replied absently. “Supposedly, he’s never been in an accident.”

“No? Well, he almost caused one tonight. A Jeep behind us nearly broadsided a pickup when they both tried to get out of his way.”

“No more English,” Mitchell said in Italian as they began working their way through the crowd. “They may not want to tell me anything, but they’ll talk freely in front of you.”

Some people in the crowd were holding lighted candles, and Mitchell’s stomach knotted at the realization that they were doing that for a son he’d never seen... and might never have a chance to see alive. That possibility sent his anger at Kate over the boiling point.

From his post, MacNeil had watched the tall man get out of a limousine at the corner with another man and cross the street. It was dusk, but the streetlights were on, and he turned to Gray Elliott for instructions, since Danny’s mother had gone into his bedroom long ago to wait there until it was time for the ransom call at eight. “Wyatt is here.”

Gray exchanged a look of satisfaction with Father Donovan and said, “Tell one of the uniforms to show him up here.”

ONE OF THE cops stationed under the awning at the front door was on the telephone. He put the phone away and walked forward, forcing the crowd to part so Mitchell and Calli could get through.

Reporters raised their cameras to get a shot of the new arrivals, just in case they turned out to be important figures in the kidnapping. Mitchell ignored them and kept walking.

With a sense of unreality, he strode through a restaurant that was virtually deserted and looked nothing whatsoever like what Kate had described, but he saw Pearson and Levinson sitting at a table having something to eat, and he nodded a greeting in their direction.

The cop led him to a paneled hallway at the rear, and when he saw the staircase that was located next to an office with an open door, the physical setup seemed at least vaguely as she’d described. At the top of the stairs a door was open into an apartment; he told Calli to leave his suitcase near the landing.

The first person Mitchell saw when he stepped into the spacious, comfortable living room was Gray Elliott. The next person he saw was the detective who’d questioned him three years before when he was a suspect in William’s death, the same detective who’d photographed him when he was with Kate in the islands.

Disgusted, Mitchell pointedly ignored Gray’s outstretched hand, turned, and found himself the object of scrutiny from a man with green eyes and a Roman collar. “I’m Kate’s uncle, James Donovan,” the man said, standing and holding out his hand. “You’re Mitchell, of course.”

“Of course,” Mitchell agreed sardonically while he shook the priest’s hand. “Where is she?” he asked bluntly, putting an end to the social niceties.

“Danny’s bedroom is the first door on the right,” the priest said, nodding toward a hallway that opened off the living room.

His son’s room, Mitchell instantly realized, was designed to delight a child and inspire his imagination. Bright jungle murals, with whimsical animals peeking out from behind trees and long grass, covered three walls. A rocking horse dominated one corner, and toy boxes lined a wall. Trucks were everywhere: red fire trucks, yellow tow trucks, moving vans, car haulers. On the inside wall, a single bed had a mock picket fence for a headboard, with bright parrots and canaries perched on the pointed slats and rabbits peeking between them. Next to the bed was a rocking chair.

Whatever Mitchell expected to feel when he saw Kate again, it was not pity, but pity was what he felt. Clad in jeans and a bulky yellow turtleneck sweater, she was seated in the rocking chair with one foot curled beneath her. Her eyes were closed, her head was tipped back, and she was clutching a big, faded, flop-eared rabbit to her chest. The rabbit looked as if it had been dragged behind a car... or dragged behind a child who took it everywhere he went.

Her red hair was falling loosely about her shoulders, her russet eyelashes lying like curly fans on unnaturally pale cheeks. If she hadn’t had one bare foot on the floor, gently pushing the rocker back and forth, he’d have thought she was asleep.

He spoke, and his voice sounded unnaturally curt. “Kate?”

Her entire body lurched in shock, her eyes snapped open, and she stared at him as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing, then she smiled a little. “Thank you,” she said formally.

“For what?” Mitchell said coolly, struggling with the surreal sensation of being in a bedroom that belonged to a son he’d never seen, talking to a woman who’d conceived his son during an unforgettable night of lovemaking that had haunted him for months afterward.

Still hugging the rabbit, she stood up as if it were an effort, but one she wanted to make on his behalf. “Thank you for lending Danny and me the ransom money,” she explained. “I gave your lawyers an IOU, and I asked them to draw up an agreement transferring the restaurant to you. I’ll find a way to pay you back the rest over time.” Oblivious of the muscle beginning to jerk in his jaw, Kate said, “You didn’t need to come here, though—”

“Don’t thank me, and don’t dismiss me,” Mitchell warned her. “You and I, and our attorneys, are going to have a very long meeting, as soon as the boy is safely back here.”

“Don’t call him ‘the boy’!” Kate warned fiercely. “His—”

“Why not?” Mitchell bit out. “You’ve made damned sure I don’t have the right to call him my son. I didn’t even know he existed until today.”

“I took you off my birth-announcement mailing list when you called me an amoral bitch,” Kate retorted, “and you divorced the last woman who wanted to have your son.” Her brief spurt of fortifying fury dissolved in the agony of the reality that Danny was gone. “Go away,” she whispered brokenly, turning away and burying her face in the rabbit. “My baby is gone,” she sobbed. “They’ve taken my baby.”

Mitchell turned on his heel and walked out.

“I’ll wait downstairs,” he told the priest back in the living room.

“That would be a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Because despite whatever Kate may have said to you just now, you’re Danny’s father. As his father, you have a right—and a responsibility —to be here and support his mother in this terrible time.”

Mitchell hesitated, walked over to a chair, and sat down.

“While it’s on my mind,” the priest added, “how is it that a man and woman, who only knew each other three days, could end up being so agonizingly disappointed in each other that neither of them can get over it after three years?”

“I have no idea,” Mitchell said shortly.

“I do,” Father Donovan replied, but he didn’t offer an explanation, and Mitchell didn’t ask for it.