“Please.”

Jeremy drove back to Coronado, where he lived, and went for a long run on the beach. He tried to blot out the recurring image of Mac’s stricken face as he had looked through the pages of photographs of Ashley Wakefield.

Hawaii. My ass Hawaii, he thought. It was just one more element that didn’t fit.

But Mac hadn’t reacted until the third page of photographs. The cover hadn’t bothered him, and neither had the views of beautiful Ashley Wakefield in her batik bandeau, Bill Blass gown or brass-tacks business suit. So it wasn’t her. Which meant, Jeremy thought, that it had to be the grainy photograph of the man on the red tractor that had sent Mac into such a tailspin. The uncle. Bartholomew Wakefield.

With sweat pouring off him, Jeremy did a cool-down walk and listened to the rhythm of the waves pounding the beach. “Hell,” he muttered to himself, “I’m probably just imagining things.”

But later that evening, Elaine Stevens called: Mac hadn’t been in touch. “I called our realtor in Honolulu,” she said. “As far as she knows, there’s no problem with the property and Mac isn’t even in Hawaii.”

Jeremy set his beer on his deck table and sank into a canvas chair. “Elaine, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Don’t—please. But there’s something you know or at least suspect, isn’t there?”

“Elaine—” He broke off, silently cursing himself. If Mac had wanted his wife to know what the hell he was up to, he’d have told her. And me, too. “I don’t know anything, Elaine.”

He could hear her sharp intake of breath. She was a tough, intelligent and compassionate woman, and in Jeremy’s opinion, Mac would be a fool to play tricks on her—without good reason. But that was the problem. He might have good reason.

“I wouldn’t want you to break any confidences you might have with Mac,” she said, “but if you can tell me I have no reason to worry about him—physically, I mean. If there’s someone else...”

“Oh, Elaine. No, I can’t believe Mac’s having an affair.”

“Then what? Jeremy, you know Mac. He doesn’t just go off like this and...and disappear! He doesn’t lie to me! What if something’s happened to him?”

Jeremy felt the tug of loyalty to Mac—and to Elaine. He could see clearly in his mind the vivid, unreal eyes of Ashley Wakefield, and then Mac’s white face, and the desperation and the hate there.

“I think Mac’s told you something and you don’t feel it’s right to tell me,” Elaine said, without accusation. “I can understand that, Jeremy—even respect it. But if you do have some idea of where Mac is...maybe you can get him to call me. Please. It’s all I ask.”

Jeremy sighed heavily. “All right, Elaine. Give me the weekend. I’ll see what I can do. But you know— maybe he is in Hawaii.”

“I understand. Thank you, Jeremy.”

“For God’s sake, don’t thank me. I probably should have kept my mouth shut.”