“Sorry,” I whisper, feeling ashamed.

“Anxiety attacks are allowed,” he says, pressing a glass of water into my hands. “Drink this slowly. No gulping.”

“Happens,” I say.

“Yes, it happens,” he agrees. “Drink.”

I drink. Slowly my heart stops slamming. Whatever triggered the episode fades into my bloodstream or back into my brain, wherever it comes from. Truth? I’m no stranger to hyperventilating. Started when I was about twelve, just entering adolescence. Had my first period and fainted dead away. My mother thought it was the shock of seeing my own blood, but it was more than that, because for a while it happened several times a month. Our family doctor gave me some pills—mild tranquilizers—but the funny feeling they gave me actually made me more anxious and so I stopped taking them. I used to carry a paper bag in my purse for emergencies. Nurses would find me puffing on the things in the hallways while waiting on Kelly’s latest test results. Got to be routine, almost. No big deal. ‘Scuse me, Doctor, while I huff into this for a while. Okay, what were you saying, another course of radiation? More chemo? No problem, puff-puff-puff.

Oddly enough, the longest time ever without an anxiety attack was while pregnant. All kinds of stress in my life—denying the pregnancy, then hiding the pregnancy, then dropping out of school, parents breaking up, money problems—but it never triggered an attack. Maybe it was hormones. Maybe it was Kelly inside me, calming me down. Whatever, the hyperventilation episodes came back with a vengeance when Mom got sick, and continued right through the day of her funeral. But for the past couple of years, months go by without a problem, and when it does happen it’s not so severe as in the past. Until now.

Shane, the man who never sleeps, it figures he’d understand.

“Not a problem,” he says. “We’ll keep a bag handy.”

“Thanks.”

In my present condition a few kind words make me weepy, which he’s kind enough to ignore, which in turn makes me more weepy, until finally he has to find a box of tissues, tell me to blow my nose. Feels like I’m three years old, making a scene in day care. Honk, honk.

“You sound like a duck,” he observes. “Or maybe a goose.”

That gets me laughing and then crying and then both at the same time. More tissues, more honking, until finally the tears dry up and all that’s left is the gentle laughter.

“Good,” he says. “Better?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He fiddles with a pen, making doodles in his notebook. Waits a beat and says, “Maybe from here on out, you could stay by the phone, sort of guarding the home front, and I’ll take care of the fieldwork.”

My head shakes before my response is fully formed—an instinctive, powerful rejection of his offer. “No way. Don’t you dare. She’s my baby, I need to be there.”

Shane nods like he expected me to object. “That’s okay, too. You realize we have to go to Florida?”

To be honest my brain hadn’t got that far, but of course he’s right. “So this man, this boy, whatever, he flew them to Miami in his father’s plane? And they got in trouble there?”

“Looks that way,” Shane says. “It’s the best lead so far. Theoretically a Beechcraft King Air 350 could make it to southern Florida without even a pit stop. Aircraft like that could fly there and back in a day, easy.”

“But they didn’t make it back.”

“No indication of that, no. Evidence suggests that Seth and your daughter have been detained in Florida. Something happened down there.”

“They were kidnapped. That’s why Seth’s father is so scared,”

“Yes, but kidnapped for what purpose?” Shane wants to know.

“Money. All that money makes him a target.”

“Yeah,” Shane says carefully. “But Edwin Manning has hundreds of millions, so the big question is why hasn’t he taken charge of the situation? Guys like that, hugely successful, they’re alpha dog personalities. They assume they can use power and wealth to fix just about anything, and usually they’re right.”

Hand to my chest, I say, “You trying to give me another attack?”

“No. But you need to know what we’re facing. This isn’t a typical abduction or extortion. And that means I have no idea what we’re up against.”

“I thought you had a plan,” I protest, sounding plaintive.

“Oh, I do have a plan,” he says, utterly confident. “My plan is to find your daughter.”

29. The Truth Almost

When I finally admitted I was pregnant, and failed to name the father, Fern joked about my immaculate conception. She called me the swollen angel and talked about my unborn child as the baby Jesus. And always it made me smile because that was just Fern being Fern. Think of a white Queen Latifah except slightly taller and without the celebrity diva glitches. A big beautiful woman who can enter a room, size it up and make it her own. No matter what the occasion, wedding, funeral, or lunch with the posse, she’s out there, a wild girl with a wicked sense of humor. Words that on another person’s lips would be rude or insulting are, coming from Fern, an invitation to laugh at yourself, at her, at the whole crazy world.

First thing she says when seeing Shane, “Get a load of Mr. Big Hunk. So, is everything in proportion?”

“Fern! Be nice!”

“Bet you get that all the time,” she continues, ignoring me. “Girls checking out your hands and feet, wanting to know if the rest of you is built to the same scale. Am I right?”

“Randall Shane,” he says. “Care to shake my big hand?”

Fern takes the hand, draws him close, gives him a smooch on the neck, which is as high as she can get on tiptoe. “Keeper,” she says to me, with a wink. And then back at him, “You’ll have to make the first move. Janey has the shy bug.”

“Fern, stop it.”

“She hasn’t had a date since the Clinton administration. So here’s the deal. Help her find the kid, then I’ll treat you both to dinner at a schmantzy bling hotel. A big juicy steak and then big juicy you. Let nature take its course, what do you say?”

Shane chuckles, carefully disengages himself from Fern. “You lost me at schmantzy.”

“Ha! Fat chance! So dish, darlings. What’s the haps? Where’s Flygirl and how do we get her home? Tell me all before I read it in the tabloids.”

The big guy gives her what I’ve come to think of as the Randall Shane eyeball. Not an accusing kind of look, exactly. More careful, studied, but still the sort of serious look that makes you not want to play him. A look that reminds you that despite the good manners he can, under the right circumstances, be dangerous. “Jane warned me about you,” he says, more or less affably. “She also said she’d trust you with her life.”

“She said that? Janey, that’s so sweet.”

Shane bears down, insisting on serious. “She’s about to do just that, Mrs. Cabella. Trust you with information that could put Kelly’s life at risk. Or hers, or mine, for that matter.”

“Mrs. Cabella?” Fern looks shocked, eyes getting bigger. “You told him my name was Mrs. Cabella? I haven’t been Mrs. anything since I traded Edgar for his Barcolounger, and his last name was Fineman. Cabella is my father’s name, so I guess technically you could call me Mr. Cabella’s daughter, but see, Mrs. Cabella? That’s my mother. You want a date with my mother? She’d love you. Can’t remember her own name, or who I am most of the time, but she always loved big, handsome men. Janey, I ever tell you she once propositioned Burt Lancaster in the lobby of the Waldorf? She was married at the time, too. My aunt Nancy told me all about it, they were having drinks in the bar and she wrote her number on a napkin and gave it to Burt Lancaster. And you know what he did? He thought she wanted an autograph, so he signed the napkin and handed it back. Isn’t that a riot? You know who Burt Lancaster was, Randall? Do you like old movies? I’m like plugged into AMC, that’s my default channel, all day long I’m watching these good-looking dead people. I like the noir. Can’t be too noir for me. You know what noir is, Randall? That’s French for ‘the bitch is going to shoot you in the end, you big dumb moron.’”