Prologue  
    Sharon Thomas had one concern upon waking. Can I move?    
She slowly wriggled her toes and tensed her quads. My legs work, she thought with surprise, recalling how they’d smashed onto the pavement. Good sign. She lifted her head an inch from the hospital pillow, inhaling a lungful of sterile air, and grimaced mid-breath at the pain. Her fingertips traveled over the heavy gauze bandages that wrapped her left side. Her milk-chocolate eyes darted around the ICU at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. They settled on the IV bag hovering over her bed, and the yellow food drip oozing down into the rubber tube stuck in her wrist.

    Then, another fear hit her. Hard as the bullet had. Clearing the post-coma fog.

    Oh my God, what have I missed?

    Sharon had no idea how long she’d been lying in this bed, but she knew it was too long. Her eyes fluttered weakly. The phone beside her rang, calling her whole body to attention. Reaching through the metal bed rails, she lifted the receiver. “Hello,” she said, her voice scratchy and unused, as she gulped against her dry throat.

    “Sharon, we all wish you the best for a speedy recovery,” said a deep male voice.

    “Who is…?” She struggled for recognition, frustrated. She wondered how many times this phone had rung to no answer. How many? Her obsession. Numbers. Numbers told everything.

    “Sam Peterson,” the voice said, matter-of-factly.

    “Sam,” her breath shortened as she recognized her boss, the CEO of the most powerful investment bank in the world, Silverman & Sons. The green lines monitoring her heart rate staggered. Former boss, she reminded herself. She had quit her banking job a week before the street mugger left her for dead.

    “Uh, thanks,” she replied hesitantly. She knew that Sam didn’t offer warm and fuzzy support.  

    “You know, we’ll always think of you as family. Be well, Sharon.” He ended his call as abruptly as he began it.

    Sharon shivered, amazed at how even a few words from this mogul conjured her deepest pangs of anxiety. Guilt and fear. Part of the reason she quit. Then a doctor wandered in and looked her over, seemingly unimpressed that she was awake and talking. A gaggle of nurses checked her and fussed over her, and the enormous pull of Sam and Silverman receded from her mind. The women left an hour later, and as she was dozing off, pumped with pain-killers, her phone chimed again.

    “Sharon here,” she answered, sharpening her professional voice, swallowing saliva.

    “Hey, patient,” said a pleasant voice, coated with relief. “You know, there are better ways to get out of your first writing assignment.”

    She smiled through the agony. It was her new and highly attractive boss, Damon Matthews, editor of Riche$, the most powerful business magazine in the world.

    “So, you mean, I didn’t have to get shot?” she joked nervously, smoothing her long dark hair off her forehead. Blinking away the memory of her attacker’s eyes.

    “Nah,” he said, “a simple ‘need more time’ would have worked.”

    “I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied, sinking back into her pillow, losing grasp of the phone.

    She sighed. Career transitions weren’t supposed to lead to extended hospital stays. Her intent was to slide from banking to reporting. Like she escaped her marriage. Move on. Don’t look back.

    “Well, take all the time you need,” said Damon. “I’ll be here waiting for you.”

    Close one door and open the next, she thought, as the phone receiver was suddenly too heavy and fell out of her hand. Her ribs throbbed. That’s how it was supposed to be. She caught a spasm of pain jutting up her left side. But nothing was ever that easy. Doors swing both ways.

Blood On The Trail

(Ivan Stark, ruthless media-communications mogul, is trying to stop a run on his firm's stock, bonds and reputation. His rage is focused on Sharon Thomas, the reporter who first broke the story about his questionable books, after which she was almost killed by an armed thug, and Katrina Sullivan, beautiful chief technology officer of Silverman & Sons, Wall Street's most prestigious investment bank.)

Standing behind his cherry and walnut desk, Ivan Stark gazed out his floor-to-ceiling windows. From the 45th floor, the Empire City spread wide before him. Always determined to keep up with the trends, he had competed fiercely in the real estate game. He knew how important appearances were, and as the technology and communications companies grew like weeds around him, he joined them in the search for the sleekest offices, the most authoritative views. ITA headquarters was located smack in the middle of midtown Manhattan. Right where the old-style media and publishing houses once dominated. It had taken him years to reach this point in his career. He was king of the communications industry. A powerful force in world business. He had no intention of letting it all slip away.

He was on speakerphone to his internal PR team.

"Just DO something!" he bellowed, his hand smoothing over the top of his balding head.

"We're doing everything we can, Ivan," said a male voice on the other end. "It might help if--if there weren't rumors that you were selling our stock, I mean your stock, sir. $100 million seems to stick in people's heads."

"Tim, I don't pay you for financial advice, I pay you to work the media--got it?"

"Yes, sir. It's just that these rumors are saturating the press. That we're short on the cash necessary to make good on our bond payments--"

"Thanks, Tim, I can read. What other rumors are circulating?"

"Well, it seems that bondholders are dumping ITA bonds. Wall Street traders are smelling blood, sir. They're making the situation worse. They're calling all their clients, telling them to sell ITA bonds before anymore bad news comes out."

There was an intercom beep from Ivan's receptionist. "Hang on, Tim," said Ivan. "Yes?"

"Sir--it's Ewan McPherson, in legal. We just received a Form B notice from the SEC about a pending investigation into our books. I thought you should know."

Ivan had built an empire out of little but spin. His closest circle knew it. The rest of the investors were clueless. Ivan had grown from one man and a handful of speculative bankers into a global communications money machine. His own stake in the company had exploded from an initial $20 million to over $3 billion. Counting that stake, plus the real estate and his other investments, Ivan was worth over $4 billion.

On paper.

Ivan zoomed his hand across his desk, knocking stacks of paper, pens, a date-book, and gold plaque of his name and title on the floor. "Damn that bitch!"

"Sir?"

"That little Thomas bitch over at Riche$. She started this with that bull***t story about our books. Who the hell does she think she is, anyway? Did she ever start a company of her own? No! Did she have to navigate everyone's personal issues every single day? No! Does she have to balance cash-flow and dysfunctional networks and lawsuits?"

"Sir--uh, what should I do about this investigation request?"

Ivan continued ranting. "No! But she sure had no trouble injecting doubt about ITA into the public arena. Now the rest of the media is having a field day. At my expense!"

"Sir, I need to give them some sort of response."

"Tell them to shut up--that's my response!" He pounded his desk with his fist.

"Not advised, sir--uh, I'll try to stall."

"You do that, Ewan!" Ivan clicked to another call.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Ivan, it's Trudy, in legal."

"I just spoke to your, whoever, Ewan somebody," he said, leaning over his desk, palms pressing into the smooth lacquered surface.

"Yes, I'm responsible for human resource relations,"she explained. "There's a problem."

"Of course there is. What now?"

"I just received word from McDougal & Hide. They're filing a class-action suit on behalf of some of your shareholders. Sorry, sir," said Trudy.

"Damn it!" He pounded the desk again. "I'm a billionaire. Name one person in the entire country who wouldn't want to switch lives and bank accounts with me. Just one. I gave jobs to 15,000 ungrateful schmucks. I gave them a piece of the pie, too. My piece. My pie."

"Yes, well, they're filing on the grounds of improper disclosure of information. They're saying they weren't given the whole truth about the condition of the company when they bought it."

"Well, damn them, too!" shouted Ivan. "They didn't seem to have a problem with my stock while they gave me standing ovations. No, then it was all about how great ITA was, how we would change the world, how visionary I was. How happy they all were to be on the winning team."

Call waiting beeped again. "Trudy, I'll deal with them later. Go figure it out--keep things contained."

He pressed the phone button. "Now what?" It was PR again.

"Ivan, our phones are being flooded. Reporters are calling from everywhere."

Murder At The SEC

(A young lawyer, Kevin Waters, from an elite department of the SEC is missing, after two of his colleagues have been found murdered, floating in the Potomac River in Washington. Simon Caldwell, Kevin's ambitious boss, comes across a document that points to Kevin's involvement in an inexplicable $1 billion transaction.)

Simon printed out the contract between Silverman and ITA, then folded and stuffed it in the breast pocket of his suit. The stiff wool, mixed with his nervous perspiration, was causing a heat rash that Simon could feel spreading across his abdomen. Even in the height of summer, Washington's government employee dress code was formal; there could be no deviation from suits, ties and jackets.

His head wouldn't wrap around the contract's sum. A billion dollars. It went way beyond any fee ceiling he'd ever seen before. What kind of information was that important, that expensive? And why did Silverman have to pay ITA for it? Weren't they already one of the key bankers for all of ITA's clients anyway? Couldn't they get that financial information directly?

Unless ... unless that money was a personal gift from Silverman to ITA, disguised as a business contract. Simon had seen that kind of thing many times before, but not for anywhere near that type of money. What kind of gift does a billion dollars buy? What was ITA going to do with that money, or the more apt question, what was ITA's CEO, Ivan Stark, going to do with that money?

And why the hell didn't he know about any of this? And why did Kevin?

Feelings of betrayal made Simon's blood boil. It was the same feeling his father had dumped on him growing up, of not being quite smart enough. Cutting corners. Letting others do his job. Kevin was the one guy in the entire world he ever let himself trust. Was that bastard undercutting him? After all he had done, after hooking him up with the enforcer job, making sure he got all the best perks, keeping him away from the life of a low-salaried public defendant that Kevin was about to settle on ... Hiding a billion dollars from him? And from his own wife? Janet didn't know where Kevin was. Or did she? That recovering alcoholic bitch. Was she in on something with Kevin?

I'll kill him, thought Simon. I'll kill him myself.

He bolted out of the enforcer offices, through the barren hallways and fluorescent lights. He headed for the parking lot. In the world where corporate America and Washington collided, there was no time to waste. He jumped into his BMW and headed for Georgetown.

As he approached the Capitol Building, he ran into traffic. There was some midnight vigil or demonstration. Freaking radicals, thought Simon, clenching his fist as he sat in lines of traffic watching Washington riot police, dressed in full Robocop garb, attempt to break up the crowd. The protesters were marching about ending U.S. occupation in Iraq.

Why couldn't these people just go find jobs like the rest of us? Let the government do its job. Simon laid on his horn, but it was useless. He could do nothing but watch and wait for the cops to evacuate the protesters.

He switched on the radio and flipped through channels, settling on business news. The lead story was on ITA. He turned up the volume. The announcer was talking about the Wall Street Tribune piece and how ITA's stock had made an amazing rebound a day after dragging the markets down.

It had recovered half of its lost value. As ITA's prime banker, Silverman's stock had taken a hit as well, but a more modest one, and was now on its way to full recovery.

That's the kind of thing that happens, Simon thought, especially in the summer when trading volume is light. The slightest piece of bad or good news can make the markets go crazy. Exaggerating moves that would be less dramatic during a more active time of the year.

Either way, their stock was still down. That had to hurt. On paper. Simon wondered if that little Silverman-ITA contract was struck in cash, not stock. If it involved stock, it was now worth 8% less than $1 billion. He extracted the contract from his breast pocket and studied. It was in stock.

* * *

When Simon pulled into Dumbarton Street, there were no available parking places. Perfect, he thought. He considered double parking, but was especially protective of this latest automobile purchase and didn't want to risk his Beamer getting towed. Nor did he want to spend the time tracking it down. D.C. was crawling with cops, many of whom disliked those who could afford the best cars. Hence, they were the cars that usually got towed first. He didn't feel like dealing with that tonight.

Instead, he circled around for another 20 minutes before securing a spot four blocks away. He had called Janet several times from his car on the drive over, but got no answer. This only served to stroke his paranoia. Kevin was clearly not going to be in contact with him, and Janet wasn't answering his calls on her home or cell phone.

Typical, he thought, she had no problem speaking to me this morning and throughout the day, when she was looking for her precious husband. She has a young daughter, for God sakes, where the hell could she be this late at night?

He parked across the street from the Waters' home. After looking up and down the street, he crossed to their front door.

Simon's entire body was clenched and dripping. He knew that the Silverman-ITA contract was the culmination of other prior negotiations that had to have a paper trail somewhere. He assumed the document had something to do with Kevin's disappearance. He just didn't know what. He found nothing else suspicious on Kevin's work computer. Now he'd check his home PC.

He'd deal with Janet. Maybe convince her to take a walk or something, while he searched her husband's study. Or tell her that he heard from Kevin that morning, that he was hot on a corporation's tail. That he took the latest flight out last night to the West Coast and didn't have time to get in touch. He was sorry and had asked Simon to go over and check on her and hoped she'd understand. Or some such bull***t. He knew Janet wouldn't buy it, though. Hell, he wouldn't buy it either.

He ascended the three steps to their front door and pressed the buzzer. And waited. There was no answer. As he buzzed again, he strained to hear inside noises. Peering through the living room window, he saw only the sky-blue curtains, completely shut.

Now where the hell could she be? he wondered again.