“Here he is,” says the volunteer, looking up with a brightly dentured smile. “Room 212, Wing C.” Then with a puzzled look she adds, “No, wait, that’s wrong. The patient has just been discharged.”

“When?”

“Today. An hour ago, as a matter of fact.”

“Where has he been taken?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cutter, but the desk doesn’t have that information. Just that he was, um, discharged into the care of his father, Stephen Cutter.”

“Dammit!”

The volunteer has that uneasy look people get when they’re about to be involved in someone else’s domestic dispute. “Perhaps you should talk to one of the security staff, Mrs. Cutter. Are you the boy’s mother? You can explain the situation to security. If you could show me some identification, I’ll see about getting you a pass.”

My eyes are riveted on the TV screen, where my own face seems to be staring right at me. That horrible mug shot from my arrest and booking. The running caption reads: Katherine Bickford, Wanted for questioning. Next, a video of Jared Nichols being interviewed by a reporter who looks suitably appalled by what he has to say about the suspect killer mom. We’re asking Mrs. Bickford to surrender to authorities, and undergo further inquiries about the hit-and-run of a local investigator.

Thanks, Jared. Perfect timing.

“Mrs. Cutter?”

“Sorry. What?”

“Your driver’s license, please.”

Clutching my purse, I tell her, “Be right back. I have to, um, call my husband.”

And then I’m fleeing the reception area before hospital security can be alerted.

Slumped down in my rental car, I make several hurried cell-phone calls. The first to Maria Savalo. Naturally I get her voice mail, and leave her a barely coherent message detailing the events of the last few hours. Trying not to sound hysterical when mentioning what Cutter intends to do to my son.

“For God’s sake, Maria, tell the FBI we’ve identified the kidnapper. Stephen Cutter of New London. He was a Special Ops guy in the army. He and his wife adopted Tommy’s identical twin. That’s the connection. That’s why he grabbed Tommy, because his own son needs a transplant and Tommy’s the perfect match. Somebody has to do something. The FBI, the cops, the state police, I don’t care. Somebody! The guy has just taken his son out of the hospital—Health East in New Haven—so whatever it is he’s got planned, it’s going down tonight or early tomorrow morning. Do you understand what that means? If Tommy’s alive, he won’t be for long. While you’re at it you can tell that bastard Jared Nichols I’ll turn myself in when they get off their asses and rescue my son. They can keep me for a million years, I don’t care, but they have to DO SOMETHING TONIGHT, okay?”

Next call to Connie Pendergast. I’m assuming she’s at home in bed at this hour, but she’s set her home number to ring at the warehouse, and that’s where she answers. Hearing her cheerful voice announce, “Katherine Bickford Catering, how may we help?” sets off a convulsion of sobbing. Weeping so inconsolably that I’m afraid my tears will short out the cell phone.

“Kate? What’s happened?”

There’s an underlying element of panic in her query that for some reason calms me down. She’s thinking the worst, that I’ve found Tommy’s body and fallen apart. Have to set her straight, let her know what’s actually happened, and what’s likely to happen if I don’t find Tommy soon.

After blowing my nose, I give her a rundown of what has transpired in the last few hours, my voice steadier than hers, as it turns out.

“Oh, my God, Kate, I don’t know how you’re still functioning. I’d be a puddle.”

“I am a puddle,” I admit. “But I can’t quit now, not when we’re this close. Connie, what are you doing at the warehouse at this hour?”

“Wedding tomorrow in Westport. Two hundred hungry guests expecting the usual Kate Bickford romance with food. Sherona just finished up the pastry order, I’m giving her a hand. Everything’s ready for the catering crew, they’ll be here at the crack of dawn. So where are you, exactly?”

“Hospital parking lot. I thought the security guards might come after me, but so far nobody seems to care about a woman alone in a car, crying in the middle of the night. I suppose it happens all the time.”

“How can we help? Sherona’s right here, says she wants to kick some butt.”

“I can’t go back into the hospital,” I tell her. “They’ll grab me for sure and I haven’t got time to sort this out with the cops. But I need to find out where Cutter took his son, and that information has to be somewhere in the hospital. Somebody has to know.”

“We’re on our way,” Connie announces. “Traffic will be minimal this time of night, so figure what, twenty minutes?”

What transpires is the longest half hour of my life. During that endless interval I check my watch two or three thousand times, tune in to several radio stations in a fruitless search for breaking news, and call for an update on Shane’s condition. It takes a couple of tries, but finally they patch me through to the attending nurse, who tells me that Mr. Shane remains stable.

“Is he still unconscious?” I want to know.

The RN hedges, but admits that Mr. Shane has been what she calls “responsive.”

“That’s good, right?”

“That’s very good. Better than it looked a few hours ago. Is this Mrs. Bickford? Because the police have been here. They want to interview Mr. Shane and they want to talk to you, too.”

“Yeah. Listen, you sound like a really nice person,” I tell her. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Depends,” says the RN, sounding very guarded. “I won’t do anything illegal.”

“This isn’t illegal. If Randall wakes up, give him a kiss. Not on the lips, I wouldn’t ask that, a kiss on the forehead, okay? Tell him the kiss is from me and I’m sorry and I’m grateful and I wish I could be there, but I can’t. He’ll understand. I’m going to hang up before you can say no, so please think about it, okay? Please?”

Then I’m alone with the disconnected phone and the useless radio and I’m weeping again, weeping for Tommy and Shane and for all the sick kids in the world and for desperate parents crazed with fear, trying to make things right. Weeping for myself, too, I guess, wondering if the situation was reversed and it was Tommy sick and needing a new heart, how far would I go? Takes less than a millisecond for my gut to tell me that never, never would I endanger another child, no matter how much grief it caused me. There are some things that simply aren’t allowed, no matter how much you want your own child to live. The man in the mask, he may be a parent, no doubt he loves his boy, but he’s also a monster, a man who does not hesitate to kill. Killed the lawyer, tried to kill Shane, just missed killing me. And he intends to kill Tommy, that’s certain, that’s been his plan all along.

I feel certain that if Shane were here he’d already have the information about where Cutter has taken his ailing son. Shane has that air of authority, folks respond to it, they want to please him by cooperating. Whereas I can’t seem to summon that sort of gravitas, all I can do is keep searching for information that will bring me closer to Tommy. Making it up as I go along, trying not to fall apart. People keep telling me I’m strong, but that’s not how I feel. Far from it. Makes me wonder if those who act courageously under fire are actually so terrified that they simply function on instinct. Too scared to act scared. Does that make sense? Or is fear making me as wigged out as Lyla Cutter?

My cell rings. Connie announcing that she’s here, in the hospital parking lot. There’s more than one lot, so it takes a few minutes to make physical contact, but when I finally spot her Beetle it feels like witnessing a miracle. The sight of that happy little car cruising out of the shadows floods me with warmth.

This I know for sure: Whatever happens in the next few hours, I’m really, really going to need a friend.