Morris led me to the front entrance of the plant and we walked inside. I'd been expecting something like a military installation, but instead the main lobby felt like an upscale hotel: the domed ceiling with the sunlight coming in through the glass panes, steel pillars, marble floors, a steel-and-wood open staircase leading up to offices situated above us in a horseshoe configuration. People in business attire walked along the second-floor promenade, carrying folders and looking important.

The security officer at the main desk greeted us. Unlike his compatriots outside in their uniforms, he wore a suit and tie, making him look more like a concierge than a deterrent to would-be terrorists. Of course, that was Grandel's goal. To relax prospective investors without scaring them with thoughts of security.

"Welcome, Ms. Palladino," he said with a smile that appeared genuine. "Please place all your personal belongings in here for safekeeping." He slid a plastic bin across the desk toward me.

I dropped my car keys and cell phone inside. "For security, right? So no one takes any pictures?"

"Actually, it's not so much about security as safety," Morris said. "Some embedded controllers in the auxiliary diesel generator control rooms have EPROMs which have been known to be erased by camera flashes in the past, triggering a generator trip-"

I had no idea what he was talking about, but it didn't sound good.

"Plus, we wouldn't want anything to get crapped up," he finished with a smile.

I stared at him. "That's not going to happen, right?"

"Oh no, of course not. We're not even going anywhere near-I was just joking. Owen says I never know when to shut up. Sorry, I didn't mean to make you nervous or anything."

It was clear I was the one making him nervous. "No, that's fine. Just checking."

He seemed relieved. The guard gave me a coat-check receipt, and Morris led me to yet another checkpoint beneath the stairs. It looked like a metal detector. I remembered the knife in my boot-maybe I should have left it with the guard? But I was already feeling uncomfortable, dressed in my Hardy & Palladino polo shirt and jeans. I hesitated, watching as Morris stepped inside the unit, put his hand on a small pad, then turned and put the other hand there.

"It's a portal detector," he explained. "To make sure no one is coming in with a high count."

"You mean radiation?"

"Sure. Step inside, it's painless. That's right. Just put your palm there. Hold it. Now spin around and put the other hand there. Perfect. See, nothing to it."

I guess you'd get used to it if you had to do this every time you went in or out, but I was kind of freaked, holding my breath, waiting for an alarm klaxon to sound and a red siren to go off as everyone screamed and ran for cover. Instead it was just a bored technician reading a computer screen.

"You're clean," she said, waving me through and handing me a lanyard with a small plastic bob that resembled a pedometer hanging from it.

"What's this?"

"Personal dosimeter," Morris answered, flipping a similar device that he wore clipped to his breast pocket. "See the screen? It's just reading background now. It will change if there's any radiation. If it gets too high that red light will blink and an alarm will sound."

Great. I was glad they were so careful, but it was certainly a bit nerve-wrecking. Morris opened one of a pair of frosted glass doors and held it for me. I stepped into a glass-walled corridor.

"The observation deck," he explained. "You can look into the control room where it's all happening without disturbing anyone."

The control room looked pretty much right out of the movies. Four curved workstations, each staffed by two technicians, filled with flashing buttons, computer terminals, keyboards, and a ton of switches. Surrounding them along the outside wall were large monitors showing every aspect of each reactor: primary coolant levels, pump flow, secondary coolant, emergency coolant, status of control rods, reactor core temperature, time until isotope extraction, and a lot of other things I had no idea about. In between each computer screen were old-fashioned analog dials, presumably revealing the same information.

"What happens if the electricity goes out?" I asked, fascinated by the power any one of those tiny buttons held, yet also thinking that it all looked very, very boring.

"Unlikely, since we not only generate our own but also have backup generators. Plus, we have two sets of manual controls for everything. One inside here and a second inside the containment area. Redundancy on redundancy, that's the key to safety."

Safety definitely seemed to be paramount. There were signs everywhere-I even spotted one at the exit from the control room reminding people to tie their shoes. Of course, trip on your laces, fall and push the wrong button in here and you might unleash a nuclear holocaust.

"So, how does a meltdown happen?"

He smiled. "You're thinking about what happened in Japan. Those reactors were forty years old. With today's technology, there's no good reason for a meltdown-especially not with my design. Redundancy, remember."

"But in theory?"

"In theory, you'd have to somehow let the reaction chamber reach critical mass and then fail to control the ensuing reaction. This would lead to overheating-thus the term meltdown. All that heat and pressure would need somewhere to expand beyond the containment chamber, and that would lead to an explosion." He shook his head. "Never happen. Not here. You'd need the control rods to fail as well as both the primary coolant pump plus the secondary plus the emergency coolant."

"In all four reactors?" I was still fascinated by the idea that somehow four reactors were safer than one. "Or would just one failing cause a chain reaction?"

"But see, that's the problem-if any one of those highly improbable things occurred, we'd simply scram the affected reactor-"

"Scram?"

"Dump the control rods into the core. That stops all fission in about five seconds flat and lets the reactor cool down. Problem solved before it starts."

I looked at the operators, staring at their gauges and monitors and dials and readouts. Maybe it was as simple as Morris said.

I wished I had as much faith in humans' ability to mess with nature without leading to tragic consequences as he did.

A woman entered the glass doors behind us. "Ms. Palladino?" she asked in a bright voice. "Mr. Grandel will see you now."

Owen Grandel's office was on the second floor, so I had to go through the portal detector again-sighing in relief when I was pronounced "clean" once more-and then up the lobby stairs. The room looked like any other chairman of a prosperous company's would: modern furniture, nice paintings on the walls, fresh flowers in vases, and a large picture window behind the desk. Only, Grandel's view was into the control room.

Grandel nodded to one of the leather chairs across from his desk as he finished typing something on his computer. His assistant brought me a glass of iced tea without asking-and somehow managed to get it just right, not too sweet.

"I met Vincent last night," I started, wanting to see how Grandel took the news.

His face filled with distaste. "Bastard is blackmailing me with that cult of his. Wants to take over my company or a large chunk of it."

"So I heard. He asked me to find out when the next isotope shipment is scheduled for. Made me wonder if he was planning something."

"Or if he asked you because he knew you'd tell me and we'd delay the shipment-which we can't afford to do-or waste time and money on new security measures." He tipped his chair back as he considered the angles.

"Could Vincent be behind the accidents?"

"Believe me, I thought of that. But we rechecked all our personnel, there's no one with ties to him, no one showing any sudden influx of cash that he could have bought off-I don't see how he could have orchestrated it. But I do think he's behind the false alarms."

"False alarms? You never mentioned those."

"Radiation sensors are extremely sensitive-especially the ones on the perimeter. A few weeks ago we began getting a barrage of alarms but when we checked with handheld units, there was no trace of actual radiation triggering them. Morris recalibrated the remote sensors and they all now send any alarms to his handheld first so he can verify them. It seems to have solved the problem, but I still can't help but wonder if Vincent was behind it."

"Maybe testing your responses-but why? He doesn't really want the plant shut down, that would defeat his purposes. He just wants to inconvenience you enough so you'll give in to his demands."

"Which I have no intention of doing. I'll burn this place to the ground and start over before that happens."

I didn't believe that for a moment, but Grandel's fists were clenched so tight that I thought he might well burn Vincent's place down. Then I remembered what Noreen had said about Grandel's parents dying in a fire.

A shudder ran through me before I could stop it. Both Grandel and Vincent were dangerous men playing a dangerous game, and I was caught in the middle. "What could he or anyone have to gain by causing false alarms?"

"I have no idea."

I considered my next words carefully. I needed to give him a plan of action-but I didn't want to escalate things between Grandel and Vincent. "Well, you do know that your so-called protestors are being paid, don't you?"

That made him sit up. "Really? By who? Vincent?"

"That's beyond me-you'll need a PI or someone who can trace the money to prove it. I'm also certain that Vincent is behind the online campaign against you. In fact, he's hired a media consultant named Yancey. The guy's pretty slick-has the protestors from the church filming this morning."

"Filming what?"

"When I saw them they were just singing a song, but Yancey likes drama, so don't be surprised if there's a repeat of yesterday's fainting episode or something like it."

He tapped his fingertips together in an irritating rhythm. "Any ideas what to do about it?"

"Preemptive strike. Get some video of the other protestors enjoying your hospitality and get that out there first-so it will be clear that Vincent's people staged it."

"Good idea. Security can grab the footage from their cameras. Anything else?"

"There are two reasons people around here don't like the plant-actually they boil down to one solution."

"What's that?"

I thought about the young couple I'd met with the protesters. "Jobs. Folks around here want a chance to make enough money to raise their families and keep them here. And that means jobs."

"But we've hired locally as much as we can. You can't exactly ask an out-of-work shrimper to man a nuclear reactor."

"I understand. But most of the people who do work here-where do they live?"

"Most, up in Beaufort. Houses are cheap there right now. A few of the supervisors live down in Hilton Head."

"Right. And that means a long drive either way." I stood and gestured to the large-scale map spread out on the wall beside him. He swiveled his chair to follow my finger as I traced the path of the river as it led to the sound. "Most of this land on the other side of the river is for sale-probably at pretty good prices given how old the FOR SALE signs looked. Now, if you bought several parcels and developed them together, you could turn it into a nice community. Views of the sound or river, forest, easy access to the highway."

"Ms. Palladino," he sounded affronted, "we're in the medical isotope business here, not real estate investment."

"Think about it. You could create homes for your workers as well as work for the folks who already live here. How much is that kind of long-term public satisfaction worth to your company?" Not only would it provide jobs, it might help to revive the community, and Lord knew, from what I'd seen, Colleton Landing could use all the help it could get.

He pursed his lips, considering. "This housing slump is bound to end soon. Might make for a good investment. Worth it if it got the community off my back." He nodded, a short jerk of his chin. "I'll have my people look into it."

"I also heard that you guys were supplying electricity to the surrounding area? Some kind of cooperative deal with the power company?"

"Morris set that up. We generate more than we can use. Could've sold it to Palmetto, but Morris got all soft-hearted and set this up-I was on the road, getting us capital, and he's giving away potential profits."

"Maybe it's lucky he doesn't have your business sense." Jeez, I was starting to sound like Elizabeth, practically stroking his ego. But it worked. "Again, think of the community relations windfall."

He nodded slowly. "Good work, AJ," he said, sounding half-surprised. "I'm going to call a press conference in time for the noon news. No sense waiting-I'd like to share some good news with my investors for a change. You'd better get changed."

"Me? None of this has to do with the environmental impact of the plant; you don't need me up there with you." I re-grouped. "I wouldn't want to steal the spotlight or anything."

"No worries there. You won't be saying anything. I just want everyone to know you're on my side."

I blinked, uncertain of how to get out of this. Because even though I was willing to take his money for helping him, I was most definitely not on Owen Grandel's side.

Then I thought about Floyd and Noreen and the other people I'd met like Elise and her husband. If it meant helping them, I could sacrifice a little self-esteem.

What could it hurt?

Totally demoralized after her conversation with AJ's parents, Elizabeth drove to her house three blocks away. Her own parents had divorced when she was young, and although they both doted on her when she was with them, she'd never really felt a part of either of their lives as consumed as they had been by their careers. She'd learned the lesson so well that she'd grown up emulating them, putting her career before everything until she dared to raise her head long enough to see Hunter for who he really was and make a stand for herself.

It occurred to her that maybe her parents and the Palladinos weren't so very different-different forms of obsession, maybe, but still so wrapped up in their own lives that they couldn't see the living, breathing family that required their nurturing.

AJ wasn't asking for much-and David wasn't asking for anything except the love of his grandparents, the chance to finally have a family. Yet it was too much for them to give.

No wonder she and AJ were friends. Despite their disparate social backgrounds, they had a lot more in common than it initially appeared.

She pulled into the driveway of her house. Although it had been in her father's family for generations, Elizabeth had never been here until after her father's death. It was a Victorian painted sky-blue with an inviting wraparound porch. Elizabeth smiled every time she saw it and realized that it was hers. It was exactly like the houses she used to pretend her dress-up dolls would inhabit when she was a little girl. The house of her dreams.

Today it looked more like a home than ever. Ty and Nikki sprawled across the front steps, talking to Jeremy, who was watering the plants hanging from the porch roof and suffering from neglect.

"You get settled in all right?" she asked Jeremy, joining Ty on the steps without even worrying about getting her skirt dirty. What was a little dry-cleaning bill when she'd just lost AJ's son for her? Nikki sensed her distress and rolled her head to one side so it slid beneath Elizabeth's palm.

"Yes, thanks." Jeremy seemed nervous, fiddling with the watering can even though he'd finished. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Just don't run off-this house is the collateral for your bond."

Whoops. She hadn't meant to remind him of that. It's just what was foremost in her mind-how much she'd risked on a person she barely knew.

He sank into the rocker beside the door, still clutching the watering can. His face collapsed as if the weight of his predicament had finally caught up with him. "It's bad, isn't it? They're going to crucify me."

"Don't worry. That's what you have me for," she tried to reassure him but couldn't muster the energy to lie convincingly.

"I know a few criminal attorneys," Ty put in.

Elizabeth doubted Jeremy had the resources to afford one. "Let's give it a day or so-the tox screen might help."

"But who's going to watch over Flora until then?" Jeremy asked.

"She's not coming home until tomorrow, the doctors said. In the meantime, I asked AJ's parents if they'd move into the summerhouse. Judge Mabry won't let me care for David anymore-he thinks it's a conflict of interest." She explained about Masterson's fight for visitation and how it had evolved into an emergency custody battle.

"I can't imagine Frank or Edna leaping at the opportunity," Ty said.

Elizabeth hung her head, concentrating on her fingers kneading Nikki's thick coat. "They didn't. I'm not sure what to do."

"Maybe sending David to Masterson's isn't a bad idea," Jeremy said. "Kid figures out how horrible the old man is, he might beg the judge to deny visitation."

"I'm not sure how much stock the judge is going to put in a kid's testimony compared to Masterson's money."

"And AJ would kill you," Ty added. "She thinks Masterson is poison."

"What other choice do I have?"

"Call AJ. Get her permission for him to spend the night with his friends at my mom's house. Every kid his age goes on sleepovers during the summer vacation, why can't David?"