Joseph Colella said, “Boss, Sal and I can—”

But Michael Moretti was already moving to the door of Bungalow 7, a gun fitted with a silencer in his hand. He paused for a second to listen, then stepped back and smashed the door open with one powerful kick.

Moretti took in the scene in a single frozen moment: the bearded man kneeling on the floor beside the small boy; the boy’s hand nailed to the floor, the room reeking of gasoline.

The bearded man had turned toward the door and was staring at Michael. The last sounds he ever uttered were, “You’re not C1—”

Michael’s first bullet took him in the center of his forehead. The second bullet shattered his pharynx, and the third bullet took him in the heart. But by that time he no longer felt anything.

Michael Moretti stepped to the door and waved to the two men outside. They hurried into the cabin. Michael Moretti knelt beside the boy and felt his pulse. It was thin and thready, but he was still alive. He turned to Joseph Colella.

“Call Doc Petrone. Tell him we’re on our way over.”

9:30 A.M.

The instant the telephone rang, Jennifer snatched it up, squeezing it tightly. “Hello!”

Michael Moretti’s voice said, “I’m bringing your son home.”

Joshua was whimpering in his sleep. Jennifer leaned over and put her arms around him, holding him gently. He had been asleep when Michael had carried him into the house. When Jennifer had seen Joshua’s unconscious body, his wrists and ankles heavily bandaged, his body swathed in gauze, she had nearly gone out of her mind. Michael had brought the doctor with him and it had taken him half an hour to reassure Jennifer that Joshua was going to be all right.

“His hand will heal,” the doctor assured her. “There will be a small scar there, but fortunately no nerves or tendons were damaged. The gasoline burns are superficial. I bathed his body in mineral oil. I’ll look in on him for the next few days. Believe me, he’s going to be fine.”

Before the doctor left, Jennifer had him attend to Mrs. Mackey.

Joshua had been put to bed and Jennifer stayed at his side, waiting to reassure him when he awakened. He stirred now and his eyes opened.

When he saw his mother, he said tiredly, “I knew you’d come, Mom. Did you give the man the ransom money?”

Jennifer nodded, not trusting her voice.

Joshua smiled. “I hope he buys too much candy with the money and gets a stomachache. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

She whispered, “Very funny, darling. Do you know what you and I are going to do next week? I’m going to take you to—”

Joshua was asleep again.

It was hours later when Jennifer walked back into the living room. She was surprised to see that Michael Moretti was still there. Somehow it reminded her of the first time she had met Adam Warner, when he had waited for her in her little apartment.

“Michael—” It was impossible to find the words. “I—I can’t tell you how—how grateful I am.”

He looked at her and nodded.

She forced herself to ask the question. “And—and Frank Jackson?”

“He won’t bother anyone again.”

So it was over. Joshua was safe. Nothing else mattered.

Jennifer looked at Michael Moretti and thought, I owe him so much. How can I ever repay him?

Michael was watching her, wrapped in silence.

BOOK II

37

Jennifer Parker stood naked, staring out of the large picture window that overlooked the Bay of Tangier. It was a beautiful, crisp autumn day and the bay was filled with skimming white sails and deep-throated power boats. Half a dozen large yachts bobbed at anchor in the harbor. Jennifer felt his presence and turned.

“Like the view?”

“Love it.”

He looked at her naked body. “So do I.” His hands were on her breasts, caressing them. “Let’s go back to bed.”

His touch made Jennifer shiver. He demanded things that no man had ever dared ask of her, and he did things to her that had never been done to her before.

“Yes, Michael.”

They walked back into the bedroom and there, for one fleeting moment, Jennifer thought of Adam Warner, and then she forgot everything except what was happening to her.

Jennifer had never known anyone like Michael Moretti. He was insatiable. His body was athletic, lean and hard, and it became a part of Jennifer’s body, catching her up in its own frenzy, carrying her along on a rising wave of pounding excitement that went on and on until she wanted to scream with a wild joy. When they had finished making love and Jennifer lay there, spent, Michael began once more, and Jennifer was caught up with him again and again in an ecstasy that became almost too much to bear.

Now he lay on top of her, staring into her flushed, happy face. “You love it, don’t you, baby?”

“Yes.”

There was a shame in it, a shame at how much she needed him, needed his lovemaking.

Jennifer remembered the first time.

It was the morning Michael Moretti had brought Joshua safely back home. Jennifer had known that Frank Jackson was dead and that Michael Moretti had killed him. The man standing in front of her had saved her son for her, had killed for her. It filled Jennifer with some deep, primordial feeling.

“How can I thank you?” Jennifer had asked.

And Michael Moretti had walked over to her, taken her in his arms and kissed her. Out of some old loyalty to Adam, Jennifer had pretended to herself that it would end with that kiss; but instead, it became a beginning. She knew what Michael Moretti was, and yet all that counted as nothing against what he had done. She stopped thinking and let her emotions take over.

They went upstairs to her bedroom, and Jennifer told herself that she was repaying Michael for what he had done for her, and then they were in bed and it was an experience beyond anything that Jennifer had ever dreamed.

Adam Warner had made love to her, but Michael Moretti possessed her. He filled every inch of her body with exquisite sensations. It was as though he were making love in bright, flashing colors, and the colors kept changing from one moment to the next, like some wonderful kaleidoscope. One moment he made love gently and sensitively, and the next moment he was cruel and pounding and demanding, and the changes made Jennifer frantic. He withdrew from her, teasing her, making her want more, and when she was on the verge of fulfillment he pulled away.

When she could stand it no longer, she begged, “Please take me! Take me!”

And his hard organ began to pound into her again until she screamed with pleasure. She was no longer a woman paying back a debt. She was a slave to something she had never known before. Michael stayed with her for four hours, and when he left, Jennifer knew that her life had changed.

She lay in her bed thinking about what had happened, trying to understand it. How could she be so much in love with Adam and still have been so overwhelmed by Michael Moretti? Thomas Aquinas had said that when you got to the heart of evil, there was nothing there. Jennifer wondered if it was also true of love. She was aware that part of what she had done was out of a deep loneliness. She had lived too long with a phantom, a man she could neither see nor have, yet she knew she would always love Adam. Or was it just a memory of that love?

Jennifer was not sure what she felt about Michael. Gratitude, yes. But that was a small part of it. It was more. Much more. She knew who and what Michael Moretti was. He had killed for her, but he had killed for others, too. He had murdered men for money, for power, for vengeance. How could she feel as she did about a man like that? How could she have let him make love to her and have been so excited by him? She was filled with a sense of shame and she thought, What kind of person am I?