“No fainting from you, my girl. Need one working brain around here besides mine. Sit up and pull yourself together.”

I sat up. The priest hoisted me to my feet with only a mild grunt. Hundred-and-forty-pound women are nothing to an old boxer. He held a cup to my mouth and I swallowed hot tea, choked, then drank down the rest. I put my head between my knees and willed the gray cloudy pieces of my mind into some kind of order.

“Where would the girl go?” He spoke to me roughly to make me concentrate.

“It depends partly on why she ran away.” My voice wobbled. I steadied it and continued. “She turned hysterical this morning when I asked her to talk to Benji. I also suggested she confide in her grandmother. I just hope she didn’t follow that piece of advice.”

I pulled out my cell phone and called the Bayard apartment. Elsbetta answered.

“Why are you making trouble here?” she demanded. “Mr. Edwards, he wants to fire me because you came this morning. Now Miss Catherine has run away, all because of you.”

“Is Renee or Edwards there?” I ignored her outburst. “I want to talk to them about Catherine.”

“You cannot be bothering them. They have ordered no phone calls.” “Tell them I’m reporting Catherine’s disappearance to the Chicago police,” I said coldly. “If they want to speak to me, they can call me on my cell phone: I’ll give you the number.”

At that, she put me on hold. Within a minute, both Renee and Edwards were on the phone, each trying to order the other to leave the conversation to them.

“Do you have Catherine?” Renee demanded. “Isn’t she with you?” I said.

“She’s run away,” Edwards said. “Without leaving a note.”

“You acted like a Victorian father, Eds, ordering her to pack for Washington and no argument allowed. Elsbetta phoned me at my office, but-” Edwards shouted over her voice. “If you’d thought she deserved half as much attention as Calvin and your goddamned publishing empire-“

“If you listened to anyone but your-“

“Knock it off, both of you,” I said savagely. “When did she leave and what was she driving?”

“You cannot call the police,” they said in chorus.

“I can damn well do what I want. Someone reported seeing her in a white SUV Do you seriously imagine she’s safe driving a three-ton vehicle with one arm?”

That briefly united them: they wanted to know who had seen her. I grew angrier, pushing on them until they admitted Catherine had taken Renee’s white Range Rover, that they knew she hadn’t shown up at the New Solway house, that she’d left around three-thirty, after her fight with her father.

“Have you called Julius Arnoff to see if she’s gone back to Larchmont?” I asked. It didn’t seem likely to me, because she and Benji had been flushed from the mansion once already, but neither teenager was probably thinking much right now.

“My first thought,” Edwards said. “While Renee was still cursing you for taking Trina to her Arab boyfriend, I had a guard stake out the house. She isn’t there.”