Lindsay’s weakness was her son. Wyatt Goddard’s bastard.

She giggled again.

Do you hear that, Jake? She asked the question in the stillness of the basement beneath St. Elizabeth’s. He’s not your son. He’s Wyatt Goddard’s. Lindsay was screwing around on you and you didn’t even know it. Her son’s name is Leo Cellamino. And I came this close to killing him.

She held up her thumb and index finger to indicate just how close she had been to murdering Lindsay Farrell’s child.

Oh, what a fitting punishment that would be for Lindsay, if her son died. But even more so if the child had been yours, Jake.

It wasn’t fair that Lindsay’s child was alive. Not when her child was dead.

If she could somehow use Lindsay’s child to lure Lindsay back to Portland…But how? If not her son, then what?

The death of a good friend?

She smiled at the thought of killing another of Jake’s women.

What about Rachel Alsace? She was a cop now, in some small city in Alabama. At least that’s what Kristen had told them. So what would draw a policewoman back to Portland? Maybe a twenty-year-old unsolved crime.

Giggling as she danced around in the dark, her feet smacking against the concrete surface, she imagined what it would be like to kill them. One by one. Kristen. Lindsay. Rachel.

Lindsay Farrell and Wyatt Goddard sat side by side in the private detective’s office. Wyatt reached over and clasped Lindsay’s hand, which rested at her side. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“A minute since the last time you asked,” Wyatt told her.

“He’s not coming.”

“He’ll be here, Ms. Farrell,” Gene Lester said. “His mother”-he glanced sympathetically at Lindsay-“his adoptive mother is coming with him.”

Wyatt had hired one of New York’s top PIs to locate their son. Although Lindsay had wanted him to wait, to give Leo the time he needed to come to them, Wyatt told her that they had been waiting nearly twenty years.

“But after what happened to him, being abducted by some crazy person the way he was and thinking that when he talked to me, he was talking to her…” Lindsay swallowed the emotion threatening to choke her. She had tried not to think about how close her son-their son-had come to dying, but the very thought plagued her day and night.

Wyatt squeezed her hand again. “Who knows how such a terrible thing happened, but it could be as Gene suggested and someone found out that Leo was my son, knew I was wealthy, and intended to kidnap Leo.”

Before Lindsay could reply, a soft rap sounded on the closed office door. Gene Lester’s secretary opened the door and announced, “Mrs. Betty Cellamino and her son Leo are here.”

“Show them in,” Gene told her.

Lindsay’s heart stopped. For one endless millisecond, she didn’t breathe. The young man entered the room first, and he was all that Lindsay saw. The sight of her son filled her world.

Leo was tall, lanky, and handsome, very much his father’s son in that respect. But his dark hair, his eyes, his nose, the shape of his face were all Farrell. God, he looked so much like her. Except the mouth. His mouth was a replica of Wyatt’s.

Her son stared at her, his dark eyes filled with questions. Their gazes met and locked. She released a tight, chest-clutching breath and rose to her feet. Wyatt came up off the sofa and stood beside her as they faced the child their one night of wild teenage passion had created.

“Hello,” Leo said.

Wyatt made the first move, taking a step forward and holding out his hand. “I’m Wyatt Goddard. I’m your father, your biological father.”

Leo stared at Wyatt’s hand for a minute, then took it, and they exchanged a cordial shake. Wyatt reached back and pulled Lindsay forward and to his side, his arm resting around her waist.

“This is Lindsay Farrell, your birth mother,” Wyatt said.

Lindsay stood frozen, speechless and unable to move.

Leo nodded, then turned and motioned to the woman still standing in the doorway. “This is my mother, Betty Cellamino.”

Betty shook hands with Wyatt and then with Lindsay.

She looked right at Lindsay when she said, “Thank you for Leo. He’s been a good son, a true blessing.”

Tears gathered in the corners of Lindsay’s eyes. Damn! Don’t do this.

“Thank you.” Lindsay cleared her throat. “I prayed that my baby would go to a loving family, that he’d have a good mother.”

“Ma is the best,” Leo said, as if he needed to defend Mrs. Cellamino.

Lindsay focused solely on her son. “I’m sure she is. It’s what I wanted for you when I…It wasn’t easy for me to sign the papers, to relinquish my rights to you, but I was just a teenager and my parents didn’t know I was pregnant.” She looked at Wyatt. “And neither did your father.”

“Look, I know this is awkward for all of us,” Wyatt said. “Especially after what happened with the fake limo driver. God, what a nightmare for you, son.” Wyatt hazarded a glance at Leo as if questioning his right to call the young man son.

“I thought the entire ‘you’ve found your birth mother’ was some crazy hoax that a pervert had played on me,” Leo told them. “When Mr. Lester came to see Ma and told her about you two…It’s a lot to take in.”

“We don’t want to rush you,” Lindsay said. “If you can’t find a place in your life for us, we’ll understand. But we wanted you to know that we care, that we’d very much like to get to know you, for you to get to know us.”

“Not necessarily as your parents,” Wyatt interjected as he glanced at Betty Cellamino. “If you’ll give us a chance, we’d like to be your friends. But it’s up to you.”

“I-I think I’d like to get to know both of you.” Leo stared directly at Lindsay. “But nobody will ever take Ma’s place. She’ll always be my mother.”

Intense pain and unbearable sadness enveloped Lindsay, but she bore it as best she could and even forced a fragile smile when she looked at her son. “Just being given a chance to be a part of your life is more than I’d ever expected.” It was all she could do not to reach out and grab him. Her arms ached to hold her child.

Betty Cellamino nudged Leo forward. Reluctantly, he held out his hand to Lindsay. She opened her arms. Leo hesitated. Betty gave him another nudge. He walked into Lindsay’s open embrace, his long, lean body stiff as a poker.

Lindsay hugged him. Briefly. But it was enough. For now.

When Leo stepped back, Wyatt wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her close. When his lips brushed her temple, she sighed. After twenty long years, both the man she had always loved and their child were back in her life.

At eight-thirty West Coast time, Rachel placed a telephone call to her father’s old partner on the Portland Police Bureau. Charlie Young was now the chief of police, a man only a few years younger than her father would have been had he lived. The first few years after Rachel had moved to Tennessee with her mother after her father’s death, Charlie and his wife, Laraine, had kept in touch on a regular basis. Charlie had wanted to keep tabs on Rachel, his old friend’s only child. And despite the fact that her parents had divorced a few years before her father’s deadly heart attack, her mother and Laraine Young had remained good friends.

When she heard Charlie’s gravelly voice, the sound brought back memories from her teenage years when she had been like a daughter to the childless Youngs.

“Uncle Charlie, it’s Rachel.”

“Well, hello, girl. How are you?”

“I’m fine. How are you and Aunt Laraine?”

“Older, fatter, and grayer.” He chuckled.

“I-I’m thinking about coming to Portland for a visit.”

“Hmm…Coming back in July for the reunion at St. Elizabeth’s.”

“Probably, but I may come in before July.”

“You’ll stay here with us, of course. Laraine wouldn’t let you stay anywhere else.”