Run by Francine Pascal Page B

were into that kind of thing. So, uh, are you busy Saturday night?"
    Beep.
    Heather chucked a throw pillow at the answering machine. It missed by about three feet and bounced off the top of the television. She sighed, then rolled over onto her stomach. Sam's dorm room key bit into her hip. It was still in the front pocket of her pants. She pulled it out and stared at it for a second before flinging it, too, across the room, where it knocked over a framed photo of her and Sam at a Yankees game.
    Rrring. Click. Beep.
    "Heather, it's Megan again! Are you there? Pick up! I just heard that band Fearless is playing in the park tonight. The drummer's a total hottie! Wanna go? Maybe it'll, you know, cheer you up or whatever. Call me."
    That was it! Heather had officially had it. She was taking the phone off the hook, and for all she cared, Sam could go to hell. Let him call. Let him get a busy signal. Let him come over with a dozen long-stemmed roses and apologize in person, like a normal boyfriend!
    She was just reaching for the handset when the phone rang again. She jerked her fingers away as though she'd been shocked, then listened.
    Click. Beep.
    "Hi, Heather. It's Ed. Fargo. Listen, I realize this call must come as a shock, but I have something really serious I need to talk to you about. It's important. It's . . . uh . . . about Sam. He's in trouble. Well, actually, not trouble. More like danger. There's something we have to get out of his room. We're talking life and death here. Sam's life and death. So we were thinking, since you probably have a key to his room, you would bring it to us. Heather, you've got to help us. . . ."
    Heather picked up the handset. The machine shut off, routing Ed's voice directly through the phone as she pressed it to her ear.
    "Heather? Are you there?"
    "She had two words for him: "Who's us?

The Key
    "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, SHE DOESN'T want me involved?"
    "I mean," said Ed, wheeling fast to keep up with Gaia's furious pace, "she's all for helping Sam, but she doesn't want you to be a part of it."
    "Part
of it? Part of
it?"
Gaia punched her right fist repeatedly against her thigh as she walked. "Doesn't the airhead realize that I
am
it? Didn't you explain that to her?" Gaia slammed directly into a man in a business suit, sending him sprawling. "Sorry," she mumbled over her shoulder. The guy swore after her but was too busy restuffing his briefcase to give chase.
    "No, I didn't. I'm guessing it would have done more harm than good." Ed stopped at the corner, waiting for the light. He glanced warily over his shoulder. Gaia half hoped the suit would come yell at her. She needed a good excuse to hit something.
    When Ed had explained that Gaia was involved, the news had, naturally, sent Her Royal Heatherness into convulsions. After some careful negotiations, Ed had managed to get her to agree to discuss it in person -- without Gaia.
    "So she's not expecting me?" Gaia asked, holding her hair back from her face to keep it from whipping into her eyes.
    "No," Ed answered, staring at the rushing traffic.
    "Great."
    Gaia stopped fuming long enough to check out the neighborhood. It was a little to the east of the area that was really upscale. It wasn't bad. But there was nothing much to recommend it, either. The streets were lined with smallish apartment buildings that were falling into disrepair -- chipping paint, cracked moldings, windows scratched with graffiti. Plus it seemed like the garbage hadn't been hauled off in weeks.
    "Where are we going?" Gaia asked. "Heather's."
    Gaia lifted an eyebrow in the direction of the nearest worse-for-wear apartment building. "You mean she doesn't live in some yuppie co-op somewhere in the eighties?"
    "Not anymore," Ed said flatly.
    They continued in silence for two blocks, then turned a corner and found Heather waiting for them on the sidewalk in front of a nondescript, graying apartment building.
    Ed waved.
    Heather fired Gaia a hateful look from thirty paces off.
    "I told