Nola’s breathing stopped. “What?”

“According to the Chinese.” The intimacy of their phone conversation was gone from his voice. “They’ve produced some peasant woman. With urban migration increasing, millions of homeless peasants are living in train stations. They don’t receive hukou, the registration status that entitles them to benefits in the city—”

Nola interrupted him. “The mother? She didn’t want her baby; she gave her to me instead of throwing her into a garbage can. Did they find Lulu?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“The mother alone is of no use to anyone, right? No one’s looking for the mothers of babies found under bushes. You’re not telling me yet that Lulu is alive! Is she?”

He went to the CD player, rummaged through the stack of CDs next to it, and a minute later, the soft notes of Berlioz’ King Lear overture came through. She smiled with recognition. He turned up the volume.

“Sorry,” he said below the level of the music, but loud enough for her to hear. “I’ve delivered the official version. I don’t believe it matters except for one reason.”

She looked at him.

“I was made to understand that they would like to see mother and baby reunited.”

“Hold it. In order to reunite them, they must have Lulu,” she said. “And how can that be unless they are behind her kidnapping?”

“I see a subtext, and that is their efforts to placate you.”

“There’s a simple way to placate me and they know what it is.” She dropped onto the couch and cocked her head at him. “Sit down. I can’t talk to you like this.”

He chose the upholstered chair. His knees touched the coffee table. His wrists dangled past his knees. The fingers were long and flexible.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t let you speak. I’m so miserable. It’s been eighteen hours.”

“I understand.”

She began again. “The subtext you were mentioning…”

“Everyone’s heavily invested in you. Your public image is bigger than you, and it has a life of its own.”

She leaned forward and pulled down the edge of her skirt to cover her thighs. “Meaning what?”

“They’re looking for ways to involve you in quieting down the storm,” Daniel said from his seat behind her. “They need you for it, which gives you leverage. They are worried about other global negotiations that are at stake.”

“No problem. In the interest of international harmony, why not just let me have my baby?”

“It is not so much about you as it is about China. This incident reflects poorly on the Chinese’s efforts to control population. They’re in fact conforming to the international pressure that recommended population control in the first place.”