“‘Mom, I need your help, please call.’”

“That’s it?”

“Last word was cut off.”

“And what was her tone? Excited, worried?”

“She was whispering. Like she’d didn’t want anyone to hear. Whispering and worried and maybe a little afraid.”

“Please call as in ‘please call back,’ or ‘please call for help.’”

I think about it, Kelly’s voice replaying in my head. “Not please call back. It was like she had a lot to say and had to tell me in as few words as possible. So it was more like ‘please call for help.’”

“Or please call someone specific?”

“Maybe.” I rack my brains, reliving the call, but that’s all I get, a maybe.

“You mentioned computer files.”

I must have, but have no recollection. Unless, of course, he’s a mind reader. “That’s why I called. To see if you know anyone who can get into protected files.”

“How protected?” he wants to know.

“I don’t know her password.”

“So not necessarily encrypted? Just password protected?”

“I’m not really sure. All I know is I can’t into the files. So, do you know anyone who can?”

The man called Shane chuckles, warming my ear.

He says, “Matter of fact, I do.”

13. Bingo He Says

Two hours later, Randall Shane arrives in a gleaming black Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. Is it a cop car thing, or a retired FBI thing, or does he moonlight as a chauffeur? Or does he just prefer a car the size of a boat? As it pulls into my driveway, the big Lincoln looks like it could eat my little Mercedes wagon and spit out the chrome.

Standing in the open door—I’ve been chewing my nails and watching the street for at least an hour—I give a wave of greeting as Mr. Shane unfolds himself from the driver’s seat. He nods in my direction—right place, obviously—and pops the trunk lid with his key. Retrieves a bulky briefcase and a laptop, secures the trunk, and strides up the walkway, all business.

There’s a lot of him. Very tall, six feet four or five. Wide shoulders, long muscular arms, and a purposeful, no-nonsense way of walking. Not a walk exactly, certainly not a strut—more of a march. Fern’s joke comes to mind—can’t think of anyone who looks less like Johnny Depp. He could put Johnny Depp in his pocket and still have room for lint. No, there’s nothing wistful or soft or feminine about Randall Shane. More the Liam Neeson type, if you have to pick an actor. He’s all angles, with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee that gives him a long, slightly gaunt face. Deep-set, utterly serious sky-blue eyes that are already studying me. Age, somewhere in his forties. Surely not old enough to be retired, and obviously not the elderly gent I’d been expecting, even if he does drive a car associated with seniors.

His attire is less formal than I expected. Crisply pressed khaki trousers, a lime-green Polo shirt with a soft rolled collar, brown leather Top-Siders. On someone else it might be a preppy look. Not on Shane. On him it looks like something an NFL linebacker would wear on his day off.

“Mrs. Garner?” he asks, with a slight, wary smile. Nice, even teeth.

“Jane, please. Come in, come in. This is very kind of you.”

“We’ll see,” he says, ducking slightly as he eases into the foyer. “No promises.”

“Understood. I’ll pay for your time, whatever happens.”

He shrugs, as if indifferent to the notion of payment. Towering over me in the little foyer, smelling faintly of Ivory soap and something like cedar. Manly cedar, though, not the perfumed version.

“Show me to her room,” he says.

“This way. Up the stairs and to the left.”

“No calls?”

I shake my head. No calls, no contact. My frantic calls are still going directly to voice mail, and my daughter is still in the wind.

The summer days are long, so there’s plenty of light in the sky, but early evening has arrived, and as we traipse up the stairs, the host in me automatically offers this stranger something to eat.

“Not right now,” he says, pushing open the door to Kelly’s bedroom. A step inside and he stops, checking out the walls, furnishings. The place is girly-girl, teenage girly-girl, but very clean and organized because Kelly is a neat freak.

“Did you tidy up?” he wants to know.

“She keeps it this way.”

He nods to himself, as if registering a fact to be filed away. Sets his briefcase on the floor, his laptop on her desk, and then turns to look at me. More of a quick study than a look.

“You didn’t have supper,” he says. A statement of fact.

“Not hungry.”

“Okay.” He nods to himself, registering another fact. “Do you drink tea?”

What’s this about? I’m thinking, but admit that sometimes I do, in fact, drink tea.

“Good. Then I suggest you make yourself a mug of strong, hot tea. Put sugar in it, for energy. Eat two pieces of toast, you’ll be able to hold that much down.”

“What?” I say, thinking he’s been here less than a minute, already he’s telling me when and what to eat.

“You look like you’re about to faint, Mrs. Garner. Time and efficiency are very important at this juncture, and I need you to be conscious and thinking coherently. In a crisis like this, many parents tend to fall apart. We don’t have that luxury. Tea, toast. Stay downstairs. I’ll let you know if I need help, or have questions.”

I’m halfway down the stairs before I realize he just ordered me out of my own daughter’s bedroom.

He may be brusque and bossy, but Randall Shane is right about my needing to eat. The toast settles my stomach and the hot, sweet tea gives me energy. Hadn’t realized how depleted I’d been, how close to passing out. Maybe even fainting, as he’d suggested. But “at this juncture”? Is the man a robot? Nobody says “at this juncture.”

Cops do, I realize. They lapse into cop talk. And FBI agents are federal cops. They dress better but they have cop hearts. Not that I’ve ever met an FBI agent, retired or otherwise. All my thoughts on the subject of FBI agents come from TV shows, and muttered asides from my late father, so maybe I’m way off, reading too much into Shane’s formal manner of speech.

Whatever, I’m not about to remain confined to the kitchen. With an extra mug of tea as my excuse, I slip upstairs, into Kelly’s room, and find him at her computer. Making her prim little swivel chair look small indeed.

“You said tea, so I thought maybe you drank it, too.”

Without looking up from the screen he says, “Thanks. Leave it on the desk.”

“Any progress?”

“I’ll know in twenty-six minutes,” he says, grunting softly to himself as he hits a key. “Make it twenty-five.”

There’s a clock on screen, counting down.

Shane swivels in the chair, picks up the mug, takes a cautious sip. He studies me with a good internist’s eyes. “You look better,” he says, rendering judgment.

“I am, thank you.”

“Proprietary software,” he explains, nodding at the screen. “If Kelly left her password anywhere on the hard drive, we’ll find it, and if need be the software will crack it. Preliminary search indicates numerous references to both Seth and S-Man, so once I get the files open, we should know a lot more.”

“You found his last name?” I say. “That’s great. I’ll call the county cops. I mean police.”

“Cops will do,” he says with a slight grin. “No, not his last name. Not yet. Just a search engine tracer showing there are references buried within the files. E-mail folders, HTML folders, chat room folders.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. It’s just the way computers organize themselves. Each folder has a name and a location. I was able to list the folders by title, but can’t open them without the password. If this particular software doesn’t get us there, I have other ways.” Making it sound almost ominous. Like no mere microchip would dare defy him.