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back by morning.'
    'I'm sure you're right,' she said, unconvinced. She considered looking for him but realized it would serve no real purpose except to satisfy her need to -- in her mind at least - do something beside sit in their suite. But the reality was that a lone American strolling through the Australian bush in complete darkness hardly constituted a competent rescue party. More likely, David would come home while she was busy getting lost in the wilds.
    Laura went back to her room, firm in the decision that she would not panic until morning.
    When the room's digital clock read 7:00 a.m., Laura officially began to panic.

    Chapter 2
    'The call will be put through in a moment, ma'am.'
    'Thank you.'
    Laura sat back and stared at the telephone. With the time difference, it was nearly nine p.m. yesterday in Boston and she wondered if T. C. was going to be home yet. His shift normally ended at a little past eight and she knew that he often stayed a lot later.
    Laura's hands trembled, her face and eyes harried and swollen from the torment of the seemingly endless night she had just endured. She glanced out the window and saw the sun shining. The bright rays and the clock beside her bed were the only clear signs that last night had turned into today, that the night had indeed given way to morning. But for Laura, the night continued, her heart squeezed in a nightmare that would not move on.
    She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the second time David Baskin had entered her life. It was three weeks after their initial encounter at the Boston Pops, three weeks in which their short conversation constantly jabbed at the back of her mind like a dull ache, never all-consuming but still bothersome enough to make its presence felt whenever she tried to forget about it.
    Subconsciously (or so she would claim), Laura began to skim through a few of the many articles about him. Though the press could not shovel enough praise about David's talent, sportsmanship and positive influence on the game, Laura was more fascinated (well, not fascinated, she told herself; more like interested) by the few sprinkles of information about his upbringing, his academic prowess at the University of Michigan, his time spent in Europe as a Rhodes Scholar and his selfless work with the handicapped. She found herself feeling oddly guilty about the way she had treated him, as though she had somehow to even the score or stay forever in his debt. It might be nice to see him again, she told herself, and maybe just apologize so he would see that she wasn't really a cold person.
    That was when she began to accept invitations to functions and gala parties that he was likely to attend. She, of course, would never admit that David Baskin had anything to do with her social calendar. It was just coincidence, she would claim. Svengali needed her exposure at these events and if David Baskin happened to be there, well, life sometimes works that way.
    But to her inward dismay, David only made token appearances, smiling broadly as people gathered around him to shake his hand and slap his back. Laura thought she noted a wince or small look of repulsion on his face as these phonies reached out to touch him, but it may just have been her imagination.
    David never approached her, never so much as glanced her way. Finally, Laura decided to do something truly childish. Spotting him by the bar at one such event, she took what has been termed by teenage girls as a 'strategic walk' -- i.e., a casual stroll where she would 'accidentally' bump into him. It worked. He spotted her. He smiled cordially at her (or was there something else in the smile? like mockery?) and then moved on without a word. Her heart sank.
    Laura returned to her office, fuming. She felt embarrassed at her behavior, upset she was acting like a high-school girl with a crush on the football captain. She could not understand why she felt this need to confront him again. Was it simply because he had bested her,