“She was everything you raised her to be, Crockett.”

With tremendous effort, her heart thudding painfully, Lillian walked off the sun porch and into the relative warmth of the house. J. Land Crockett would put all his monumental resources into play to find out what had happened to his daughter thirty years ago. Stood up against his billions, his sheer intensity of will, Lillian didn’t have a chance.

And neither did Ashley and David Wakefield and the man who called himself their uncle.

Roger Shellingworth collected the tea tray. “I’ve reached Andrew Balaton in New York. He’s agreed to join you for dinner this evening, although it’s necessitated canceling plans of his own. I made it clear it was of the utmost importance to have him here tonight.”

“Good. And what have you gotten on MacGregor Stevens?”

“He hasn’t been in his office since last Friday. Supposedly he’s in Hawaii, but that’s unconfirmed. Jeremy Carruthers left San Diego over the weekend.”

Crockett nodded, acknowledging that he’d heard. “And David Wakefield?”

“His leg was broken earlier this week, and he was released from the hospital yesterday morning. Sarah Balaton is with him on the farm; she arrived there yesterday afternoon.”

“Bartholomew Wakefield?”

“There’s nothing whatsoever on him, sir. As far as we know, he’s fishing.”

Crockett smirked. “Of course.”

“Will that be all?”

“Tell Lil I’d like her to give Ashley Wakefield a tour of Jude’s Paradise.”

“Of course. When?”

“I’d like them to leave at once so they can be back before dusk.”

o

It was brisk and clear on Jude’s Paradise, an uninhabited, windswept island of scrub pines and oaks and low-lying bushes in Penobscot Bay, well south of Badger Island.

Ashley followed Lillian Parker onto a huge flat rock that looked out at Penobscot Bay, and she found herself holding in check the dozens of questions she wanted to ask. She would follow Lillian’s lead. They were alone but for the taciturn islander who had piloted the boat. He waited for them at the dilapidated dock, the only evidence that humans had ever set foot on Jude’s Paradise. It was a haven for birds, which were everywhere.

And it was an eerie place. As she watched Lillian’s auburn hair blow freely in the cold wind, Ashley wasn’t at all sure she should have come. But what choice did she have? She was playing an old man’s game now. J. Land Crockett, the billionaire, the host she had yet even to meet.

“Judith used to love to come here,” Lillian said wistfully. “She could just be herself—no cameras, no press, no prying eyes of any sort. It was her refuge. When she was a little girl and her mother was still alive, they’d come here together on picnics. Crockett never joined them. I think he understood this was a place where mother and daughter could get away alone, out of the public eye—away from him, too. He knows he’s a difficult man.”

Ashley suspected that was an understatement, but said judiciously, “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had the opportunity of meeting him yet.”