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him she was tired of going to the island. She was tired of looking for a treasure that didn’t exist. She wanted to stay home and work on the house. She wanted him to patch the roof, to paint the faded trim. She’d wanted him to be less of a dreamer and more of a realist—because they were growing up;they weren’t kids anymore. But he’d only laughed. “There’s plenty of time to work on the house. Humor me, won’t you, Kate? We’ll pack a picnic. It’s going to be a beautiful day for a sail.”
    And he was right. The sun and the bright blue sky had peeked through the blinds in his hospital room when morning came, and moments later Joe unconsciously took his last breath, and quit fighting to hang onto life.
    Casey cried. Nikki put her head down on the pillow next to her brother and tears openly flowed down her cheeks. Lieutenant Ryan and hardboiled Sergeant Crichton crept into the room and wept.
    Kate had stood against the wall, cradling Casey in her arms, and stared at it all, eyes dry, too stunned, too heartbroken to cry.
    She reached up and wiped away the tears that now fell from her eyes, tears that had taken weeks to come after Joe had died. He’d been the love of her life, he’d been her dearest friend, and she hated the fact that memories of him were starting to slip away from her, when she was trying so hard to hold him close.
    Oh, Joe, if you were here now, I wouldn’t be so afraid. I wouldn’t be sitting here wondering if a stranger was standing just outside the battered walls, looking through the window .
    Watching me .
    Watching Casey .
    A shiver of fear raced through her, and sheprayed for daylight to wash away the fear of another endless night.
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    Kate stretched, and the abrasive sand beneath her scratched at her skin. Overworked muscles cried out for rest, but they’d already gotten more than they deserved. She’d fallen asleep when she should have kept a vigilant watch all through the night. Still, morning had come and she was alive.
    Rolling over, she reached to draw Casey into her arms, but her fingers touched only sand.
    â€œCasey?” she called out, sure the child was somewhere near, but her daughter’s sweet voice never answered. The only sounds that came to her were the screams of gulls and the familiar grunts of pelicans diving offshore for food.
    â€œCasey!”
    Anger and fear rolled through her as she pushed up from the floor and rushed through the maze of ruins. This wasn’t the first time Casey had struck out on her own. She was headstrong and fearless—and that scared the hell out of Kate.
    â€œCasey!”
    She rushed toward the ocean.
    â€œCasey!”
    She ran between the clusters of palms, through puddles, and over the devastation left by the hurricane, at last reaching the wide, sandy beach, where tiny footprints trailed toward the water, toward the sailboat—her sailboat—that was anchored not far from shore.
    How had it gotten off the beach? Who had dropped the anchor?
    Terror knotted in her throat. The answer was obvious: the stranger lurking on the island.
    The one-eyed pirate with a scar on his face.
    â€œCasey!”
    It seemed as if it took forever for her to reach the water, and she prayed that Casey would peek out of the cabin, that blond curls would magically appear over the side of the boat and she’d hear her daughter’s voice calling back, “Hi, Mommy!” But she heard and saw nothing, only the birds overhead, the lap of salt water at her feet, the sailboat bobbing gently on the waves, and not too far up the strand, a set of boot prints headed inland. And the impression of a pair of tiny bare feet padding along behind.
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    â€œAvast, matey!”
    Black Heart woke from a peace-filled sleep with the pressure of cold steel at his neck and the voice of an angel ringing through his ears. Holding his breath lest the steel pierce his skin, he cracked open his