SAM KIRK SAT BACK on his haunches and surveyed his handiwork. Not bad, even if he did say so himself. Smiling, he pushed himself to his feet and rubbed his hands on his jeans to clean the chalk dust off his fingers. The smile turned into an out-and-out grin as he admired the full result of his labors from a bird's-eye viewpoint.

Outlined on the navy industrial carpet in front of him was a classic crime-scene body outline depicting a form sprawled halfway across his business-partner-cum-best-friend's office. To add to the CSI look, he'd rifled through her filing cabinet, pulled a few books off her bookshelf and left all her desk drawers open. Highly satisfied with himself, he retreated to the doorway and began unrolling the police tape he'd wheedled from his mate in the force. Fixing one end to the doorframe, he stretched the tape to the opposite side and stuck it in place.

"Delaney is going to flip when she sees this," their receptionist, Debbie, said from behind him.

"I know. It's going to be great," Sam said with relish. Debbie shot him a look designed to let him know she thought he was weird. She'd only been with their extreme sports magazine, X-Pro, for a month, so she wasn't up to speed yet on the office dynamic. When she'd been around a little longer, she'd understand that playing practical jokes on each other was just how he and Delaney operated. Every year when she went on holidays, he came up with some outrageous stunt to surprise her when she returned.

One year, it had been cajoling their printer to bind a single copy of the latest edition of the magazine inside out, then just casually leaving it on Delaney's desk on her first day back. She'd gone ballistic when she