Hawkshaw went over the Kanaday woman’s file again. Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN Copyright

Hawkshaw went over the Kanaday woman’s file again.

Now that he’d met her and the kid, the case no longer seemed an abstraction, nor did they. They were flesh and blood.

And the reality of her was distracting, too distracting. Because she wasn’t the woman he wanted. He forced himself to look at the fuzzy reproductions of the snapshots that Corbett had sent of Kate. There were only three.

The first showed her and the kid sitting before a towering Christmas tree. The kid, Charlie, was mugging for the camera, and she was smiling with what seemed like real joy. Her smile was nice, full of life. He wondered if she would ever smile that way again. He set the photos aside and took a sip of beer.

A lone light shone from the farthest window of the house. Kate had left the bathroom light on for the kid, a gesture that touched him in spite of himself.

Don’t be touched, he warned himself. Don’t feel anything.

The woman and kid had come into his life suddenly, and with luck they’d disappear just as suddenly. Until then, he’d watch out for them because they were a legacy from Corbett, a favor to be returned and a debt to be paid.

But nothing personal. He would stay uninvolved. He had made it his specialty.

Dear Reader,

My husband and I visit Florida’s Lower Keys as often as possible and have explored the backcountry by kayak. I love the loneliness and wildness of the place—although I could have done without getting to know a certain sea slug quite so well.

Before writing this story, I read a lot about the backcountry, stalkers and attention deficiency in children. There’s a lot of my son in Charlie—a bright, imaginative kid intensely frustrated by reading problems and handicapped by an overabundance of energy and a tendency to march to a different drummer. He overcame his difficulties much as Charlie does. Today he teaches composition and Shakespeare at the University of New Orleans. Writing this book made me aware again of the challenges such children—and their parents—face. The best part was the reaffirmation that such challenges can be met.

Sadly, writing The Guardian also made me painfully conscious of the inadequacy of stalking laws in the United States. I hope we can work to better them.

Sincerely,

Bethany Campbell

The Guardian
Bethany Campbell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Margot Dalton—

Who, like E. B. White’s Charlotte, is not only a good friend, but a good writer.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SHARK WAS DUSTY.

Nearly six feet long, it was stuffed, mounted and hung on the wall above the sagging couch. Its downturned mouth grinned with cruel teeth.

On the shark’s head was a black baseball cap. In white letters, it said UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE.

A tall man, naked except for a towel knotted around his middle, stood before the shark. He held the phone and listened to a voice half a continent away. His face was grim.

I don’t want to get involved, he thought with deep distaste. Those days are over. I’m out of the game. For good.

But because it was Corbett talking on the other end of the line, Hawkshaw listened.

“There’s no choice,” Corbett said. “She’s got to get out of town. She knows it. I can’t keep her safe.”

Hawkshaw adjusted the towel around his waist. He was dripping salt water onto the old braided rug.

He said, “I was about to get into the shower.”

Corbett said, “This guy who’s after her—this stalker—he’s getting dangerous. Not just to her, to her kid. He’s started to look on the kid as some sort of rival.”

A kid, Hawkshaw thought with weariness and guilt. He tried to keep himself indifferent, unassailable. “Why can’t the police handle it?” he asked.

Corbett said, “The guy’s smart, Hawkshaw. He doesn’t threaten her outright. But he never stops watching her. And he lets her know he’s watching—and that he wants her.”

Hawkshaw sighed in disgust. He didn’t like the sound of this. An anonymous stalker was the worst and most slippery kind. “You’ve got no idea who this psycho is?”

“None. He’s a voice on a phone. He’s a note in the mail. He’s the ice pick in your tire. The dead bird on your doorstep.”

“How long has he been after her?”

“Eighteen months,” Corbett said. “It started with a couple of notes. Anonymous calls. It built. She changed her number, kept it unlisted. I encrypted her computer so nobody could get into her e-mail. But nothing works. She needs to get the hell out of here.”

Hawkshaw stared at the shark. It returned his gaze with a glassy, emotionless eye.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Hasn’t she got people of her own to go to?”

“No. Her parents are dead. She’s a widow. She’s got a friend in another city who’ll help. But I don’t want her going straight there. I want to throw this bastard a curve. Have her take such a crooked path, he can’t follow.”

“And I’m the crooked path she takes.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Hawkshaw. This woman doesn’t want charity. She doesn’t want to run—she’s a fighter. If the guy was a threat only to her, I don’t think she’d budge. But there’s the kid.”

I don’t want to help widows and children, Hawkshaw thought with resentment. Throw them to the sharks. He ran a forefinger along the edges of the shark’s teeth. They felt pleasantly sharp.

“She’s no shrinking violet,” Corbett insisted. “She’s an extremely independent, self-reliant woman—”

Then let her be independent and reliant by herself, Hawkshaw thought.

“—listen, Hawkshaw,” Corbett continued, “this guy who’s after her, he’s getting ready to explode. All the signs are there. Something very bad is about to happen unless she and the kid get out of here. It’s instinct. I can’t shake it. You understand?”

Corbett’s instinct. Hawkshaw understood all too well. He stared at the scar that snaked up the tanned flesh of his right forearm. Oh, yes, he would always remember Corbett’s instinct; he was beholden to it for the rest of his life.

But he said, “My Galahad days are over, Corbett. I’m a hermit now. I like it.”

“But you’re staying there?” Corbett asked, slyness in his voice. “In Florida?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Hawkshaw said. “I’ll probably sell the place. I’ve got to fix it up. One of these days.”

“That’s what you said six months ago.”

“Time flies.”

“Look, she could help you. She’s got energy, she’s enterprising,” Corbett said. “Up here she can’t even work anymore. The stalker—he disrupts her workday, calls her co-workers. He’s starting to harass everybody she comes into contact with.”

Bingo, thought Hawkshaw with a sure, sickening realization. Suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this. “Everybody?”

“It’s a figure of speech,” Corbett said.

Hawkshaw closed his eyes. As in a vision, he saw Corbett’s round, good-natured face, the receding hair, the mustache that never seemed even on both sides.

He saw Cherry, Corbett’s wife, pretty and ever-generous. He thought of Corbett’s adolescent twin girls in last year’s Christmas snapshot, their smiles silvery with braces. He was godfather to both.

Hawkshaw opened his eyes. He wiped a cobweb from the shark’s fin. “Everybody includes you, doesn’t it, Corbett? It includes Cherry and the girls, too. Don’t bloody lie to me. I know you too well.”

There was a moment of silence. Finally Corbett said, “That’s not a factor. It goes with the territory. My major concern is for the woman and her son. That’s the truth.”

Oh, hell. Depression stole over Hawkshaw like a long, cold shadow.

He sat down on the old couch. He thought of Corbett and all he owed to Corbett.

A hopeless sensation yawned within him. He knew what he was going to say and wished with all his heart that he could say something else.

“All right,” Hawkshaw said. “Fax the details to me, in care of the Flamingo Motel.” He gave Corbett the number. “Tell the woman and kid I’ll take them on. For a while. A couple weeks maybe.”

“Good. If we cover her tracks well enough, maybe she can break free of him. Go her own way.”

“Amen,” said Hawkshaw. The sooner the better.

There was another awkward silence. Then, with feeling, Corbett said, “You won’t be sorry about this.”

Yes, I will, thought Hawkshaw.

He was already sorry.

THE DETECTIVE, CORBETT, came back from the downstairs pay phone and into his private office. He was a stockily built man with thinning hair and a mustache that always seemed slightly off-center.

He gave Kate a smile that had no happiness in it. “You’re going away,” he said. “It’s set.”

Kate’s arm tightened around Charlie, her six-year-old son. “Can’t you at least tell me where?” she asked.

Charlie wriggled. He hated sitting still and was fidgety.

Corbett shook his head. “It’s best you don’t know yet. Out of the Midwest. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry.”

I have no secrets, Kate thought numbly. Wherever I am, whatever I do, the stalker knows. He always finds out. Always.

She let Charlie slip away from her. He ran to the window, stood on tiptoe and looked out at the summer afternoon.

Her hand fell uselessly to her lap. She could only stare at Corbett’s kind, jowly face.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

She swallowed. “How—how long do you think we’ll have to stay there?”

“I don’t know,” Corbett said. “Till we’re sure he hasn’t tracked you. Once we know that, you’re free to move on.”

To move on.

The words tolled ominously in Kate’s mind. She had known it might come to this, of course. She and Corbett had talked about it, insane as it was.

Wordlessly, both she and Corbett turned their gazes to Charlie. The boy shifted his weight from foot to foot and hummed as he stared outside. He tugged restlessly at his brown forelock.

She had tried to prepare Charlie for the possibility that they would have to leave. But how, really, did one prepare for such an extreme and desperate action?

“I—I—” Kate stammered “—well, it’s necessary. It has to be done. That’s all there is to it.”

“Yes,” Corbett said. He came to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “If we can’t keep him away from you, then you’ve got to get away from him. Both of you. Where he can’t find you.”

We have to run. Like hunted animals. Because there’s a madman out there. This can’t be happening. Not really.

Kate shook her head to clear it. “I didn’t want anybody else involved. Why can’t Charlie and I just leave on our own? I could go straight to my friend. Eliminate this middle person, this stranger—”

“We were in the Secret Service together,” Corbett said. “He retired two years ago. He’s the best, Kate. And he’s worked with kids. Consider it a security move for a while, that’s all. I couldn’t trust you to anyone better.”

But his words didn’t reassure her. She felt stunned, shocked, empty, unreal. “Won’t you at least tell me his name?”

“Kate,” Corbett said wearily, “the less you know the better. I want you to go home, pack the bare necessities. I’m taking you someplace else tonight. In my car, not yours. I’ll get your plane tickets. You’ll have to travel under another name.”

She straightened her back and tried to square her jaw, which felt twitchy, undependable. “How soon? When do you want us to go?”

“As soon as possible.”

“How long are we supposed to stay with this—person?”

“Until we think you’re safe.”

Safe. A bitter giddiness filled her. She smiled at the irony of the word. Safe.

“Until we make sure he hasn’t traced you,” Corbett said.

“He,” Kate echoed. Her stalker was nameless, faceless, shapeless. He was nowhere and everywhere. He seemed like some monster out of mythology, with a thousand eyes to watch her, a thousand ears to listen to her, a thousand invisible tentacles to reach out at her.

“Our things—” she said, thinking of their small condominium, stuffed with its trove of mementoes. There were the photos, the antiques, Charlie’s toys, her precious books.

Corbett kept his expression matter-of-fact. He folded his arms. “I’ll see you get them when you’re settled. I’ll arrange it so it can’t be traced.”

“My bank account,” she said. “I’ll have to transfer the funds. But if I don’t even know where we’re going—”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She thought fretfully of the man to whom Corbett was sending them. “This person—this friend of yours—I’ll need to reimburse him. I don’t want to owe anybody.”

Corbett’s only answer was an ironic smile. “I know you, Kate. You’ll pull your own weight.”

“But how?”

“There’ll be something. He’s thinking of selling his place. He needs to put it in shape. Maybe you could help him.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I can do that, all right.” She’d worked her way through high school and most of college as part of a cleaning crew for a real estate company. She didn’t like the work. But she knew how to do it.

Charlie, bored with looking out the window, ran to her, tugged her hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Kate bit her lip. How did you tell a child that this might be the last time he’d see home? That you were fugitives now, and that perhaps you could never come back?

But she stood, forcing herself to smile. She gave Charlie’s hand a confident squeeze.

“Charlie,” she said, injecting all the cheer she could into her voice, “remember that trip I told you we might take?”

THE WOMAN AND KID were arriving that night. Hawkshaw was no happier than before about the prospect; he felt as evil-tempered as a snake shedding its skin.

Still, he was nagged by the alien thought that he should clean house. This was such a distasteful impulse that he promptly quelled it

He did, however, force himself to put sheets on the twin beds in the guest room. At least, he supposed it was a guest room. Up until now he’d been lucky enough to avoid having guests.

Outside, rain poured down, hammering on the roof and streaming down the windows. The weather was too vile to fish or kayak, so restless, he stayed inside and did push-ups.

He told himself he would do a hundred, then make himself examine the file of material Corbett had faxed him about Katherine Kanaday.

But after a hundred push-ups, he still felt too restless, so he started a second hundred. After three hundred, he gave up. He lay on the floor for a moment. He swore, muffled, into the braided rug.

Then he rose, snagged a beer from the refrigerator and picked up the Kanaday file. He wore only a pair of denim cutoffs; he didn’t bother much about dressing these days, and he didn’t intend to.

He swung his long body down on the couch, kicked a couple of boating magazines out of his way. He plumped up the ancient sofa pillow, settled back and opened the file Corbett had faxed.

There were a couple of fuzzy pictures of the woman and kid. The kid was cute. In his heart of hearts, Hawkshaw liked kids; he considered them a sort of separate species and thought it a damn shame they grew up to be human beings.

The woman he dismissed as nothing special. Too thin, her hair too long and curly. Corbett said her hair was reddish. Hawkshaw had never been attracted to redheads. Carrot-tops, he thought dismissively.

He began to read about her. She was thirty-two years old, had a college degree, and had worked as assistant manager in a new-and-used bookshop. Had been married to a professor of computer science at the local college.

Ho-hum, thought Hawkshaw, looking over her background: a quiet life, boring and bookish. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Until a year and a half ago. Then her husband had suddenly and unexpectedly died of a brain tumor. Ten days later, the stalking began. An odd sequence—was it a coincidence?

Hawkshaw stretched. He scratched his bare chest and took a sip of beer. He read on.

Corbett had written,

On the morning of February 11, Kanaday opened front door of her apartment to get paper. On doorstep found single white rose wrapped in cellophane. Beneath it, note, unsigned. Note laser-printed on white paper. See attached.

Hawkshaw picked up a separate stack of papers clipped together. He read the top one, which was labeled, in Corbett’s firm handwriting, “First Note.”

I THINK OF NOTHING BUT YOU. I WANT YOU WITH ALL MY BEING. IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WILL DO. GIVE ME A SIGN THAT I CAN COME TO YOU. WEAR THIS ROSE ON YOUR COAT TODAY.

Hmm, Hawkshaw thought, cocking an eyebrow. Mildly interesting. Not overtly threatening, just psycho enough to make a person nervous.

He went back to Corbett’s account. The Kanaday woman said she at first thought the incident was only a “sick joke.” She’d thrown away the rose and thought no more of it. Until the second rose appeared.

Again the nameless admirer asked her to wear the flower. Again she threw it away. Then the phone calls started. A man’s voice, low, unrecognizable, breathless, hungry.

Wherever she went, he seemed to know. He told her what she had done, whom she had seen, to whom she had talked, what she wore. Somehow he seemed to watch her all the time.

The stalker’s threats were always veiled, never explicit. Small things appeared—like the roses, the notes. Others disappeared—like the dog’s leash or a pair of muddy tennis shoes left outside beside the door mat.

And the calls, wrote Corbett, never stopped. It didn’t matter how often the Kanaday woman changed her number; the stalker always found out the new one. Then, angry that she’d tried to elude him, he would plague her even more unmercifully. At last, when she no longer answered the phone at home, he began to harass her at the bookstore, and he did so until she had to quit her job.

Hawkshaw frowned at the closing paragraphs.

Kanaday had just started a new job at the Columbia Mall bookstore. Near closing time, she received a call from the stalker.

He claimed at that moment he could see her son. He described the boy’s clothing and play activity. He said, “I know why you don’t come to me. It’s because of the boy. You feel guilty because you have to pretend to want him more than you want me. I’ll take care of that, and then I’ll come for you. And then you’ll be mine forever.”

Hawkshaw swore under his breath. He closed the folder and tossed it on the floor. He stood, restless again. He walked to the window. The view was still obscured by rain.

Stalkers, he thought with loathing. He stroked the scar along his forearm, then turned and glowered at the file.

“Find the bastard, Corbett,” he said between his teeth. “I’m not up to these games anymore.”

He drained the beer and glanced at the clock, calculating the hours of freedom he had left. It was a silly clock, shaped like a cat, whose tail was the wagging pendulum. The phone rang. The back of Hawkshaw’s neck prickled in apprehension.

His phone seldom rang these days. Somehow he knew this call meant more bad luck.

THE MIDNIGHT SKY WAS BLACK and starless. The plane taxied down the wet tarmac, came to a stop before the small air terminal.

Key West, said illuminated letters that rose from the terminal’s roof. Their pastel color was haloed by mist.

Key West, thought Kate. Florida. We’re really here. Corbett had told her their destination only when he had taken her inside the terminal back home.

Now she and Charlie were exiles, strangers in a strange land. Everything felt unreal—how could it seem otherwise? They had come to the Florida Keys to live with a man she had never met, had never even spoken to.

A wave of anxiety surged through her, but she ignored it. Keeping her head high, she carried her sleeping son down the stairs of the plane.

Charlie was exhausted. They had been traveling since dawn, and their flight had been delayed in Miami for five hours because of the torrential rains.

Here in Key West the drizzle was light. The moon was masked by clouds. Beyond the airport’s chain-link fence, Kate saw palm trees mistily gilded by the parking lot lights. The air was sultry and pungent.

Charlie stirred against her shoulder. “What’s that smell?” he asked crankily.

“It’s the ocean,” she told him, although the scent was as new to her as it was to him.

He yawned and relaxed, snuggling his face into her neck. She held him more tightly and made her way inside the terminal’s glass doors. The boy was growing heavy, and their carry-on bag was sliding awkwardly from her shoulder. She paused, trying to hoist it more firmly into place. She glanced about.

Even at this hour the terminal was lively. She heard Jamaican accents mingling with those of Brooklyn; she saw a Muslim woman in a black veil and a Sikh man in an azure turban.

College students crowded elbow to elbow with retirees, and a young Asian couple, looking tired, carried sleeping twin infants. There seemed to be almost every sort of person—but nowhere did Kate see anyone who might be looking for her and Charlie.

Her clothing was purposefully nondescript: faded jeans and a heather-gray T-shirt. Sunglasses hid her brown eyes, and a scarf covered her red-gold hair.

She had done everything in her power not to be attractive or have an ounce of sex appeal. She did not want to be noticed or remembered.

She shifted Charlie in her arms and took off the scarf. She took off the sunglasses, too, which seemed silly so late at night, and stuffed both into her carry-on.

She shook her head to clear it and gazed at the crowd around her. No one seemed to take the slightest notice of her or her child.

She eyed the crowd again, unsure for whom she searched. Charlie sighed again and buried his face against her neck, as if wearily begging her to make everything normal again.

Normal. The word mocked her. Normal.

Her arms tightened around her son with fierce protectiveness. A now-familiar anger swept through her, and she welcomed it; it was her friend and it kept her going.

But Lord, she was tired. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the fatigue away, marshaling her strength. She took a deep breath, then another. Suddenly, a voice spoke her name. It was a male voice, gravelly, yet oddly soft.

“Katherine Kanaday?”

Her eyes flew open. As if by magic, a tall man had materialized in front of her. His lean face filled her vision, and she blinked, disconcerted.

Her gaze met his, which was an intense blue-green, and unreadable. Her chin jerked up, and she eyed him with the suspicion that had become second nature to her.

She had pictured a bland-faced older man much like Corbett. But this man must be only in his early forties, and he looked anything but bland.

Corbett’s words came flashing back to her. You can depend on him.

But Kate’s breath stuck in her chest because this stranger didn’t seem like someone to depend on. He looked more like a man who created danger than safety.

He towered over her, all height and hard muscle. A wide-brimmed Aussie hat hid his hair and shadowed his eyes. He had an angular jaw and a cleft chin. His cheekbones were high and prominent, and he was deeply bronzed by the sun. He had not shaved for several days.

His khaki shirt looked weathered, and Kate could see a triangle of brown chest. Around his neck was a leather thong from which dangled some sort of small stone fetish.

He said, “If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.”

If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me. It was the strange sentence Corbett had picked to serve as a password, and only he and she and this man knew it. The knots in her nerves untied themselves, and she almost smiled.

He didn’t. His face remained impassive. But he took off the hat. His brown hair was thick and streaked by the sun. The sideburns showed the faintest glint of silver.

“W.W. Hawkshaw. I’m a friend of Corbett’s.”

He offered her his hand, and she took it. A small, unwanted tingle of sexual awareness swarmed through her nerves.

Guiltily, she drew her hand away. Sex wasn’t to be trusted. It was what had gotten her and Charlie into this insanity in the first place.

Charlie clutched her more tightly and burrowed his face against her. He muttered something nearly incoherent about going home.

“Shhh,” she whispered. She no longer knew where home was.

Once again resentment warred with her fatigue. But before she could sort out her feelings, before she could even try, Hawkshaw had jammed on the hat again, pulling the brim back to its stem angle. He was ready to get moving.

“Allow me, ma’am,” he ordered, reaching for Charlie.

“I can handle—” she began, but he ignored her. Somehow, he had the boy out of her grasp and expertly cradled in his right arm. Charlie stirred, but didn’t waken.

Kate stared at the hard-looking man, but he only nodded toward her carry-on bag. “That, too, ma’am,” he demanded.

“It’s not that heavy.”

But he stripped it from her, slung it over his own free shoulder.

She stood, feeling half-naked without her burdens, and oddly nettled to be so efficiently relieved of them. He was a high-handed man, and she didn’t like it.

“You have other luggage?” he asked.

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “The most important’s the dog—I hope they haven’t lost her.”

“Dog,” he repeated, completely without enthusiasm.

He made Kate feel awkward, and she resented it. “Corbett said it was all right to bring the dog. He said he asked you about it, and—”

“It’s fine,” Hawkshaw said, holding up his hand as if to silence her. “Don’t mention it.”

He started toward the baggage pickup area. “This way.”

Kate had no choice but to follow him. Why was he so damned preemptory? Because they were late? Maybe he’d been waiting for hours, and it had soured his mood. Well, it was good of him to have waited at all, and she supposed she should apologize, just to be polite.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” she offered, hurrying to keep up with him. “Our plane was delayed in Miami a long time—”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m aware of that,” Hawkshaw said.

“I know it was an inconvenience. Thank you for—”

“Don’t bother,” he said curtly.

“I just want to apologize for any—”

“Don’t bother,” he repeated and looked away pointedly, as if he found her irksome.

Oh, to hell with him, she thought tiredly. If he’s a boor, he’s a boor. I didn’t come down here for a friendly guy. I came for a tough one.

He stopped before the luggage carousel. He didn’t say, “How was your trip?” He didn’t say, “How’s my old friend Corbett?” He didn’t say anything.

She didn’t, either. Suddenly all she wanted was a bed and eight hours of sleep. She’d deal with Mr. Charm, here, in the morning, when she’d got her strength back.

She studied him furtively, taking his measure. His eyes had permanent creases at the outer edges. They gave him the look of a man who had spent his life watching the world around him and watching it carefully.

He didn’t look at her. She had the impression he was purposefully ignoring her. But then, almost against his will, it seemed, he gazed down at Charlie. His craggy face didn’t mellow.

“So this is Charlie?” he said.

Kate looked at her son, so young, so innocent of what was happening to him, lying so trustingly against this stranger’s chest. A rush of tenderness swept away her other emotions, and she felt a lump like a fist in her throat.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s Charlie.”

HAWKSHAW HAD WAITED for the plane with deep misgivings. He was a private man about to surrender his privacy, and he had already damned himself for it a thousand times.

And his mood was frankly rotten. Right before he’d left for Key West airport, his ex-wife had called from Hawaii. She had an engagement singing in the lounge of a very upscale hotel on Waikiki Beach. “I’m in love,” she’d announced. “I’m finally over you. I think I’m going to get married.”

Suddenly Hawkshaw had remembered everything he’d worked to forget: the loss, the guilt, the failure, the incredible emptiness.

He’d forced cheer into his voice and congratulated her with all the heartiness he could muster. He didn’t ask her the details. He didn’t want to hear them.

She deserved to be happy, God knew. But basically what Hawkshaw had wanted to do was get drunk and stay that way for about a week. Maybe put his fist through a wall or two, that sort of thing.

But instead of mourning for the woman he wanted, he was stuck baby-sitting for one he didn’t want in the least. The Kanaday woman was prettier than he’d expected, and for some obscure reason, this annoyed him.

Certainly Corbett’s fuzzy photos had given no hint of her attractiveness. She’d looked thin and uninteresting in the pictures.

In the flesh, she was slender, not skinny, and her features, although not perfect, were good enough, and the red-gold of her hair was stunning.

Hell, he’d thought, no wonder somebody’s after her. And then he’d thought, Dammit, Corbett. What have you done to me now?

CHAPTER TWO

HAWKSHAW RECOVERED HIMSELF, more or less.

This woman was one last assignment—and there was a rigid rule about assignments: Do Not Get Emotionally Involved. In his present mood, it seemed a laughably easy rule to keep.

He loaded the woman’s luggage in the back of his van and swung the heavy dog cage inside. The dog snuffled and whined.

It was a basset hound, for God’s sake. One of those low-slung, bowlegged lugubrious-looking dogs with ears that nearly dragged the ground.

Except for the dog, the woman and kid were traveling remarkably light. That was good. That was probably Corbett’s doing. (Couldn’t Corbett have talked her into leaving the fool dog behind?)

The kid was strapped into the back seat. He’d wakened briefly when his mother put him in the van, but now he was dead to the world again.

Hawkshaw got into the driver’s seat. The woman sat in the passenger seat, staring up at the ink-dark sky. The lights of the airport parking lot fell through the windshield, illuminating her profile. It was a nice profile, he noted, but she wasn’t Helen of Troy.

He started the van. From the back, the dog gave a pathetic yodel of canine heartbreak.

Hawkshaw headed out on South Roosevelt Street, toward the highway. The street ran beside the shore of the Atlantic side of the island, and the sea was rough tonight.

“We’ve never been in Florida before,” said Kate Kanaday, staring out at the ocean. Its darkness was dimly streaked with lines of white foam breaking.

She had a low voice, the kind that would sound sexy over a telephone. He hadn’t noticed her voice before. Funny. Maybe it was the darkness that made him notice now. He thought of a man listening in the dark to that voice, becoming excited by it.

She said, “Where are we going? Will you tell me that much? Corbett wouldn’t say. Only that we’d meet you here, in Key West.”

He narrowed his eyes against the glare of oncoming headlights. Traffic was heavy, even at this time of night. Key West was a party town, and the party never stopped.

He said, “It’s in the lower keys. A place called Cobia Key. Not many people know where it’s at.”

Which is to your advantage, he thought. Which is to your very great advantage.

“I do,” she said without hesitation. “It’s the island sixteen miles north of Key West. There’s a heron preserve there.”

He allowed himself to lift an eyebrow in surprise, but kept his gaze fastened on the road. “You’ve heard of it?”

“I read about it,” she said in her low voice. “When we were delayed so long in Miami, I bought a book.”

Of course, he thought. She’d read about it. She would. “Yeah,” he said. “You worked in a bookstore.”

“Yes,” she said. “I used to.”

There was no self-pity in her voice, only resignation.

Hawkshaw stole a sideways look at her. The van’s windows were down, and although her hair was pinned back in some sort of braid, strands had escaped and fluttered around her face.

The van was on the highway now, crossing one of the dozens of bridges that linked the islands that formed the Keys.

The Kanaday woman said, “You live on Cobia Key?”

“For now,” he said. “It’s nothing fancy. It’s in the backcountry. Off to itself.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, still gazing moodily at the Atlantic. “As long as it’s safe.”

In the back of the van, the basset hound gave a throaty complaint followed by a series of mournful snorts.

She said, “You were in the Secret Service with Corbett?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Until he retired, went into business on his own?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve retired, too?”

“Yes.”

Two years ago he’d taken an early retirement, at age forty-two, exactly twenty years after signing up with the Treasury Department. He’d loved the job, but he’d left it in self-disgust after he’d lost Sandra.

He didn’t want to talk about himself or the Service or his relationship to Corbett or to think about Sandra. So he said, “Tell me about this problem you’ve got. Do you think Corbett’s got some lead on the stalker? Something he’s not ready to tell you or me?”

She stiffened as if the word stalker sent a bolt of electricity ripping through her system. She drew her breath between her teeth. “No,” she said. “I don’t think he does. He’s afraid my only option is to go away.” She turned to him. “I have a friend, Carol, in Denver who’ll help. I worked it out with her over a pay phone, so nobody could tap into the conversations. But Corbett still didn’t want us to go straight there. He’s very cautious. I hate imposing on you.”

“Don’t mention it,” muttered Hawkshaw.

“I mean it,” she said. “I hate it. My money situation’s complicated right now, but somehow I’ll reimburse you. I pay my own way. We’re not a charity case, Charlie and I.” She turned away again. “So tell me about yourself,” she said. “What do you do, now that you’re retired?”

“As little as possible.”

“Do you have a first name?” she asked.

“None that I answer to.”

“How long did you and Corbett work together?”

“Fourteen years, off and on.”

“All of it in Washington?”

“A lot of it,” he said.

“Like where else?”

“Here.” he said. “There.”

She shifted in her seat and he could feel her looking at him. “Would you rather we not talk? Is that it? All you have to do is say so.”

The words surprised him. There was a certain sassiness in them he hadn’t expected. But, what, God help him, if she was a talker, one of those women who never shut up?

“I’m out of practice,” he said dryly.

“If you’re worried that we’re going to intrude on your life, don’t be,” she said. “We’ll keep to ourselves as much as possible.”

“Umph,” he said.

“The last thing I want to do is be a bother.”

“Um.”

“I mean, I, of all people, know what it’s like to have your privacy invaded.”

Touché, he thought. A good point, that.

“I have plenty to do,” she said, as if to herself. “I’ve got a lot of decisions to make, things to plan. I mean, if I look at the bright side, I’ve got a whole new life ahead, a completely fresh start.”

He almost said something sarcastic. Already she was trying to look on the bright side? To be optimistic? Lady, don’t you understand what’s happening to your life?

He stole another glance at her. She had one elbow on the window’s edge, her knuckles pressed hard against her jaw.

The moon, nearly full, had broken through the clouds, silvering her profile. She looked like a face delicately carved on a coin.

With a start, he realized she was biting her lip. He thought he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes, but she blinked hard twice, then three times. The glitter disappeared.

He said nothing.

In the back, the dog whined as if its heart were irreparably broken. But Katherine Kanaday kept her back straight, her eyes looking straight ahead, and her chin up.

HAWKSHAW’S PLACE WAS in “the backcountry,” he’d said, but his words had given Kate no hint of how desolate the backcountry could seem.

The van left the main highway, meandered through a small development of homes that stood dark and lifeless as tombstones. Then the houses grew fewer and farther apart, and when, at last they came to an end, civilization seemed to end with them.

The dark land stretched out blackly on either side, thatched with scrub wood. The air was heavy with a rich, swampy scent. The winding road narrowed and seemed to roll on forever, but at last Hawkshaw turned in at a graveled drive. He got out of the van and opened a padlocked gate.

Kate could make out a tall chain-link fence glinting faintly against the trees. After Hawkshaw moved the van through the gate and refastened the lock, he drove on into a darkness so thick it gave her a twinge of claustrophobia.

A small deer leaped across the road and was caught briefly in the van’s headlights. It was such a tiny, elfin creature, Kate thought she was hallucinating.

She gasped in surprise.

“Key deer,” Hawkshaw said, sounding bored. “That’s all.”

She blinked and the animal was gone, as if it had vanished back into the magical world where it belonged. Of course, she thought, it had been one of the miniature deer peculiar to these islands. “Oh,” she said softly. “I read about them.”

He gave no response. He pulled up next to a house that even in the darkness seemed neglected, almost deserted. She heard the lapping of water when she got out of the car and thought she could smell the ocean nearby, but she could not see it.

Hawkshaw carried Charlie up a narrow flight of stairs to what seemed to be a long deck. He unlocked the front door, switched on the inside lights, and took the boy inside. Kate followed, blinking at the disarray.

Hawkshaw was lean of body and spare of speech, and she had expected the house to be lean and spare, as well. But the living room was crammed with run-down furniture and cluttered with fishing and boating paraphernalia. Some sort of huge stuffed fish hung on the wall; it gave her an unwelcoming stare.

“It’s kind of a mess,” Hawkshaw said, in a masterpiece of understatement.

Kate smiled weakly. The decor, she decided, could be described only as Late Bachelor Hellhole.

“Your room’s this way,” he said, moving down a narrow hallway. “Watch out for the oar.”

He hit another light switch with his elbow, and stepping over an abandoned oar, he carried Charlie down the hall to a back room. He turned on yet another light.

Kate followed warily. The bedroom gave off the air of being unused for years, perhaps decades. Boxes were piled haphazardly against the walls, as if Hawkshaw had been moving out, then suddenly changed his mind.

There was little furniture: an old wicker dresser, a metal desk and folding chair, a pair of twin beds with mismatched spreads.

The Ritz it isn’t, thought Kate, with sinking heart.

But Hawkshaw turned down the cover and sheet of one bed with the air of a man who knew what he was doing. She was surprised to see that the sheets and pillowcase seemed crisp and clean, freshly laundered.

He laid Charlie down and started to untie one of the child’s scuffed running shoes, then abruptly straightened. His eyes met hers. “You’ll want to do that,” he said gruffly.

The room was small, its ceiling low, and suddenly Hawkshaw seemed even taller and wider-shouldered than he had at the airport. He hooked his thumbs on either side of his belt buckle and cocked one hip. He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowed. The slant of his mouth was resigned.

“There’s a bathroom in there,” he said, nodding toward a badly chipped door. “I’ll get the rest of your things. And your dog.”

Kate winced. The dog, still caged in the van, had started to bay piteously.

Hawkshaw shook his head, then pulled the brim of his hat down even more. He made his way past her, but the room was so small that he accidentally brushed his arm against hers as he headed toward the door.

The fleeting touch of his body was unexpectedly electric. Once again his gaze locked with hers, and the complexity she saw in those green depths shook her.

Quickly he glanced away, and then he was gone, striding down the little hall. She felt a strange, inner shudder. She’d read a profound resentment burning in his eyes, and she was sure it was resentment of her.

He did not want her and Charlie here. She had almost been scalded by the rancor she had felt flaring in him. Yet she sensed more than rancor in that swift, telling look. There had been something like desire, all the sharper for not being welcomed.

She knew because she had felt the same sensation; a sudden hot spark of sexual attraction that she disliked, and wanted to disclaim.

The slightly musty air of the room seemed to throb with his presence, even though he was gone. Don’t be asinine, she scolded herself. She was so tired that she was drugged by fatigue; it was making her imagine foolish things.

She sighed and bent over Charlie and finished untying his shoes. She slipped them off, loosened the button at the throat of his polo shirt. Then she shook him gently.

“Charlie,” she whispered. “Everything’s fine. We’re in Florida. Get up and go to the bathroom. Then you can go back to sleep.”

Charlie stirred grumpily. His long lashes fluttered open, and he squinted, frowning at her. He tried to roll over and ignore her.

But she persisted. She wanted him to know he was in a new place, but that he was safe and that she was there with him. Finally she roused him enough to lead him into the bathroom.

“We’re in Florida,” she told him, “with a man named Mr. Hawkshaw.”

“I don’t care,” Charlie grumbled.

“I want you to understand. We’re in Florida. With Mr. Hawkshaw. What did I just say?”

“Florida,” Charlie muttered. “Mr. Shocklaw.”

“Hawkshaw,” she repeated, taking him back to the bedroom. “There’s your bed. The bathroom’s right over there. I’ll leave the light on in case you have to get up.”

The boy climbed back into bed and struggled, frowning, to get between the sheets.

“Do you want your pajamas?”

“No,” he yawned. “Let me sleep.”

He fell back against the pillow, his eyes already closed.

Hawkshaw came in the door, carrying their few pieces of luggage. He set them down near the doorway. The fat basset hound, Maybelline, waddled behind him, her eyes wells of sorrow over what she had suffered.

Maybelline gave sadly accusing looks to both Kate and Hawkshaw. Then huffing and straining, she managed to clamber onto Charlie’s bed. She shot the two adults another aggrieved glance, then turned around several times and, with a grunt, plopped down beside Charlie.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Kate said. “The dog always sleeps with him. He’ll feel more at home if she—”

“No problem,” Hawkshaw said, cutting her off. He turned and left, closing the door behind him as if he was glad to have a barrier between them.

Kate sighed and sat on her own bed. She stared at the shut door and suddenly felt as if she were in prison.

If Hawkshaw found it so damned disagreeable to have them here, why on earth had he said they could come? He might be a fine bodyguard, a protector par excellence, but did he have to be so silent and surly and turbulent?

On top of it all, he had some weird sexiness, and he knew it. As if she, of all people, was going to go for the dangerous, mysterious type. No, thank you. If she ever got mixed up with another man, she hoped it was a mildmannered teddy bear of a fellow who gave off an aura of danger no greater than a marshmallow.

Oh, hell, she thought wearily. Why was she criticizing Hawkshaw? He might be edgy and rude, but he’d been good enough to take them in, hadn’t he? Perhaps she should no more blame him for his prickly coldness than she should blame an attack dog for being vicious.

She sighed, rose, and got ready for bed. She wouldn’t let this man get her spirits down. She simply would not allow it.

She left the bathroom light on and the door partly open, in case Charlie awoke. She turned out the overhead light and settled into the bed, which was surprisingly cool and soft.

From beneath the closed bedroom door came a wedge of yellow light, and there was the sound of music somewhere, muted and rather haunting. Hawkshaw must still be up.

She was stricken with a sudden, piercing memory of his sea-green eyes. No, my girl, none of that, she told herself firmly. She would not think that way.

The stalker had stolen a few small items from her—possessions that she had left near the doorstep or on her patio—nothing that seemed of great consequence.

But, in truth, he had stolen far larger things: her job, her home, her peace of mind. He had stripped trust from her life, especially trust of men. And along with it, he had thieved away desire.

HAWKSHAW SAT AT HIS father’s battered desk in the living room, going over the Kanaday woman’s file again. Now that he had met her and the kid, the case no longer seemed an abstraction, nor did they. They were flesh and blood.

Yes, he thought, and the reality of her was distracting, because all he wanted to think of was Sandra, who was marrying someone else and would never be his again.

Sandra, he thought hopelessly. The memory of her was always like a knife in the heart. He forced himself not to think of her sensual blondness. He made himself look instead at the fuzzy reproductions of the snapshots that Corbett had sent of Kate Kanaday. There were only three.

The first showed her and the kid sitting before a towering Christmas tree. The picture was dated two years ago. The kid, Charlie, was on Kate’s lap, mugging for the camera, and she was smiling with what seemed like real joy.

The camera didn’t love her, he told himself. Not the way it had loved and flattered Sandra.

But the smile—Kate Kanaday’s smile was nice, and it was full of the love of life. He wondered if she would ever smile that way again. He set the photos aside, face down.

He scanned the file again, looked at one of the notes from the stalker. The man had written:

I WANT TO TOUCH YOU EVERYWHERE. TO KISS YOU EVERYWHERE. TO EXPLORE EVERY INCH OF YOUR BODY. YOU WILL OPEN YOURSELF TO ME, AND CRY OUT WITH UNBEARABLE PLEASURE AT THE JOY MY BURNING THRUSTS WILL BRING YOU...

Hawkshaw shook his head in disgust. He knew what the police had probably told her, that guys who wrote such muck seldom acted on it. They got their jollies through the words and didn’t have to do the deeds.

But Hawkshaw knew this was not always true. He closed the file, pushed away from the old desk. He got to his feet and took another beer from the fridge. He went outside, to the deck.

The boards creaked beneath his feet. The deck was sagging and in disrepair like the rest of the property. He would have to make up his mind sooner or later: either fix up the house or tear it down for good.

He sipped the beer and stared off into the velvety darkness. This point of land was surrounded by tidal streams and mangrove islands. He heard the splash of a fish, perhaps even a dolphin, for dolphins sometimes came into the waters.

He inhaled deeply of the salt, humid air. He had spent much of his youth here, in this very house.

Now the house was decaying around him. He stared up at the featureless sky. Man-made dwellings were fragile in this climate; they took constant maintenance. Hawkshaw decided he was not good at maintaining things, at least the things that were supposed to belong to him.

He turned and looked at the lone light that shone from the farthest window. The woman had left the bathroom light on for the kid, a gesture that touched him in spite of himself.

Don’t be touched, he warned himself. Don’t feel anything. Don’t get involved.

The woman and kid had come into his life suddenly, and with luck they’d disappear just as suddenly. Until then, he’d watch out for them because they were a legacy from Corbett, a favor to be returned and a debt to be paid.

But nothing personal. Hawkshaw would stay uninvolved.

He had made it his specialty.

A RAGGED SCREAM WOKE KATE. In panic she raised herself on her elbow, staring about the strange room.

The morning’s first light poured between the curtains. Charlie slept in the bed next to hers, his brown hair dark against the white pillowcase. His breathing was even and deep.

Maybelline slept beside him, her squat body curled up against his legs. She opened one bloodshot eye, limply raised one ear. She sighed a doggy sigh.

The scream rent the air again, and Kate’s heart pounded in confused dismay. But Maybelline closed her eye, lowered her ear. Her body relaxed, and in the fraction of a moment, she snored.

The scream sounded again, this time farther away, and Kate thought, A seagull. That’s all. Seagulls make an awful sound like that.

It came back to her in a surreal rush that she and Charlie were somewhere in the Florida Keys. The realization jarred her, and she sank back against the pillow. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.

She and Charlie had arrived in Florida last night, and now they were hidden away with a friend of Corbett’s. And that friend was a tall, lean unfriendly man named Hawkshaw....

Her muscles stiffened at the recollection of Hawkshaw. Like Corbett, he had been in the Secret Service, and that, in truth, was almost all she knew about him.

She raised herself again on her elbow. She barely even knew where she and Charlie were, for God’s sake. She had better find out, because she was going to have to explain it all to Charlie. And prepare him for Hawkshaw.

The room was musty, and she thought she could smell the ocean—or was it the Gulf? Or both? She also imagined the aroma of coffee in the sultry air. Squinting at her watch, she saw that it was just after six; with luck Charlie should sleep for another hour.

She slid from bed, opened her suitcase and snatched up her toiletry case and a change of clothes. The face that stared back at her from the mirror startled her. She looked pale and uncertain of herself. She hated that uncertainty; it had once been so foreign to her.

She clambered into jeans and a pale-green T-shirt, put on her old running shoes, then slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the door open in case Charlie awoke. She cast a last, worried glance back at him, the dog still snoring by his side.

She padded down the hall. The living room looked as cluttered and disheveled as it had last night. Almost everything in it seemed dated, as if the contents had come from an era older than Hawkshaw’s own.

The kitchen was overcrowded, but she found a freshly brewed pot of coffee warming on the counter and a clean mug. She filled it and stepped to the front door.

She eased open the screen door and looked up and down the deck for Hawkshaw. Her heartbeat quickened as she saw him, sitting on a bench, hunched over a weathered picnic table. He had a manila folder open in front of him and seemed to be deep in study.

He sat in profile to her, a forelock of hair falling over his eyes. He wore olive drab shorts and that was all. The rest of him was as naked as the day God made him.

The morning sun was still mellow, and it spilled over on his shoulders, gleamed on the muscles of his back. His arms and legs were sinewed and bronzed, and she could see the tracery of veins that etched his biceps.

The azure-blue of the sky framed the sharp angles of his profile. He looked at ease with himself, as much a part of nature as an eagle or a stag might.

He did not look up at her, and not even his slightest motion betrayed that he knew she was there. But he said, “Hello, Katherine. Bring out your coffee and sit down. We have things to talk about. By the way, your socks don’t match.”

She blinked in surprise and her gaze fell involuntarily to her feet. On one foot was a navy-blue sock, on the other a black one.

Almost reluctantly she came to his side. She sat down on the bench as far from him as she could. He sipped at his coffee, but he didn’t look at her.

“How did you know I was there?” she demanded. “How did you know I had coffee? How did you know my socks don’t match? You never even saw me.”

“I saw you,” he said in his soft growl. “It’s my business to notice things. Or it was.”

He had shaved. The lean planes of his face were clean, and the scent of something piney hovered about him.

“How long did you say you and Corbett worked together?” she asked uneasily.

“Fourteen years,” he said.

He raised his eyes to hers. They were keen eyes, and for the first time she realized they also seemed intensely intelligent.

“But you don’t want to talk about me,” he said. “You want to talk about where you are. Right?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Charlie’s already confused about everything. Somehow I have to explain this to him.”

“Right,” he said, turning his gaze from her. He set down his coffee mug. From a stack of papers on the table’s corner he drew out a map.

He unfolded it and set it between them. “This chain of islands is the Lower Keys.”

He picked up a red pen. She noticed the long, jagged scar on his right arm. With the precision of an artist or an engineer, he circled the last island in the chain. “That’s Key West, where you landed.”

She nodded mechanically. A breeze sprang up. From the corner of her eye, she saw how it fluttered the lock of hair that fell over his forehead.

“We came up the one main road,” he said, tracing a line. “We’re here, Cobia Key. We’re at the edge of the heron sanctuary. More or less surrounded by mangrove islands. Like I say, we’re isolated.”

His gaze met hers again, and it seemed to her that it held a strange mixture of coolness, distance, and unwilling hunger. Uneasy, she turned her face from his and stared out at the dark tangle of the mangroves. “You’re alone here?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said in a tone that implied, And that’s how I like it.

She heard gulls crying in the distance, but she realized that this place was oddly still, almost hushed. The landscape did not seem tropical or exotic. Instead it seemed brooding, the mangrove forests full of mystery.

She had imagined Florida abloom with flowers and bright with colorfully plumaged birds. She had not envisioned these thick, low woods, deep with secrets. It was an alien atmosphere, and she took a drink of coffee to steel herself against it.

“What is this place?” she asked, giving the worn deck a critical glance.

“It used to be a guide service. Mostly kayak tours. Not anymore.”

She looked at him questioningly. “You bought this when—when you retired from the service?”

“I inherited it,” he said. “When my father died.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, although she could detect no sorrow, no grieving in him.

“It’s getting ready to fall down,” he said from between his teeth. He tapped the map with the pen again. “But that’s where you are. What’s left of Hawkshaw’s Island Adventures. In Nowhere, Florida.”

“Over there,” she said, nodding toward the patch of green-gray water glinting between the trees. “Is that the ocean?”

“No. Just a channel.”

Unexpectedly he stood. The tattered shorts rode low on his hips. He handed her the map, his hand brushing hers. She found that the touch made her draw in her breath.

“Look,” he said. “I’m not much of a host. I’m out of practice. But can I get you something to eat?” he asked. “More coffee?”

“No,” she said hastily. “I’m fine. But Charlie will probably be hungry. I wish I’d thought last night to ask you to stop, to let me buy a few things.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I put in plenty of supplies.”

Seeming restless, he moved to the edge of the deck and put his bare foot on the lower railing. He stared out over the trees.

“It’s going to get hot,” he said quietly. “Really hot. Can you feel it?”

CHAPTER THREE

THE BREEZE CHANGED DIRECTION, making the mangroves drone and sigh as if whispering ancient riddles.

Hawkshaw leaned his elbows on the top railing, not looking at her. The sun made his bare back and shoulders gleam like copper.

“So,” he said, “let’s talk about this mystery man, this stalker.”

Her stomach tightened. “I should go see if Charlie’s ready to wake up.”

“In a minute,” Hawkshaw said. “This guy—he’s been harassing you for a year and a half, right?”

“Yes.” And he’s brought me to this, she thought fatalistically. To depending on the kindness of strangers.

“You have no idea who he is?”

“None.” The word was a knot of gall in her throat. Suddenly, her future loomed before her with all its unspeakable uncertainty.

She was not even sure about her past. Was the stalker someone she knew? She had come to suspect, at one time or another, almost every man she knew.

Hawkshaw turned, almost lazily. He leaned back, his elbows resting on the railing. “So you went to Corbett.”

“I had to do something,” she said with a surge of spirit. “The police couldn’t help. I had to fight back someway.”

“You knew Corbett from before,” he said.

“Only in passing. His office—his and his partner’s—is in the same building as the bookstore. I checked him out. I heard his qualifications were excellent.”

“They are. Frankly, I’m amazed he hasn’t been able to ID this guy.”

She shook her head in frustration. “Every time he thinks he has a lead, it melts, turns into air. It’s like chasing a ghost.”

She knew that Corbett was good. But the stalker was better. Corbett had followed half a hundred clues and hunches, but they’d led only to half a hundred nowheres.

On Corbett’s advice, Kate had changed her phone number six times. She would have changed where she lived, but she could not find a buyer for the condo. She’d come to fear it would not matter if she did. The stalker would always find her, it seemed. She was stymied. So was Corbett.

Now, she who had prided herself on being so independent was on the run. By the harsh light of morning, it seemed an extraordinary and frantic move.

“You told nobody you were leaving Columbia?” he asked.

“Nobody,” she said. “Except my friend in Denver. I said we’d be coming soon. But I didn’t tell her where we’d be until then. I didn’t know myself.”

“And Corbett told nobody,” he said. “Not even his partner?”

“Not even him,” Kate said. She liked Corbett, but not his partner, Bedlingham. Bedlingham was married but flirtatious; to her it seemed he always exuded an air of sly, forbidden sexuality.

“And Corbett’s checked out the men closest to you?”

“Yes,” she said, although there weren’t that many.

George Chandler, her husband’s stepfather. George lived in the city, but he and Chuck had fallen out years ago. They had not socialized, had hardly spoken to each other.

There was Chuck’s brother, Trevor. Trevor lived in Minneapolis, where he was confined to his house because of multiple allergies and never went out. She communicated with him mostly by e-mail because it was cheaper than phoning. She felt guilty, for she had lied to him about what she was doing. She had told him she was taking the computer in for repair and would be out of touch.

And there was her former boss, the bookstore owner, Winston McPhee. McPhee was a kind, fatherly man who’d promised he’d take her back when it could be done. But the stalker had made McPhee’s life hellish with jealous calls day and night, and he’d disrupted the business until Kate knew she had to leave.

“Your father-in-law,” Hawkshaw said. “Your brother-in-law. Your former employer. Corbett’s checked them out. And they seem clean?”

“Yes,” she said, ashamed because at one time she’d suspected each of them. But she had come to look on every man she met with suspicion these days. It was a tense, terrible way to live.

“Corbett says it could be somebody I don’t know at all,” she said. “Or somebody I’ve known for years.”

Her gaze drifted to the picnic table. The breeze rustled the papers in a file folder that lay open next to a black ball cap.

With an unpleasant shock, she recognized the top page—a copy of one of the stalker’s notes. She knew those hideous notes by heart.

This one said,

I SAW YOU TODAY. YOU WERE WEARING YOUR GREEN PANTSUIT AND BLACK JACKET. IN MY MIND I TOOK OFF YOUR CLOTHES. I WANTED YOU SO MUCH IT WAS LIKE POISON IN MY VEINS. I IMAGINED YOU NAKED AND KNEELING BEFORE ME. THIS IS WHAT YOU DID—

She realized that Hawkshaw had read these filthy notes, and her face blazed with shame. Hastily she rose from the bench.

“I’d better go see about Charlie,” she said. “If he wakes up in a strange room...”

“If he wakes up in a strange room, what?”

“He’ll be upset. Charlie has—a few problems. He has an attention deficiency.”

She nodded, rather bitterly, toward the papers on the table. “Corbett seems to have told you everything else. Didn’t he tell you that?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Maybe not to you,” she said defensively. “But it makes it harder for him to adjust to change than it is for most children. He doesn’t understand any of this—”

Hawkshaw shrugged one shoulder, as if what she said didn’t matter. “He’ll have breathing space here.”

He obviously didn’t understand, didn’t want to. “Listen,” she said, her voice brittle, “I’m not asking any favors for myself. But you might show a little sympathy for Charlie. He’s only a child, he has special needs, this is a horrible situation.”

“I happen,” he said coolly, “to be rather good with kids.”

I’ll bet, she thought. I’ll just bet.

The breeze tossed Hawkshaw’s hair, flapped the worn cloth of his shorts. He crossed his arms across his chest. He tilted his head in the direction of the stalker’s notes.

“Katherine,” he said, “you think I haven’t seen letters like that before? I have. Plenty of them. You can stop blushing.”

She didn’t want to hear more. She turned and took refuge in the quiet of his strange, disordered house.

CHARLIE’S EYES FLUSTERED open, struggled to focus. Mama leaned over him, smiling. An instant uneasiness swept over him.

These days Mama’s smile was different than it used to be, it no longer seemed real or alive. The smile was like a mask. Charlie could not explain this, he only knew it was true.

“We’re here, Charlie,” Mama said. Her voice was cheerful, but her eyes weren’t. “We’re in Florida. We got here last night. You were asleep—”

Charlie sat up, frowning and rubbing his eyes. She had told him yesterday they had to go to Florida, she had showed him meaningless shapes on a map, she had said a lot of words. Now she was saying them again.

You’re in Florida.

Florida seemed to be a room that was little and not very nice and smelled funny. He didn’t like it. He wanted to go home.

He rubbed his eyes harder, till he saw colored sparks whirl and swoop across his vision. Then he stopped. Warily he opened his eyes again.

Florida was still there, the whole room of it. And the scary thing about Florida was that it was different from all he knew. His bed was not really his bed. The walls were not his walls, the window not his window.

“This house belongs to a man named Mr. Hawkshaw,” Mama said. “Mr. Hawkshaw’s a friend of Mr. Corbett. You remember Mr. Corbett? He drove us to the airport—”

The mask of Mama’s bright smile made Charlie feel something was badly wrong. Her words beat against his ears the way moths beat against a screen at night. Like moths, the words wanted in, but they couldn’t get in.

Charlie stared at the curtains as if hypnotized. They were not his real curtains with the pictures of the Star Wars people on them. These curtains were ugly-brown with blue-and-white fishes on them. The fishes had little blue dots for eyes.

Mama was still talking, her words softly going bat, bat, bat. She had him up, leading him to a bathroom that was not his real bathroom. Her words couldn’t get inside his head. He was too busy looking at all the different things, all the wrong things, all the Florida things, in this bathroom.

The wallpaper was enough to make him dizzy. There were more fishes on it, silly pink-and-yellow fish on a watery green background. He felt as if he were underwater, that Florida had turned him into a fish-boy.

“Hello,” he called in his mind to the other fish. “Hello, I’m a boy who’s trapped here. How do I get back home?”

“Swim, you must swim very hard,” said a pale-yellow fish. “You must swim with all your might. ”

“Charlie, stand still!” Mama ordered. “Just brush your teeth.”

“I’m swimming home,” Charlie said around his toothbrush. His arms made wild windmill motions, as if he were swimming at a heroic pace.

He imagined he was friends with all the fish. He began to sing “Under the Sea.” He imagined himself singing and dancing with all the fish and a big red lobster and pretty little mermaids.

His mother told him to quiet down, but her words were only more moths flying airily around his head. “Under the sea,” he sang and did a fancy fish-dance step. “Under the se-e-a—”

Mama said something about breakfast. She pulled a clean shirt down over his head.

Help! thought Charlie. I can’t see! I can’t breathe! Mama’s a sea witch! She’s put me in a bag!

But he sputtered out of the neck hole of his shirt, safe again. “To the kitchen—” said Mama, opening the door into a hallway. From the first look, he didn’t like this hallway. It was long and narrow and different—it was more of nasty Florida.

But fat old Maybelline was up now, and she wanted out. She waddled down the hallway, her short regs chugging, her ears nearly trailing on the ground.

Charlie the fish-boy swam behind her, his arms churning again. “Glub,” he said. “Glub-glub.” He pretended Maybelline was a squid and that he was following her.

Then he was out of the sea and into a living room, and wow, it wasn’t his living room, it was really different—not all neat like Mama kept their place, and there was stuff everywhere!

He stopped to gape. His mind spun, trying to take it all in as his eyes danced from one object to another. Such a wealth of things! A cascade of things—fishing poles, a net with a handle, a tackle box, an oar, hooks, bobbers, flies, weights, a hundred things that he had no names for.

“Cool!” Charlie breathed. He felt dizzy with wonder. He looked up at a big fish stuffed and mounted on a wall. Was it a shark? It was, it was a shark, he was sure of it—what a paradise of stuff.

“Way cool!”

He reached toward a fishing pole, the biggest fishing pole he’d ever seen. Surely such a pole was used to catch whales!

“Charlie, don’t,” his mother warned, pulling his hand back. “That’s Mr. Hawkshaw’s. Come on. Let’s take Maybelline outside. Then we’ll find some breakfast.”

But Charlie couldn’t help himself. He picked up a colorful fishing lure with all sorts of bright mirror-things glittering on it. It had red plastic tentacles like an octopus—it even had little eyes!

“Charlie!” his mother said sternly.

But the lure was too wonderful, and he was turning it over and over until it bit him—

“Yow!” Charlie sprang back, dropping the lure. A bright drop of blood welled at the tip of his thumb. “I’m stabbed!” he cried. “I been stabbed by an octopus!”

“You should mind your mother, kid,” said a man’s voice.

Something in that voice paralyzed Charlie. A lion-voice , he thought wildly. I hear a lion-voice.

He turned and saw a big, tall man standing in the doorway. This man looked like a superhero to Charlie, except he was dressed strangely. All he wore were shorts and a black baseball cap. His skin was tawny-brown all over, like a lion’s. Charlie stared up at this wondrous being.

“Charlie, now you’ve hurt yourself,” his mother said, but he barely heard her. He was too busy looking at the superhero.

“Let me see your hand,” Mama fussed, but the words fluttered in confusion at his ears. They didn’t really register. He shook off Mama’s questing hand.

“Let’s see, Charlie,” the tall man said, kneeling beside him. He took Charlie by the hand and squinted at the bleeding thumb.

“I was bit by an octopus,” Charlie said, hoping to impress him. “Maybe I’ll die of octopus poison.”

“I doubt it,” said the man. “Come over to the sink. We’ll wash it and put on some antiseptic.”

“It hurts,” Charlie said, “but I’m not crying. See?” He pointed at his tearless eyes.

“I see,” said the tall man, rising to his feet. He was so tall his head seemed to almost touch the ceiling. He kept hold of Charlie’s hand and led him to the cluttered sink.

“Wow,” Charlie breathed, looking up at him. “Maybe I’ll have a big, massive scar.”

“Maybe,” said the man, running cold water on the stinging thumb. “You should have minded your mother.”

Charlie ignored the advice. He also ignored his mother, who stood by with an oddly disapproving look on her face. He would fix her for bringing him to this old Florida. He’d fix her by liking the tall man better than he liked her—so there.

“Who are you?” Charlie asked. “How come you don’t got no shirt?”

“Don’t have any shirt,” his mother corrected, but he hardly noticed.

“My name’s Hawkshaw,” said the man. “I don’t have a shirt because I don’t need one. This is the Florida Keys. It’s warm all year.”

“Then why do you have a hat?” Charlie asked.

“To keep the sun out of my eyes,” said the man, picking up the antiseptic. “Hold still. This is going to hurt.”

“I won’t cry,” Charlie vowed, but the smarting of the medicine made him dance in place.

“Charlie,” his mother asked, “do you need a bandage on your thumb?”

Charlie didn’t answer. He just gazed up, up, up at Hawkshaw. Hawkshaw, it was a good name, he thought. Like Batman. Or Rambo. Or Han Solo.

Hawkshaw’s cap was black with white letters. “What’s your hat say?” he demanded.

“I don’t think he needs a Band-Aid,” Hawkshaw told Mama. To Charlie he said, “It says United States Secret Service.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “Secret Service? Like the guys who guard the president?”

“Yeah,” Hawkshaw said in the purr-growl of his lion’s voice. “Like that.”

Charlie was swept up by excitement. “Are you in the Secret Service?”

“I was,” Hawkshaw said easily. “What say we take this dog out? She’s standing cross-legged, she has to pee so bad.”

Charlie saw his mother leading the dog outside, but the fact hardly registered. He was too rapt with admiration. “Did you have a gun and everything?”

“A gun and everything,” Hawkshaw said. “Come on. Your mother’s doing all the work.” He headed for the door and Charlie followed as if fastened to him by a string.

“Did you ever guard the president?” Charlie asked in awe.

“Sometimes,” Hawkshaw said. “Mostly I guarded other people.”

“Did you ever shoot anybody?” Charlie asked hopefully. “Did anybody ever shoot you?”

Hawkshaw’s lean face seemed to grow leaner, starker and sterner. “Outside, kid,” he ordered, holding the door.

And Charlie, dutiful as a page in training to a great knight, obeyed.

IN THE YARD, next to a cluster of flowering shrubs, Maybelline squatted modestly. Kate stared off in the opposite direction, trying to seem too dignified to notice.

She saw Hawkshaw come out on the deck. He tilted back the bill of his cap and stared down at her.

Self-conscious, Kate tried to ignore him. She was a mess, of course. She was pale with a Northerner’s pallor, and she hadn’t fastened her hair back, done anything to it except brush it.

Her jeans were baggy, her shirt mannish, and Hawkshaw probably wondered why anyone, least of all a stalker, would want her.

His gaze seemed to settle on the slight thrust of her breasts under the shirt, and, in embarrassment, she looked away. She was imagining things, she told herself. And if she wasn’t, the last thing she needed was anybody’s sexual interest. She’d had enough for a lifetime.

Her son was chattering a mile a minute to the man, and Hawkshaw answered with grunts and nods. But when she stole a glimpse at him, she saw his eyes were still on her.

Maybelline plodded a few steps into the shade and sat down among the deep-red phlox. Delicately, she began to gnaw at her haunch, as if besieging a flea.

Kate knelt beside her, slipping her arm around the dog affectionately. She nuzzled one of the velvety ears. Maybelline kept pursuing the flea.

Kate raised her eyes and stared toward the patch of sea that showed between the trees. The sun beat on her face, and she thought of Charlie, who was as fair-skinned as she. The both of them would need hats and sunscreen, or they’d be burned and blistered.

She turned to look at Charlie again and saw Hawkshaw take off his own cap and adjust it to make it tighter. “Here, kid,” he said, setting it on Charlie’s head. “You want to wear this?”

“Wow,” Charlie breathed, reverently fingering the bill. “You’ll let me?”

“Sure,” said Hawkshaw.

The boy smiled more widely than Kate had seen him smile in weeks. She swallowed.

He was a nice-looking boy, she thought, handsome, even. He had his father’s straight brown hair and angular, masculine features. But his eyes were the same color brown as hers, and in them shone a lively intelligence, a bright imagination.

But sometimes, because of his attention deficit, Charlie’s liveliness was too unfettered; it needed taming.

It seemed profoundly unfair to her that the boy had faced so many problems. The loss of his father, the insanity of her being stalked, his own disability—some—times her feelings of protectiveness for him almost overwhelmed her.

Hawkshaw turned his attention back to Kate. She dropped her gaze to the dog and started to unfasten the leash.

“Wait,” Hawkshaw ordered. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

She looked up, surprise mingled with resentment. His tone had been abrupt, even imperious.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

He made his way down the narrow stairs, Charlie tagging behind him like a puppy.

“I just wouldn’t let her off yet,” Hawkshaw said. “The Keys aren’t like the city. Nature gets a little snarky down here.”

“Snarky?” she asked dubiously. It seemed an unlikely word for him to use.

“Dangerous,” he amended. “Come on. Let’s walk her around the yard. I’ll explain what I mean.”

“Look at me, Mama,” Charlie said, fairly dancing before her, adjusting the oversize cap on his head. “I’m a Secret Service man—I guard people.”

He dived on the unsuspecting Maybelline and caught her in a possessive embrace. “You’re a spy!” he informed the startled dog. “I got you!”

Maybelline sighed, martyrlike, and let him wrestle her to the ground. Kate stared down at the boy in shock. “Charlie! Where’s your shirt?”

He had been wearing a shirt only a moment before, she was certain of it. Now his thin, white back was as bare as Hawkshaw’s tanned one.

“Charlie, Charlie,” Kate said, pulling him off the dog. “I asked you—where’s your shirt?”

“I don’t remember,” he said carelessly. He picked up a stick and aimed it into the trees like a gun. “Bang!” he yelled. “Stick ’em up—you’re under arrest!”

Kate knelt before him and pushed the stick down firmly. “Why?” she said, very clearly, very carefully. “Why did you take off your shirt?”

“I don’t have a shirt because I don’t need one,” Charlie said, echoing Hawkshaw exactly. “This is the Florida Keys. It’s warm all year.”

She looked back toward the deck and saw the boy’s polo shirt lying inside out on the bottom stair. He had stripped it off and tossed it aside.

“Charlie,” Kate said firmly, “you have to wear a shirt. You’ll get a sunburn—a bad one.”

“I don’t need one,” the boy repeated stubbornly. “This is Florida.” He adjusted the cap again and looked up at Hawkshaw with shining eyes. “I like Florida better than I did,” he said.

Hawkshaw put his hands on his hips. “Charlie, your mother’s right. Put your shirt back on. Go on. Do it.”

Charlie stood, his face indecisive for a moment. Then he brightened and said, “Okay.” He dashed away and ran back to the stairs. He struggled with his shirt and at last got it on, but inside out.

Kate dropped the dog’s leash, rose to her feet and gave Hawkshaw a sarcastic look. She strode to where Charlie twisted and wriggled. She pulled the shirt off and then expertly put it on him again, right side out.

He jammed the hat back on his head and ran over to Hawkshaw. “I got my shirt on, see?” he said eagerly.

Hawkshaw nodded, keeping his face impassive. “That’s good,” he said. “A boy should mind his mother.”

Kate picked up Maybelline’s leash. She made her voice controlled, almost frosty. “You were going to give us the safety tour, Mr. Hawkshaw?”

“Yes,” Hawkshaw said. “Now the Keys are a special environment. This island we’re on—”

“We’re on an island?” Charlie interrupted, tugging at Hawkshaw’s bare knee. “An island? Where’s the ocean?”

Hawkshaw pointed between the trees. “Over there,” he said.

“I can’t see it,” Charlie almost wailed in disappointment. “Where?”

Hawkshaw hoisted him up easily, so the boy’s head was as high as his own. “Over there. See it?”

“Oh,” Charlie said with disappointment. “I thought it’d be bigger.”

Hawkshaw laughed. “It is bigger. You can’t see much of it from here, that’s all.”

“Can we go closer?” Charlie begged.

“Sure,” Hawkshaw said. “Why not? You better ride on my shoulders. There’s poisonwood between here and there. You’ll have to learn how to identify it, stay away from it.”

“Poisonwood?” Charlie asked, charmed at the exotic and dangerous sound of it.

“Yeah. I’ll show you.” Hawkshaw let the boy settle on his shoulders. He turned to Kate, who stood, holding the dog’s leash and eyeing him warily. “You should come, too,” he said. “You need to learn these things.”

“Then by all means,” she said with a shrug, “let the lesson begin.”

For the first time, he smiled at her, the barest curve at one corner of his lip. He seemed to be saying, You have a problem with this, lady? He moved off through the trees, Charlie on his shoulders.

She felt a strange, primal emotion surge deep within her, a feeling so foreign that at first she didn’t recognize it. And when she recognized it, she was ashamed.

Even when her husband had been alive, Charlie was very much her child. Since Chuck’s death, it had seemed like her and Charlie, the two of them, together against the world. She was used to being the most important person in the boy’s life.

Now, in a matter of moments, he had fallen under the spell of Hawkshaw—Hawkshaw, of all people. And Kate, suddenly relegated to second place in the boy’s regard, was shocked to feel the sting of jealousy.

CHAPTER FOUR

IN HAWKSHAW’S BOYHOOD, Cobia Key had been wild and solitary, and it had suited him; he had been wild and solitary himself.

Now he felt the slight weight of the boy on his shoulders and remembered being carried by his own father the same way in this same place. He remembered how his father had introduced him to this mysterious land that could be at once both beautiful and fearful.

The famous Keys highway had run through Cobia to end in Key West, its tipsy and not quite respectable final destination. But in those days hardly anyone stopped in Cobia, for it seemed there was nothing to stop for.

But the island had its inhabitants. They were few but hardy, independent souls who relished Cobia’s privacy and its isolation for their own reasons, sometimes legal, sometimes not.

Over the years, while Hawkshaw had been gone, the edges of Cobia’s splendid loneliness had been eaten away. The highway through it now sported an ugly restaurant, an uglier motel, and a small but hideous strip mall.

A new housing subdivision had grown up along the open water, concrete dwellings colored in pastels like different flavors of ice cream. They looked as if they were made for mannequins, not people, and Hawkshaw didn’t like them.

He was glad that here, in the backcountry, the wilderness remained, and so did the loneliness.

He walked across the weedy yard, conscious that the loneliness was violated now by the boy and his mother. He was an unwilling host, and they were his unwilling guests.

He might begrudge their presence, but he would have to make the best of it. He would begin by pointing out the boundaries and setting the rules. The woman beside him walked gingerly and so did the basset hound, like the city creatures they were.

“There,” Hawkshaw said to Charlie. He pointed at a tall, spindly tree on the opposite side of the tidal stream. “That’s a poisonwood tree. You don’t want to touch any part of it or put it in your mouth. You have to memorize how it looks, the big shiny leaves, the black splotches on the bark.”

“Wow,” Charlie breathed, clearly awed. “Will it kill you?”

“No, it’s more like poison ivy. But it makes some people pretty sick,” said Hawkshaw. “So steer clear of anything that looks like it. That’s an order.”

Kate Kanaday shifted uneasily and gripped the dog’s leash more tightly. “Snakes,” she said. “There are snakes here, aren’t there?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hawkshaw said. “Coral snakes. And cottonmouths. And rattlesnakes.”

“Rattlesnakes—that’s awesome,” Charlie said. “Can we catch one?”

“No, you certainly can’t,” Kate said. “If you see a snake, don’t even think of touching it—run.”

Hawkshaw glanced down at her. Her pallor clearly marked her as an outsider to this world of perpetual summer. But the sunshine did dazzling things to her hair, making it glint with live sparks of red and gold.

“There are plenty of harmless snakes,” Hawkshaw said, looking away. “You just have to learn to tell which is which.”

“Yeah, Mama,” Charlie said enthusiastically. “You just have to learn to tell which is which.”

“I don’t care what it is,” she said, putting her fist on her hip. “If you see one, run.”

Charlie bent down to Hawkshaw’s ear and said in a conspiratorial voice, “Girls are sissies.”

Kate looked both crestfallen and insulted. “Charlie!” she said, “That’s not true.”

“Your mother’s not a sissy,” Hawkshaw said. “But she’s right. Don’t mess with a snake if you don’t know what it is.”

“Can you tell a poison one from a good one?” Charlie asked.

“Yes,” said Hawkshaw.

“Who taught you?” Charlie demanded.

“My—” Hawkshaw hesitated. He’d almost slipped into his old Southern speech habits and said, My daddy. He corrected himself and said, “My father. I grew up here. This was his house.”

“And your mother’s?” Charlie said brightly.

“No. She never lived here.”

“Where is she, then?” Charlie asked with a child’s bluntness. “Did she die?”

“No,” said Hawkshaw. “She lives someplace else, that’s all.”

“Well, where?” Charlie insisted.

“Montreal.” A cold place for a cold woman, his father had always said. Hawkshaw’s father hadn’t been able to hang on to the woman he’d loved, and Hawkshaw had rather despised him for it. Now history had repeated itself, like a bad joke. Like father, like son.

“Montreal,” Charlie mused. “Did your father go there, too?”

“Charlie—” Kate began, her tone warning.

“No. My father’s dead,” Hawkshaw said. He had no taste for sugarcoating the expression nor did the kid seem to want it.

“Did he die of a brain attack?” Charlie asked. “Mine did.”

“Charlie—” Kate warned again.

“No,” Hawkshaw said. “Not that.”

“Then what?” Charlie asked, all amiable curiosity.

“Something else,” Hawkshaw said vaguely. Drinking, he thought. He died from the drinking.

Hawkshaw had never been sure if his mother had left because his father drank, or if his father drank because his mother had left. It was odd. After all these years, he still didn’t know.

“Well, what?” Charlie persisted. “Did a snake bite him? Did a shark eat him?”

“No,” said Hawkshaw. “He just died, that’s all.”

Kate looked humiliated by this exchange. “That’s enough, Charlie.” To Hawkshaw she said, “I’m sorry. He doesn’t mean to pry.”

Hawkshaw changed the subject. He turned so that he and the boy could see where the tidal stream ended and the ocean began. “That’s the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, pointing out toward the open water. “Can you swim, kid?”

“No, he can hardly swim at—” Kate began.

“Some,” Charlie contradicted. “I can swim a little.”

“Well, don’t go near the water without a life jacket until you can swim a lot,” said Hawkshaw.

“Can you swim a lot?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah,” Hawkshaw said. “I can.”

“You could teach me,” Charlie said.

“Charlie,” Kate almost wailed, “stop bothering Mr. Hawkshaw.”

“Somebody needs to teach me,” Charlie told her righteously. “And you can hardly swim at all.”

Hawkshaw studied Kate, raising a critical eyebrow. She’d probably never swum in anything other than a chlorinated pool in her life or seen any water creature more fearsome than a duck in a park pond.

He saw the worry in her eyes, and he saw the questions.

“These are dangerous waters,” he said.

“How dangerous?” Charlie asked, delighted.

Hawkshaw realized his gaze had been locked too long with the woman’s, reading too many things in it. She didn’t want to depend on him, but she had no choice. He hoped she understood that he intended to take care of her and the boy.

But she could probably also read a reluctant hunger in his eyes. He wondered if she knew how primitive and selfish that hunger was. The only reason I would want you is because I can’t have Sandra.

“How dangerous?” Charlie repeated, insistent.

“Very dangerous,” Hawkshaw said, “if you don’t understand them.”

He shifted the boy to a more secure position. “Come on. I’ll show you the boundaries of the land. We’ll worry about the water later.”

CORBETT HAD PROMISED to call at twelve noon, Florida time. The crawling hours seemed like eons to Kate. This morning, she’d been able to make Charlie settle down only long enough to eat a few spoonfuls of cereal and sip distractedly at a glass of orange juice.

The orange juice was fresh, squeezed that morning by Hawkshaw himself on an old machine that looked like a medieval torture device. He said the oranges were picked only yesterday.

Kate found this a small comfort. She felt anchorless, cast adrift. She had left behind everything and everyone except Charlie, and at the moment even Charlie seemed to have deserted her.

The boy was besotted with hero worship; he couldn’t get enough of Hawkshaw. He followed him like a dog and echoed him like a parrot.

Kate had fought down her first, unexpected wave of jealousy and was now working on her second. She had figured Hawkshaw would tire quickly of having Charlie underfoot; after all, with her he was such a prickly, private man.

But with Charlie, he seemed to have almost infinite patience. He was out on the ramshackle dock now, teaching the boy to use some fishing contraption he called a Cuban reel. He seemed prepared to answer any question Charlie had, so long as it wasn’t too personal, and had promised him a kayak ride tomorrow, if Kate would go along.

The kayak looked like a long, glorified floating banana to Kate. It was made of polystyrene and seemed no more substantial than a child’s toy. She had no desire to get into such a flimsy craft nor to float over the mysterious, brackish water.

Hawkshaw’s catalogue of hideous things that dwelled in the water was as intimidating as it was lengthy: water snakes, eels, sea slugs, rays, barracudas, alligators, sharks and poison jellyfish. Each item on the list enchanted Charlie as much as it repelled her.

Kate sat moodily on the deck, watching the man teach the boy to tie a hook onto his line. Charlie still wore the black Secret Service cap and had colored sunscreen on his nose.

Maybelline had deserted the scene of all this male bonding and lay beside Kate’s chair. Kate stared out at the brooding water and the dark mangroves and was haunted by two sinister lines of poetry:

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

Yet, she had to admit the place had a strange beauty, somehow both dangerous and serene.

When the phone rang at precisely noon, she tensed and automatically rose from her chair. But she was supposed to wait for Hawkshaw. She was not, under any circumstances, to answer the phone herself.

At the first ring, he came bolting up the stairs at remarkable speed. The man’s reflexes, she marveled, were hair-trigger. He slammed into the kitchen with her and a panting Charlie at his heels. He himself was not an iota out of breath.

He snatched up the receiver and leaned almost languidly against the counter. “Hawkshaw here,” he said, his voice so level it seemed emotionless.

He listened for a moment, keeping his face impassive. Then his mouth crooked down at the corner. “Ask her yourself,” he said.

His expression blank again, he handed the receiver to Kate. “It’s Corbett,” he said. He touched Charlie’s shoulder. “Come on, kid. Let’s fish.”

Charlie beamed as Kate took the phone, but his grin wasn’t for her. He had eyes only for Hawkshaw. The two of them went out, and the screen door banged behind them.

Kate, an orderly person, winced at the sound. “Hello,” she said into the phone. “We made it. We’re here.”

“I know,” said Corbett. “He phoned me last night as soon as he saw the two of you get off the plane. Didn’t he say?”

Kate blinked in surprise. “No. He hasn’t told me much at all. Including that.”

Corbett chuckled. “That’s Hawkshaw. He plays it close to the vest.”

He doesn’t wear a vest, Kate wanted to retort. He wears hardly anything.

Instead, she said, “You didn’t tell me you were sending us to the Great Dismal Swamp. This place is precisely in the middle of nowhere.”

“The middle of nowhere is where you need to be,” Corbett said. “How are the accommodations?”

Kate glanced ruefully around the cluttered kitchen. “‘Primitive’ might be the word.”

“And your host?”

“‘Primitive’ might still be the word. I think I can teach him to say, ‘Me Tarzan.’ I’ll pass on telling him ‘Me Jane.’”

Corbett laughed again. “He said after twenty years of suits, ties, and protocol, he was going back to nature again. Sounds like he did.”

“More than I can tell you,” said Kate, not in admiration.

“He deserves it,” Corbett said.

“I offered to clean up his house and he nearly bit my head off,” Kate said. This was an exaggeration, but when she’d raised the subject, Hawkshaw had been curt.

“You’ll get used to him. How’s Charlie like him? Just fine. I bet.”

“Just fine would be putting it too mildly,” Kate said from between her teeth. “Charlie’s—quite taken.”

“Oh, yeah,” Corbett said, “he’s great with kids, always was. A legend in his time.”

“Doesn’t he—” she hesitated, curious but not wanting to appear so “—he doesn’t have any of his own?”

Hawkshaw was in his early forties by her reckoning; he might well have children who were grown up by now. Even grandchildren, she thought, rather shocked at the idea.

“No, he never did,” said Corbett. “Damned shame.”

She chose her words with care, said them as casually as she could. “But he’s been married?”

“Hawkshaw? Lord, yes. Most married man I ever knew.”

What’s that mean? she wondered in bewilderment. “But he’s alone now? What happened?”

“Divorce,” Corbett said. “It goes along with the territory too often, with the Secret Service. But it’s not my place to talk about his private life.”

But you told him all about mine, Kate thought rebelliously, then was ashamed of herself. Corbett was an honorable man who had done everything in his power to help her.

She said, “Where are you calling from? A pay phone?”

“Yes.”

She suppressed a sigh. The stalker knew so much about her that Corbett believed it was possible the man could be tapping into phone lines, even Corbett’s own. To be safe, Corbett had been keeping in touch with Hawkshaw through pay phones chosen at random.

Squaring her shoulders, she said, “Any leads, Corbett? I’d love to call this trip off and come home.”

“Sorry, Kate. If the stalker knows you’re gone, he’s given no sign. You need to stay put for the time being. You’re in good hands.”

I don’t want to be in anybody’s hands. Except my own.

But she forced herself to be calm, businesslike. “You’ve checked my apartment? Nothing on my answering machine?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. An insurance salesman. A call from some woman named Mitzi, says she’s in your reading group.”

Kate winced. Her reading group, which met once a month to discuss a current book, had been the only adult social life she’d had left. But she’d skipped it for so long that it already seemed part of a distant past.

“Any significant mail?”

“Mostly junk,” said Corbett. “A notice from your vet. Maybelline’s due for some kind of shot and checkup.”

“Drat,” she said. “I forgot. She’s got a bad hip and a weird allergy. She has to have her shots or she gets all achy and itchy. I’ll have to find a vet here. If I can find one that doesn’t specialize in alligators.”

“Let me know if you need her records sent. I’ll get it done.”

“Thanks,” she said, her throat suddenly tight. “I appreciate it. I appreciate you.”

“Kate—I’m sorry it’s come to this. That you and Charlie have to suffer this dislocation. I wish it were different. This guy’s long overdue to make a slip. If he does, I’ll do everything in my power to get him.”

“I know you will.”

“Take care, Kate.”

“Corbett?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful yourself. He may get angry at you when he finds out I’m gone.”

“Hey, let me do the worrying for a while. You’ve held the monopoly on it too long.”

After Kate hung up, she missed the sound of Corbett’s familiar voice, felt a rush of loneliness for home. But, she told herself sternly, homesickness was futile. It was good for nothing.

“This guy’s long overdue to make a slip,” Corbett had said. “If he does, I’ll do everything in my power to get him.”

“If,” Kate murmured. That was the word that cast such a long, cold shadow over her life and Charlie’s, even in the bright sunshine of Florida.

HAWKSHAW LIKED THE KID. He had a quick, lively mind, although sometimes it was too lively for the boy’s own good; Hawkshaw had seen that immediately.

He decided the best strategy for the day would be to keep the kid too busy to notice how troubled his mother was. Kate Kanaday might toss her fiery hair and speak with a tart confidence, but she was worried, deeply so.

She’d sat on the deck much of the morning with a book she didn’t read, mostly looking off into the distance like a sad princess held prisoner in a tower.

Hawkshaw knew the dark mangrove islands and the twisting tidal streams could make some people feel closed in, even trapped. The backcountry seemed both marsh and jungle to them, its heart full of shadows.

When Kate came out of the kitchen after Corbett’s phone call, she went to the far corner of the deck. She stood, staring out longingly toward the one small, distant glimpse of open ocean.

Beside him, Charlie was solemnly reeling in his line to check his bait.

“Let’s go out for lunch today.” Hawkshaw told the boy gruffly. “To celebrate your first day here. And see a little more of the Keys. What say?”

“Will we see the ocean?” Charlie asked, looking up at him eagerly. The boy had his mother’s eyes, so deeply brown they seemed almost black. They gave Hawkshaw a strange twinge.

“We might see some of it,” Hawkshaw said, and gave the bill of the boy’s cap a teasing tug. “Go wash your hands.”

Hawkshaw decided to take them in his father’s disreputable convertible, an ancient Thunderbird that was partly robin’s-egg-blue, but mostly red with rust. The kid immediately fell in love and clambered into the back seat and buckled his seat belt. The woman eyed the car as if it were the wreck of a particularly sinister flying saucer, but she got in.

Hawkshaw gunned the big motor and took the winding road back to Highway 1. He headed for his favorite fish and chips shack, with outside tables overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

They had conch fritters and French fries, and for dessert slices of tart Key lime pie topped with clouds of meringue. Charlie was enchanted by a brassy old seagull who would skydive for French fries tossed into the air. Kate smiled to see the kid laugh, but her smile was sad, and she said little.

After lunch, Hawkshaw drove farther north to the beach at Bahia Hondo. He disliked the beach because it always teemed with people, but it was a good beach for a kid to learn to play in the sea, to literally get his feet wet. The water was shallow for a long way out, and the bottom mostly sandy and smooth.

Charlie ran ahead of them, darting right and left, dashing into thigh-deep water, then wading, laughing back.

The tide was going out, the water was calm, and a soft breeze stirred the afternoon heat. Kate and Hawkshaw strolled barefoot at the edge of the surf, ankle deep in the cool, foaming water.

They walked against the breeze, and Hawkshaw tried not to notice the way the soft wind sculpted Kate’s pale-green shirt to her breasts. She’d plaited her hair into one gleaming braid, but strands had come loose and fluttered about her face like delicate streamers of fire.

Overhead the gulls shrieked and squabbled in flocks, but the more majestic birds wheeled alone, aloof from them and from each other.

“Hawkshaw! Hawkshaw! What’s that?” Charlie cried. He nearly danced in the surf as he pointed upward at an elegant black shape sailing high in the blue.

“A frigate bird,” Hawkshaw told him. “They call it the ‘magnificent’ frigate bird.”

Charlie stood, staring up for a moment, then ran on, playing tag with the waves.

Kate put her hands in the pockets of her shorts and cast him a sideways look. “How many times today have you heard that?”

“Heard what?” he said.

He’d put on a shirt for her benefit, but now he unbuttoned it and let it blow back in the wind. He liked the feel of the salt wind on his bare flesh.

She looked up at the sky, the hovering frigate bird. “That question: ‘Hawkshaw, what’s that?’”

“About four thousand,” he said.

“You don’t get tired of answering?”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“It’s very good of you to be so patient with him”

He was not good at taking compliments or thank-yous. He shrugged again and looked out to sea. “It’s okay.”

“He gets very—hyper—about things sometimes,” she said. “When he’s interested in something, the questions never stop.”

“Kids are curious,” he said.

“If he gets too curious, if he becomes a pest, you have to be firm with him, that’s all. I don’t want him to be a bother to you.”

“He’s no bother,” Hawkshaw said. That was God’s truth. Hawkshaw had nothing else he needed to do, not one damn thing.

“His attention usually flits around a lot,” she said. “It’s been a problem. But when he’s really interested in something, he can become almost obsessive. So I’ll understand—” Her voice trailed off, pensive, resigned.

Hawkshaw leaned down, scooped up a fragment of broken conch shell from the surf and hurled it into the sea. “He’s a smart kid,” he said.

“He is smart,” she agreed. “And he’s very imaginative—the doctors say that’s really in his favor. That’s a plus.”

He stole a glance at her. Her face, framed by the rippling strands of loose hair, was sober. She kept her gaze on the boy running and wading ahead of them.

“He’s also an only child,” she said. “That’s actually a plus, too, in a case like this. He needs extra time. Extra attention. And all these things have been hard on him, his father’s death, and then—”

She went silent

“The stalker?” Hawkshaw added.

“Yes. Him. God, I don’t even have a name for him. He’s trying to destroy our lives, and I don’t even know his name. I hate it. I hate him.”

She shot him a look so volatile that it startled Hawkshaw. Beneath her sadness was passion, a firestorm of it. Then she looked down, as if ashamed of letting her emotions fly free for even an instant.

“It’s not about me so much,” she said, kicking at the surf. “It’s Charlie, what it’s done to him. That’s what I can’t forgive.”

Hawkshaw frowned. To him, it was the mother, not the boy, who seemed hurt and disturbed.

“Charlie seems fine,” he said. “Maybe you worry too much.”

She gave him another sharp look, just as turbulent as the first. “I can’t worry too much. Charlie’s got a special problem. It’s affected his learning. He—he can’t read. He has to repeat first grade.”

She acted as if her words were some sort of horrible confession. Hawkshaw said, “That’s no sin.”

Her chin jerked up, and her eyes went straight back to the boy. “It’s hardly a blessing. He hates school—with a passion. He misbehaves. He doesn’t make friends. He has problems with self-esteem.”

“Self-esteem,” Hawkshaw repeated, sarcasm in his voice. To him, it sounded as if she’d read too many psychology books.

She said, “Self-esteem is a big issue for children with attention deficiencies.”

“Issue,” he echoed in the same tone.

“Never mind,” she said curtly.

“He’s a good kid. What more do you want?”

“He’s good here,” she answered. “He’s good now. But you make it seem like a big vacation. I mean, it’s kind of you, and he loves it, but it’s not the real world.”

“It’s my real world,” said Hawkshaw. “And you didn’t answer. What more do you want from him?”

She shook her head. “I’m not asking that he turn into a genius. I just want him to be able to read, for God’s sake. That’s all.”

“I see,” said Hawkshaw.

She sighed and passed a hand over her hair to tame it, but it refused to be tamed. “I know,” she said. “I sound like a neurotic mother. Maybe I am. I don’t even know. Being stalked is hard work, you know? It wears you down. You lose perspective. Oh, hellfire.”

Against his will he gave her a one-cornered smile. “I hear the pay’s lousy, too.”

“It is lousy.” She didn’t smile in return, but a dimple appeared in her cheek. It played intriguingly and for all too short a time. He wanted it to come back.

“But,” she said, trying to smooth her hair again, “I’m not a freeloader. I pull my own weight I see a lot of things around your house that need to be done. I want you to let me do them.”