ATE PULLED HER car to a stop at the Valet Parking sign ten minutes before Donovan’s regular opening time, but none of Donovan’s valet attendants were waiting under the awning as they normally were by 11:20 in the morning.

She’d dropped Danny and his nanny off in front of the restaurant at 9:00AM, so she could keep her dentist appointment, and now she wanted to kiss him good-bye before Molly took him to the park, which she did almost every day at about this time.

He was twenty-two months old, full of energy and exuberance, and he loved the swings and slides and teeter-totter. Last Sunday, on a beautiful September afternoon, Kate had taken him to the park near their home, and she’d gotten some wonderful photographs of him sailing his boat in the big fountain with sunlit trees in the background.

Twice that day, people had stopped to remark on how beautiful he was, which was a normal occurrence for any outing with Danny. He was the image of his father, with Mitchell’s thick black hair and dark-lashed, cobalt eyes; he even had his slow smile and effortless charm. He was also showing signs of having inherited Mitchell’s magnetism with females. With one of his quick, flashing grins, Danny could conquer the hearts of women—from old ladies to teenagers to an adorable two-year- old girl from the South whose name was Caperton Beirne.

The only genetic contribution from her that Kate could see was that Danny’s hair was slightly curly, although not as curly as hers.

He was tall for his age, surprisingly well-coordinated, and growing up so fast that, at times, Kate wished she could reach out and stop the clock from ticking away the minutes and days of his childhood. He was extremely bright, and—not surprisingly—he was also starting to pick up and repeat words and phrases from the several languages he heard being spoken by Donovan’s culturally diverse employees. His most recently acquired phrase—a colorful Polish curse—had Kate thinking he needed to stay upstairs with Molly, in the apartment she’d expanded and renovated so she could spend some time with him when she was at work.

Wondering where the valet attendants were, Kate debated about driving around the corner and putting her car in the lot there, then she decided to risk getting a ticket by leaving it where it was until she could find a valet to move it. She was halfway across the sidewalk when she heard Hank at the corner newsstand shout, “Congratulations, Miss Donovan!”

Puzzled, Kate waved to him and kept walking.

She unlocked the heavy front door, walked inside, and saw—absolutely no one. The dining rooms were set up for lunch, everything looked perfect, except no one was there—not the maître d’, not a single waiter or busboy or valet attendant. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy, Kate quickened her pace toward the kitchen, rushed through the swinging doors, and stopped short as a smiling army of loyal employees burst into cheers and applause. At the front of the crowd, Molly was holding Danny, and he was clapping and grinning.

Next to him was a big sign on a floor stand where the specials of the day were usually posted by the chefs for the benefit of the kitchen staff and waiters. Today it said, “Kate Donovan, Restaurateur of the Year.”

Kate scooped Danny out of Molly’s arms and looked around at the sea of smiling faces. “What’s all this about?” she asked.

Frank O’Halloran grinned at Marjorie and then at the rest of the staff. “She hasn’t seen it yet,” he said, and everyone burst out laughing.

“Seen what?” Kate said.

Drew Garetti, the manager she’d replaced Louis Kellard with a little over two years before, held out the morning’s edition of theChicago Tribune. It was opened to a full-page article with a headline that read,KATE DONOVAN, CHICAGO’S RESTAURATEUR OF THE YEAR. According to the article, Kate had been chosen for the honor partly because of the overall excellence of the dining experience at Donovan’s and partly because of a program she’d instituted whereby Donovan’s chef and sous-chef exchanged places four times a year with their counterparts at equally famous restaurants throughout the country. This gave Donovan’s customers a chance to enjoy the fare from other fabulous restaurants, as it did the customers of the other restaurants.

Included in the article were several pictures used in prior stories about Donovan’s, including one of Kate with the governor of Illinois and one of Kate meeting with her kitchen staff, with Danny beside her in his high chair.

The caption below that one read, “Kate Donovan runs her restaurant while son Daniel looks on and learns the ropes from his high chair.”

Kate scanned the article, then she looked around at her staff and told them exactly who she felt deserved the credit for her award. “I can’t thank all of you enough for this,” she said simply.

Drew glanced at his watch, then at everyone else. “We’re opening in two minutes,” he warned them, and patted Kate’s shoulder as he walked out. “You’re the best,” he said.

Kate gave Danny a hug. “Did you hear that, Danny? Drew says we’re the best.”

In response, Danny planted a kiss on her cheek and said, “Molly and me go to the park, Mommy.” Kate let him slide to the floor, and he took Molly’s hand. He adored Molly, who’d come to work for Kate when Danny was born, and the middle-aged Irish woman positively doted on him.

“No flirting with Caperton,” Kate teased, looking from the little boy to his devoted nanny.

“BILLYWYATT ISwaiting out in the reception room,” Evan’s secretary said as he stalked by her desk, carrying his briefcase and a folded newspaper. “He’s been here since ten o’clock, and he insists on seeing you.”

“Bring me a glass of water, send someone for a Dr Pepper, and then have him come in,” Evan said curtly. In his office, he slapped the newspaper on his desk and unloaded the files that he’d worked on the night before from his briefcase.

His secretary arrived with a glass of chilled bottled water, and he sat down behind his desk; then he picked up theTribune and reread the latest story about another of Kate’s successes. She was like a splinter in his foot that he couldn’t get completely out. Everyone knew they’d been engaged, and every time people started to forget, Kate reemerged as the star in another damned local newspaper or magazine article.

According to the article before this one, the state’s attorney and the mayor were two of her regular customers. For weeks after that article appeared, Evan couldn’t show his face in the courthouse or anywhere lawyers gathered without being ribbed for failing to recognize what a political advantage he’d sacrificed by not marrying her.

Today’s article raved about her, as all the other stories had done, but today’s article also included a nice big color photograph of Wyatt’s little bastard and her in the kitchen at Donovan’s. It was the second time he’d seen that picture, the second time he’d had to look at it. The little son of a bitch looked so much like his father that it was uncanny, and that infuriated him even more.

“Hi, Evan. Thanks for making time for me.”

Tossing the paper down in disgust, Evan stood up and shook Billy’s hand. At seventeen, Billy was a good-looking kid, a little stocky, as his father had been, but not as pleasant to be around.

The psychiatrists and the court had both agreed—with a little help from the excellent defense lawyers that Evan’s law firm had selected—that his ADHD medication had caused Billy’s psychotic break the day he shot his father. That didn’t require a big stretch of imagination, since there’d been mounting evidence that the medication could cause psychotic episodes in some people. A year of confinement in a psychiatric hospital, plus ongoing therapy during his three-year probation period, had supposedly helped him resolve conflicts and learn impulse control.

“How’s your new girlfriend?” Evan asked, trying to remember what Billy had said her name was during his last visit.

“Rebecca’s fine.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In group therapy. You probably know her parents—the Crowells?”

Evan didn’t know them, so he shook his head and ended the small talk. “What can I do for you?” Evan asked, but he already had a good idea why Billy was there. Cecil had died recently, and he’d left one-third of his estate to charity and one-third to Billy, which was to be held in trust until he was thirty, with the stipulation that he forfeited it if he was convicted of any felony in the meantime. The remaining one-third had been left to Mitchell Wyatt, who had already directed the executors to use his share to create the William Wyatt Foundation for Victims of Violence.

“I want to hire you to break my grandpa Cecil’s will. Mitchell is going to start a fucking foundation with my money, and I want you to stop him before it’s too late. My father is dead, my grandfather and great-grandfather are dead, and everything was supposed to be mine. If my dad hadn’t brought Mitchell into the family, Grandpa wouldn’t have given him my money, and I’d be rich. Instead, I’m supposed to wait around until I’m thirty to get a little bit of what I should have had, and I’m not going to do it. I get off probation in another year and a half, and I want my money, and I want my own life!”

“Billy, we’ve already had this conversation. As I told you, Cecil’s will was drawn up by the best probate law firm in Chicago. I’ve looked it over, and there’s no way you can get your money back from Mitchell. I know it’s not fair, but you’re going to have to learn to live with it—”

“You don’t understand! I hate that son of a bitch. I hate him so much I can’t stand it.”

“Believe me, I know how you feel.”

Billy looked contemptuous of that possibility, so Evan reached out and shoved theTribune in front of him. “Do you see that picture? That was my girlfriend. Mitchell Wyatt got her pregnant. See that kid—that’s his kid.”

Billy studied the boy in the photograph, and then he said in a chilling voice, “So—this makes him what—my cousin?”

Chapter Forty-three

THE CLOSEST PARK to Donovan’s took up an entire city block, with paths through the trees leading to all four bordering streets. It was too far away for Danny to walk on his own, but he always insisted on trying anyway and ended up walking beside his stroller part of the way and riding in it the rest. “Look who I see,” Molly told him as they neared the park. “There’s our friend Reba, with a balloon. I wonder who it’s for?”

“For me!” he said excitedly, clapping his hands in his stroller. He scrambled out of the stroller as soon as they reached the bench by the swings, and he ran to Reba, who was sitting there, reading a book. She’d told Molly two weeks ago, when she first started coming to the park, that she was eighteen and taking some time off before starting college.

“Hi, Danny,” Reba said, and pretended she didn’t know a red balloon was floating by a string from her hand.

“Mine?” Danny asked, pointing to the balloon. “Please?” he added with a lopsided grin that never failed to get an answering smile—and usually whatever he wanted, as well.

Smiling, Reba stood up, still holding the balloon, and gave Molly a wink. “Follow the balloon, Danny, and I’ll show you a surprise.”

“A turtle!” Danny predicted joyously, following her toward one of the paths, with Molly holding his hand and pushing the empty stroller.

“Follow the balloon,” Reba chanted over her shoulder as she started down the path.

“The balloon is the same color as your shirt,” Molly told Danny. “What color is it?”

“Red!” Danny replied gleefully.

A thrashing sound in the brush on her left and slightly behind her made Molly turn to look, but all she saw was a baseball bat an instant before it crashed into her skull. She didn’t see the bat being raised again for a second blow or hear Reba say fiercely, “No, don’t, Billy! No one is supposed to get hurt!” She didn’t hear Danny start to cry or call, “Molly, Molly!” She didn’t feel a sheet of paper being shoved down the front of her dress.

In the park near the swings, two mothers looked up and saw a bright red balloon floating upward from the trees. They didn’t think anything about it until fifteen minutes later, when a woman staggered from the path with blood streaming from her head.

A block away, on the opposite side of the park, an old man was sitting on a bench tossing peanuts to a squirrel. A young couple emerged from the park, pushing a dark green stroller with a child who was trying to climb out. The young mother laughed and pressed him back down. The old man on the bench didn’t think anything about that until twenty minutes later, when police cars, with sirens screaming and light bars flashing, descended on the park from every direction.

ON THE FIFTH floor of the Richard J. Daley Center, Gray Elliott was in his office, eating lunch at his desk and writing an outline for a speech he was scheduled to give before the Illinois Anti-Crime Commission the following week. With a sandwich in one hand, he picked up his telephone with the other and answered a phone call from police captain Russell Harvey.

“Gray,” the captain said, “I just got a phone call from a lieutenant downtown who knows that you and I have dinner at Donovan’s once in a while. Kate Donovan’s son was kidnapped from a park near the restaurant an hour ago. I thought you’d want to know.”

Gray dropped his sandwich on the desk and stood up. “Who caught the case?”

“A couple of pretty good detectives. They’re on their way to tell Kate right now.”

“Can you assign MacNeil and Childress instead and put them in charge? They’ve been partners for a couple of years now, and from everything I hear, they’ve racked up one of the best arrest records in the department.”

“I already did that. Are you going to go to the restaurant to see Kate? If not, I think I’ll drop by there and assure her she has our unconditional support.”

“I’m on my way,” Gray said, already shrugging into his suit jacket. “I’ll give her your message.”

Chapter Forty-four

“MISSDONOVAN, 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.