When Kel started getting seriously mouthy, acting like a different person, I did a little Google search to see if childhood cancer had any long-term effects on behavior, maybe like post-traumatic stress disorder. Having cancer is certainly traumatic and stressful, right? Anyhow, that was my theory. Then I clicked on an article that had nothing to do with chemo or surviving cancer. It was a scary description of what physically happens to the human brain during adolescence. According to the article, the brain starts shedding synaptic connections at about age twelve to fourteen. Synaptic connections are what enable us to think rationally, to process information, so why is the teen brain getting rid of vital connections? Because it’s preparing for the next big growth spurt, which results in the formation of the deep neurological connections that enable adults to make reasoned decisions. The article compared the teen brain to a plant pruning itself so it will eventually grow stronger. For a couple of crucial years, the adolescent mind tends to react emotionally—and often inappropriately—because the rational connectors are still in the process of forming. Which explains lots of things, from slammed doors and hysterical tears to kids who play Russian roulette with sex or, God forbid, actual guns.

What makes me think my own darling daughter might be capable of making a really bad decision? A decision that changes her life, or maybe ends it? Because I’ve been there. I was that girl. There were no glamorous flyboys in my life, no billionaire dads, but even so I had managed to screw up so badly that two lives were put at risk. And all because I surrendered to a crazy impulse on a moonless night.

My dark secret, you see, really is about darkness. Not metaphorical darkness, but real, actual darkness. A darkness so complete that the sultry summer night made me think I was invisible, invulnerable. Like whatever happened in that darkness did not count. And yet, of course, it did, no matter how hard I tried to deny it at the time.

What happened that night all those years ago, in the secret darkness, still haunts me. Makes me think crazy, frantic thoughts. Makes me ashamed to imagine, for even a moment, that Kelly might behave as stupidly, as selfishly, as I had once behaved.

She’s better than me. Smarter than me. No way is she participating in some scatterbrained extortion scheme. Kelly didn’t come home because she can’t come home. She needs help. She needs her mother. Too bad her mother is weak and pathetic. Too bad her mother keeps falling apart.

“Mrs. Garner?”

Shane stepping out on the balcony, observing me with concern.

“It’s not ‘Mrs. Garner’!” I blubber. “I’m not married! I was never married! Garner is my maiden name, my father’s name.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I forgot. Why are you crying? Has something happened?”

Crying would be the polite description. Bawling my eyes out is more like it. Guess the tear ducts weren’t empty after all.

“She’s not me!” I blubber. “She’s better than me! She might run away, she might risk her own life, but Kelly would never, ever hurt another person! Not on purpose.”

Not sure how it happened, but I’m weeping into his big chest. Strong, gentle hands hold me tight but not too tight. I’m aware of the damp rain clinging to his close-cropped beard, and the newer dampness of my own tears.

“It’s okay,” he says, speaking in a craggy whisper. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

I want, I want, I want—what do I want? Not sex, I’m wound way too tight for that, vibrating with the exclusive, overwhelming need to find Kelly. Plus the big guy isn’t really my type, not physically. Although that, I suppose, could change, given time and proximity. But no, the wanting is linked to something else, a deeper need, something that can’t be satisfied by sex. What I want is something I can’t even articulate. Father, brother, protector, friend, my own personal superhero, all these things and more, all of it balled up into a need so powerful that I cling to Randall Shane like he’s the last man in the universe.

Bless the guy, he seems to understand that all the frantic clinging and weeping isn’t about getting him into bed. His hands never stray, never explore, and somehow I know absolutely that he’d never take advantage of my emotional state.

Instead he lets me cry, allows me to sob my heart out until there’s nothing left but hanging on. After a while he gently disentangles himself, heads into the suite. He locates the well-stocked minibar and returns with a bottle of Perrier and a glass filled with ice cubes the size of fat diamonds.

“Drink,” he suggests. “You need the fluid.”

“I’m really, really sorry.”

“Don’t be. Never apologize for being a good mother.”

That sets me back for a moment. “How do you know I’m a good mother?”

He shrugs. “I just do. Care to share?”

“Share?”

“What set you off. Something that happened when you were Kelly’s age.”

“I said that?”

“You implied,” he responds.

My knees suddenly go wobbly—I’m a puppet with severed strings, looking for a place to collapse. Shane leads me to a plush leather sofa, remains standing. “We’ll get to this later,” he suggests. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“What about them?” I ask, indicating the condo tower that looms over the hotel. Wanting rather desperately to change the subject.

“Mission accomplished, more or less,” he says with a grin. “If the Hummer, moves, it will inform my laptop, and you in turn will inform me.”

He sits me in front of his computer, shows me the software. The screen frames a map of downtown Miami, and on it the location of the tracking device pulses like an orange gumdrop. Looks very much like the navigation screen on Fern’s Escalade, the one that tells her when she takes a wrong turn. The one she yells at.

“If the vehicle moves more than three feet, two things will happen,” Shane says. “The program will bong until you click on this button, okay? Then you’ll call me. If you can’t get hold of me, just sit tight. The program will track Manning, show us where he goes.”

“I’m supposed to call you? But where will you be?

He shrugs, avoiding my eyes. “I’ll be, um, otherwise occupied for the next few hours.”

At first I assume he’s going to try and get some sleep, maybe take a pill, but that’s not it. He has another mission, a mission he’s not willing to discuss.

“So you want me to share, but not you? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Fairness is not a factor,” he informs me, crossing his long arms over his chest. “Over the next few days there will be things I need to do—actions that must be taken—which are not strictly legal.”

“Like planting a tracking device.”

“Like that,” he admits. “Some of these actions, it’s best you have no knowledge.”

“But I want to help.”

“You are helping,” he assures me. “But when two or more individuals engage in a criminal activity, that can result in conspiracy charges. Easier to prosecute and easier to prove than an individual action. We want to avoid legal jeopardy, if possible.”

“Criminal activity?” I ask. “Did you say ‘criminal activity’?”

“Break the law, you’re engaging in criminal activity. No point sugarcoating it.”

“What kind of criminal activity?” I ask.

“Best you have no knowledge. That’s the point.”

“Bad things?”

He smiles, shakes his head. “Not so bad. Not major felony. But if I happen to be in violation of a particular statute, it will be just me, do you understand?”

“Except for the GPS thing,” I point out. “I’m part of that conspiracy.”

“You are,” he concedes. “My apologies, but I can’t monitor the vehicle on my own. Not and do what needs to be done.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling completely spent. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine. Still want me to buzz you if the cops show up, or if Manning leaves the building?”