Trapped (18 page)

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 prob-

lems—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,

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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 under-

stand.

“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

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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 hap-

pened 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 concep-

tion. 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

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Queen Latifah except slightly taller and without the celeb-

rity 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

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makes you not want to play him. A look that reminds you that

despite the good manners he can, under the right circum-

stances, 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.’”

Fern is still going when I walk her to the couch, persuade

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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 in-

formation 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.

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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 answer-

ing 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

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what might already have happened to her, or if she’s suffer-

ing 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 special-

ists, 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

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it gets really bad I tend to hallucinate. They call it wakeful

dreaming or sleep state misperception.”