Fern is still going when I walk her to the couch, persuade her to sit down. She’s always a talker. But this is something else. Like she feels she’s made a fool of herself and has to keep yakking to cover the embarrassment, which is really strange because Fern doesn’t do embarrassed, it’s not part of who she is, and then I realize, hearing her babble on about old movie stars, that she’s nervous, maybe even frightened.

She goes dead quiet when she learns that Kelly has gone missing in Florida and has possibly been abducted, and that I’m leaving immediately.

“All you have to do is answer the phone,” I say. “Tell people there was a family emergency, I’ll get back to them in a few days. If it’s a fitting or some sort of fabric crisis that absolutely has to be handled, Tracy can take care of it. She’s good with nervous clients.”

“You really think Kelly has been kidnapped? Oh my God. What do I do if the kidnappers call?”

“You tell them I’m not here, you give them my cell number and tell them to call me. And Fern? We don’t know for sure that she’s been kidnapped, okay? All we know for sure is that she’s missing. No one has called to demand anything.”

Shane and I previously agreed not to share all of our information with Fern. I desperately need her to mind the phone, take care of business, but he’s says it’s better if she doesn’t know about Edwin Manning, or the FBI phone tap or the shadow investigation. No sense alerting any bad actors, he says—cop talk for bad guys. The less she knows the less they’ll know, if someone does call my landline and speaks to Fern. Which makes sense. I’d trust Fern with my life, I really would, but she does love to talk and doesn’t always know when to stop.

Still, it’s hard not to be completely straight with my oldest and dearest friend. “There are things I can’t tell you right now,” I caution her. “Are you okay with that? Can you do this for me?”

“More secrets, Janey?”

“Not for long. All we have to do, establish what’s really going on, then the police will take over. The police and the FBI.”

“But don’t mention the FBI,” Shane warns her. “Not over the phone. Very important. You don’t know where Jane is, or what she’s doing.”

“You don’t know anything,” I urge. “You’re just answering the phone for a friend. Mostly it’ll be business calls. Vendors and clients. Use your best judgment, make excuses, whatever. Anybody calls about Kelly, what do you say?”

Fern shakes her head, exhales sharply. “Okay, okay, I get it. Jane isn’t here, try her cell. Other than that I’m like Colonel Schultz—I know nothing.”

“Perfect,” says Shane.

“Cell will be off for a couple of hours while we’re en route, but I’ll get any messages. And I’ll call you as soon as I can. Love you, Fern,” I say, hugging her. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Go,” she insists, waving me away. “Find her.”

We’re heading for the door.

“I mean it about the bling hotel!” she reminds us.

Thanks to small miracles, our flight departs on time. An added bonus, it’s only three-quarters full, so the middle seat is empty. Shane has a real problem with his long legs, so he takes the aisle and I snuggle up against the window, hoping the hum of the engines will be calming. Trying not to obsess on what might be happening to Kelly at this very minute, or what might already have happened to her, or if she’s suffering or terrified or just plain lost.

Too much to think about. I have to find a way to put it aside, concentrate on the here and now, and whatever the next step may be. Get to Miami, then worry about Kel. Once we’re airborne and at altitude, Shane opens his laptop. No Internet connection, but he’s downloaded what he describes as scads of data, and he starts sorting through the files. Catching up on paperwork, he calls it.

“Mostly I’m treading water until I can get back on the Net,” he admits. “My advice, put your head back, close your eyes, get some rest. You’re going to need it when we get there.”

“But you never sleep,” I say reprovingly.

“Not on a job.”

“How is that possible?”

He makes a rueful face. “Never got a satisfactory answer. I’ve been brain scanned, studied by sleep deprivation specialists, checked into insomnia clinics, examined by neurologists, shrinks, fortune-tellers, you name it.”

“Fortune-tellers? Really?”

“No,” he admits, “but the rest, yes. They never found any organic brain disorders, nothing they can point to.”

“Sounds terrible.”

“It can be,” he admits. “The brain requires sleep—being deprived of it can actually kill you—so when my brain doesn’t sleep for too long it compensates by sending me into a fugue state for short intervals.”

“Fugue state? How does that work? Do you mind my asking?”

“No, it’s fine,” he says. “Basically I sleep with my eyes open, but don’t know I’m asleep. I can be up, moving around, unaware of my condition. Sort of like sleepwalking. When it gets really bad I tend to hallucinate. They call it wakeful dreaming or sleep state misperception.”

“And that’s why you left the FBI?”

“Pretty much, yes,” he says, sounding evasive.

“You had this all your life?”

“No,” he says, glancing away. “It’s a result of trauma.”

“You got shot? And that caused it?”

Shane turns to face me in his narrow seat. Not easy because his long legs are jammed. His eyes are as deep and as blue as the sky around us and they’re searching mine, as if looking for a clue. “No, I wasn’t shot,” he says. “You want to know exactly what happened?”

I nod, but there’s something in his manner that tells me I’ll regret asking.

“I propose a fair trade,” he begins. “I’ll tell you what happened to me if you’ll tell me about Kelly’s father. Who he is, where he is, and why you don’t want to talk about him.”

I turn to the window, gaze at the cotton clouds, the wave-laced sea below.

“Mrs. Garner? Jane?”

“Can’t,” I say.

“Does it have to do with what’s happened to your daughter? Is her father part of this? I have to know if I’m going to help.”

He waits for an answer, patient but insistent.

“I really can’t tell you about her father,” I say in a small voice, “because I have no idea who he is.”

And that’s the truth, almost.

Part II

Screams In The Night

1. Let Him Sizzle

There’s nothing like a dry martini at thirty thousand feet to set the mood. Edwin Manning, normally not much of a drinker, sips the icy vodka and decides that he has, finally, taken charge of himself, if not the whole nightmare situation. His twenty-four-hour emotional meltdown has left him deeply ashamed. The way he showed weakness in front of the former FBI agent and the girl’s mother was despicable. For the first time in his adult life he’d been unable to cope, immobilized by fear of what might happen if he makes the wrong decision. He didn’t snap out of it until the package arrived. At that moment it became obvious that if he failed to get it together and act like a man his son would surely die.

Demands have been made, outrageous demands. As a father he has to find a way to fulfill those demands, impossible as they may be.

It all starts with Edwin getting his ass in gear, transporting himself and a few burly associates to the scene of the crime, as it were. The associates, those with him on the chartered Gulfstream, include Mr. Salvatore J. Popkin, borrowed from the Wunderbar staff, where he is not-so-affectionately known as Sally Popeye or Sally Pop. Whatever juvenile, wannabe-wise-guy name he uses, at this moment he’s staring longingly at Edwin’s perfectly chilled martini with his egg-like eyes.

“Have a beer if you like,” Edwin suggests, “But I want you sober when we arrive, understood?”