ROM HIS VANTAGE point in a chair facing the doorway, Mitchell contemplated the apartment Kate had talked about in Anguilla. It was nothing like the small, dark space he’d envisioned, but it was evident that the whole dwelling had recently undergone expansion and renovation. Everything was fresh and bright, including the woodwork and mullioned windows that marched along three sides of the apartment and were partially concealed by airy draperies that were pulled back at the sides and held in place with ties.

The floor plan was a large rectangle that occupied one entire end of the building from front to back. A modern kitchen with the latest appliances and granite countertops was separated from the living space by a large island counter with four stools. The living room was spacious enough for a pair of leather sofas, which faced each other across a coffee table and were positioned at right angles to the big easy chair in which Mitchell was sitting. Beyond the living space was a large play area with a table and chairs at a child’s height, a chalkboard, and what Mitchell assumed were long toy boxes disguised as window seats. A hallway that was parallel to the stairs led from the play area down to what Mitchell knew were bedrooms.

Mitchell picked up a copy of Gourmet magazine from the end table beside his chair and leafed through it, partly to avoid giving the priest an opportunity to bring up scriptures, morality, and other topics of interest to the clergy, and partly to stop himself from looking at the kitchen and trying to imagine an old wooden table there with a seven-year-old girl draped across it, as she pretended it was a piano.

The room lapsed into silence, and Mitchell struggled against the sudden impulse to get up and go over to the play space to look at his son’s things. A minute later, all that changed. MacNeil came trotting up the staircase, looking tense but excited. He went directly to Gray Elliott for a whispered conference, then nodded and hurried out of the apartment. Elliott got up and walked over to Mitchell, and to Mitchell’s initial surprise, he directed his remarks to him rather than Kate’s uncle. “I think we have very good news. The parents of a young woman who is in group counseling with Billy Wyatt saw the amber alert tonight. Their daughter has been in their guesthouse today babysitting a little boy as a favor to a friend. They went to have a closer look at the little boy, and they’re sure it’s Danny. We have cars on the way there right now, and we’ll know for certain if it’s him in ten minutes or less. Until we do, I don’t think we should risk raising Kate’s hopes. She’s very fragile right now. We have another hour before we’re supposed to receive the ransom call. I’d like to sit tight for a few minutes with no unusual activity in here. For all we know the kidnappers are watching us through the windows from another building.”

Father Donovan nodded, but Elliott waited for Mitchell’s response. He was granting Mitchell the respect and authority due an actual parent, which shocked Mitchell, since they’d had an extremely adversarial relationship the last time they’d spoken. “That sounds like the best plan,” Mitchell said. Then, because he couldn’t resist the temptation anymore, he got up and walked over to Danny’s play area.

He studied the scribbles on the chalkboard and concluded his son was probably not an artistic prodigy. Since no one seemed to be paying any attention to him, he leaned over and opened one of the window seats. It contained an assortment of toy trucks and cars. From that, Mitchell concluded that Danny’s future might be in the transportation industry. He didn’t realize he was hoping his son might share his love of airplanes until he looked inside the second box. There were almost a half dozen planes mixed in with other toys in that one, all of them jets rather than propeller planes or helicopters. Jets were Mitchell’s favorites as a boy, and as a man.

He glanced at his watch, wondering why it was taking so long to get confirmation that the boy in the guesthouse was Danny. Fifteen minutes later there was a commotion on the stairs, and Elliott got off his stool, striding swiftly to the door. “Why in the hell didn’t you call us?” he said, but underneath the reprimand he sounded excited, and Mitchell automatically tensed and straightened.

When Elliott walked back into the room, he was carrying a little boy and grinning from ear to ear. Kate’s uncle walked a few steps toward the bedroom hallway and called, “Kate, come here right away. There’s someone who wants to see you.”

Elliott lowered the child to the floor as Kate rounded the corner from the hallway. People began crowding into the room from the stairwell, and the scene exploded with joy and motion. “Danny?” Kate cried, and the child laughed out loud at the same time his mother burst into tears and dropped to her knees in front of him. “Danny!” she whispered, running her hands over his face and chest, then dragging him into a crushing embrace, weeping while she chanted his name like a prayer. “Danny, Danny, Danny.”

It was an exhibition of maternal love beyond anything Mitchell had ever imagined, let alone witnessed. It imprinted itself on his mind and touched something deeper as he came to terms with the reality that the weeping, joyous mother who was holding her son in a fierce embrace was the same woman he had held in an even fiercer embrace in bed in St. Maarten.

She swept her son up and carried him to the doorway to show him to the crowd gathered there, and it dawned on Mitchell that the people in the doorway were mostly dressed in white, like kitchen staff, or in black suits, like waiters.

“Kate?” Father Donovan whispered. “I think Mitchell has a right to some private time with you and Danny.”

Kate stared at him blankly and slowly emerged from her mindless euphoria. “I forgot,” she said aloud, her voice filled with disbelief that she could actually have forgotten Mitchell was there. Or that she’d told him to get out of Danny’s bedroom. Or that he’d dispatched lawyers with ten million dollars to pay Danny’s ransom within two hours of her phone call to Matt Farrell.

Filled with shame, she searched the faces in the doorway and stairwell, looking for a hard, unsmiling face, but he wasn’t there. She turned around with Danny in her arms and saw Mitchell standing at the far end of the room, his hands thrust in his pockets, watching. Waiting to meet his son. Danny’s safe return was unquestionably the happiest moment in Kate’s life. Oddly, this moment felt very much like the second happiest one. She’d never allowed herself to hope she’d ever see Mitchell again or that he’d want anything to do with Danny, but he was here, and he did.

With her mind on Mitchell, Kate thanked everyone in the stairwell for their prayers and waited while her uncle followed them out. She hugged Gray Elliott as he left, promising to call her as soon as Billy Wyatt was in police custody, and she gave Detective MacNeil an impulsive kiss as he filed out. Finally, she closed the door and lowered Danny to the floor. He looked sleepy and rumpled, so she bent down and smoothed his hair and his red shirt and blue coveralls. Behind her she sensed, rather than heard, Mitchell move forward. “Before I introduce you to your son,” Kate told him as she stole a glance over her shoulder, actually looking at the handsome face she’d barely seen through her tears in the bedroom, “I want to tell you two things.”

“What’s that?” he asked, and her heart swelled a little at the sound of his well-remembered deep voice.

“First, I am very sorry for the way I treated you in the bedroom. I was hurting so badly that I couldn’t think or see or hear. I was in such a horrible daze that I actually forgot you were here until a moment ago.”

“What you said was true,” he replied unemotionally.

“The second thing I want to tell you,” Kate said as she stood up, deliberately blocking Danny from his view, “is that you’re in for a bit of a shock.”

“Why is that?”

Danny was sleepy but curious about the voice in the room and trying to peer around her legs. In answer to that question, Kate brushed her fingers through Danny’s curls one more time as she said, “Mitchell, this is your son, Daniel Mitchell Donovan. I think you’d recognize him even without an introduction,” she added as she took Danny’s hand in hers and stepped aside so that Mitchell could see what she meant.

The tableau that followed was so poignant that Kate felt her throat constrict. With an expression resembling awed disbelief, Mitchell gazed down at a miniature version of himself, while Danny tipped his head way back and stared up at Mitchell with much the same expression. Suddenly, however, Mitchell’s intense blue stare unnerved Danny, and he looked at Kate with his chin beginning to tremble. “It’s okay,” Kate assured Danny. “How about shaking hands?”

To her amusement, Mitchell thought she was reassuring him, and he nodded gratefully, stepped forward, and held out his large hand to Danny. Danny solemnly laid his small hand in Mitchell’s palm, and Mitchell’s fingers tightened and relaxed reflexively as if he was having trouble preventing his hand from closing too tightly.

Mitchell’s lack of familiarity with children caused a momentary awkward lull that worried Kate, and then Mitchell crouched down and—suddenly inspired—gave Danny a grin and confided, “I have an airplane!”

“Me, too!” Danny replied, giving Mitchell back his own grin.

Mitchell’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he said, “I like jets.”

“Me, too,” his son replied in a tone of wonder.

“How many do you have?”

In response, Danny held up his free hand, spread his fingers wide, and proudly proclaimed, “I have this many.” When Mitchell seemed incapable of speech, Danny prompted, “How many you got?”

“This many.” Mitchell replied, holding up his forefinger.

Kate turned aside to keep her face from betraying her emotions.

Danny showed Mitchell his toys, and Mitchell admired each one, but it was obvious Danny was getting sleepy and needed to go to bed. “Would you like to put Danny to bed after I give him his bath?” she asked.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

“While you do that,” she said, “I’m going to take a shower and change clothes.”

As she led Danny by the hand toward the bathroom, Mitchell said, “What are my chances of getting something to eat after Danny is asleep?”

“Fairly good,” Kate replied. “This is a restaurant—” she began, and then she stopped, a sudden chill sweeping over her. “There’s nothing good to eat up here.”

The fear in her voice made Mitchell look at her closely. “As you said, there’s a restaurant downstairs.”

“I can’t leave Danny alone up here. Even if he were old enough, I wouldn’t. Not after tonight.”

“He won’t be alone. I have a bodyguard downstairs who’ll be with Danny until Billy Wyatt is caught and arrested, no matter how long that takes.”

Kate frowned at the notion of having a bodyguard around all the time, but before she could frame her thoughts about it, Mitchell said implacably, “That’s not up for negotiation, Kate.”