This could be the call that would break the case. The case was why he was there.

Faith went to the table beside the bed, trembling so, she thought it was a wonder she couldn’t hear her knees knocking together. It was simply amazing the way that man could sap the strength from her. Amazing and exciting. And frightening. Taking a deep breath, she tried to clear her head before she picked up the receiver.

“Keepsake Inn. Faith Kincaid speaking.”

“Hello, Faith.”

Fear shot through her like a bolt of lightning at the sound of the too-familiar whisper. She jerked around to face Shane, pale and wide-eyed, her heart pounding. His face grim, he came forward and took her free hand, his strong grasp offering her support and comfort.

“Have you seen the error of your ways?”

Trying to draw strength from Shane’s steady gaze, Faith swallowed down the knot in her throat and said, “I’m going to testify.”

“That’s a bad decision, sweet. You know I’m watching you, don’t you? You and your darling daughter. You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to little Lindy, now would you?”

Faith’s stomach rolled over at the thought of this faceless monster even knowing about Lindy. It was hard enough that this ugliness should intrude on her own life, but for it to touch Lindy in any way… she couldn’t bear the idea.

“I could take her and kill her. I could take her anytime I want.”

Abruptly it was all too much. The tension that had been building over the course of this terrorism crested with the power of a tidal wave, sweeping Faith’s control away. “Stop it!” she screamed into the phone. “Just stop it! Leave us alone!”

She slammed down the receiver, her face wet with tears as she turned and was met by Shane’s solid form. She sagged against him like a rag doll as he pulled her into his embrace, his arms banding around her like steel.

“What did he say?”

“Lindy,” she said between choking sobs. A fresh wave of fear surged through her. She tried to push herself away from Shane, but he held firm. “Please,” she begged, struggling in his grasp. “I have to see Lindy.”

Shane released her. Matthews would have the conversation on tape. It seemed much more important at the moment to let Faith go to her daughter. He followed her down the grand staircase, anger rolling in his gut. When he got his hands on the bastard who was doing this to her…

“Lindy!” Faith called, running down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom. Terror slammed into her anew when she found the room empty and silent, the only movement the curtains stirring in the breeze. “Lindy?”

Her questioning call was met with ominous silence.

“Lindy!” she yelled, panic clawing at her as she recalled the words I could take her and kill her. The fear that exploded inside her was absolute and all consuming and more terrible than anything she had ever experienced or even imagined. Her child was missing.

She nearly screamed when Shane’s hands closed on her shoulders and he gave her a shake. “Faith, calm down,” he ordered.

“I can’t find Lindy,” she choked out, her eyes wild. “Shane, I can’t find my daughter. He said he’d kill her. He said he’d kill my baby!”

Shane called on the cool professionalism he was known for. “We’ll find her, honey. She’s probably playing in some other part of the house or out in the yard. He can’t get to her here.”

“He said he’d kill her,” Faith repeated, anguish tearing her apart inside. How could anyone be so vicious as to hurt an innocent child? “She’s just a baby.”

“We’ll find her,” Shane promised. “He can’t get to her, Faith.”

They searched the house. Faith, Shane, Agent Matthews, and Mr. Fitz went over every inch of the sprawling mix of structures that made up the inn. They found no trace of Lindy.

Shane’s anxiety grew as they moved outside and went through the outbuildings on the property. Sweet, trusting Lindy. If that monster or some accomplice of his had somehow slipped through their security and gotten close to her, she would never have thought to be frightened.

The search party met on the lawn on the north side of the house. Fitz tugged anxiously at his gray beard. Matthews looked grim. Faith was on the verge of hysteria. Shane took her in his arms, needing to comfort her and not giving a damn about what his fellow agent would think.

“We’ll find her,” he said, half shouting to be heard above the wind and the sound of the sea crashing against the beach below them.

The beach.

His heart pounding, Shane bolted for the edge of the cliff and the wooden steps that snaked down it. He hit the beach running, sand kicking up behind him. Frantically his eyes scanned the area. For the first time in a long, long time he started praying, praying that Lindy hadn’t fallen over the cliff or wandered too close to the surf and been swept out by the treacherous waves this coast was known for.

Then he spotted her. He stopped in his tracks, air sawing in and out of his lungs like hot razors. Lindy sat in the sand, half-hidden behind a boulder, playing happily with her herd of plastic dinosaurs. Her ever-present doll was propped up against the rock, watching the proceedings with one eye stuck shut. She danced her dinosaurs around a lopsided sand castle, all the while singing at the top of her lungs “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Relief rolled over Shane with all the power of the waves that were crashing against the shore fifty feet away, leaving him so weak he nearly went down on his knees. Lindy looked up at him suddenly, and a smile lit up her pixie face like a sunbeam.

“Hi, Shane! Did you come to play with me?”

He couldn’t answer her for the knot in his throat.

Faith ran across the sand, her legs feeling like lead, her lungs on fire. She pushed past Shane and dropped down in the midst of the dinosaurs, scooping her daughter into her arms. Sobbing, she hugged Lindy until the little girl squirmed.

“Oh, baby, you’re safe!” With a shaking hand she brushed at her child’s silky red-gold curls. “I was so scared!”

Lindy’s lip quivered as she looked at her mother. “Don’t cry, Mama. I don’t like it when you cry.”

Faith tried to smile and laugh, but in the end all she could do was hold her baby close and let go of all the tears fear had built inside her.

“I could have lost her.”

Faith sat on the edge of Lindy’s bed, watching her daughter sleep, running her fingertips over her child’s hair. Hours had passed since the crisis of the afternoon, and still the fear lay just under the facade of her calm, threatening to erupt at any second.

She felt as if something had shattered both inside her and around her. The last of her sense of safety had been fragmented. Through all of this hideous business the one thing Faith had clung to was the knowledge that she would always have Lindy. Now that too had been snatched away from her.

She’d been forced to realize that Lindy could be taken away. In the blink of an eye her child could be gone. It hadn’t happened today. Today Lindy had simply taken herself to the beach. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen in the future. Faith could still hear that evil silky voice promising to kill the most important person in her life-her child. A shudder snaked through her body and tears welled up in her eyes yet again.

“I love her so much,” she murmured brokenly. “I’d die if something happened to her.”

“She’s all right, Faith,” Shane said softly. With a gentle grip he took her arm and drew her up from the bed and gathered her close against him, not bothering to wonder where all this tenderness was coming from. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to her. She’ll have a full-time babysitter from now on. And tomorrow you’re having a fence installed with a locked gate at the top of those steps.”

Faith looked up at him, her expression so bleak it nearly broke his heart. As the tears slipped past her dark lashes and spilled down her cheeks, she said, “I’ve never been so scared.”