Sapphire's Place - Valerie Hope's " This O'erhanging Firmament ";

Music of Change #9:

This O'erhanging Firmament

By Valerie Hope

Taylor waited for a few moments outside the convenience store, engine idling, while Samantha Michaelis ran inside to get a few things. The girl bounced happily, doing little dances here and there and exuding the sense of a healthy, sexy girl who was happy to be alive. A far cry from the woman - and the man - she'd been not an hour before, a bitter killer who attempted to murder both Joshua Little and Dr. Karl Renfro. A pornographer and a kidnapper and a drug dealer who'd gotten Renfro's late daughter Sarah hopelessly addicted to heroin through the burgeoning puppy love that the sixteen-year-old girl had felt for him. But the Music had wiped that away forever, leaving behind only the pretty, bouncy girl with the luscious breasts and the long legs and the rather dim intellect.

The slender Oriental beauty tapped her long-nailed fingers on the steering wheel as she waited for Sam to return. Taylor Beauchamps had seen a lot of weird things in her tenure as an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, things she couldn't exactly explain, but the events of the last few nights had her mystified. Grace Kincaid - the brilliant detective who was investigating the attempt on the life of Karl Renfro - had cracked the case, found out the motives and players in the very complicated plot against the doctor's life and work. It was so complicated that it almost seemed simple. And she'd done it with a broken heart - her lover, Joshua Little, had not told her of his own transformation from a female doctor named Jocelyn Little at the hands of Renfro's Music of Change and she'd left him in a bitter breakup. She was an amazing woman.

And it only left them with a few more loose ends to tie up - the first and foremost being the gathering of evidence and the apprehension of the mastermind and financier of the whole plot, a man named Aaron Kendall who was acting Chief Financial Officer of a multinational company called Global Ventures, Inc. Grace had found out, with the help of Taylor and her associate Tiffany Dayton, that the night of Sarah Renfro's suicide, Dr. Renfro had first made contact with the vast, magical force of the Music. His cry had transformed three people that night: his wife, Claudette, who became as sexually free and promiscuous as any porno starlet; Dr. Jocelyn Little, the attending physician who'd worked for nearly an hour trying to revive Sarah Renfro, and Samuel Michaelis, the girl's lover and drug dealer. Jocelyn had become Joshua and Samuel had turned into Samantha. In a very complicated series of events connected to Aaron Kendall's affair with Claudette, Grace discovered that Michaelis and Kendall together were behind the recent plot on Karl Renfro's life and were out to steal whatever information the doctor had collected on the Music of Change. With Michaelis now out of the picture, all that was left was to bring in Kendall and the Music - and its stewards - would be safe again.

The problem was that Aaron Kendall was slick, and he was incredibly well funded. He'd never really touched anything directly. It would be very interesting to see how Grace Kincaid would find any evidence against the man.

Sam bounced into the car again, slithering into the seat with her knees together as if she'd been a woman her whole life. The little Lycra tube-dress she was wearing didn't leave anything to the imagination, and the chilly evening had her nipples standing at stiff attention through the sheer fabric. Her honey-blonde, straight locks framed an innocent-looking but devilishly sultry face with huge blue eyes and a suggestive, unconsciously sexy pout on the bee-stung lips. She smiled broadly and rummaged in the plastic sack she'd brought out of the convenience store.

"Three packs of the Virginia Slims 120's," she announced, passing the cigarettes to Taylor. "And three packs of Marlboro Lights 100s for me. One Diet Coke for you and a Diet Pepsi for me. I felt bad after all the cigarettes I bummed off of you, so I, like, bought you some more to say thanks."

Taylor grinned despite herself. To think of a heartless, vindictive person like Sam Michaelis becoming a sweet, vapid and thoughtful girl was a shining testament to the incredible healing power of the Music of Change. Karl Renfro, if he were still inside the young, vibrant girl he'd been transformed into by accident, would be very proud of his accomplishment.

"Did you get everything else?" Taylor asked. "Or do you need to stop someplace else?"

Sam giggled. "Nope," she said, holding up a little plastic sack full of tampons and rattling it for a moment before stuffing it back in the sack with what looked like embarrassment. "Getting to be that time, you know?"

Taylor nodded. "Aha," she said. "Don't leave home without 'em."

Sam tore the cellophane off of a pack of cigarettes and fished one out. As she was using her long acrylic fingernails to snap the child-safety feature off of the cheap disposable lighter she'd bought, she said, "Could have been a, like, emergency."

Taylor smiled and shifted the car into gear, pulling out of the parking lot into traffic. She was slowly coming to like this new girl - while no champion in the field of intelligent conversation - she was sweet and happy and very interested in the people she met. She was earnest and said what was on her mind, even if it was only because she lacked the depth for anything resembling tact. Taylor was about to ask her if she wanted to come out clubbing on Wednesday night with herself, Tiffany, Vikki and Keri - their weekly excursion to the dance clubs - when the car lurched forward roughly with a sound of impact and tearing metal.

"What the hell?" Taylor asked, revving the accelerator and peering in the rearview mirror. Behind them, a car was backing off and then accelerating to ram them from behind again.

"Hold on," Taylor cried to her screaming passenger, swerving sharply down a side street in a squeal of smoking tires. The pursuit vehicle had to slow down enormously to make the turn and Taylor gained a great deal of precious space.

In the midst of all the frantic maneuvering and looking behind her, Taylor somehow managed to toss her cellphone into Sam's lap.

"Call Grace! Speed-dial number three! Tell her we need some help!" she shouted, taking another bat-turn around a corner, which slammed them, both hard to the left inside the careening automobile.

Sam fussed with the phone a little bit before pressing it to her ear. "Grace! It's Sam. Taylor told me to call you. Somebody's chasing us and I think they're trying to kill us!"

She lowered the phone after a brief pause and looked at Taylor. "She wants to know where we are!" she cried, nearly panicking.

"Heading west on 36th Street towards the freeway. I'm going to go southbound from there, try to lose him in the interchange," Taylor said.

Sam repeated it into the phone quickly and waited before turning back to Taylor. "She says that she'll have units on their way in two minutes."

Taylor swung the wheel crazily again, slewing the car viciously to the right in another squeal of tires, praying silently that two minutes would be enough time to avoid vehicular manslaughter. She accelerated quickly down the wide street and towards the freeway feeder road when the pursuit car rocketed out of a side street a hundred yards in front of them. The passenger-side window was down and something glinting dully in the streetlight was sticking out.

Taylor grabbed Sam by the back of the head and pushed her down roughly as the hail of bullets shattered the windshield where Taylor's head had been.

***

Grace threw on the first things she grabbed - her second-skin No Excuses jeans and an oversized "Property of University of Virginia Athletic Department" tee, which Joshua had left there - and was out the door not three minutes after the frantic call from Sam Michaelis. She tried not to look too long at the sleeping form of her lover in the bed, the lover she thought she'd lost forever. He'd come to her after the capture of Michaelis earlier that night, his heart bared and whispering words of contrition and love that had set Grace's heart into a million sweet razor-edged shards. Taking him to her bed had been a foregone conclusion, the only logical outcome of the encounter. It had been a night of firsts for Grace Kincaid, a beginning of a path she'd never considered before. She'd been the aggressor that night, taking the night well in hand and guiding it to her own desires. She'd gone down on him for the first time - a strange experience to say the least, but infinitely more pleasurable for her than she'd first expected, despite the lingering and unfamiliar ache in her jaw from Joshua's generous endowment - and then pushed him backwards on the bed, crawling on top of him and taking control of the flowing current of raw sexuality which flowed between them. She'd fought herself a few times - words like 'slut' and 'whore' running through her head as she tried not to cry out in ecstasy while she writhed atop him, impaled on his lovely member - but in the end, she'd forced herself to accept a simple fact that she hadn't until now faced. She was a woman. Women did these things, they gave pleasure to their men and they enjoyed doing it. A gap inside her had sealed, and an incredible connection was made. She left the house, even in her mad rush to aid her companion and fellow investigator, resolved to the fact that her life and attitudes as a woman were going to change.

She tore through the sleepy streets of the city at near-dangerous speeds, her siren and cherry-light screaming and flashing. It wasn't until the radio - tuned to the police frequency - blared "shots fired" that she really put the pedal to the floor, desperate to get to her colleague's side.

When she at last arrived, the scene was a frozen tableau of chaos. Lights from police cruisers and ambulances ringed the street, and the shot-to-hell remains of Taylor's champagne- colored Eclipse were ringed 'round with crime-scene tape and forensics crews. Grace hopped out, badge in hand. She ducked the tape and ran across the lake of shattered windshield glass to the nearest ambulance.

Taylor looked very small and waxy in the harsh glare of the blue- and-red lights. Her eyes were closed and her face was distended strangely by the oxygen mask strapped around her jaw. Grace stopped the EMT nearest her, her eyes never leaving the sight of the two paramedics loading the small woman into the back of the ambulance.

"How is she?" she asked simply.

"Not good," the EMT said back, watching them shut the rear doors of the ambulance. "Shot four times - minor wounds to the shoulder and left leg and then execution-style in the torso. If she makes it through the night, then she has a shot."

"Is she going to St. Anne's?" Grace asked.

"We're probably going to bring her on to Hillcrest," the EMT replied. "Better trauma there."

"What about Sam Michaelis, the girl that was with her?" Grace asked.

The EMT lowered his eyes sadly and jerked a thumb at the scene nearest the car. A county coroner was solemnly zipping a black vinyl body-bag near the wreckage of Taylor's car. Grace sighed heavily.

"Poor thing never got to use that second chance," she whispered.

A uniformed officer stepped up to her shortly after, looking haggard. "You Kincaid?" he asked in a thick basso rumble.

"Yeah, that's me," Grace replied.

"Ken Halverson," the officer replied. "I was first on the scene. Precinct told me you're going to be in charge."

Grace shrugged. "News to me," she said. "Gimme what you got, Corporal."

Halverson pointed to an area just off the cross-street nearest the freeway. "We have a report from a bus driver that a black four-door pulled out into the street there and stopped and opened fire on this Mitsubishi. We found a whole sea of nine-mil empties out there, probably a MAC-11 or even an Uzi. Pretty heavy hardware for a couple of girls."

"Taylor Beauchamps is a government liaison for an investigation I'm doing," Grace said. "She had some pretty heavy information. I have every reason to believe this is a contract job."

"It all points that way," Halverson said. "Both women were wounded superficially and then shot execution-style, two in the chest. The blonde girl - Michaelis - got an extra one in the head for good measure."

Grace looked at the Mitsubishi again. "There's a lot of empties on this side, too," she said, looking at the brass glinting in the icy wreckage of the windshield and windows.

Halverson nodded. "Ms. Beauchamps - she was the Chinese girl? - covered behind her vehicle and returned fire, according to the people in that gas station over there. She's a real hellcat, Detective. Apparently she kept them back for nearly two minutes."

"That's my girl," Grace said proudly.

"She plugged one of them - the driver, we think. He's already bagged and in the meat wagon," Halverson said. "No identification as yet - we're running his prints through IAFIS right now - we should have something in an hour or so. But he did have this."

He passed over a forensics bag, already tagged and sealed. In it were two computerized keycards - a swipe card and a transmitter card - and a ring of keys. Exactly like the ones that Sam Michaelis had volunteered to Grace earlier that evening. Keys and passcards to the Global Ventures building downtown.

"I can identify these," Grace said. "Lieutenant, I want you to contact me as soon as you hear from IAFIS. I need an ID on that shooter. Once you have him, check bank records and see if any deposits have been made for him from a company called Global Ventures, Inc. I need evidence to nail my suspect, and he's a slippery sumbitch."

Halverson smiled a mirthless grin. "We'll help you nail him, Detective."

She grinned back, a wolfish affair that was more than a little bit chilling. "It's going to be a long night, Lieutenant. Call me Grace."

***

Ambrose Williams ducked off of the bus he'd caught and down the street as quickly as he could towards the all-night drugstore. He'd have to make do as best he could with gauze tape and homemade sutures until he could skip town and get some medical attention - going to an ER in town with the cops out looking for him. Good thing that Kendall was going to pay him double. He'd never mentioned once that the little chink bitch would have a gun. She'd gotten him real good in the left shoulder and it hurt like hell. It was bad enough that his partner had gotten plugged, since now he'd have to get as drunk as he could for the pain and still stay sober enough to dig the lead out of the wound. And he'd have to move fast, too, before the necktie he was using as a bandage soaked through and he started dripping blood all over the floor of Walgreen's.

He grabbed needle, thread, disinfectant, gauze, tape and forceps in rapid succession and made his way lurchingly towards the front desk. Blood loss was starting to get to him. He was lightheaded and dizzy. He managed to pay for it all without too much comment and make his way outside. There was a little run-down motor lodge just up the street where he could go to ground for a little while.

After a long hour-and-a-half torture session, he finally managed to get the last of it sewn up and looking passable. A few hours' sleep and he could start cleaning up the blood he'd left in the bathroom sink and try to get in contact with Kendall for transport out of the country for a little while.

***

It had been an interesting night, to say the least. Tiffany Dayton slumped heavily onto the sofa and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke in a long, feathery plume towards the vaulted ceiling of the apartment. Her 'assignment' for the evening had been to tail Karla Renfro around wherever she went, to make sure that Aaron Kendall's goons didn't try to finish the job they'd started. Danielle Royal, another of the Corporate Rewards crew who had been a firefighter (and therefore knew a little bit about criminal investigation), was staying with Claudette Renfro, the doctor's promiscuous wife.

Karla had been the tougher assignment, Tiffany was sure. She was a bottomless well of energy, and the older Tiffany was having to really hustle to keep up. Karla had gotten off work at Corporate Rewards around three in the afternoon, then to the gym for an hour workout and then to the stadium, where she danced the halftime show for the local basketball team. After that she'd gone out with some of the other cheerleaders. In the following seven hours she'd managed five dance clubs. The sexy, vivacious girl had used the bubblehead act to maximum advantage, too - she hadn't paid for a single drink. Not that Tiffany had either, come to think about it. She did have one or two very promising phone numbers in her purse from gentlemen she'd met that evening. Finally, at four in the morning Karla had dragged a very listless Tiffany from Club Tetra and back to her apartment near downtown. The girl had hopped into a blisteringly hot shower and Tiffany didn't need her powers of extrasensory perception to know that a little late-night play with the shower massager was happening in there. The little squeals and moans that Tiffany heard were more than enough to tip her off.

Finally, Karla came out with towels wrapped around her chest and head, smelling of scented body scrub and shampoo. She flopped on the couch and lit a cigarette of her own, picking up the remote and channel surfing for a while.

"How can you not be tired?" Tiffany asked with a smile.

Karla giggled. "I'm, like, way too amped to sleep right now. Something about dancing, y'know, just pumps me up. Oh my God, there were so many hot guys out tonight."

"I noticed," Tiffany said.

"That guy Jason at Excitement? God, I wanted to suck his dick so bad," Karla gushed.

Tiffany smiled in fond memory. "Did you see the size of his package? He was, like, hung like an elk," she said.

"Totally," Karla said, giggling. "You want something to drink, Tiff?"

"Diet whatever," Tiffany said.

Karla bounced up, dancing a little sexy-dance to the beat of the Brittney Spears tune that was currently on MTV, where she's stopped channel surfing. She continued to talk from the kitchen. "I'm really glad you came out with us tonight, Tiff."

"I am, too."

"I mean, like, you're kinda new to the place, but you totally feel like family already. Vikki and Keri and me needed some new blood anyways. We were, like, where we were just kinda passing around the same guys all the time, and they're all into stripping, too, so we don't have many nights where we can go out together."

Tiffany nodded. "I used to be real shy," she explained. "I always wanted to go out with y'all, but I guess I was kinda waiting for you to ask me."

She bounced back in, still dancing her sexy-dance (which threatened to wrench the towel off of her body at any second) and with two cans of diet soda in one hand and a bag of Cheetos in the other.

"Ooh, the puffy kind," Tiffany gushed. "I totally love you."

"Dig in, girlfriend," Karla said, tossing her the bag. She plopped back down on the sofa, taking up her cigarette from the ashtray and taking a long drag. "I'm just, y'know, sorry that it took all this shit happening for us to be friends."

Tiffany shrugged. "It would've happened anyway, K."

"I guess so," she said, blowing out a cloud of smoke to stuff some Cheetos in her mouth. "But either way, I'm totally glad it happened."

"Me, too," Tiffany said.

"So what did Grace say?" Karla asked.

"I'm supposed to make sure nobody's watching you," Tiffany said.

Karla opened her mouth sexily and put her arms above her head and wiggled provocatively to the beat. "Girl, everybody's watching me."

Tiffany laughed. "You are so bad," she said. "Grace seems to think that somebody might try to kill you again, so she's keeping somebody close to you all the time."

"My God, she is so pretty," Karla gushed off-topic before returning back to the subject at hand. "I mean, that's cool. I don't mind the extra protection, and I certainly don't mind that it's you."

Tiffany sat forward a little. "Can I ask you something, y'know, personal?"

"Truth or dare?" Karla asked, smiling.

"You, like, know what I can do, right?" Tiffany asked carefully.

Karla waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, yeah," she said lightly. "Grace told me that you're, like, psychic or something. She also said that you didn't like to talk about it."

"It's true, though," Tiffany said. "I can kinda read minds. Well, not minds. More like memories. I can see other people's memories."

"That is so cool," Karla said, then snapped her attention back to the television. "Oh, cool, it's the new Aaliyah. I totally love this song."

She turned the volume up a touch and began dancing in her seat very provocatively; mouthing along with the words, while turning her attention back to Tiffany with a questioning look.

Tiffany fought back a grin. "Well - and I hope you're not, like, pissed at me or anything - I sort of accidentally read you a few days ago. I totally didn't mean to, okay?"

Karla smiled broadly. "I believe you."

"I saw you the day you were transformed," Tiffany said. "You told Joshua not to tell Grace about being a woman before. Do you, like, remember why you did that?"

Karla's face screwed up into an adorable pout of thought while she continued her dance, singing along silently with the song on television. Finally she looked up.

"I think so," she told Tiffany. "Grace was totally getting close to figuring out the case and stuff. I needed to protect Claudette."

"Protect her from what?"

Karla pouted in thought again. "I'm sorry, but I can't remember. But I do remember it had something to do with Sarah. Does that help?"

"Yeah," Tiffany said. "It does. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Karla replied, waiting for the song to end before shutting off the TV. "I'm, like, about to turn back into a pumpkin. I think I'm going to bed."

"Good idea," Tiffany said. "Good night."

Karla stopped for a moment, looking back over her shoulder at Tiffany. "Do you, like, want to come with?"

Tiffany couldn't ignore the chilly flash of excitement that shot through her ribcage. "Uh... I..."

Karla smiled. "It's nothing to be scared of," she said. "Me and Annaliese used to do it all the time. It's totally fun. And I just thought, y'know - well, you're really pretty and I'm still kinda horny from the club and stuff, and you're really turning into this good friend... you don't have to if you don't want to."

Tiffany sat very still for a moment, wondering whether to listen to what was between her legs or what was between her ears. Although the ears had the more sensible argument, the legs just seemed to drown it out somehow.

"I want to," she said, standing. "But, uh... I've never done it before. Like, with another girl. Not even when I was, y'know... still a guy."

"Really?" Karla asked. "Don't worry, babe. All you have to do is do on me what feels good on you. I'll, like, help you with the rest."

Tiffany swallowed hard and then giggled nervously. "I'm really nervous."

"Here," Karla said, stepping closer. "Maybe, like, this will help."

Softness met softness as Karla's lips touched hers in an electric contact. Tiffany felt like every hair on her body was standing on end. Waves of gooseflesh traveled the length of her body over and over.

"Wow," Tiffany said when they finally parted for air.

"Oh, honey, we're just getting started good," Karla said, giggled. She took Tiffany's long-nailed hand in her own and gave her a playful smack on the rump with the other. "Get that fine ass in bed and I'll show you a real 'wow.'"

***

Annaliese LaPaglia couldn't believe how happy she was. When the last of the stools were stacked on top of the tables and the floor was mopped, all her receipts were counted and she had a fat wad of tips in the hip pocket of her little abbreviated cutoff jean shorts, she stood just in the door of the Hooters restaurant downtown where she worked as a waitress with her friend Heather. She smoked a cigarette while she waited for Tyrone - her newest lover and the man she was rapidly falling in love with - to give her a ride home and then a ride of a different kind altogether once they were safely tucked away in her bedroom. He was so kind to her - he bought her nice clothes and jewelry, called her up in the middle of the day just to say he was thinking about her. He was hotter than hell, dressed in his sharp business suit with the thick gold chain she'd saved her tips for three weeks to get him. He was in a good job as a systems administrator, made excellent money and she was starting to think that he was falling in love with her as quickly as she was with him.

And tonight would be a celebration of sorts, too. Heather had taken her a week ago to a friend of hers who was a photographer. Charlotte, from the Avanti salon one building over from Corporate Rewards, had been on hand to help Annaliese with her hair and makeup, and she'd gotten several set-ups of really sexy, glamorous pictures. She'd given a lot of the prints to Tyrone, but she also sent the best of them in a portfolio to the corporate office and had been notified today that she'd been chosen to be the March cover girl of the next Hooters calendar. She hoped that she'd have a really nice modeling career out of it somehow. Heather had already said she'd help.

Yes, things were definitely going well for her. She couldn't wait until tomorrow when she could call and tell her best friend Karla all about it. Because if Karla didn't know, then it was like it never really happened.

It was amazing, she thought as she watched the traffic outside the window of the restaurant go slowly by. A year ago, she'd been miserable. A real lowlife scam artist named Arturo LaPaglia, an oily man who made his living off other people's desperation. She couldn't remember the details of it, but she knew that she'd made fake identification for people who needed to skip the country. There were other, darker memories that refused to surface totally, but Annaliese didn't care. She didn't want to know what all else that man had done in his life. She was glad he was dead and never coming back.

At least, she thought, she'd been able to help some of the people at Corporate Rewards. She could dimly remember getting the new birth certificates for Grace and Keri and Vikki and Danielle. That made her feel good, knowing that she'd helped her friends like that. But sometimes she couldn't forget why she was so happy now. She'd been transformed the day she'd tried to go and kill Karl Renfro. He'd hit a button on the wall and the Music had turned them into the best of friends. It had made her into the happy, sexy girl she was right now, the one who was in love with Tyrone Edwards and was about to be the new Miss March.

It was funny how things worked out.

She smiled and tossed her cigarette in the bucket by the door when she saw Tyrone's Mercedes pull up in the parking lot. Waving goodbye to the last of the Hooters Girls inside, she ducked out the door and nearly ran to the car, unable to wait a second longer to tell her beloved Tyrone the good news.

She was still smiling when the door opened and the gunshots sounded.

***

Aaron Kendall's face didn't change when he picked up the phone and listened to the report. He only nodded grimly and said, "Excellent."

Replacing the phone in its cradle, he walked slowly to the window, rubbing his temples to ease the growing tension headache there. He stood, contemplating the sea of electric light below him, wondering where all of this unpleasantness was going to end, when a timid rap on the door behind him caused him to turn slightly.

His assistant, Linda - a prim, no-nonsense woman with an excellent head for organization - stepped in quietly and said, "He's here, Mr. Kendall."

Kendall nodded. "Send him in, thank you, Linda," he said. "And do you think you can scrounge me up some aspirin before you leave for the evening?"

"Of course, Mr. Kendall."

Kendall turned completely around to face the young, hard-faced man who entered the room. He was tall and skinny and showed no promise of filling out to anything more than the possibility of being called 'wiry.' His posture relayed a sense of fear and wariness, which suited Kendall just fine. The boy ran a hand through his lifeless black hair and cleared his throat. His big nose dominated a very plain, unremarkable face.

"Sit," Kendall said. "Can I get you a drink?"

"You said you had some information for me," the boy said in a thick accent. His English was very clipped and precise, that of a man who'd only recently begun using it outside the schoolroom.

"I wanted to tell you that it's impossible for me to keep up my end of our 'arrangement,' dear boy," Kendall said smoothly. "I'm sorry to say that your father is dead."

"Dead?" the boy repeated.

"Unfortunately so," Kendall said. "I'm terribly sorry. We tried everything in our power to find him for you, Francisco. I just got the report."

The boy did a very impressive job of fighting back tears of frustration and rage, showing a touch of iron in his soul that his father had never possessed. Kendall thought there might be hope for the young man after all.

"Thank you for all your efforts, Mr. Kendall," the boy said. "I'm sure my father's estate will be able to come up with something to repay your kindness."

"I require nothing of the sort from you, Mr. LaPaglia," Kendall said. "But there is other news, as well. It may be hard for you to hear."

"Tell me, please," Francisco LaPaglia said with a raw throat.

"Your father was murdered," Kendall said. "He was shot to death by a police officer named Grace Kincaid."

Francisco nodded grimly. "I see," he said, breathing heavily. "Mr. Kendall, I wonder if you can do me one more small favor?"

"Anything, Francisco," Kendall said.

"Could you tell me where I can find this Grace Kincaid?"

***

Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

The white glare strobed at her harshly, hurting her head and forcing sound from a throat too raw to breathe. She sought the comfortable, cloying darkness, but some small part of her fought for the light. There was something left undone, a sense of incompleteness that she had to resolve before she could let the darkness have her.

The light overcame the darkness, resolved from a terrifying white smear into the tiny and mundane trappings of the world without. A curtain. A bedspread. A tray. A face. Hope's face.

"Hi, there," the beautiful blonde said with a tearful smile. "Welcome back. We missed you."

"Where..." Taylor rasped.

"Hillcrest General," Hope said, smoothing down her sweat-soaked hair. "You're in ICU. You got shot, honey."

"Grace," she grunted. She tried to sit, but a wall of screaming pain forced her back.

Hope's cool, soft hands settled her. "Grace isn't here," she soothed. "Easy, sweetie. You're in pretty bad shape."

"Need Grace," she managed again.

"I can call her," Hope said. "Just tell me what you need."

"Man who shot..."

Hope nodded. "The man who shot you? What about him?"

"Know him," she managed, her voice falling in and out through the ravages of her emergency intubation.

Hope jumped a little. "You're sure?"

"Yes," Taylor managed. "One of ours. CIA."

***

Grace sagged heavily against the tailgate of the patrol car. Tears stung her eyes and her breathing had taken on the heavy, wet rasp of a woman who was about to wail in anguish.

Behind her, the coroners were zipping another bag, which held another friend. The forensics teams were everywhere, crawling over every exposed inch of the parking lot looking for some small, microscopic clue.

Gaining control of herself with supreme effort, Grace took a deep, ragged breath and picked up her phone, which had been ringing for some time, and pressed it to her ear.

"Kincaid," she said wearily.

"Hey, Gracie, it's Hope," the voice on the other end said. "Taylor's awake."

"Thank God," the detective breathed.

"Are you okay?" Hope asked, suddenly solicitous.

"No," Grace said, trying to keep her firm hold on her emotions. "I'm at the Hooters on Kennedy Avenue. Someone just killed Annaliese LaPaglia."

"Oh my God," Hope breathed.

"They dumped the guy she was seeing, too. Tyrone. They killed him and took his car. Annaliese thought it was him coming to pick her up after work - those damn tinted windows, she couldn't see - and they cut her down."

A loud sniff on the other end announced Hope's tears. "I'm so sorry."

Grace's iron control started to erode. Wetness flowed down her smooth cheeks. "This bastard keeps killing my friends, Hope." Huge, wracking sobs shook her frame roughly.

"I know, sweetheart, I know. They're my friends too."

"Goddamn it," Grace said, wiping her eyes angrily. "I was too slow."

"You can't blame yourself, Gracie. You can't."

She took a deep, steadying breath. "I know. I know. I just have to catch this son of a bitch before he kills anybody else."

"You'll get him," Hope said, blowing her nose.

"You're goddamn right," Grace said, her control back in place and a fiery determination as well. "Why did you call me?"

"Taylor was asking for you when she woke up," Hope said. "She said she knew the man who shot her. He's ex-CIA. Said his name was Ambrose Williams. I think - she was kinda out of it - that she said he usually went under the alias of Peter Owens."

"Owens," Grace repeated. "Got it."

"Hang in there, Gracie," Hope said.

"I will," Grace said. "I'll fall apart after I nail this motherfucker."

***

The ringing phone was almost expected. He set down his coffee and picked it up in a thick, beefy hand. "Ned White," he said tiredly.

"It's Grace," the equally-tired voice said.

"Late nights all around," Ned said. "How you holding up, partner?"

"They're killing my friends, Ned."

"I know, kid. I know. What do you have?"

"Guy name of Ambrose Williams. Travels under the name of Peter Owens. I need to know where he is, what he eats, whether he snores, shoe size, everything."

"Owens. Right," he said, writing down the name. "Listen, Gracie, I do have some good news for you. We pulled the bank records on the DOA shooter from the Michaelis shooting. He just got a lovely bonus from Corporate Rewards - overpayment of benefits, you believe that shit? - in the amount of forty thousand dollars. Signed off by your friend and mine."

"Aaron Kendall," Grace hissed. "I got the sonofabitch. Conspiracy to commit murder."

Ned stood up. "You're not going in there alone. Tell me where to meet you."

"This is my collar, Ned," Grace warned.

"You go in there with no backup, it'll be your ass, Grace. I'm not backing off on this. Now you get your choice of me or about fifty blue-and-whites. Your call."

"You fight dirty," Grace said.

"That's why they made me a detective," Ned said. "Now gimme an address."

"I dunno, old timer, you up for some real cop work?"

"Stuff it, red," he said. "Address."

"Meet me on the corner of Heights and 3rd in half an hour. Bring donuts."

***

Tiffany traced long, languorous circles around the sumptuous curve of Karla's breast with the tip of a long, square-cut fingernail. The curvy blonde sighed happily, kissing Tiffany's smooth shoulder. The tangled sheets and open coolness of the bedroom were flavored heavily with the scent of their combined arousal and climax. Or, more to the point, climaxes. Climaxes and climaxes and climaxes.

"How do you feel?" Karla breathed.

"Like a melted Hershey's kiss," Tiffany giggled.

Karla licked the tip of one of Tiffany's soft breasts with a very practiced tongue. "Mmm. Melted chocolate. That gives me some ideas for the second date."

"You are so bad," Tiffany scolded, kissing her deeply.

"So how about it?" Karla asked cheerfully. "Since Annaliese started seeing Tyrone, she's totally not into the girl thing anymore. Want to, like, be my Friday-night girl?"

"Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"

"There's nothing like a big, hard dick," Karla explained, "but sometimes there's something only another girl can give me, y'know?"

"I believe it," Tiffany said. "What happens, though, if I like... y'know..."

"Fall in love with me?" Karla asked. "It's cool. I'm, like, totally okay with it. Look at Heather and Jenna. They're, like, totally in love with each other and they screw around all the time. Sometimes a girl just needs some cock - like me - but I'm totally more into women. They're, like, easier to be around and easier to love."

Tiffany blushed deeply. "You are amazing."

Karla kissed her again. "So, will you? Be my, y'know, girlfriend?"

"Any time you want me to," Tiffany answered. "Seriously."

"I'm so glad," Karla said. "'Cause I, like, think I'm falling for you."

Tiffany fell into her arms again and pressed her lips against her lovers, savoring the delicious way that their large, cotton-soft breasts fit in between one another. She was just entertaining the notion of kissing her way southward down Karla's athletic body when the phone rang, shattering the moment.

"Oh, God," Karla said, pushing up in the bed quickly. "That has to be Grace."

Karla picked up the phone from the bedside and opened the line with a beeping keypress.

"Hi, this is Karla," she bubbled. "Oh, hey, Grace."

Tiffany felt as much as heard her new lover's heart begin to sink. "Oh God. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, we'll be right there. Okay. Bye."

Karla stood up quickly, the sheets falling away from her smooth, taut body. The streetlights through the vertical blinds striped her luscious curves in a very artistic way, which belied the heaviness of her demeanor.

"Grace wants us to meet her," Karla said, a glistening tear falling from one eye. "Somebody just killed Annaliese."

***

Ambrose Williams hadn't stayed alive in his business for as long as he had by being stupid. Once he'd grabbed a few hours' sleep on the lumpy motel mattress he was up, dressed and ready to keep moving. His ticket out of the country - and his payment for services rendered - was waiting for him downtown.

Trying to keep as low a profile as possible, Williams pulled his coat on over the bloody ruin of his undershirt and ducked out of his room into the waiting taxi he'd called earlier. The sun was just beginning to lighten the eastern sky into a rich, dark blue. The traffic would start sucking in just a few hours, and he wanted to be on his way to the airport as soon as he was able.

"Where you headed?" the cabbie asked.

"Downtown," Williams grunted, shutting the door. "Third and Heights, the Global Ventures building. There's fifty in it for you if you get me there before rush."

The taxi sped away in a chirp of tires.

***

The unmarked Crown Vic pulled to the curb just as Grace was lighting her cigarette. Her long auburn hair trailed behind her in a soft, billowing curtain as the wind whipped through the claustrophobic streets of downtown. She acknowledged her fellow detective out of the corner of her eye, but her gaze never left the Global Ventures building. She pushed her glasses up her nose - she'd been crying again - and pointed as Ned White got slowly out of the car.

"There are lights on the fifteenth and seventeenth floors," she said. "Our gopher is probably up there."

Ned tapped her shoulder with a thick folded document. Grace took it in perfectly-manicured hands and looked at it strangely.

"A warrant for the arrest of Aaron Kendall," he said. "Word on the street is, those help when you want to arrest somebody."

"Thanks," Grace said, stuffing it in a back pocket of her tight- as-sin jeans. "You don't have to do this, Ned. You've been behind a desk for five years. This could get ugly."

"I'm going in there with you, and that's the end of it," Ned said firmly. "Mrs. White didn't raise her son to let a Brother in Blue go into a situation like this alone."

"Ned, thanks," Grace said with a heartfelt half-smile.

"Anything for a friend," he replied, his customary reply.

"Ready to go get this bastard?" Grace asked.

"I have cruisers posted at all the street corners around this place if he tries to jackrabbit," Ned said. "FAA has declared the roof helipad a no-land area and we have every unit in the Eighteenth Precinct ready to jump on this guy's ass - they owe him for the shooting the other night."

Grace nodded. It had been Sam Michaelis - before the Music had changed her - who'd done the shooting, but it was Aaron Kendall whom everyone suspected gave her the order. People who shot at cops didn't have very healthy prospects in this town.

"Let's go get him," she said. "You wearing?"

Ned tapped his breastbone in reply, and a firm rap of reinforced Kevlar resounded in reply. Grace patted him on the shoulder, made sure her badge was displayed prominently, and started to walk briskly up the sidewalk towards the building.

***

"There's her truck," Tiffany said, pointing out the familiar gray Dodge Dakota parked by the side of the street downtown. "Grace did say to meet her at Corporate Rewards, right?"

Karla, whose bubbly demeanor had been drastically dimmed by the news of her best friend's murder, could only nod silently in reply. Tiffany desperately wanted to reach out to her and draw her into an embrace, but it wasn't possible. There was a wall of private misery around her that brooked no intrusion.

"I wish I'd never discovered that damned Music," she whispered bitterly.

Tiffany pulled the car over and put a warm hand on her lover's wet cheek. "Listen to me, Karla. You cannot blame yourself for the things that have happened. They weren't your fault, okay? I, personally, am very glad you found that Music. I remember what I used to be and I'm, like, so much happier now than I ever could have been before. Remember that. Me, Hope, Stacey, Danielle, Jenna, Heather, your wife, Josh and Grace, Marc, Kylie, Vikki, Keri, Taylor... We're all better people - happier people - since you and your Music came into our lives. And Annaliese, too. Her life was so much more than it could have been, no matter how short a time she got to live it."

Karla placed her hand alongside Tiffany's, sandwiching it warmly against her cheek. "Thanks, Tiff," she whispered, managing a haunted smile.

"You gonna be okay?" Tiffany asked.

"Yeah," Karla said, a bit of her old effervescence returning. "I'll feel better once I can talk to Grace about what happened."

"If I only knew where the hell she was, I'd take you," Tiffany grumped with an unintentionally adorable pout.

As she put the car into gear to head back into traffic, a taxicab screeched in front of them, cutting them off and slamming on the brakes. Tiffany had to swerve her lipstick-red BMW Z3 roughly and jam on her own brakes to avoid a collision.

She flipped him a flawlessly-French-tipped bird, yelling, "Nice signal, asshole!"

The taxicab door opened and a tall, rough-looking man in a stained and rumpled suit hopped out, bending over to pay the driver. Tiffany recognized the face, from distant and dim memories of an eternity ago, but the shreds of memory she unintentionally read from the shady-looking man were more than enough to drive the point home.

"I know that guy," Tiffany said. "He was in the CIA, a long time ago. One of their assassins."

Karla looked at him more closely. "Him? He looks so, like, plain."

"That's what the Agency wanted," Tiffany said from far away. "Ordinary-looking, everyday citizens."

Another of the man's memories slammed into Tiffany's brain, a hard one to watch. "Oh my God, K. That's the guy who killed Sam Michaelis and shot Taylor."

Karla grabbed her friend's arm tightly. "Did he kill Annaliese, too?"

"No," Tiffany said. "It was somebody else. But they both work for the same man."

"Stop," Karla said as Tiffany pulled away from the curb quickly and tried to get as much distance as possible from the killer. Fear thrilled up and down her spine, a dancing chill that made her heart beat fit to burst. "Tiff, stop! We have to go back!"

"He's a monster, Karla! He's killed more people than he can remember!"

"He doesn't know us," Karla said. "I need to find out where he's going, Tiff. I need to find the man who killed my best friend, okay?"

Slowly, inexorably, Tiffany guided the little sports car to the curb. She sighed heavily as she cut off the engine. "I'm scared," she confessed.

Karla nodded and squeezed her arm. "So am I," the blonde replied. "Fucking terrified. But I have to know, Tiff. I have to."

Tiffany opened her door. "I understand," she said, swinging her legs around to the pavement. "Let's do it quick before I lose my nerve."

***

Kendall couldn't exactly figure out why, but something about Francisco LaPaglia disturbed him. Taken as a whole package, the youth wasn't much to write home about. Skinny and awkward and unattractive. But there was a dangerous, unpredictable element about him; shrouded in the unnerving icy calm he always exhibited that set off many of Kendall's internal alarms. The boy simply stood, silhouetted by the rising morning sun, staring out into the city. Like somehow he could find Grace Kincaid just by staring long enough.

"My boy, please, you should at least have something to eat," Kendall said, desperate to find some basic need in the boy that could hint that he was human like the rest of them.

"I am not hungry, thank you," LaPaglia replied. "Mr. Kendall. I will need to purchase a handgun today. Do you think you might help me?"

Kendall's soul iced over at the intensity and calm of the request. "It's difficult, Signor. It takes a seven-day waiting period under new laws. It would be a week before you were able to claim it."

"Surely there are, shall we say, unofficial channels where I could obtain one? Cost is no object," he said.

"Wouldn't it be easier to use that money to hire someone to do it for you?" Kendall attempted. "It might be more sensible for you to keep your hands clean. The police don't take very kindly to people who shoot one of their own."

"The police don't concern me," LaPaglia replied meticulously. "And I would never hire somebody to make a profit on revenge that by rights belongs to me. No, I will do the job myself, Mr. Kendall. Now, do you know of a way where I could get a handgun today?"

Kendall tried not to shiver. "I do," he said. "I'll make the call once my secretary arrives for the morning."

LaPaglia nodded and turned his gaze back out the window. "Grazie, Signor," he said.

Kendall suppressed a shudder and tried to look at anything in the room that wasn't the slender youth.

***

The badge and the warrant were more than adequate to gain access past the building's security in the front lobby. With hardly anyone in the building at 7 a.m., the actual move on the office was uneventful and painless, assisted by building security with quick precision. They stepped into the well-appointed office just as Kendall's assistant - a firm-looking, no-nonsense type of woman was arriving, stowing her purse and booting up her computer.

Grace stepped forward quickly, badge in hand. "Ma'am, I'm Detective Kincaid, this is Detective White. We have a warrant for the arrest of Aaron Kendall."

She looked shocked. "Mr. Kendall isn't here right now," she said automatically.

"Are you aware that obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting are both criminal offenses, ma'am?" Ned replied quickly. "We know he's here. Building security confirmed it five minutes ago. Now let us in or I'll have to arrest you, as well."

"I don't..." she attempted.

"Ma'am, you're slowing me down," Grace said. "Now either let me into that office back there right now or you're under arrest. Do you understand?"

The woman's resolve broke. She stood nervously and paced quickly to the wooden door behind her desk. She opened it just a crack, saying, "Mr. Kendall?"

Grace shoved past her, elbowing the door open and nearly trampling the poor woman. Kendall was there, behind his desk, looking strangely at the back of a gangly young man who was staring out the window.

"Marsha, I told you no interruptions," he said in an authoritative bass.

"Aaron Kendall?" Grace said, showing her badge. "Detective Kincaid. I have a warrant for your arrest; the charge is conspiracy to commit murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the state. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"

The awkward-looking man at the window turned slowly, regarding Grace with a cool, almost bored expression. "Detective... Grace Kincaid?" he asked slowly, in a thick Mediterranean accent.

"Yes," Grace said, not taking her eyes from Kendall.

She never saw the young man explode into motion, his outstretched fingers seeking her slender neck.

***

Karla and Tiffany ghosted silently up the stairs, a few flights behind the man who'd killed Sam. Tiffany was on high alert, trying to read the man's thoughts to see if he had any inkling that he was being followed. So far, his mind was focused on escape and evasion and the pain in his shoulder where one of Taylor's shots had found him. His single-mindedness made the girls' job easier. They tracked him up fifteen flights - which left all of them panting a little for air, even the superbly athletic Karla - and through an access door. Waiting to make sure his thoughts hadn't turned towards looking behind him, Tiffany took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Karla swallowed heavily and pulled her can of pepper spray from the little holster on her keychain. It was the only weapon they had.

The door opened into a long, unadorned hallway, flanked by several sets of doors on either side. The door at the far end on the right was slowly closing on its springs. Tiffany and Karla moved as quickly as they could, trying to make no sound, and stopped before the closed door tensely, their ears open for the slightest hint as to what this man was doing and where he was going.

After an interminable pause, Karla placed a trembling hand on the handle.

"I have to know," she told Tiffany. Bestowing a quick kiss on her lover's soft lips, the young blonde turned the handle.

***

Grace didn't waste any time or energy. She spun on her heel and delivered a savage palm strike to the young man's chin, following it up with a vicious kick to the inside of his knee that left him flat on his back in the thick pile of Kendall's carpet. Her pistol appeared in her fist as if conjured there.

Kendall had sprung up and made a dash for it, towards a back door hidden in the paneling behind his desk. He collided with a heavyset man who was coming in the other way through the bolthole. They fell against the doorjamb in a windmilling of arms and a torrential downpour of surprised profanity. Ned had them both covered under the muzzle of his nine-mil before they could recover.

"Who the hell are you?" Grace asked the young boy.

"I am your killer," he said in his thick accent. "I am here to avenge the death of my father, who you murdered."

"Murdered? What the fuck are you talking about, kid?" Ned asked.

"My father! You killed him!" he cried, looking as if he were about to lunge for Grace again. She forestalled the thought by pulling back the slide of her weapon.

"And just who the hell is it that I'm supposed to have killed?" Grace demanded.

"You don't even know his name," the boy hissed. "You heartless bitch."

"Keep talking, kid, and you're going to find yourself in the lockup with Kendall over there. I have never taken a human life in my whole career. Whoever got you thinking that I killed your pops was lying to you," Grace said through gritted teeth.

"You... did not kill my father? Kendall? Is this true?" the boy stammered.

Kendall said nothing more than, "I want my lawyer."

"I'm telling you, kid. You can pull my records. I've only shot one person in all the time I've been a police officer and it was a wound to the leg. I haven't killed anyone," Grace said. "Now, just who the hell are you, anyway?"

The boy seemed to relax a little and cleared his throat. "My apologies, Detective. I was given false information about you. Mr. Kendall told me that you were responsible for the death of my father, Arturo LaPaglia."

Grace's eyes went the size of teacups. "You're Arturo LaPaglia's son?"

"Yes," the boy said. "He disappeared from me and my mother when I was very young. Mr. Kendall was kind enough to care for me, to provide for my mother and my education in Italy. But I never ended my search for my missing father, with Mr. Kendall's help."

Grace's eyes narrowed to hateful slits as they moved back to Kendall. "So that's what you had on LaPaglia," she said. "That's how you managed to force him to kill Dr. Renfro."

Kendall remained silent, propped against the doorframe alongside the heavyset, unknown man. He refused to look at the young man.

"Mr. Kendall? What is she talking about? Mr. Kendall?" the youth demanded.

Grace turned back to him. "Your father didn't leave you, kid," she explained. "You were kidnapped. Arturo LaPaglia worked for Aaron Kendall for several years. Several months ago, your father attempted to kill a man named Karl Renfro on the orders of Kendall and a man named Sam Michaelis. We've been wondering for a long time how he managed to get a paper-pusher like LaPaglia to make an assassination attempt. He was using you, kid."

"He used me? To blackmail my father?" LaPaglia the Younger asked in disbelief.

"He did," Grace confirmed.

"Then my father is not dead?" the boy asked.

"I'm sorry, kid. He is dead. He was killed late last night," Grace said sadly. "We suspect that it was Kendall's orders once again."

The boy covered his eyes with his hand. His body began to shake with silent sobs.

Unable to watch comfortably as the boy wept, Grace turned back to Kendall.

"Get up, you piece of shit," she ordered, pulling her handcuffs from the holder in the small of her back. "Time to pay up."

Ned gestured with his weapon. "What about this other guy?" he asked.

"Anybody who knows the back door into this office is suspect," Grace said. "Put him in custody until we can figure out who he is."

Ned stepped forward. The heavyset man shoved Kendall away with a grunt of effort and straightened, a silenced pistol in his hidden hand. Grace moved with near-supernatural speed, throwing her slender body into Ned's as the muzzle spoke once, twice. Grace's eyes flew open wide and a tiny, almost little-girl grunt, escaped her lips.

She hit the carpet hard, her shirt bloodying quickly. Ned got to his knees quickly and brought his pistol up, but the man had already ducked out the back door. Ned stood to pursue, when the heavyset man staggered backwards through the door again, his hands clutched over his face, strangled cries escaping from between his fingers. He stumbled over Kendall's prone form and went backwards over the expensive desk.

Karla Renfro walked through the door then, a can of pepper spray held in front of her in both hands. Tiffany Dayton was right behind her.

Kendall's eyes were enormous. "My God," he rasped. "Sarah?"

From the corner of his eye, Ned saw Kendall making a break for it out the back door. Ned's pistol spoke deafeningly, chewing huge gouges out of the deep oaken paneling of the wall nearest the door. Kendall came up short with a startled squeak and fell to his knees. Tiffany tackled him then, her elbow sitting heavily on his skull and her shapely knee digging into the small of the man's back.

The boy was on his knees, shaking Grace's unmoving body roughly, saying "Detective Kincaid? Detective Kincaid?"

Ned knee-walked across the carpet to where she lay. "Gracie? Oh, God, Gracie," he muttered, digging for the radio in his coat pocket. "This is White. I need an ambulance, now. I have an officer down. Move!"

Grace moaned, a very delicate and feminine sound. "Ned..."

He took her hand in his own. "I'm here, Grace. Right here."

"I don't feel so good..." she managed, before her eyes rolled into her head. Her breathing, ragged and pained, gradually became shallower and shallower until it seemed to stop entirely.

"No," came a high voice. "No."

Karla moved closer to Grace's form, her hands clutched in her luxurious blonde hair.

Ned nearly screamed into the radio. "Get me that goddamned ambulance! Now!"

"No," Karla repeated. Her eyes closed tightly, tears leaking through the long, soft lashes. "No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..."

The horrible sound hung in the air like a solid living flame, and somewhere from the middle of it Ned heard, threaded in between the fibers of pain and loss and betrayal, something that sounded for all the world like Music...

***

Karla floated in darkness so thick that it caressed her. There was a presence there, an old friend that she'd known for her whole life, a voice that had spoken to her the first time long ago in a tent on the riverlands of southern Canada.

I am here, it said.

"Is it really you?" Karla asked. "Heammawihio?" She used the ancient Cheyenne name for the Great Spirit, the ruler of the Sky.

I have answered to that name, it said. It is not my name, but it will serve.

"Where am I?"

The same place you have always been, human. Stuck between Earth and Sky. Belonging to neither. This is the second time you have called me. The first was for the loss of a child. Now why have you summoned me?

"I didn't mean to," she said. "I just saw Grace laying there, and all that blood, and I just screamed. I never meant to summon you."

Your friend, this Grace? Heammawihio - or whatever it was - asked from the darkness.

"Yes," Karla said. "I don't want her to die. Too many people have died today. I can't stand any more."

Death is a natural part of life, the voice said. It is unavoidable for you.

"Death may be nothing much for someone like you," Karla said. "But to a human like me, it's a very big deal."

The darkness sounded amused. I understand that better than you know.

"I guess you don't have to be here," Karla said. "I just screamed. That was all. I didn't mean to call you here."

But here is where I am, the darkness responded.

"I sometimes wish I'd never found you," Karla confessed.

I know, the voice responded. I have seen what has happened.

"And you can just let it happen like that?" Karla asked.

Life is a balance, human, the voice explained. For every birth there is a death. For every warm, secure lodge that is built - trees must die. For every baby born, animals must perish to feed it. Healing must harm and harming must heal, or they cannot continue to be that which they are. Perhaps these deaths are payment in kind for the work you've already done.

"I don't want this to be my fault," Karla said, near tears.

It is no one's fault. It simply is. The animals, which you think beneath you, know this. They accept it and live in its embrace with every breath. Why should you be different?

"Because I can love," Karla said.

Perhaps that is the difference, at that.

"So if all these deaths, all this suffering - it's just to balance out the healing we've already done. So if I want to keep healing, more people must suffer?"

Sometimes, the spirit said to her.

"Then end it now. Take me. Kill me. Just leave my friends alone."

The darkness seemed somehow speechless. Your life means so little to you? It asked finally.

"No," Karla countered. "It means that much to me. So much that I'm willing to give it away just to end this pain and suffering. It's not fair to the people I love. And if taking me can end it, then take me."

The darkness considered a bit. No, it finally decided. The world is bettered by having you in it. I will not take you.

"Then the suffering continues," Karla concluded.

The suffering will continue whether I take you or not, human, the darkness explained. Don't you see? Suffering is a part of this world. It is one of the risks of living. It is not your fault that people suffer, that people die. They suffer and die because it is in their nature to suffer and die. A human is a tragic thing.

"So why are you here?" Karla asked.

Because you called me.

Karla wanted to scream in frustration. "So what do I do with you, then?"

That is, as it always has been, yours to decide, human. I am but the tune. You make the music.

"Kendall," Karla hissed. "He's the one behind all of this. He should be punished for his crimes."

His crimes will punish him by themselves, the darkness said. Your interference would be unnecessary.

"I don't know what to do," Karla said helplessly.

Another risk one takes when one is human, the darkness told her. It is simple. You do what it is in your nature to do.

"And what is that?" Karla nearly wailed. "Dammit, I don't know what that is!"

What is the word you humans use for one who cares for those who suffer?

"Doctor," Karla supplied.

Are you not a... doctor? The darkness asked, unaccustomed to the feel of the word.

"I was," she said. "A long time ago."

Why did you become a doctor?

"Because of why I'm here now. Because I can't stand to see people suffering."

Then perhaps, it is in your nature to heal?

Karla's eyes nearly shone.

***

The horrible, screaming pain as her body was violated, the heavy and helpless feeling of the projectiles ripping through muscle and internal organ, the warm, sticky and calm acceptance as her blood leaked from her body. It burned - God, how it burned. But it was fading, like a dimly-remembered dream. She fluttered her eyes open a little bit, feeling a warm hand in her own. Memories filtered down through the haze, of being shot and trying to arrest Aaron Kendall. Of Ned screaming on the radio about an ambulance before taking her hand.

"Ned?" Grace asked. She noticed, for the first time, that the hand she held in her own wore a French manicure just like hers on her long, square-cut nails.

The stunning young blonde was sitting mystified, looking down at the not-inconsiderable breasts which were straining at the front of the man's dress shirt she was wearing and providing a very tempting nest for the gold detective's shield she wore on a chain around her long swan's-neck.

"I think so," she said in a breathy mezzo.

***

Jenna and Heather were prompt and thorough as always, managing to get the nest of transformees out of the building and back to Corporate Rewards before the morning rush started in earnest. Tiffany and Karla were able to slip them out the back door of the office the way they'd come in and down to the street level, where Danielle and Hope were waiting with a rented van. Soon they were all in the picked-over processing room of Corporate Rewards, most of the people in the room still unconscious from the shock of the Music that Karla had overwhelmed them with.

Danielle distributed the last of her cigarettes to Hope, Stacey, Tiffany and Grace in the hall outside the small but well-equipped medical room, after having given Grace a complete examination. There weren't even bruises, much less scars. It was as if the shots she'd taken in Ned White's stead had never even been fired. If it wasn't for the two deformed slugs that had been sitting in the pool of congealing blood beside her on the carpet, Grace would have never even know she'd been shot at all.

"I'm thinking of having them made into earrings," Grace said, bouncing them in her palm. Something on her hand caught Danielle's attention and the curvy brunette caught Grace's hand, turning it over to reveal the little diamond ring she was wearing on her finger.

"This is new," she said.

Grace blushed to the roots of her hair. "Yeah," she said.

Danielle's eyes sparkled. "Wanna tell me where you got it?"

"Somebody gave it to me," she mumbled.

"Would this somebody's name be Joshua?" Hope asked, smiling.

"He asked me last night," Grace said in a rush. "With everything that happened I forgot to tell anybody about it."

She was wrapped up in a huge hug all at once, and the hallway erupted into a happy chorus of congratulations and queries about the date. Grace waved them all down with outstretched hands. "Easy, easy!" she shouted until the cacophony dimmed. "Josh and I agreed that we weren't even going to set a date until I have this case closed."

"Well, don't you?" Stacey demanded. "You finished it, right?"

"There's still one little thing missing," Tiffany said. "It was something Grace and I discussed a day or two ago - God, was it that long? - about some evidence we had."

"Did you ask Karla about it?" Grace said.

"Yeah," Tiffany said. "And I even read her about it. The only thing I know is it had something to do with protecting Claudette."

"What are you talking about?" Hope asked.

"The reason that Joshua didn't tell me about his own transformation," Grace explained. "It was because Dr. Renfro asked him personally not to mention it to anyone on the day he was transformed with Arturo LaPaglia."

"Weird," Danielle commented.

Stacey cleared her throat and took Hope's hand. "We might have some ideas about that," she said.

"What do you mean?" Grace asked.

Hope took a long drag off of her cigarette and released the smoke in a soft cloud as she spoke. "When we were doing background checks, we found something puzzling. Stace and me didn't think much of it, since we didn't really know about how the Music worked, but it could be some clue here."

"When Joshua examined Karla after the transformation, he took some blood samples and did a DNA workup," Stacey picked up. "We compared it to Dr. Renfro's DNA sample on file and they didn't match at all."

"So?" Danielle asked.

"That's what we thought," Stacey continued. "We figured that the change happened on the genetic level and let it lie. But assume for a second that Doc Renfro did, as some of us have thought, into an exact replica of his daughter. And then assume that the change did happen on the genetic level."

"Then that would mean that Sarah Renfro..." Grace started.

A deep, rich baritone sounded down the hall. "...wasn't Karl Renfro's daughter."

They all spun. Joshua had come in the back, silently, and was leading a very small- and shaken-looking Claudette Renfro. She was a mess - tears had streaked her meticulous makeup into ruin and she clung to Joshua's arm as if it were the only thing holding her up.

"I... I didn't want to tell anyone," she said in a small, breathy whisper. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think that Aaron would start killing anyone. I honestly didn't."

"Sarah was Aaron Kendall's daughter," Grace said flatly.

"Yes," Claudette confirmed. "We had been seeing each other for most of our lives. I did love Karl. I swear I did. But Aaron - we were childhood sweethearts. When Aaron left to serve overseas, I was nearly out of my mind with loneliness. I met Karl. He was funny - he made me laugh and smile and he treated me like a princess. I married him. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. But when Aaron came back home, I fell in love all over again. I couldn't bear to leave Karl - it would have destroyed him - but I couldn't stay away from Aaron. We met for a weekend in Lake Tahoe while Karl was away at a symposium and that's where we conceived Sarah. Karl was thrilled - he loved our son Eric to a fault, and was so happy to have another on the way... I couldn't tell him."

"But he found out," Grace said. "He knew."

"LaPaglia told him," Joshua said. "When we were arranging for my new identity. LaPaglia was trying to get enough money together to hire another detective to search for his son, and he had some dirt on Kendall that he tried to sell to Karl for some extra cash."

"Karl just sat there for a whole afternoon, staring off into space," Joshua recounted. "No tears, no nothing. It was like the news had just sucked the fire out of him. Finally, he stood up and looked me in the eyes and said, 'she was still my daughter.'"

Claudette only wept harder. "I never meant to hurt him."

"Once I got back from Europe and joined up, I discovered that LaPaglia was still doing business with the Doc," Joshua continued. "I asked the Doc about the paternity matter and he told me that LaPaglia, not satisfied to just sell the info to Karl, had turned around and tried to blackmail Kendall with it as well. Kendall was pissed. He told LaPaglia that if word of that ever leaked out that he'd kill Karl and Claudette both and pin the murders on LaPaglia.

"That was about the time that Heather and Jenna were reporting that LaPaglia was acting kinda funny," Joshua went on. "Karl was afraid of the worst. He told me not to speak about the transformation to anyone. I really didn't give it much thought - I trusted Karl like a father - and agreed. I only realized later that he was afraid that if LaPaglia did anything and the police started asking questions, the information would spill and Kendall would make good on his promise and try to kill Claudette."

Grace gathered Claudette into a tight embrace, smoothing her silken blonde hair with feathery caresses. The older woman - no matter that she looked perpetually eighteen, Grace still remembered that this woman was nearly sixty-five years old - hugged her back with a force belied by her slender arms and kissed Grace's soft, fragrant hair.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"It's all right," Grace said back. "It's over now."

***

The room was far from quiet when Danielle, Hope, Stacey and Grace came back inside. Heather and Jenna had made a run to the outlet mall and soon had a respectable pile of clothing assembled before each of the new women. Tiffany and Karla had left, hand in hand, to go and visit Taylor in the hospital - the slender Oriental woman was recovering and had been classified in stable condition an hour ago, moved from the ICU into a private room. Claudette and Joshua had stayed as well. Josh couldn't bring himself to be further away than about eight inches from his new fianc�e, and that suited Grace just fine.

Ned White was dressed in an off-white see-through poet's blouse, which didn't cover her midriff, a black lace bustier, and skin- tight hiphugger jeans with flared cuffs. Her toenails were painted electric blue and peeked from the open toes of her black leather platform slides from between brightly colored 'Seventies- style sunflowers attached to the straps. She'd managed a windblown 'pixie' look with her short, platinum blonde hair and her eyes were made up dramatically in silvers and purples and a long, slender cigarette dangled from between her soft, pink- painted lips.

"You look like you're enjoying this," Grace commented to her old friend.

The blonde grinned broadly. "I can't stop it," she said. "At first, I was just freaked out. But once I saw these clothes, and all the makeup, I couldn't seem to help myself. I just had to put it all on. It feels incredible, Gracie. I mean, somebody mentioned going to the mall to get my ears pierced a minute ago and it's all I can do to keep from running over there right now."

"Welcome to the party," Grace said fondly.

"Is this what it's like all the time?" Ned asked.

"Only if you want it to be," Danielle told her.

"I want, I want," the blonde laughed. "I haven't felt this excited... well, shit, not ever. It's amazing. Believe it or not, Gracie, once I started thinking about the fact that the mall would be full of guys, I got..."

"You got all wet downstairs?" Grace supplied.

The blonde blushed scarlet in answer.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Ned," Grace said patiently. "You're an attractive, healthy, red-blooded young woman."

"Young woman," Ned repeated. "It may take a while to get used to that."

"Not as long as you think," Grace said, passing over a fat envelope. "Here's a new drivers' license and some cash, a Social Security card and a birth certificate. Compliments of Corporate Rewards. I should be able to have your service record and badge transferred to the new name by sundown."

"You mean I'm still a cop?" Ned asked.

"If you want to be," Grace told her.

"Hell, yes, I want to be," Ned said. "Foxy little thing like me would look incredible in a uniform. And two sexy things like you and me as partners..."

"Seriously?" Grace asked.

"Seriously," Ned replied. "No way am I plunking my brand new shapely ass back behind a desk. I gotta get out there and do something, Grace. I have all this damn energy. Shit, I almost feel like dancing."

"You need to talk to Karla, Keri and Vikki then," Grace said. "They'll hook you up."

"Whaddaya think, red? Some of those big gold hoops that look so sexy on?" she said, turning her head to display her ears.

"I say go for it," Grace said.

Ned ripped open the envelope and took out the cash and identification, pausing for a second at the drivers' license. "Neve White?" she asked. "Like that girl in the slasher flicks?"

"It's as close as we could get," Danielle explained. "We can change it if you want."

"Neve," she said, trying it on her tongue. "I like it. Sexy. See you later, guys. I got a date at the Piercing Pagoda."

***

The lissome, sexy girl with the olive complexion and long, curly brown hair couldn't seem to tear herself away from the mirror, stroking her oh-so-smooth cheek with long-nailed fingers and regarding herself with wide, guileless hazel eyes.

"I'm beautiful," she repeated in her dusky, low alto. "I can't believe how beautiful I am."

"You are," Danielle congratulated her. "How do you feel?"

"Wonderful," she said with a glittering white smile. She stood to reveal herself dressed in tight black leather slacks and strappy stiletto heels to match and a black turtleneck with no sleeves. A matching necklace and belt of enormous silver circular links broke up the dark fabric in a fabulously sexy way. She gathered Danielle up into a huge hug, her large breasts flattening against Danielle's in a very sensual way.

"Thank you so much," she said, eyes glistening. "Grazie, grazie, molto grazie."

"You're very welcome," Danielle said, passing her a thick envelope. "Your identification will be a little harder to process, since we have to get you a new visa. You're going to have to stay near someone for the next couple of days until we have your paperwork in order. But your identification and some money are in there."

She tore it open with fingernails painted a very shiny dark wine color. She looked over her birth certificate and identification strangely.

"Strange," she said, smiling fondly. "To be ugly little Francisco LaPaglia with his big nose this morning and by lunchtime, this. They always said America was the land of opportunity."

"Welcome to the New World, Francesca," Danielle said.

Francesca LaPaglia reached to the table and pulled a gold-tipped black Sobrani cigarette from the box beside the bag containing her clothing. "Where will I be staying, then?"

"We're a little cramped for space around here," Danielle said. "I thought, if you were amenable, that you could stay with me."

"I'd like that," Francesca said. "But you must let me buy you some lunch. To say thank you."

"There's no need for that," Danielle said.

"Please," Francesca said with an adorably sexy pout. "I want to."

Danielle offered her arm gallantly. "Okay, then, I accept. I know a really good little restaurant not too far from here."

"Tell me, darling," Francesca said, letting Danielle lead her away. "The waiters at this restaurant. They are cute?"

***

It was Joshua, Hope and Claudette who confronted the last two women in the room. The first, a huge-breasted girl with jet black hair to the bottoms of her shoulder blades, wide and none-too- intelligent looking green eyes ringed by the longest eyelashes that any of them had ever seen and a little baby-doll mouth locked into a perpetual sultry pout, looked confusedly at the thick envelope Joshua put into her long-nailed hands.

"What's this?" she perked, her voice a bubbly little-girl soprano chirp with the worst 'bubblehead' lilt in it Josh had ever heard. She sounded like a precocious nine-year-old.

"New identification. A birth certificate, drivers' license, Social Security card and a little bit of money. We'll help you find a place to stay after lunch. We can also use some contacts to make sure that your government identification through the Agency if you want."

She shook her head vapidly. "What do I want with them anymore?"

"Your pension?" Joshua asked.

"It's in, like, a numbered account and stuff," she said. "I can get to it."

The girl who had once been the killer Ambrose Williams tore into the envelope and fished out her drivers' license. "Amber Williams," she read slowly, as if reading were definitely not her strong suit. "What a pretty name."

"For a very pretty girl," Hope told her. "We got you a hotel room for a day or two until we can get your apartment ready."

"Cool," Amber said, smiling a vacant smile. "Thanks."

"Is there anything else we can get you?" Joshua asked.

She narrowed her eyes in a very sexy way. "I can think of a couple things, baby," she purred, sliding a long-nailed hand up the inseam of Joshua's blue jeans. He caught her hand just before she reached the zone where Grace would have shot her.

"I'm spoken for, sorry," he told the little sexpot.

"Your loss," she said, tugging up the little silver tube-top she was wearing over her abnormally large breasts. If this was the creature of Ambrose Williams' innermost desires, it didn't speak too well of Ambrose Williams at all. Joshua didn't doubt that she'd be flat on her back before the day was out for some man she didn't even know. But the Music worked in strange ways. If there were a way for her to be happy doing what she was doing, then the Music would guide her there. Joshua had faith.

She stood, balancing precariously on her platform heels. She smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her black Capri pants and slung a heavy shoulderbag over one arm.

"Actually, there is, like, one thing you could tell me."

Hope didn't even have to wait for the punch line. "Head down to Crenshaw Boulevard," she said. "There's a club called Angels there. Ask for Vikki or Keri, they can get you an audition if you want."

Amber smiled her vacant smile and squeezed Hope's arm in a friendly but suggestive manner. "Thanks, babe. And come by sometime - either of you. I'll give you a free lap dance."

***

The last of the women could have been off the cover of a magazine easily. She was tall and slender, with smooth and flawless creamy skin and breasts that accented her lanky figure perfectly. She wore impeccably chosen clothes - a charcoal-gray tank dress covered over by a tailored gray double-breasted blazer, dark stockings and black velvet pumps. Dressed for business, with the only hint of wildness a little diamond anklet around her right ankle. She took a long pull off of her long cigarette and regarded her beringed fingers strangely, the long polished nails and the slender shape of what had been large and hairy appendages only hours before. The smoke escaped wine-colored lips in a soft, feminine plume. Her skin was as flawless on her face as it was on her cleavage, the kind that needed no makeup but only benefited from its application. High, 'Sophia Loren' cheekbones under large green eyes, rimmed in thick, dramatic black and long mascara- coated lashes. High feathery arched brows and a mop of thick carrot-red curls which spilled in a huge fall down her neck and shoulders, almost to the small of her back. It was so thick and lustrous that it made her head and shoulders look small and frail by comparison.

"Claudette," she said appraisingly in a rich, thick contralto.

Claudette tried to find words and couldn't, settling for extending a thick envelope, which the woman took in her slender, bejeweled hand.

"I should have suspected," she said, reading the documents from the envelope.

"It's not a death sentence, Erin," Claudette said.

"I know," Erin Kendall replied. "I can tell already. I feel wonderful, Claudette. Incredible. I just hate that it took doing what I did to find this."

"It was another life, sweetheart," Claudette said.

Erin took another pull from her cigarette. "Can I ask you something, Claudette?"

"Anything," she replied.

"When you changed. Became who you are now. Did it make you happy?"

Claudette smiled. "At first it scared me. But as I stopped fighting it, yes. I've never been happier in my life. I'm everything I want to be and I wouldn't change it."

"Good," Erin said. "Then maybe there's a chance for me, as well."

"What do you mean?" Claudette asked.

"Since I changed," Erin said shyly, looking at the floor, "I've been having... thoughts. Thoughts I never thought I'd have. That's why I dressed this way. I..."

"You want to be looked at. Noticed. Wanted," Claudette said.

"God, yes," Erin breathed. "And there's this itching. This hollow feeling, in my middle. It's driving me insane. I can't seem to stop thinking about it. I thought I might be ill, but when I told Danielle about it, she only laughed and wouldn't explain."

Claudette tinkled a laugh. "Oh, sweetheart," she said, "you're priceless."

"So I'm not sick?" Erin asked.

"Not at all," Claudette said. "I get the same 'itch' all the time. You're not sick. You're horny."

"Horny?"

"Yes," Claudette explained. "Honey, you're lucky I came along. Let's go to lunch. I have a lot I can teach you. I know a place where the waiters are cute, they know me, and they'd be thrilled to meet any friend of mine."

"Do you think they... if I asked one of them..." Erin stuttered.

She took Erin's arm and led her towards the door. "I can practically guarantee it."

***

"Not a bad ending, for what it's worth," Grace said, tapping her lower lip with a luxuriously-manicured nail. "I just hate that so many people had to die."

"But we stopped it before it got any worse," Neve said, patting her friend and partner's shoulder warmly. "I still consider it a victory."

"Doesn't seem like a whole month has passed, has it?" Grace asked.

"Sometimes, sometimes not," Neve said, stealing a cigarette from Grace's pack and rummaging in the pocket of her blazer for a light.

Grace reached forward with her ladies' Zippo and struck a flame. Neve cupped it with long-nailed fingers and drew deeply, puffing out a thick cloud of fragrant, sharp blue.

"What do you hear from the gang?" Neve asked, a soft plume of tobacco smoke escaping her lush, red-painted lips.

"Let's see," Grace said. "Well, as you know, Kylie and Marc are renewing their vows in a few weeks and going on a second honeymoon to Aruba."

"I got the invitation a while back," Neve said. "Good for them. Kylie's lucky. Marc is a total babe. I'd give a kidney for a night with him."

"You and half the world," Grace said. "He's gotten a moonlighting gig doing some modeling for a local lingerie catalog. Heather set it up - somebody she knew from a long time ago. I'll send you a copy."

"Better include a towel," Neve laughed. "Seeing him in his underwear could get kinda messy. I'll be sure to spread a drop cloth underneath me."

"What else? God, every time I go there I'm inundated with the latest gossip - it's kinda hard to keep track of it all. Oh, yeah. You know Bruce Bennett, from SWAT?"

"Yeah - he's the really cute guy that helped you guys out when you were investigating Claudette Renfro a while back, right?" Neve said, running a hand through her tousled, platinum blonde locks. Her signature huge dangling hoop earrings swayed, catching the light in bright flares.

"Yeah. He and Danielle are going to tie the knot. Dani told me he popped the question a week back when they were camping out in the hills. Under the stars, all the trimmings. Dani could keep from crying when she described it, and it got me a little bit misty- eyed too."

"That's fantastic," Neve said.

"Vikki and Keri have been hanging out a lot with Amber Williams. Turns out she's a really sweet girl," Grace went on, sipping her Diet Coke. "They're all going up to Seattle in a few days to try out for the Penthouse Pet Hunt. Amber is even getting offers about taking her act on the road, being a feature dancer."

"Good for her," Neve said. "Is she still serious about becoming a movie star?"

Grace snickered. "Yeah," she said. "But in the kinds of movies you'd expect. She wants to be something called a 'Vivid Girl.' She figures feature dancing will be a means to that end. Why on earth she'd want to make pornos is kinda beyond me."

Neve shrugged. "The girl would rather fuck than eat, Grace. So if she can make a little money doing it, I don't particularly see the harm in it. Besides, before I became the luscious blonde bombshell you see before you, I was known to pop one of those movies in the VCR with a bottle of hand lotion and a roll of paper towels of an evening."

"Yeah, yeah, let's not get into gory details," Grace laughed.

"And you're saying you never shook hands with the unemployed when you were still a man, Gracie?" Neve accused.

"Sure, I was human," Grace admitted. "I just didn't advertise."

"What else?" Neve said, changing the subject before her partner got any redder in the face. "What about Heather and Jenna?"

"Still running Corporate Rewards and working on the side. Heather's still at Hooters - managing the place, actually. She's doing really well - made the calendar again. She's also started a scholarship fund through the company in Annaliese's name. Jenna and Karla are still on the cheerleading squad, too. Jenna is looking really good for becoming the choreographer in a year or two."

"That'll make her happy," Neve said. "She's good enough to be running the show now."

"And the current staff knows it. The only thing Jenna's being adamant about is that she wants to keep dancing in the shows. It's what she loves."

"Hope and Stacey?"

"Crazy as always. Aside from the security software company, they've also started a web magazine called 'eBabes.' They were the first two centerfolds. It's really starting to bring in a nice chunk of change. Stacey just hired the architect for their new house. It's up in the Northwest Hills. Real high society."

"That's fantastic," Neve said.

"It doesn't end there. They're also trying to figure a way to get the Music in electronic format so that they can control it by computer. And lobbying the state legislature for same-sex marriages so they can get hitched," Grace said. "They have entirely too much energy for their own goods.

"Tiffany and Karla are a real item. Tiff still works a little at Rewards as a cosmetician, and she's starting to learn about hairstyling. Josh is using her abilities a lot in working with the Music at the clinic, too - she's really helpful in finding out what these people want and need before they come in contact with the Music.

"Karla's still dancing - she's on the cheerleading squad, as I said, and she's also a club dancer at the Hothouse and with the Peregrine Dance Theater. She's also volunteering with cheerleading camps and is thinking about taking over a high school cheerleading squad in the fall. Nobody up at Rewards sees that much of her anymore, really - she stays really busy. And she and Tiff are really very much in love. They send each other flowers and chocolates and sexy underwear and they're having a good time. It's sweet."

"Karla and Tiff deserve each other," Neve concluded. "They both had really tough lives before. I'm glad that they're happy now."

"Taylor's back up and around," Grace went on. "Still has to walk with a cane, though. She's the worst patient in the universe, by all accounts. Won't stay in bed or take her medicine. But with the 'sexy little helpless Asian girl' routine she's discovered, guys all over the city are bending over backwards trying to help her, and she's eating it up."

"What's she doing?" Neve pressed.

"She's still consulting with the Agency and helping scout out potential clients for Corporate Rewards," Grace told her. "The shooting gave her a real scare, though. There was a risk that she wouldn't be fertile, so she's really looking for somebody she can have a family with and thinking hard about babies. She's getting real serious with a nurse from the hospital named Matt. He does really nice things to an otherwise uneventful set of surgical scrubs."

"How is she ever going to stop smoking long enough to have a kid?" Neve asked, blowing her smoke towards the ceiling.

"Josh looked into that. Taylor's lungs - mine, too, and Heather and Jenna and everybody else - are as pink as the day they were born. There's no evidence at all that we smoke. Our bodies don't seem to show any sign of it at all, not even in the blood-work. It's incorporated in the Music that changed us, somehow. So Josh doesn't seem to think that it will have any effect on a baby at all. Somehow the Music protects us - and our children - from any adverse effects of tobacco."

"That's a relief," Neve said.

"Oh, you might be interested to know that Francesca LaPaglia inherited Arturo's estate. It got valued in the neighborhood of seventeen million dollars," Grace said. "Apparently, LaPaglia had hoarded every dime he ever made in the effort to find his son, and his investment counselor was a real badass. Parlayed all that money into a lot more money. Francesca is loaded, to say the least, and she just got her U.S. citizenship. She's planning on investing in Corporate Rewards and trying to make it multinational, to expand into Europe and Asia to help people overseas."

"Wow," Neve said. "Pretty damned impressive."

"Well, Francisco LaPaglia was as sharp as they got - top of his class. He didn't lose anything by becoming Francesca. She's already an MBA and is working on another degree - I didn't hear which. But get this - you'll never guess who they're going to use to expand overseas."

"Don't tell me they're going through Global Ventures," Neve laughed.

"Got it in one," Grace said, laughing as well. "The new executive board member is none other than Erin Kendall."

"Funny how things work out," Neve said.

"Yeah," Grace continued. "She's become a real pillar of the company. Josh thinks she hung the moon. She's streamlined the process for revamping identities and the money is absolutely rolling in. She's even recommended a CEO and CFO for Rewards who are due to start working on the corporation later this month."

"Really? Who?" Neve asked.

"Milton Fleischmann and M. Lindstrom Banks, from Price Waterhouse and Morgan Stanley, respectively. Real go-getters, businessmen to the nth power," Grace said. "But Josh tells me that by the time they take over Rewards they're going to be Misty Fleischmann and Lindsey Banks. I met them on Monday. You want to talk about gorgeous. My God."

"Wonder if they'd like to do a job on the chief?" Neve asked. "Maybe find a way to make him a little more receptive to the concerns of the female officers."

"I don't even know that a pair of double-D's could soften up Chester," Grace said.

"You never know," Neve shot back. "Maybe being Chelsea for a while would give him a new outlook on things."

"No, with our luck he'd get zapped into some buff muscle-guy with wavy hair and blue eyes that could melt a woman at fifty paces," Grace said. "He'd cut our pay and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it because we'd be too wet in the panties to say no to him."

"Probably right," Neve said. "Still, I'm happy for Erin. She had a lot on her soul that she needed to pay for. I'm glad she's getting a chance to make it right."

"Yeah, and Claudette too," Grace said. "They're the best of friends. They finally got the chance to just be together, which was the reason all of this shit started in the first place. They're making up for a lot of lost time. They won't publicly admit to being in love, but it's pretty blatantly apparent to anyone who looks at them. So they tend to indulge in the finer aspects of the m�nage-a-trois to keep it outwardly heterosexual. I think it's only going to be a matter of time before they cave and admit it. I mean, being around people like Heather and Jenna and Hope and Stacey every day, lesbian couples who've made it work and are so obviously happy being what they are is bound to be the best positive reinforcement you could need. Hell, those four have even gotten me wondering what it must be like from time to time."

"Just tell me when, where and if I should bring snacks," Neve said.

Grace belly-laughed. "I don't think Joshua would approve."

"Come on," Neve chided. "What guy doesn't dream of two girls at once?"

Grace blushed beet-red. "Is this an attempt to fuck him or me?" she asked.

"Yes," Neve said smugly before dissolving into laughter. "Seriously, though, it would never work out. I'm getting pretty serious about Kevin, over in Public Education. He's good enough to be a one-man-woman for."

"He's a hottie," Grace admitted. "I'm glad it's working out for you."

Grace suddenly noticed the clock on the wall of the office and bolted up, checking the time against her wristwatch. "Shit," she muttered. "Josh is coming by to pick me up in fifteen minutes and I need to go change."

"Where you headed?" Neve asked, following her towards the lockers.

"We have to go pick out china and a cake," Grace said. "Only two months and sixteen days left to go before the big event."

"Wow," Neve said.

"And you still haven't gone by to get fitted for the bridesmaid dress, either," Grace said. "You're my maid of honor and you're the only one left who hasn't."

"Traitors," Neve hissed. "Hope, Stacey and Taylor said we were all going to go do that together on Saturday. I can't believe they biffed me like that."

"You'll get over it," Grace said. "And then Josh wants to run some tests on me. He's researching something about the transformees and needs some more data."

"Does he need me?" Neve asked. "Anything for science."

"Anything to take all your clothes off around my fianc�, you mean," Grace said with a half-smile. "You shameless hussy."

"You know it," Neve said, doing a little dance that wiggled her 'assets' invitingly. "Got a head for investigation and a bod for sin."

"I'll ask him if he needs you," Grace said. "It's pretty interesting research. Apparently, we aren't aging normally. Our cells don't seem to be breaking down at the same rate as he expected. If he's right, then it means that we're going to be young and pretty almost up to the point where we croak."

"I'll take it," Neve said happily, cradling her breasts in her slender hands. "I can't bear the thought of these beauties starting to sag."

Grace laughed. "So I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked, hugging her friend tightly.

"And the day after that, and the day after that," Neve said. "Have a good time fucking Joshua, you lucky little tramp."

"Oh, go down to Public Education and ask Kevin for a nooner," Grace said, "and quit bothering me about screwing my fianc�. He's mine. You can't have him."

Neve pouted adorably. "Stingy bitch," she said.

"That's me," Grace said, ducking into the locker room. "Hey, Neve. Thanks."

"For what?" the blonde asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

"For being there for me. For being my partner. For everything."

Neve smiled, and there was a little glimmer in her eye that might have meant a tear forming. "Anything for a friend, Gracie," she said happily. "Anything for a friend."

The End