"I know the Gator. It's in town, isn't it, off Main Street?"

"Yeah. The place used to be a library, if you can believe that. Now it's the loudest spot in town. Matt's playing there tonight. Two shows-one at nine, the other at midnight."

"I'd love to meet him. If that's all right with you."

"Sure. But-"

"I was just thinking he might have questions, if he's the protective sort. It might be good for the three of us to meet socially, see if we can stand each other."

For the first time I feel Teri studying me. She's good-she does so without being too obvious. But she senses I'm coming on strong, and she's careful. Once again, I don't mind. In fact, I approve. No one knows as well as I how cold and cruel the world can be.

"I'm sure Matt would be happy to meet you," she says.

"I'll swing by tonight." I offer my hand again. She shakes harder this time.

"I'm seriously interested. Oh, could you bring a few of the stories you've written tonight?"

She wants to know if I am for real, or just a hack.

"Sure," I say.

My house is as far out of town as the spot where I buried Daniel, except it's in the opposite direction, due west of the campus. I could just as easily have rented a place as bought one, but I prefer to purchase because I'm a privacy fanatic and dislike sleeping in a place not equipped with high-tech security equipment. I have a past. I have enemies. I cannot be too careful.

My home sits all alone in the center of a spacious grass field that gently slopes down to a large lake. On the other three sides are trees, thick as a jungle, but when I say the field is huge, I'm not exaggerating. There's a half mile of open space in every direction around the house. With that much land on all sides, I can always see who's approaching. The property alone cost twenty million-a reasonable amount for someone who started saving five thousand years ago.

I notice a pot has been knocked over on the walkway that leads to my front door. I have a team of gardeners who come once a week and take care of my plants and flowers. But they come on Mondays, and today is Friday. The pot is heavy; the wind could not have disturbed it. Besides, the breeze that wafts off the lake is gentle this time of morning.

For several minutes I stand and study the situation. My nearest neighbor is ten miles away-one of the few families I know in the state-but by chance they are in Europe. They would not visit anyway, not without first calling. Also, I don't take any mail at the house, but use a PO box in town. There's no reason for someone to visit.

My hearing spreads out like invisible sonar. I hear rabbits, squirrels, and possums in the woods, baby birds squeaking in their nests, but I don't detect the telltale rhythm of a human hiker. Of one thing I'm sure: No one drove up to my property in the last few hours. I would be able to smell the odor of their car fumes.

Yet I do smell something foreign, and I squat beside the broken pottery and bring it near my nose. Whoever bumped the pot was sweating, as if they had walked to my place from a great distance. However, I see no prints in the grass.

The mystery deepens when I go inside and check the recordings of my video cameras. The cameras are an important part of my security. They scan inside and outside, and I've arranged them so there is no blind spot. I find one of the cameras has gone dead, the very camera that was pointed at the broken pot. But when I pull it from its place beneath the eaves, I can find nothing wrong with the camera. The damage is internal, beyond the scope of my senses. I don't smell any sweat on the camera, nor do I see any fingerprints. If someone did handle it, they wore gloves.

I check the large walk-in vault I keep in my master bedroom, hidden behind a heavy chest of drawers. Inside the vault is an assortment of weapons: Glocks, semiautomatic .45s, old favorites of mine; AK-47s; two laser-guided Barringer sniper rifles, which are accurate over a mile.

I also have ten million in cash on hand, in various currencies. I never know when I might suddenly need to travel. I have passports and credit cards that allow me to assume a half dozen different identities. The IDs are not just expensive fakes. They are the real thing-I have built up the identities over decades. Indeed, I purchased this house under the name Lara Adams, and that's the name I go by around town.

It was just a slip of the tongue that I told Teri my name was Alisa. It's not my real name, of course. At most, a handful of people know me as Sita, the name my father gave me long ago. But Alisa is a favorite alias; for some reason I wanted Teri to know it.

I'm still upstairs in my vault when I hear a car approach up my long driveway. I seldom get guests. I assume the people who have come to visit are the same ones who knocked over my pot. I know without looking that there's more than one person in the car. I hear a man and woman talking, idle conversation: "Do you think she's home?"

"How much should we tell her?"

I close my vault, but I exchange the Smith & Wesson I took with me to dispatch Daniel and replace it with a powerful Glock .45. I'm not paranoid, but I am always careful. It's probably the main reason I'm still alive.

The couple-she's in her late twenties, he's at least five years older-drive a rented Camry. I can tell it's rented by the Hertz sticker in the window. I study them through the window as they park and ring my doorbell. She does not look threatening, although I can tell she is nervous. She has an academic demeanor. She talks with her hands and uses big words when small ones would suffice.

I already know her partner's a cop. He has the look, and he's carrying a gun, although it's well concealed beneath his pants, above his ankle. I can tell they're lovers. He touches her arm lovingly as she waits anxiously for me to answer.

I finally do.

"Hi," I say as I open the door. "What brings you two all the way out here?"

"Hello," the man says. "My name's Jeff Stephens and this is my friend Lisa Fetch. We hope we haven't caught you at a bad time?"

Jeff is portly, on the short side, with a receding hairline, a brown mustache, and a friendly face. Yet I can tell he works out; he's nimble on his feet. Lisa is the same height as her boyfriend, but thin, with red hair and tired green eyes. There are shadows beneath those eyes. There's no doubt she's under a lot of stress.

I smile. "I suppose that depends on what you want me for."

The woman returns my smile. "Are you Alisa Perne?"

Damn, I think. They know my old alias. They must know a lot about me to have come across that name. Yet neither of them smells like the person who knocked over my pot. Hmm.

"Yes," I say. "May I ask where you got that name?"

Lisa answers. "An old boyfriend of mine was doing some research on the firm I currently work for. He came across your name."

"What's the name of your firm?"

"IIC. Infinite Investment Corporation. They're based in Malibu, California. Their primary business is investing in the stock market."

"They cater to private investors?" I ask.

"They pretend to," Lisa says bitterly. "But they mostly cater to themselves."

I'm curious. I open my door wider. "Please come in and tell me all about it." Yet I stop Jeff as he comes through the door. "I'd rather you left your gun in the car."

He's impressed. "How did you know I'm carrying?"

"'Cause you look like a cop."

"Really?"

"It's a compliment."

Minutes later they are sitting in my living room. I offer them fresh coffee, which they gladly accept. For a vampire, I'm unusual-I drink more coffee than blood.

Unless I'm mistaken, they are both "nice people," and I'm not afraid they intend to harm me, at least not directly. A superficial scan of their minds has told me that much. But the fact they know my old alias is not good. They could damage me by talking about me with the wrong people. A few years ago I had a serious run-in with the FBI-and the U.S. Army, for that matter-and I doubt they've quit searching for me.

Once we're comfortable, I cut to the point.

"I assume when you say your old boyfriend was researching the firm you work for, you mean he was hacking into their computer files," I say to Lisa.

My insight surprises her. "How did you guess?"

"What better way to get dirt on a company?"

"Why do you assume they're dirty?" Jeff asks.

"Your tone when you speak about them. You sound angry." I turn to Lisa. "What's the name of your old boyfriend?"

Lisa is uncomfortable. "Why is that important?"

"He's snooping around files that contain information about me. I deserve to know his name."

Lisa replies, "Randy Clifford. I only asked him to look into IIC because I noticed highly irregular patterns in their investments."

"Why isn't Randy with you today?" I ask.

"He disappeared not long after we asked him to hack into IIC's system," Jeff explains.

"When was the last time you spoke to him?" I ask.

"A month ago," Lisa says sadly.

"But you say this is an investment company. They hardly sound like the type that would have people whacked. I assume it's staffed with stockbrokers and lawyers and accountants?"

Lisa nods. "Yes. And one mathematician. Me."

"What sort of work do you do for them?"

She spreads her hands helplessly. "For the first six months I wasn't sure what I was doing. They'd hand me reams of papers filled with numbers and order me to search for patterns. It took me a while to realize they were records of their investments. For some reason, in the last two years they've begun to make only ten percent a year on their money, rather than their usual twenty-five percent."

I almost choke on my coffee. "There's no investment firm in the world that gets that kind of return on their money."

"IIC does. Or at least they did," Lisa said.

"Did you figure out why their returns have dropped?"

Lisa hesitates. "No."

She's lying, or at least she knows more than she's willing to say.

"This is all very interesting, but what brings you here?"

"We told you, your name came up when Randy hacked into their system," Jeff says. "IIC even had this address. That's how we were able to find you."

I've lived in Missouri only two months. No one should have my address. "In what context was I mentioned?" I ask.

"Randy was looking into that when he vanished," Jeff says. "All we know is that IIC considers you 'a person of interest.' That's how you were described in their files."

"Where does Randy live?" I ask.

"Manhattan," Lisa says. "He works for an investment firm on Wall Street, Unlimited Investments Incorporated, or UII. But here's the real kicker. After he hacked into IIC's system, he realized it was indirectly connected to a half dozen investment firms, his own included. In fact, that's how he was able to break through IIC's firewall. It was familiar to him."

"Are you saying all these companies are really one and the same?"

"Yes," Lisa says.

"Aren't there laws against such things?" I ask.

Jeff nods. "Sure. But as far as Randy was able to tell, IIC and their partners are simply fronts for a single gigantic investment firm."

"Which is called?"

"That's the point. It doesn't have a name. It's not supposed to exist," Lisa says.

"This sounds like it has all the makings of a complex conspiracy story. But I still don't see what it has to do with me."

"Surely you must be curious why IIC is interested in you?" Jeff asks.

I'm extremely curious, but I respond casually. "I'm a person of some wealth, although I prefer not to advertise the fact. I'm sure, like any other investment firm, that IIC keeps a record of wealthy individuals."

"You weren't just on a list," Lisa says. "They had a whole file on you."

"Why didn't you say that at the start?"

"I'm saying it now!" Lisa snaps, and I can tell she's not angry at me, but at her company for making her old boyfriend disappear.

"What else was in my file? Besides my name and address?"

"We told you, Randy was looking into it when he vanished," Lisa says.

"Randy did say the file spoke of you as having a 'lengthy history,'" Jeff says.

"What does that mean?" I ask, but it's easy for me to imagine the true answer.

"We don't know," Jeff replies.

Lisa leans toward me. "You don't appear to be worried that IIC is obsessed with you. Frankly, I'd be very worried."

"Because of what they did to your old boyfriend?" I ask.

"That's the tip of the iceberg," Jeff says. "The more we dig into IIC and their partners, the more we discover how big and powerful they are."

"They may be the richest company in the world," Lisa says.

"And no one knows their name," Jeff adds.

I shake my head. "How do they make so much money on the market?"

Lisa hesitates. "We don't know."

"Are you still working for them?" I ask her.

"Yes."