Chapter One


The alarm went off just after six.  She stirred, reached an arm out from under the covers, and turned it off.  She could still pretend that she hadn't heard it.  She could go back to sleep.  She didn't gave to go... it wasn't as if... and the phone rang.

"Damn."  Kaitlin Harper sat up in bed.  Her long brown hair hung over her shoulders in the braids she had worn the day before, and her face was brown from the sun.  The phone rang again, and with a sigh she answered it, crushing a yawn between her teeth.  She had a delicate mouth, which smiled abundantly when she was happy, but today her green eyes already looked too serious.  She was awake now.  It was so much easier to sleep and forget.

"Hi, Kate."  She smiled at the familiar voice.  She had know it would be Felicia.  Nobody else knew where she was.

"What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Oh, the usual."

Kate broke into a broad grin.  "At six o'clock?  Some usual."  She knew Licia better than that.  Felicia Norman could barely make it out of bed by eight, and at her office her secretary was carefully instructed to shield her from any undue shocks until at least ten.  Six o'clock in the morning was hardly her hour.  Except for Kate.  For Kate, she would even get herself up at that ungodly hour.  "Don't you have anything better to do than check on me, Licia?"

"Apparently not.  So what's new?"  You could a...