Nola sniffled. “Please call New York and tell them to add a ‘Where’s Lulu?’ option on my website. Many Chinese are connected to the Internet and might have information.”

She got up and walked to the stroller. Lulu’s toys were piled in it. She flung them on the floor. Dingggg. Plingggg. Klingggg. The clattering reverberated in the room. She dropped to her knees and shoved the toys about, as though Lulu were ready to be plopped down in their midst. She hit the blue key and the head of a dog popped up. Lulu had begun to say “dog.”

Nola was surprised when her security man informed her that Daniel Chen was waiting in the living room. Wade was keeping to himself in his office suite downstairs. She had dressed in a leotard, and her hair was pinned up. Now Leslie made her change to a miniskirt, a sweater and sandals, and wouldn’t let her leave her room without first touching up her face “no matter how unimportant the guest is.” Sometimes she felt she was Leslie's dressed-up doll, as Jenna had been hers when they had staged shows for their father.

She stepped to the bathroom for mouthwash. There, she picked up Daniel’s snuff bottle from the silver tray and examined it again. The magnificent bird in a cage. The brush strokes by an artist whose vision of each detail of the final product was so clear that he started by marking them first. What attracted Daniel, who had selected the present before having met her, to this particular picture?

When Nola entered the living room, Daniel was scanning her publicity photo album, a glossy chronicle of her career that, in its Chinese version, was selling by the thousands. He was dressed in a light tweed jacket, chinos and brown leather loafers. Upon her entrance he turned, and both her mind and body registered the handsomeness of his chiseled cheeks and easy, yet controlled, posture. She almost chuckled, remembering Leslie picking on Daniel's “flat feet.” For a split second she wondered whether to give Daniel her hand to shake or offer her cheek for a kiss. She opted for a smile.

“I’m sorry not to have had the chance to tell you how terrible I feel about the baby,” he said. “How are you faring?”

“Devastated,” she whispered. “No one understands how much I love her.”

“Adoptive parents often speak of love at first sight. And she’s special—”

“You’re the only one who doesn’t refer to her in the past tense.”

“I should tell you that I’m here on Ashford’s behalf,” he said. There was a deprecating note in his voice. “Or rather our government.”

She looked at him. Again that strength, that center within him that she wanted to reach. “I hope it has something to do with Lulu.”

He nodded. “The official version?”

“God,” she murmured. “Go ahead.”

“The baby’s mother has been found.”