There’s nothing more disorienting than waking up to an emergency in a strange place. Not that Miami is particularly strange—okay, actually it is—but it isn’t home, and therefore I can’t rely on a familiar comfort level. It’s as if there’s no bottom or limit for my anxiety. And yet I can’t, no way, I simply can’t let myself turn into a hyperventilating mess.

Cling to that, girl. Make it your religion for just this day, the Church of No Panic Allowed. Focus on not being afraid, because your fear could ruin any chance you have of finding your daughter alive. Don’t think about it, just react. Grab your purse, run to the elevators. Avoid the temptation to bang on the doors or punch the button into oblivion, it won’t make the elevator arrive any faster. Let’s see, twelve stories to the garage level, does it make sense to take the stairs?

Give it a few more seconds. Patience.

The signal dings, the doors open. Empty car. Perfect. Get in, punch G, thumb the Door Close button. There, you’re dropping, going down, gravity never felt so good. And while you’re dropping try to picture where, exactly, you parked the rental car, the precious Crown Victoria. See it in your mind. Recall pulling into the dim garage, slightly blinded, following the signs and arrows. Finding a parking slot three rows from the elevators, feeling proud of yourself as you grabbed your bag from the trunk, headed for the lobby.

Small miracle, the elevator proceeds uninterrupted to the garage level. The door slides open. And right there where you pictured it, the dark green Crown Vic, big as life.

Keys! Are the keys in your purse? How could you be so stupid! How could you not make sure about the keys?

Tears of frustration start to blur my vision, but that stops when my questing fingers grasp the plastic fob to the car keys—a warm pulse of relief—and then I’m in the big sedan, being waved through the gate and onto the street a full thirty seconds before Shane hits the lobby level and spots me waiting at the curb. Bolting through the exit with the laptop cradled under his arm like a football. Who are the big guys, the runners? Fullbacks? He looks like a fullback ready to run over anyone who dares to get in his way. Except for the small problem of his Top-Siders being unlaced, flapping dangerously. And the slightly askew baseball cap.

“Beautiful,” is the first word out of his mouth as he slips into the passenger seat, slightly breathless, grinning at me. “Well done! Go, go! Turn right onto Brickell, then left at the first light. They’re heading west.”

All the panic and hurry turns out to be unnecessary. The flame-orange Hummer is moving at a crawl though morning rush-hour traffic, no more than a quarter mile ahead. Shane can follow it on the GPS map and I can see it with my own eyeballs, big as life and not exactly easy to maneuver in bumper-to-bumper conditions.

“Okay, good,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief. “For all we know, this could be a false alarm. Maybe they’re off to breakfast at IHOP, running an errand, whatever.”

Stomach rumbling, my head begging for coffee, I ignore the reference to breakfast and point out that the Hummer has darkly tinted windows. So how do we know Edwin Manning is in the vehicle? Could be anybody, right?

“Could be,” Shane acknowledges. “Want to turn around?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Sorry. You’re right—all we know is that the Hummer is on the move. We don’t know who, or why, or where it might be headed. Standard tail, we’d have someone maneuver ahead of the target vehicle, confirm passenger identity. But we don’t have that luxury.”

“Because we’re on our own,” I say bitterly.

Shane gives me a glance, and his voice softens. “Maybe not for long.”

“What do you mean, maybe not for long?”

As we slog in the stop and go, the bright orange roof of the Hummer slowly beckoning us onward, Shane recounts what he was up to last night. His better-not-to-know mission. Not pursuing leggy South Beach models or hanging out at clubs, obviously. More like entering forbidden territory, and very nearly getting himself killed in the process. Avoiding sleeping snakes and gopher holes and something called palmetto, which he describes as a palm tree with a built-in machete. All of which he blames on something called Google Earth.

“That’s how I located the strip,” he explains. “By checking out satellite images of the area within fifteen miles of that cell tower. The images aren’t as clear as those available to military analysts, of course, but they’re good enough to identify larger structures.”

“You were trespassing? In the Everglades, in the middle of the night?”

“Figured it was more dangerous in daylight,” he says with a wry grin. “Night you can find a shadow, blend in. Daylight you’re exposed. And it’s not exactly the Everglades, that particular area. Technically it’s pine scrub. More or less dry underfoot.”

“But you found the airplane? The King Whatever?”

“Beechcraft King Air 350. Yeah, it was there. I was able to confirm the tail numbers. Aircraft is registered to Edwin Manning, DBA Merrill Manning Capital Funds.”

“Amazing!” I exclaim, suddenly elated. “Maybe that’s where they’re keeping Kelly, right at the airport!”

“It’s not an airport, Mrs. Garner,” Shane responds, cautioning me. “It’s a very narrow strip of cleared land, suitable for surreptitious landings.”

“But you said there was a building!” I protest, pushing the idea that Kelly might be there.

“A camouflaged hangar. I checked it out after they left. No sign of Kelly or Seth. No indication anyone had been held there against their will. Just an expensive aircraft in an otherwise empty hangar. Wherever they’re keeping Kelly, it’s not there.”

That shuts me up for a while. The giddy spike of hope quickly dissolves into low-level anxiety. Don’t think about Kelly, or what might be happening to her at this very moment, just concentrate on keeping the Hummer in sight.

They’ve gotten one light ahead, but are at the moment frozen in gridlock. We could get out and walk.

“Okay, we haven’t found her yet, but it does mean a lot, identifying the plane,” Shane explains, sensing my plummeting mood. “She’s almost certainly being held somewhere in Southern Florida, probably in a location just as remote as the hidden landing strip. Quite possibly within the Nakosha territory.”

We’re not moving. Slowed to a crawl, now we’re not even crawling. Stuck in gridlock just like the Hummer, what Kelly gleefully calls a Hum Job. Downtown Miami makes the LIE look like a trek in the remote wilderness. I turn in the seat, wanting to look Shane in the eye. “You think Indians did this? Kidnapped Kelly?”

The big guy shrugs, rubbing at his injured leg. “Don’t know. The men who came to inspect the aircraft were white. Redneck white. But the airstrip is right in the middle of tribal territory, so there has to be some sort of relationship. Could be someone in the tribe leases it out to smugglers. Lot of that went on in the old days. Tribe looks the other way, eventually makes some money out of the deal, in a way that can’t easily be traced or connected to the smuggling operation.”

“Is that what this is about. Smuggling? You think Kelly’s flyboy was running drugs?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “At a glance, yes, it looks that way. Drug deal gone bad. Except that Edwin Manning is involved, and somehow I don’t think a billionaire running a billionaire’s hedge fund is consorting with drugs dealers trying to turn a quick profit.”

I shake my head. “Look, I’m mad enough at this boy to strangle him. Seth I mean. For putting my daughter in danger. But you saw the pictures. He gets his kicks from airplanes and motorcycles and parachutes.”

“Agreed,” says Shane. “Smuggling drugs is low probability. Unless it was for the thrill of it. Like skydiving.”