Strangely enough, Ricky seems to understand what’s going on with Dug—the obvious strain of having to think—and steps back, giving him room to work it out.

“Roy,” Dug finally says, savoring the name. “He gone to check on the girl. I’m guardin’ the airplane.”

Giving it the swamp-cracker pronunciations, two words, era plane.

“Left you the truck,” Ricky observes. “What’s he driving?”

Dug has to think about it, then carefully assemble the words. “Four-wheeler. One in the shed?”

That sets Ricky back on his bare heels just a little, because he has always intended the four-wheeler to be a present for his children, eventually. Purchased on a whim months ago, with nobody’s birthday pending anytime soon, he’d decided to store it at the airfield until they were old enough to drive the thing. Picturing Tyler gleeful as he guns the engine, spins the fat wheels. Tyler screaming.

Ricky takes a deep breath, swallows his rage, saving it for later.

“Took the wheeler, did he?” he says pleasantly, showing his teeth.

Dug nods deliberately and with enthusiasm, as if grateful for any question that doesn’t require a verbal response.

“Where’s that cell phone at, Dug? The one the girl had. Did Roy leave it with you?”

Dug nods again. Two in a row.

“Give it over, I need to make a call,” says Ricky, holding out his big fist, opening his blunt fingers.

Dug hurries to the truck, returns with the sporty little Razr cell phone, places it carefully into the palm of Ricky’s hand. Takes a step back, waiting.

“Battery, Dug,” says Ricky, ever so softly. “I need the battery, too.”

Back to the truck like a two-legged retriever. Actually Ricky’s pleased that the twins remembered to remove the battery, as instructed. Ricky knows all about surveillance and triangulation, and how an active cell phone can be a homing device.

He assembles the phone, fires it up, waits until the signal bars are glowing. Then thumbs the redial button, watches the familiar number march across the little blue screen.

“Yo, Edwin,” Ricky says jovially, his free hand slipping into his gym shorts, adjusting his genitals. “You still up. Me again, yeah. What’s a matter, can’t sleep? You call the cops yet? No? FBI? CIA, Wackenhut, Pizza Hut, whoever? No? You swear? Oh that’s good, I believe you. You’re pretty smart for a white dude. Yeah, I’m down with you, bro. We can figure a way out of this, we put our brains together and think real hard. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I know you’re worried about your son. I know that. You should be worried. If we can’t work this out, if you can’t help me, I’ll be forced to cut off your boy’s ears and his nose and his fingers and little white pecker, and then FedEx him to locations around the world.”

The FedEx stuff is pure improvisation, something he heard in a movie or on TV. Ricky has already decided that when the time comes the body will go into the swamp, clean and simple and forever. But who knows, FedEx might work for the smaller appendages.

Ricky loves this part, deciding who lives, who dies, who gets the power, who shrivels like an earthworm in the sun.

“Calm down, Edwin,” he says. “Concentrate on figuring out how to get me what I want. You’ve got twelve hours before I start cutting.”

19. The Taste Of Dirty Pennies

Men, most of them, seem to think that when a woman cries she’s signaling weakness, falling apart. But sometimes crying is just what you do to relieve the tension. Guys scream or sweat or kick the cat. We cry. There’s this old movie with Holly Hunter, she’s the producer of a TV news show, and she starts the day by sitting at her desk and crying her eyes out for about thirty seconds. Then she’s good to go.

I’m having a Holly Hunter moment. The forbidden word abducted is spoken and I’m a fountain, sobbing so hard it hurts in my ribs.

Give him credit, Randall Shane doesn’t try to comfort me or offer a shoulder to cry on. He sits back and gives me time, and when I’m finished blowing my nose he simply continues where he left off.

“It’s a theory and therefore by definition it could be wrong,” he says. “But I think we have to proceed on the assumption that Edwin Manning believes his son is in peril. Therefore we have to assume your daughter is also in peril, until we hear otherwise. Does this make sense to you, Mrs. Garner?”

I nod miserably. “Unfortunately, yes. I was thinking the same thing myself. Guess I didn’t want to admit it.”

“Then we’re in agreement?”

“I guess,” I say. “Does that mean we go to the cops? Tell them what we suspect?”

Shane shakes his head. “We’re not quite there. We need to know why Manning hasn’t called in the Feds. Why he’s so terrified that he’s prowling his own yard in camouflage. Once we’ve resolved that, once we have an indication that your daughter is in danger, we’ll notify the local authorities and they’ll contact the FBI. That’s how it’s done.”

“How do we find out? He won’t talk to us.”

In the dark his smile is tight, resolute. “I’ve got an idea,” he says.

Second time around, getting inside is easy. Shane’s idea is to push the button on the intercom and say, “Let us in, Mr. Manning, or I’ll call my colleagues at the FBI. The assistant director in charge of kidnapping is Monica Bevins and I have her on speed dial. Count of three. One … two.”

And just like that, the gates slid open. As we roll up the long, curving driveway, I ask Shane if he really has a Monica Bevins on speed dial, and if she’s really an agent-in-charge.

“Yes to both,” he says. “And yes, I’m fully prepared to make the call.”

“And they let you assist clients like me? The FBI?”

“Can’t stop me. I’m a civilian.”

“But you’ve got, like, all these connections to the agency, right?”

“Some useful connections, yes.”

“And this is what you did before you retired, you found missing children?”

His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror. He gives me an odd look, like I’m a kid asking too many questions at the wrong time. “No,” he says, “not exactly. I assisted with a number of kidnap cases as an agent on general assignment. At the time it wasn’t my specialty.”

At this point I’m too numb to be shocked by this revelation. “No? What did you do?”

“Electronics, surveillance gear, mostly hardware stuff. Gear and gizmos. Later I helped develop a software program for rapid fingerprint recognition.”

“You really were a computer geek? That’s what you did in the FBI?”

“Pretty much,” he admits.

What was I thinking, that he’d shot John Dillinger and smoked out terror cells? “So how’d you get into this line of work?”

“Long story,” he says. “Maybe later.”

Secrets. Apparently Randall Shane has a few of his own.

We’ve arrived at what appears to be the main building, having passed several low, modern outbuildings. Carriage house, guest cottage, maintenance shed, all very Long Island estate. Lush, illuminated landscaping that looks au naturel but isn’t, believe me. It’s all very tastefully planned, very big money.

The main structure is an artful arrangement of steel beams and smoked glass and daring architectural angles. Must be a million precisely weathered cedar shingles keeping out the rain. The property taxes probably exceed my yearly income. No wonder the owner has, apparently, been targeted for extortion—he’s got a lot to give.

Kelly’s boyfriend or flight instructor, whatever the hell he is, how did this happen? How did she find herself in this particular world?

Shane sets the parking brake and we get out. Lights come on, illuminating a wide, elaborately shingled portico. The oversize door opens—opaque green-glass panels set in a brushed-steel frame—and Edwin Manning staggers out, dressed more or less as we last saw him, with the exception of his face, which has been recently washed.

“Who are you?” he wants to know. Then he adds, in a voice so faint it seems to fade away, “Leave me alone. Just please leave me alone!”