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wrong for this Beauty Mask thing. He said something about wanting her to make the money . . . about a fortune in television residuals. They both shut up when they saw me. But the next day they did finish the last commercial, then we all packed up and boarded my plane early Monday morning. I could tell no one was happy about it.”
    â€œDid you talk to Alexandra alone at all after that?” Mike asked.
    â€œBefore we landed I had offered to drive Alexandra to her place. She said okay. . . . She seemed . . . well, distracted and preoccupied. When our bags came out I gave them to a porter. I wanted to check the office for messages. I told her I’d meet her in the terminal. I wasn’t gone longer than ten minutes, but when I came back she was gone.”
    â€œShe was gone!” Mike and Janice exclaimed together.
    Ambrose frowned and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to decide if I should have gone to the police. And there’s one more thing.”
    Janice stood up. She pressed both hands, palms flat, on his desk. “What else could there possibly be?” she demanded.
    Marcus Ambrose strode over to the closet in his office. He pushed back the sliding door. Janice and Mike stared at the floor of the closet. Side by side, almost completely filling the available space, were two large blue suitcases engraved with the initials A.S.
    â€œThey were outside with mine in the terminal. The porter was waiting with them. She had told him that I’d be right down to collect them. And then she disappeared.”
    â€œIt sounds as though she ran off in a panic,” Mike said tersely, not wanting to look at Janice. “It may be that she just takes off sometimes and she was terribly upset about the commercials.”
    â€œAnd the other possibility is that she spotted paparazzi in the terminal and didn’t want to be photographed,” Ambrose said, a note of hope in his voice.
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    Alexandra’s luggage in the trunk, they rode away from the airport in brooding silence. Janice sat rigidly straight, her hands locked together in her lap. Mike glanced at her, started to speak, then thought better of what he’d been about to say, that Marcus Ambrose looked vaguely familiar to him. That’s impossible, he thought, and turned his full attention to the driving. The clouds that had been hovering overheadbecame a persistent driving rain that slapped against the windshield. Mike waited until they’d gotten well away from the airport traffic before he reached over and covered Janice’s hands with his own.
    She raised his hand to her lips and brushed it against her cheek. “Oh, Mike,” she said. “I’m so scared. It’s such a horrible night. I keep wondering where Alexandra is right now and imagining those people all trying to find her. They want her because she means money to them. They must have hurt her so much to make her just run away like that.”
    â€œJanice,” Mike said. “Think carefully. How well do you really know your sister?” He felt her body stiffen. “Now, don’t get mad. Think. You’ve got a preconceived notion of a sister who was the most important person in your world while you were growing up. Right?”
    â€œYes.” Janice’s voice was thoughtful. “Daddy was wonderful but remote somehow. You could never talk to him easily. For years after she left, Alexandra would phone once a week and I’d tell her all about school and everything I was doing. When I was in high school, all I had to say was I was going to a dance or a party and there would be a dress special-delivered in time for it. This is the last one she sent me for Christmas. She paid my way through college and paid all of Daddy’s bills when he got sick.”
    She hesitated, then demanded, “Mike, what are you trying to make me say? I know you. You’re getting at