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By three PM, I’m nearly ready. I stand in nothing but Spanx while the stylist and her assistant pull the dress over my head—there is no such thing as modesty when you’re trying to keep makeup off a borrowed Christian Siriano.

The dress is a sample size two. “Was it this tight before?” I ask as they zip me up.

The stylist laughs. “It’s supposed to be tight. If you can breathe easily, that’s when I know we have a problem.”

Except I wasn’t breathing easily before the dress was on.

My phone starts to bleat while the safe with the jewels on loan is opened.

“Ashleigh,” I call. “Who is it?”

“Someone named Beth?” she asks in response, but she’s already setting the phone back on the table. No one named Beth could possibly be important, she thinks.

“I need it,” I gasp.

Ashleigh crosses the room. I grab it on the last ring.

“Drew?” Beth cries. There is panic in her voice. Beth, who shrugged off her son being held in a foreign jail and everything else that occurred in Hawaii, is hysterical. “I’m trying to locate Joel. Is he with you?”

“Me?” I reply. “No. Why? Is everything okay?”

She releases a choked sob. “It’s Josh,” she says, and Jim takes the phone from her.

“We’re trying to locate Joel,” he says, his voice even but tense. “There was an attack on the refugee camp about an hour ago. We don’t know what’s happened, but we don’t want Joel to hear it from the press first.”

I sink to the floor. There’s a collective gasp from the room and I don’t care. The stylist rushes toward me and I hold up a hand to ward him off. “What else do you know? Is someone trying to get them out?”

“They’re not telling us anything,” he says. “Sloane made some calls…it sounds like the medical personnel were being evacuated when the attack began and two doctors stayed behind. They think Josh was one of them.”

My breath stops. He called me. He called me when it was happening. Maybe because he thought he was going to die.

“What does that mean?” I ask. My hands shake, my lungs can’t get enough air. “For him. What does that mean?”

I’m making no sense. Jim somehow understands the question. “It means they probably took him hostage…or worse,” he says quietly. “We’re trying to get ahold of the embassy in Ethiopia since that’s where they went the last time they were evacuated.”

My brain is spinning. I can’t focus. “We have to go to Ethiopia,” I tell him. “We need to—”

I stop and press my hand over my face because I have no idea what we need to do. I have no idea who to pressure to find him. The one person I want to lean on in this moment is Josh. With that thought, I burst into tears.

“I’ll call you back,” I whisper.

I would give up my entire fortune for this not to be happening, to be back where we were the day before when he was safe and I was merely heartbroken.

Davis and Stephanie come barreling in, summoned by Ashleigh, no doubt.

“What’s the problem?” barks Davis.

“We may need to iron the dress,” says the stylist as I push myself off the floor. “How much time do we have?”

“No,” I say quietly. “I’m not going.”

“Not going?” Davis yells. “The hell you’re not going. You’re supposed to perform. You can’t just choose not to go.”

I look at him and feel utterly clear for the first time. “Of course I can,” I reply. “Ashleigh, I need a private plane out of LA. One that can go a long distance. Now.”

She looks at Davis and does nothing. My laughter borders on hysteria. “Ashleigh, are you serious? I’m the one who’s paying you.”

“I—” She looks from me to Davis. “You have to be on stage in two hours.”