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She needed all her strength just to get to her destination. She stepped out of the air-conditioned airport and was smacked by the sultry, tropical air of the Caribbean. The sky was somewhat overcast, the humidity high, as if rain were imminent. She threaded her way to the taxi stand. A large black woman in a lavender blouse and oiled, skinned-back hair was the dispatcher. She glanced at Shelby’s overnight bag and pointed impassively to an approaching driver.
    ‘Which hotel?’ the woman asked in a lilting accent, checking a clipboard to see who she could place along with Shelby in the cab.
    Shelby realized that she had not given a thought to a hotel, or where she was going to sleep, in part because she could not imagine herself sleeping – not while Chloe was missing.
    The dispatcher was looking at her impatiently. Shelby felt the sudden, urgent need to tell someone. ‘My daughter is missing,’ said Shelby. Tears filled her eyes.
    The woman’s severe gaze softened. ‘Where are you going, ma’am?’ she asked more gently.
    ‘The police station,’ said Shelby. Her voice was faint, but the woman caught her words. She looked at the expression on Shelby’s face and frowned, shaking her head. Then, she summoned a driver and spoke to him. The man insisted on gently wresting Shelby’s bag from her, and putting it in his trunk. Shelby sat down in the taxi, and the man pulled away from the curb without another word. His radio was on, tuned to a Christian station where a preacher exhorted his listeners to give their lives to God.
    The traffic out of town was almost at a standstill, but the driver found narrow streets where he could zip up and away from the road leading past the harbor. Shelby caught sight of several enormous cruise ships docked there, and her heart stood still. Which was their ship? Which one of those monstrous boats had Chloe been on? The people on board seemed to be the size of ants, and the drop from the jutting decks to the turquoise waters of the harbor looked steeper than a snow-covered glacier. The taxi climbed a hillside and Shelby was almost glad when the ships in the harbor were hidden from view. She could see how beautiful and picturesque the streets were with their colorful, shuttered buildings, cascading flowers and palm trees. It was an elegant, tropical paradise. The cab left the charming streets of the downtown and drove back down to the harbor road, pulling up in front of a modern concrete building painted in buff and salmon, with lots of hermetically sealed windows. The cab stopped. Shelby could see dark-skinned men and women in suits, or in crisp police uniforms, coming and going from the building. ‘This is it, ma’am,’ the driver said carefully in accented English. ‘Courthouse on the right, police station on the left. Up those steps.’
    Shelby asked him the fare, and as she counted out the bills the driver went around to the trunk and pulled out her bag. He handed it to her gravely as she paid him. ‘I’m very sorry for your trouble, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’ll pray for you.’
    For a moment she was taken aback, wondering how he knew, and then she remembered the taxi dispatcher at the airport. She must have told him. Shelby wanted to thank him for his kindness but the words caught in her throat. She nodded, and pressed her lips together to hold back her tears as he got back into his cab and pulled away from the curb. Then, her knees shaking, she turned, hoisted her bag over her shoulder, and climbed the steps to the police station.
    A receptionist rose from her desk the moment Shelby identified herself and led her down a bustling hallway and through a closed door to a room at the rear of the modern-looking police station. At the door, a burly man in a police uniform, sat at a desk, blocking the entry.
    ‘This is the missing girl’s mother . . .’ the receptionist said to him.
    Immediately the guard’s stern expression softened. He stood up and gestured to her. ‘Come