WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

OCTOBER 4

Pamela's voice and her fist pounding on his back wrenched Patrick from slumber.

"Patrick!" she was shouting. "Something's burning outside!"

"Huh?"

And then a crash - breaking glass - an object smashing through the window only a few feet away, and he was awake, sitting up, his heart jackhammering in his chest as he looked around his dark bedroom. His alarm clock read 1:04. Outside he could hear a car burning rubber as it pulled away.

"What happened?"

"Look!" Pamela said, her voice hushed with fear. "Out on the lawn!"

Flickering light through broken glass...Patrick swung his legs toward the floor.

"No!" Pamela cried. "You'll cut your feet!"

Good thinking. He reached down, felt around till he found his loafers, then slipped them on. He hurried to the window, glass crunching under his soles, and looked out on his front yard.

His lawn was on fire.

"What the hell?"

He blinked. Well, not the whole lawn, but a circle of it along with some of the grass inside the circle blazed in the night. He was reaching for the phone to dial 911 when he heard the sirens. Apparently one of his neighbors had called the cops or fire department or both. So he reached for the lamp switch instead.

"Oh, shit, what's happening?" Pamela cried. "What's happening?"

He glanced at her. She crouched on the bed, blinking in the light like a fawn caught in the middle of the road. Pamela was his latest pseudo-live-in, meaning she owned her own place in New Bedford but had spent most of the last eight months at his place here in Katonah. Worked as a broker for Merrill Lynch; a few years younger than Patrick but her accumulated year-end bonuses put her far closer to early retirement. Dark hair, big blue eyes, and a dazzling bod that she was now shielding to the neck with the bed sheet.

Pamela...terrified. In spite of the flames and the sirens and the broken glass, that was what gripped him. So out of character. The ultracompetent Pamela was even more driven than he; give her a goal and she became a heat-seeking missile. She'd never shown him the little girl who lived inside her, the one who could be frightened.

"I don't know," he said, reaching across and giving her trembling shoulder a gentle squeeze. "But it's all right. We're okay."

He hoped.

Patrick was dressed only in boxer shorts, and the cool fall air flowing through the window raised goosebumps. Maybe it wasn't just the air. He straightened and did a slow turn, checking out the glass- littered floor until he spotted a bottle on its side against the far wall. He crunched over and retrieved it. A Fruitopia bottle, empty but reeking of gasoline. And a piece of paper rolled up inside. He fished it out.

"What is it?" Pamela said.

"A note."

With trembling fingers Patrick unrolled the wet piece of blue-lined loose leaf and held it up to the light. The gasoline had acted as a solvent, running the ballpoint ink, but the words were still legible. His gut crawled as he read them aloud.

"Forget about a sim union or next time it won't be empty."

"Oh, Christ!" Pamela cried. "Who'd do something like this?"

"Not signed."

A threat. He had trouble rereading the message because his hands had begun to shake. Jesus, he'd heard of things like this happening, but never dreamed...

He forced his racing brain to slow so he could examine the possibilities. SimGen popped into his head immediately, and just as quickly he discarded it. This was hardly their style, especially since they knew they couldn't lose in the long run. One of the anti-sim hate groups? Could be. He'd seen them on TV, mostly losers who resented animals taking human jobs - Wake up, guys: Machines have been doing that for a couple of centuries - but he hadn't heard of any in the area.

He didn't want Pamela to see how rattled he was. "One of your old boyfriends, maybe?"

"This isn't funny, Patrick! Someone just threatened your life!"

Just then a couple of Katonah's finest screeched to a halt at his front curb.

"Sorry." Couldn't she see he was just trying to break the tension? "Bad joke." He looked around for his pants. "I'm going to go out and talk to the cops."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Get dressed and stay out of sight. You're better off not being involved in this."

He pulled on his slacks and a shirt, and hurried toward the front door.

...next time it won't be empty...

What the hell had he got himself into?