Dan Vanderhoff straightened his tie and then rose from his chair at the boardroom table. He shook hands with his associates, retrieved his briefcase and exited the legal offices of Madison and Montague. It had been a long day, but a smile spread over his handsome face. He'd done some fancy footwork, but he believed he'd found a loophole for his client. Of course, the other lawyers on staff had been of service, but the fledgling partner was quite proud of himself for masterminding the project. He knew a win on this case would earn one more feather in his cap in the eyes of his senior partners.

Whistling a happy tune as he exited the building, he found his way to his Lexus in the parking garage and headed out of D.C. toward the Maryland suburbs, home to his beautiful wife and two-year-old son, Jamie. The gloomy drizzle on the January afternoon did little to dampen his spirits as he left the expressway.

The traffic light at the end of the off ramp turned green and Dan turned right. Just as he did so, a Ford truck came barreling across the overpass, slammed on its brakes and skidded across the slick oily pavement, hurling into Dan's Lexus, crushing it like an accordion into the car in front of him.

The metallic twirling and clank of a stray hubcap falling to the pavement was the last sound the young lawyer heard before his eyes closed for the very last time.

~*~

Gerard McNally raked his fingers through his wavy blonde hair and placed his cap on his head. Staring in the mirror, he straightened his tie and clipped on his badge. He gathered the contents of his pockets that he'd tossed on his dresser the night before and shoved them into his pocket. Another day on the force. With every day that had passed since his friend Bronson Reilly retired to start his own detective agency, Gerard grew less and less satisfied in his work.

Bronson urged him weekly to turn in his badge and come to work with him, but Gerard wasn't one to quit a good job. Plus, Bronson's agency was young yet, still in its infancy. Who was to say it would work out? Bronson had a wife and child to think about, but Gerard was on his own. Why toss aside a promising career on the force when there was no one to worry over his safety? Of course, that meant no one to come home to, no one to snuggle up by a fire with or fill a home with the wonderful smells of a home cooked meal. Then again, Gerard reminded himself that his apartment had no fireplace, and he could always inhale tantalizing aromas from Logan's Roadhouse down the street.

Gerard shoved an arm into his navy down jacket and started for the door. He locked his apartment, zipped up his jacket and started for the stairwell.

~*~

The blonde police officer nodded and his pale blue eyes smiled as Sable Graham passed him in the stairwell. She shoved her fists deeper into her pockets, quirked a half smile at the officer and kept on ascending to the second floor. She pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket and unfolded it.

"Apartment 254," she mumbled under her breath as her eyes lifted to read the number on the door she passed and continued onward. When she stopped in front of the apartment designated on the paper, she lifted her sleeve, noting the time as seven twenty-three. She knocked soundly and waited.

The terraces between apartments were outdoors, and she could see her breath in the winter morning air. The petite brunette in her late twenties fidgeted, bouncing slightly to stay warm as she shoved her gloved fists deep into her pockets once more. After waiting a minute or two, she knocked again, a little louder.

"Just a minute . . . " she could hear a groggy female voice answer from inside the apartment.

When the door flung wide, it was to see her old college roommate, Ellerie Tash standing before her, her robe wrapped haphazardly about her waist, her auburn hair mussed and one eye closed with morning sleep.

Ellerie's mouth dropped open, "Sable! Sable Graham! What on earth are you doing in Georgia?" Ellerie's arms went wide and hesitantly Sable stepped forward as Ellerie pulled her into a gigantic bear hug. Sable's arms went rigid at her sides for Ellerie had grabbed her so suddenly that she hadn't had a chance to pull her hands from her pockets.

Sable's long hair caught under Ellerie's immense embrace and the only thing Sable could do was hope that Ellerie released her grip before her locks yanked from her head. Finally, Ellerie freed her friend, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her into the apartment. Once inside, Ellerie shut the door.

"What have you been up to all these years?" Ellerie led her friend over to the couch and fairly shoved her into the seat. Flopping down beside her, Ellerie tucked one long leg under the other.

"Working mostly," Sable smiled at her jubilant friend.

"Aren't we all!" Ellerie rolled her eyes, "Except for when I can escape to Daytona, that is!"

"You always did love the beach," Sable chuckled. Never mind that Ellerie didn't have the complexion for it, she'd have her freckled body donned in a bikini frolicking in the surf every chance she could.

"Gosh, sometimes it seems like yesterday that we were vying for the fraternity brothers at William and Mary!" Ellerie exclaimed in the thick Southern accent of a Georgia native.

"Seems like ages ago to me," Sable sighed.

"What's wrong, Sable?" Ellerie's voice lowered and she took Sable's gloved hands.

"Oh, nothing," Sable shook her head negatively. "I'm just tired. It's a long drive from D.C. to Chattanooga!"

"Why didn't you fly?" Ellerie asked.

"I felt like driving," Sable shrugged. "Plus, I plan to stay a while and this way I won't have to rent a car."

"Really? Then you simply must stay with me! I have a spare bedroom, and I've been looking for a roommate." Ellerie leaned her arm across the back of the couch.

Sable looked around the disorderly apartment. Ellerie hadn't changed much since college. Talk about a clutter bug! But she was a likeable personality. She was the first person Sable thought of when she decided to escape Washington.

"I was kind of hoping you might say that," Sable smiled.

"So what brings you to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, of all places?" Ellerie patted her hand on the back of the couch.

"I just had to get out of D.C. I needed a sanity break and when I thought back to the last time I felt sane, it was at William and Mary, and then I thought of you," Sable shrugged.

"Funny that the word sanity would evoke my name in your memory!" Ellerie chuckled, stood and crossed toward the kitchen. "Have you had breakfast? I was just fixin' to make an omelet. You remember my omelets?"

"I certainly do," Sable smiled and followed her friend. She removed her gloves and shoved them into her pockets, then took a seat at the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room.

"You were working at a law office there in D.C. last I spoke with you -- right?" Ellerie asked as she cracked an egg into a ceramic bowl.

"Madison and Montague," Sable replied.

"There was talk of you being made a partner, too," Ellerie remembered as she cracked another egg.

"Yeah, but it didn't work out," Sable shrugged.

"Why not?" Ellerie pried as she tossed the egg shells toward the garbage disposal.

"Let's just say, I never took Schmooze 101 in college."

Ellerie nodded with understanding. "You never were one for doing what it took to brown-nose your way to success, were you?" She smiled and continued, "That's what I've always liked about you, Sable. You get what you get with you. You give your best and if that's not good enough, there's no toady bootlicking to turn 'em around." Ellerie chuckled, whisking the eggs feverishly. "So who's the lucky sycophant who got the position?"

"Oh, just some guy you wouldn't know," Sable waved away the question and leaned her elbows on the counter.

"So you're off on vacation?"

"Something like that," Sable looked around the apartment. Piles of dirty dishes filled the sink, the dishwasher hung open and an assortment of dishtowels lay wadded on the counter, hanging on the oven door. One cowered in a corner by the refrigerator.

"How long are you here for?" Ellerie asked as she drizzled chopped onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers into the frying pan.

"As long as it takes," Sable muttered.

"Takes to do what?" Ellerie's eyebrows furrowed.

"Get the rest I need. I'm on a leave of absence until I feel up to returning." Sable tapped her fingers on the bar.

"Are you all right, Sable?" Ellerie's head cocked to the side, studying her friend closely.

"I'm not sick or dying if that's what you're worried about. Just burned out and need a break," Sable closed her eyes wearily and she shook her head side-to-side.

"Then, you've come to the right place!" Ellerie smiled and she slid a colorful, mouth-watering omelet in front of her friend.

~*~

Officer Allan Reager covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief as he stepped out the front door of the small two-bedroom home. He turned his eyes toward the brown scraggly hickory tree, its limbs clutching and clawing skyward as if grasping heavenward with its last dying breath - much like the young woman whose body he and his partner had just found inside. It was freezing, but Reager dabbed his handkerchief to his brow to absorb the perspiration, then reached for his radio to call for an investigative team.

"Reager, come back in here for a minute," his partner, Gerard McNally, called from inside. Reager finished his call and took a deep breath, closed his eyes momentarily and stepped back into the house.

Blood pooled on the kitchen linoleum around the young woman's torso. The license Gerard found in her purse said that twenty-four-year-old Jessica Honeycutt weighed 120 pounds, stood five-foot-seven and evidently lived at this residence. You couldn't tell it from the bloodied gray corpse, but from the driver's license photo, she had been an attractive brown-eyed brunette.

Gerard handed Reager the license, "I think she knew the killer. In fact, I think she could have been out on a date with him."

"Really?" Reager asked as he looked at the license and handed it back to Gerard. "What makes you say that?"

"For one thing, there's no forcible entry marks on the door. Whoever it was, she let him in. Then, look how she's dressed." Gerard squatted down before the body and motioned for Reager to do the same. The young woman lay on her side, her blouse opened down the front. Several buttons were popped off. With an unopened pen Gerard pointed to a brown stain on the woman's blouse. "See that?"

"Yeah."

"I bet if we analyze that, it'll be soy sauce." Gerard stood up and went to the table where he'd placed the contents of the woman's purse. "See here," he held up a strip of white paper in his gloved hand. "Fortune from a fortune cookie -- It's easier to ask forgiveness than to obtain permission."

"That's true, you know," Reager shook his head positively.

"And look here," Gerard pointed his pen to two tickets on the kitchen table. "Two tickets to the Chattanooga Symphony at eight o'clock last night."

"Which she evidently didn't use," Reager noted.

"I think she went out to a Chinese restaurant with her killer -- spilled some of her dinner on her blouse, came back here possibly to wash it off, but before she could do it . . .

"Looks like a combination rape, manslaughter," Reager finished.

"The third one of these in the last month," Gerard's eyebrows furrowed.

"You think it's the same guy? A serial killer here in Nowhere-ville, Georgia?" Reager asked.

"Sure looks like it," came Gerard's somber reply.

"Sure looks like it," Gerard answered somberly.