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garden-side doors. The paths met together at a grassy knoll in the center of the garden where a fountain was surrounded by benches, like royalty surrounded by its courtiers. Statues hid in amongst the greenery, gnomes and nymphs and fabulous beasts that peeped out from between the leaves or appeared suddenly around a turn in a path to startle a newcomer.
    Sara had grown up in Tamson House. Her parents, Jamie's sister Gillian and John Kendell of Kendell Communications, had died in a car crash when she was six and left a stipulation in their will that she was to be left in her uncle's care. Jamie, once the initial shock of their death, and the fact they had entrusted Sara to him, had worn off, had taken to his new duties like a doting father.
    As the years went by their relationship progressed from a father/ daughter affinity, through the difficulties of Sara's puberty and her subsequent need for self-discovery, to what they were now: good friends. Jamie had always made time for Sara; he knew the importance of this from his own boyhood. His father Nathan, a widower soon after Gillian's birth, had always had time for his children. He had also known when to leave them alone, giving them a chance to grow. With Sara, Jamie thought he could have done worse than follow his father's example.
    The surviving Kendells, John's brother Peter and the matriarch Norma, had tried to take Sara from Tamson House at first ("To give her a decent, Christian upbringing"), but the case never went to court once they found that neither Jamie nor Sara displayed any interest in the Kendell empire and were content simply to let any accrued stipends and interests be reinvested in the companies in question.
    Jamie had no need for their money as he had both his father's inheritance and his own publishing efforts to pay his way. To his thinking, the various schemes and projects that the Kendells busied themselves with were nothing more than the moves in some sprawling game of Monopoly. He signed a paper naming Peter Kendell trustee of Sara's holdings, while Peter signed one waiving all claims to Sara's guardianship. Jamie, watching the Kendell family lawyer gather up the papers in his briefcase, could almost feel their relief from where he sat.
    Sara, nine at the time, was so obviously cut from the same cloth as her uncle that the Kendells knew they'd have trouble coping with her upbringing. Having successfully negotiated for what they'd really come for, they quietly bowed out of Sara's life to reappear only on birthdays, her high school graduation day, and the odd time during the Christmas holidays.
    Sara's rooms in the northwest tower were her private refuge from the world at large, as well as from the constant influx of houseguests that helped to fill the endless rooms of Tamson House. She had a sitting room that she, surprisingly, kept neat as a pin, with a working fireplace, comfortable chairs, a sideboard and a china cabinet, her stereo components along with a haphazard Collection of records stored in three apple crates, a Persian rug with matching drapes courtesy of The Merry Dancers, and a scattering of small tables. Windows overlooked Patterson Avenue, the Bank Street side of Central Park as well as that portion that bordered Clemow. A door led off into her workshop-cum-studio that was as cluttered as the shop. Its main furnishing was a long worktable running along one wall with a window above it overlooking the House's gardens.
    Two other doors led out of her workroom— one to a washroom, complete with an antique bathtub and brass fixtures to match the tub's clawed feet, the other to her bedroom.
    This was her sanctum. In it was a cedar chest that held all her treasures and luck, a four-poster bed with two pillows and a flower-patterned comforter, a Laskin classical guitar in its case by the window with a Martin D-35 steel-string guitar balanced on top, a highbacked oak chair with a cushioned seat, a large wardrobe filled with jeans, sweaters,