"And before I know it, he grabs the leg of my bar stool and yanks. And just like that, I'm sitting on the floor, my drink is all over me, and Mr. Wonderful is staring down at me. The place goes dead silent. Longest ten seconds of my life. Finally, a waiter comes running over. Aaron is still there, sh.e.l.l-shocked, like he can't believe what just happened either. Then he grabs his coat and heads for the door. On top of that, he leaves me to pay the bill. Again."

"What a prince."

"You know what? It was worth it. Wish you could've seen his face." Ashley hooted. "Looked like someone had popped his . . . Wow, you should see this crowd. Diana. It's like-" For a few moments her voice was smothered by competing voices.

"So, other than sore and wet, how do you feel?" Diana asked.

"Strong. Tough."

"I'm so proud of you," Diana said. She was. For once, Ashley had broken up with a guy without having his replacement waiting in the wings. And now she was on her way to meeting new people. Alone, without a man on her arm.

"I knew you'd be impressed," Ashley said. A pause. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh what?"

"I thought . . . never mind. False alarm. Listen, I gotta go. Looks like this is about to happen. Call you tomorrow?"

"Hang on! You know you left your computer at my house?"

"I did? s.h.i.t. I thought I left it in my car. I'll come by for it Sat.u.r.day or Sunday morning. Not too early."

That went without saying. On a weekend, "morning" usually started around noon for Ashley.

Diana could hear a man's voice shouting. "Synchronize! It's six o'clock . . . NOW!" Then applause.

"Diana," Ashley said, her voice a whisper. "Do you think I did the right thing? About Aaron, I mean."

"Of course I do!" But a burst of static cut across her reply. "Ashley? Are you there?" But all she heard was silence.

Diana stared at the dead phone. "You idiot. Of course you did the right thing." She threw the phone back into its dock.

Later, when she tried to get back to GROB, there was no response. Fair enough. She'd ignored him, now she deserved the same treatment.

Chapter Eight.

Sat.u.r.day morning, first thing, Diana checked the Spontaneous Combustion Web site. It said the video from the improv was Coming soon!

After a bowl of instant oatmeal, she got to work. For a second time, she opened the information that had come back from MedLogic's hackers. These were people, she reminded herself, individuals with friends and family, not disembodied evil ent.i.ties. But who were they? Where were they? Though she didn't have the sophisticated knowledge and tools that Jake did, she could do some basic investigating.

First she traced the connections as the message had hopped from server to server on its way from the hackers' system to hers. Next to the start of the list were four numbers-that would be the IP address of the server that was providing the hackers their Internet access. She ran a DNS search and got the site name: Volganet.net. Entering that URL in her browser brought back a blank screen with an error message.

Volganet. The name made it sound as if they were somewhere in what had once been the Soviet bloc. That she could check.

She opened up Telnet and queried Volganet's time server. Back came: Sat Apr 24 09:35:44 2010n 09:35? That was Eastern Standard Time. Volganet was operating in her own time zone. Interesting for what it ruled out, but to narrow down the location further she'd have to sift through the lines and lines of information that had come back and use what she found to break into the hackers' system.

She was desperate to know if these were the same people who'd preyed on Gamelan's other clients. If it got out that their clients were being singled out, that would be the end of Gamelan Security. The end of everything she'd worked to build. The end of the one thing she had left.

She'd crush them before she'd let that happen.

While Diana was mulling over that cheery thought, envisioning appropriate payback, a message popped up.

GROB: RU there?

Her stomach turned over. She liked him, she really did-and that scared the h.e.l.l out of her. Her hand hovered over the keyboard as she was still trying to decide how to respond when INTRUDER ALERT flashed in the corner of the computer screen. Diana silenced the alarm, but not before it sent her heart racing.

She checked the front video monitor. A man in a parka and a knitted cap was coming toward the front door. Slung over his shoulder was a canvas bag. He pulled out from it a rolled-up flyer, stuffed it into the handle of her screen door, and continued on to the next house.

Her phobia was exhausting and she was G.o.dd.a.m.ned sick and tired of feeling wrung out, five or six times a day. Diana grabbed Daniel's walking stick and went to the door. Dr. Lightfoot had recommended that she acclimate herself to the outside world again, building slowly, a little each day. So at least once each morning, she pushed herself out of the house.

The first time she'd tried it, a few months earlier, she'd made it as far as the front steps. Breathless, her heart hammering like a crazed bird trying to get out of her chest, she'd turned tail and burst back into the house, slammed the door, the urge to hide driving her body into a protective crouch.

Now her goal was to breach her own electronic fence once a day. She put her hand on the doork.n.o.b and counted down from ten. When she got to zero she took a deep inhale and pulled the door open, pushed open the storm door, and stepped outside. The skim of sweat on her forehead and at the back of her neck turned cold, but she welcomed the sensation, and the smell of smoke from someone's fireplace and the feel of dew as she touched the railing.

Next door, in the driveway of a big Victorian that the new owners had painted mauve, pale yellow, and gray green, her neighbor had the back door of her car open and was loading her toddler into a car seat. The woman had a long solemn face and dark hair, early Cher. She glanced over and waved. Diana waved back. The woman got in the driver's seat, started the car, and drove off.

The scent of exhaust lingered as Diana gazed at the empty spot in her neighbor's driveway, then at the closed door of her own garage. One day she'd actually get in her own car. Take a drive. Maybe even have the courage to introduce herself to her neighbor.

For now, just taking a walk in her own backyard was challenge enough.

Diana took a deep breath. She left the porch and stepped into the driveway. Crossing her arms to fend off the chill from outside and in, she began to walk the perimeter of her property. Focus on what's outside not inside, Dr. Lightfoot had suggested. The lawn was patchy and stringy, pale purple crocuses that had probably been planted by her mother decades ago were pushing their way up in front of bushes alongside the house. The quince bush was budding, and farther on, the tiny yellow blossoms on the witch hazel were already starting to open.

When she reached the back of the yard, she took a step beyond her own property line. She knew she'd breached the invisible electronic fence and the Klaxon would be going off in her office, alerting no one. She turned and looked at her house. All the window shades were drawn. The dark green paint around the windows was beginning to peel.

She beat back the urge to sprint back to safety. Instead, she reached into her pocket and pried open the lid of the container with her thumb, tipped it until she felt a pill in her palm. Tiny and white, it was no bigger than the birth-control pills she'd once taken daily. Just rolling a pill between her thumb and forefinger calmed her.

She slipped the pill back into the container, picked up a small stone from the ground, and completed her circuit. Back at the door, she placed the stone alongside others she'd lined up in the gra.s.s by the door, each marking another step forward, another time she'd breached the boundaries of her property and made it back alive.

She was squatting, counting stones-there were over fifty of them-when she noticed a dark limousine coming up her street. It reminded her of the limo she and her girlfriends had rented to carry them, dateless, to their senior prom. And the lecture the driver had given them about the hundred-dollar deposit he wouldn't return to their parents if any of them threw up. But a morning limousine wouldn't be picking up girls for a dance. More likely the pa.s.sengers would be mourners on their way to a funeral.

It slowed to a crawl in front of her house. Diana ducked inside and locked the door behind her. She lifted the shade of one of the front windows and watched, shivering, as the car paused in front of her house, and then accelerated and continued on its way.

Chapter Nine.

By the time Diana returned to her office, GROB had given up waiting. The chat window was closed.

She checked Spontaneous Combustion's Web site again-they'd posted a video of "Up in the Sky." First she scanned the file to make sure it was safe. Video downloads were a favorite way to distribute malware, malicious little programs that installed themselves. When she determined it was safe, she ran the video.

It opened with a man wearing a black baseball cap with the word DIRECTOR printed over the brim. He bellowed through a bullhorn, "Okay, agents. Listen up!"

The herky-jerky footage felt as if it had been taken with a handheld camera by someone being jostled by the crowd. The time stamp at the bottom of the video read yesterday, 6:03 P.M. That had been about the time Ashley called to say that Aaron was toast.

The man held up his cell phone. The camera pulled back to show a crowd of about a hundred people, cl.u.s.tered around him on the broad steps in front of the trio of granite arches at the entrance to the Boston Public Library. Almost everyone in the crowd had on sungla.s.ses.

The camera panned from the library to the expanse of Copley Square across the street, a s.p.a.cious area with brick walkways flanked by a fountain on one side and Trinity Church on the adjacent side. The facade of the church glowed an unearthly pink in the setting sun. The camera continued around to the facade of a hotel, and finally back to the crowd gathered on the library steps.

There! Diana thought she'd caught a glimpse of Ashley. But it was too quick to be sure.

The screen dissolved to black, and after some t.i.tles it returned to a close-up of the man with the bullhorn.

"Yo, thanks for coming out," he said. "Make sure Casey here has all your cell-phone numbers." The woman beside him, who had long blond hair and was wearing bright green-and-yellow-striped tights, waved a clipboard. "Up the volume on your ringers full blast. Then spread out across the street in the square. Mill about."

He continued giving directions as the camera pulled back to show the crowd, cutting to close-ups of individuals. None of them were Ashley. Jazzy percussion played through speeded-up footage of the crowd dispersing, people crossing the street to Copley Square and mingling with pedestrians in the plaza.

Then the screen went black and the word SHOWTIME! came up in white block letters. A wide shot of Copley Square took over the screen, followed by a close-up of a cell phone lighting up and the sound of cell phones going off. The ring tones weren't synchronized, so all Diana could make out were competing piano arpeggios and the whooshes of speeding bullets that rose to the top of the cacophony.

The camera closed in on one woman in the square. She had her dark hair pulled back in a thick ponytail. She held her cell phone aloft and pivoted to face the hotel across St. James Street. The camera drew back to show scores of other similarly frozen, sungla.s.s wearers facing the hotel, cell phones raised. A crush of Superman-themed cell-phone rings filled the sound track.

Snippets of video showing the reactions of pedestrians were spliced together. Some just kept going. Others stopped and stared, then turned to look across to the hotel. A cop on the corner pushed back his cap brim and watched, his mouth open. A man hoisted a toddler onto his shoulder and the woman with him, pushing a stroller, raised a camera and took a picture.

Diana whooped. It was perfect.

For a brief moment, Diana thought she saw Ashley. The red hat, which would have stood out in morning sun, seemed nearly black in twilight. But the camera panned away before she could be sure.

Focus shifted to the facade of the hotel. A spotlight shone on a window near the top floor. The view zoomed in as the window raised and a figure leaned out. It was a man in bright blue with a red Superman S in a yellow field on the front. He raised his arm-not a wave but a stiff-armed salute.

That's when Diana realized that it was a mannequin in a Superman costume. The curl over his forehead would have done Christopher Reeve proud.

From behind, the figure was pushed out the window, headfirst. Its shoulders and ankles seemed to be attached to a wire. Then Superman was sailing through the sky across Copley Square, his red cape streaming.

Diana didn't spot Ashley again as the camera pulled back and scanned the watchers who were pivoting in unison. Super-Dummy slid at a leisurely pace across the square, got snagged by the spire that topped a tourist information kiosk, and then continued on. It crash-landed, headfirst, against a band of ironwork that bordered the top of a four-story office building on the opposite side of Boylston. A cheer rose as the dummy was hauled onto the roof by unseen figures.

Then a ma.s.sive, three-story-tall crimson banner unfurled from that building's roof. In white letters, it said P2H4, followed by Spontaneous Combustion's URL.

P2H4-Diana Googled it-turned out to be the chemical notation for a highly combustible form of phosphorus.

Chapter Ten.

Sunday morning Ashley still didn't come by to get her computer. She hadn't called either, which wasn't unusual but was still annoying as h.e.l.l. She'd probably met someone and gotten involved in her own drama. Diana called and left a message. She sent her an e-mail which generated an automated out-of-the-office reply.

Diana tried to keep busy. She did some more research for PWNED on chelation scams. Worked on the proposal for a hot new client, Vault Security, who Jake was convinced would launch them to an entirely new level. Jake talked about their business like it was some kind of computer game, and they were advancing to the castle where they'd free the princess. The thought brought Diana back to Ashley. Where the h.e.l.l was she and why wasn't she returning Diana's messages?

The possibility that something had happened to her was too terrifying to contemplate. Ashley had been her rock. She'd been there at the airport to meet Diana and Jake's flight back from Switzerland. She'd stayed for a week in the isolated farmhouse while Diana sleepwalked through the motions of everyday life. When Ashley finally left, Diana had climbed into the four-poster bed she'd shared with Daniel and buried herself in a mound of his T-shirts and flannel and fleece tops, his pajama bottoms, all clothing that she'd dug out of the laundry bin. Burrowed her head under the pillow and slept.

She'd lost track of time, one day blending into the next. Ignoring the phone, rising only to go to the bathroom or nuke one of the frozen dinners Ashley had stocked in her fridge. Whenever she'd been jerked awake by another falling-off-the-mountain nightmare, she willed herself back to unconsciousness by envisioning the soft lap of a forest where she could lie half buried in pine needles, sensing Daniel's breathing, pulsing presence all around her.

Day after day had turned into week after week. Then Diana had felt a touch on her shoulder. She'd tried to burrow deeper, barricade herself.

"Diana?" Ashley's voice tugged at her.

"Leave me alone, please, just go away." The words were only in her head; even the will to speak had fled.

A cool hand snaked under the mound of clothes and found her. She tried to break free, but she was held in a firm grip.

"Come on. Time to come out."

Diana tried to hold on to the pillow, then to the covers, but Ashley pulled them off. As cool air claimed her, Diana blinked and winced away the bright morning sun that slanted in through the window.

"Sweetie, you can't keep on like this." Ashley was crouched beside the bed, her face inches from Diana's. Beyond her, Diana could see Jake hovering in the open doorway.

"See this?" Ashley held the newspaper in front of her. Its white background was blinding. "It's the middle of February. Twenty-five degrees out. The sun is shining. In a month the snow bells will be blooming, for goodness' sake. It's time to get up. Get out. It's been too long for you to still be like this."

Ashley and Jake had hauled Diana out of bed, wrenching her from the nest she'd built. Diana tried to climb back in but Jake scooped up the clothing and ripped away the bedding, leaving only a bare mattress.

"There's nothing for you there," Ashley said.

Diana backed up and tripped over Daniel's driftwood walking stick. She bent over and picked it up. It was solid and surprisingly light in her hand, and she cried out as her head seemed to fill with Daniel's presence.

The front door opened and closed. A few moments later, an older woman, a stranger with a soft, sympathetic face, stood in the bedroom doorway.

"Thanks for coming," Ashley said to her.

Later, after a long shower, Diana had sat at her kitchen table. A pot of beef stew burbled on the stove. Ashley sat on one side of her. Dr. Lightfoot, who would become her therapist, sat on the other side.

"I know," Dr. Lightfoot had said, warmth in her kind eyes, "you needed to bury him . . ."

Diana felt her insides wrench. ". . . and I couldn't. I can't . . ." She tried and failed to hold back a sob.

"It's hard. I know, it doesn't seem fair," Dr. Lightfoot said. She touched the back of Diana's hand.

"Maybe he survived," Diana said. "Because I still feel him. It feels just like he's still here."

"Diana," Dr. Lightfoot said, "accepting death and letting go is the first step. Until you do that, you won't be able to move on."

Following Dr. Lightfoot's good advice, over the months that followed Diana had tried to move on physically, even though the emotional journey would turn out to take much longer. She got rid of Daniel's clothing and gave away his books. She moved out of the farmhouse and back into the house where she'd grown up. Still, her heart refused to accept that Daniel was gone. Every time she touched Daniel's walking stick, it seemed to bring him back to her.