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  I had a big mouthful of Caffe Mocha and I nearly choked on it.

  “Um…” I coughed, my eyes watering.

  “You okay?” Rylee pounded me on the back. “You look like you saw a ghost. Coffee go down the wrong pipe?”

  “Some…something like that,” I managed to say. “Look, Rylee, I really want to thank you for helping me out with this divorce.”

  “No problem,” she said easily, taking another sip of her drink. “Your soon-to-be ex sounds like a real piece of work.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said darkly, taking another drink of my own coffee. Rylee had on blackberry colored lipstick and there were still a few traces on my straw. That didn’t bother me but for some reason, seeing her drink from the straw that I had drunk from did. Why? Something tickled at the back of my mind but I couldn’t quite remember it.

  “Well, I hope you’re going to meet him in a public place to serve these papers,” Rylee said. “I’m not a lawyer so I’m not supposed to offer legal advice but this is just common sense. Some men can get ugly when you tell them you intend to leave their sorry ass.” She made a face. “I know my ex did.”

  “I’m going to see him at his work place,” I said. I had called to check and spoken with Gerald’s secretary, who assured me that he still worked at the firm in Virginia. “That should stop him from getting handsy.”

  “You sure this is how you want to do it?” She tapped the stack of papers in front of her. “You’re basically just giving him the house you two were both paying for. I know you want to get out quick, but if you take him to court you could at least get half the assets, if not some alimony.”

  “I don’t want anything from him,” I said quickly. “Besides, if I take him to court, he’ll drag my name through the dirt and tell everyone I ran off with another guy.”

  “Well, did you?” Rylee asked frankly, taking another sip.

  “Sort of…” I shifted in my seat. “It’s complicated. It didn’t really, uh, work out.” Which was a massive understatement. My heart still felt shredded from the way things had ended between Grav and me. But what could I do?

  “Sorry to hear that,” Rylee said neutrally. “At least it gave you the momentum to get out of a bad relationship.”

  “It did.” I nodded—I could be grateful to Grav for that much at least. “It really did.” I reached for my Mocha but my hand slipped on the condensation that coated the icy plastic cup. Before I could get a better grip, it squirted right out of my hand. “Oh!” I gasped as my drink turned over, flooding the table.

  “It’s okay.” Rylee rescued the divorcee paperwork with one hand and her own drink with the other. She jumped gracefully out of her chair just in time to save her expensive-looking black pencil-skirt from getting a coffee bath.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching for the napkin dispenser. “It’s just that I’ve been so distracted lately and I…”

  My voice trailed off as I tilted the dispenser and saw Rylee’s face reflected in its silver side. Any reflective surface—the Commercians can see and transport any Earth girl through any reflective surface.

  Wasn’t that the way the Alien Mate Index worked? The Commercians, those little blue bastards, picked out a female they thought was special and showed her to a prospective buyer. Grav had told me once that he knew I was special by my aura when he saw me on the AMI’s light screen.

  And how do you get special?

  This time my own words came back to me when Zoe and I had been having our most recent Girls’ Night. “Who knew you could catch special powers as easily as catching the common cold?”

  And what had I just said to Rylee before we traded drinks?

  “I don’t have a cold or anything.”

  No, but I was a La-ti-zal…a trait that Zoe had told me was catching through sharing food and drinks.

  Suddenly I realized why it had bothered me so much to see Rylee drink after me. I stood watching her in agony as she took another sip of her iced coffee. Should I knock it out of her hand? Tell her to wash her mouth out with soap or really strong mouthwash? Or was I overreacting? After all, just a few of my germs on the straw probably wasn’t enough to “infect” her with the La-ti-zal virus or whatever it was that made you special—was it?

  “What’s wrong with you?” Rylee frowned at me. “You’re giving me that look like you saw a ghost again.”

  “Uh…nothing.” I tried to laugh and grabbed some napkins from the dispenser to mop up my mess, which by this time was dripping all over the floor. “I’m just fine. Just…dreading giving my ex those papers, I guess.”

  “Oh…” Her face softened. “I understand. It’s never easy, ending things.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, thinking of the stiff, awful ending between Grav and me. “Look, thank you so much for your help, Rylee, but I really ought to get going.”

  “All right. You’ll need these, then.” She handed me the divorce papers and I gave up mopping at the table to take them. An employee was on the way over anyway, with a wet towel and a mop. He took over the cleaning process, allowing Rylee and me to move to the side and say our goodbyes.

  “You take care.” Rylee gave me a spontaneous hug. “And anytime you need any legal help, just call me. Any friend of Zoe’s is a friend of mine.”

  “Thank you.” I hugged her back, hoping that everything was going to be okay. “I really appreciate that, Rylee.”

  “You’re welcome.” She pulled back, smiling and I couldn’t help thinking that she really was extremely pretty. And so nice too! Zoe had been right about her but then, she’s usually a pretty good judge of character—which was why she had never liked Gerald.

  “I’ll see you later.” I smiled and collected my purse and keys, giving Rylee a little wave as I left.

  On the way out the door, I turned back once more and saw her lovely image reflected in the plate-glass window of the Starbucks wall. The sight sent a chill through me and I felt my smile slip, just a little.

  Surely not, I told myself firmly as I left the coffee shop. Come on, Leah—you’re just being paranoid. One little sip of contaminated coffee isn’t enough to bring out anybody’s latent La-ti-zal tendencies.

  Was it?

  The problem preoccupied me all the way back to my mom’s house. I was driving her spare car—an old one my sister had used in college until it was almost on its last legs—because I’d left my car up in Virginia with Gerald.

  I hoped the old car, which my sister and I had nicknamed “Pinky” because of its faded pink paint job, would make it all the way to Virginia. My mom had offered to loan me hers, but I didn’t like to leave her without a dependable mode of transportation.

  Still, as Pinky sputtered towards home, I thought I might have to take her up on it. The old car really was dilapidated. The chrome was dull and rusted and even the mirrors were coated in dust since it hadn’t been driven in so long. I had to rub my thumb over the rearview mirror to see anything in back of me at all.

  The only shiny surface on the whole car was a part on the back bumper where my sister had put a bumper sticker. You Just Got Passed by a Girl! it proclaimed in purple block letters with a lipstick kiss at the end. It had been a joke when my sister put it on because Pinky couldn’t pass anything. Later the kiss and the Girl part of the sticker had peeled off, leaving a tiny, shiny patch that looked strange compared with the rest of the rusted bumper.

  At least I would be driving over the weekend, so traffic wouldn’t be so bad, I reflected as I pulled into my mom’s garage and killed the engine. Pinky died with a choked, protesting splutter and I got out of the car as I considered my plan.

  I intended to show up at Gerald’s work in the middle of work on Monday. I would talk to him quietly, but in full view of his coworkers. That way he wouldn’t dare to get violent with me.

  I shivered as I remembered his last attack. I really thought he might have killed me if Grav hadn’t intervened. But the memory o