The hushed babble of the crowd thundered in her head. Time was passing. How many hours had it been since Lulu was taken? Nola wanted to get up, to flee. Kong Ruiji went on chatting, but she was in a pressure cooker of time. If she didn’t speak now, she would forever regret it.

Yet, as much as she hated it, she must let the Ambassador use his diplomatic skills.

She’d let him handle the matter, even if her gut feeling was telling her that what was best for her and Lulu might not necessarily be best for Ambassador Ashford, or for U.S.-China relations. Except that her Valium-soaked brain couldn’t tell her why.

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

A swishing sound hurled Nola up to the surface of sleep. In her dream, Lulu had been with Jenna, both lost in shifting clusters of runaway youth with vacant eyes. As she had done years before, Nola was again searching in back-alley basement apartments and deserted farmhouses.

Scars of old wounds burst open. Nola's breathing came in gasps. Where was her sunny little baby?

In the gauzy shadows of the room, Leslie wheeled in the silver room-service tray. Nola flung back the covers and threw her legs off the bed. Her ice-blue gown of the night before had been tossed across the chair. Wade had locked her jewelry in the vault.

Her voice quaked over the lump in her windpipe. “I should have said something to Kong Ruiji. He could have found Lulu.”

“Shhhhhh.” Leslie put a finger to her lips. “Warm up your vocal cords. It’ll take your mind off things.”

“It won’t close the hole in my heart.” She dropped her face into her hands. “If I don’t find her, I’ll be worried about her every day of my life.”

“Does your pain have anything to do with your sister?”

“Jenna?”

“Whatever happened there, you’re still carrying garbage.” Leslie halted. He had never brought up this topic unless she initiated the conversation. “And your parents’ death.”

“What’s this got to do with anything?”

“These are unresolved losses.” Leslie examined her face as though searching for a blemish. “With my parents, I get things out of my system and out of the way. Even if they disagree, there’s always tomorrow to make up. When a person dies, there’s no one to argue with.”

“For that matter, so are things as far as Jenna’s concerned. It’s as if the last events were captured on film and I can never change that one last frame. There’s so much I could tell her if she weren’t hiding—” Nola reached for a tissue. “She’s an emancipated adult, even if she likes me enough to accept the yearly stipend Wade deposits in her account.”

“For all you know, she’s writing The Great American Novel and will show up when she needs it published.”