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altitude for the puddle jumper that would take them to Atlanta. That was when an inner voice chanting This is crazy finally got loud enough for Ani to hear over the straining engines.
    “This plane is so small I’m guessing our snack is a can of peanuts the captain opens and passes back.” She felt like sulking, even though she knew it really hadn’t been Lisa’s idea. Ever since she’d seen that picture she’d known she had to go home. It was over, time to get her stuff and get out. Two weeks with no work how much more of a sign did she need? Who cared now if people pointed and whispered and thought she’d masterminded a reckless academic crime? Her dreams of being all that her father had been, plus having an academic degree, of proving his legacy had value by becoming Doctor Bycall, were done. Monica Tyndell’s belief in her was over. Eve’s faith had been wasted, and they’d moved on. She’d move on, like she’d always known she would. The only difference was she’d have the support of an unlikely friend. “I bet we don’t even get a movie on the Atlanta to Seattle leg.”
    Lisa shifted in the narrow seat as she pulled a thin sweater over her head. “It was nice of you to offer to bring me along, but that doesn’t mean you get to whine the whole time.”
    “All I need you to do is look like my hot blond girlfriend, and tell everybody I’m a rich bar owner now, or something.” This is a crazy idea, she told herself. It had sounded so reasonable two hours ago, after a second round of liqueur-doctored iced coffee. They’d scarcely packed anything useful in their bags. Like idiots, they hadn’t gone back to the club to see if they could borrow snowsuits or parkas or high-traction slip-ons for their shoes. Lisa didn’t even own boots and Ani had found that her sub-zero rated jacket, dug out of the back of the closet, had become home to a colony of critters.
    They weren’t prepared for Alaska.
    “To me, you are rich. After all, your credit card went through, and that was quite a ka-ching.”
    Ani shrugged. “I was saving up to go back to school, study something else eventually.”
    “As if you think about anything besides rocks and ice.” Lisa sighed. “What else do you want to be when you grow up?”
    There was still no hesitation in her. “A glacial geologist. I can’t get past that, but I’m going to have to. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
    “The love of somebody’s life.” Lisa turned her head away, but not before Ani caught the sparkle of sudden tears.
    “You okay?”
    “No, but that’s nothing new. Do you have pictures in your head of your perfect life?”
    Standing on top of a wind-sculpted rise on an ice field, at her feet the glory of breathtaking white spread out on one of nature’s largest, most formidable canvasses, the tingle of cold against her eyelashes, and warmth at her back she knew was Eve… Try as she might, Ani couldn’t conjure a big red X to blot it from her mind. Eve and her cooking together in a cozy kitchen, the fire crackling that one wouldn’t go away either. And that one hurt more, because it wasn’t made up, it was a memory, and it came complete with Eve’s laughter and Karrin Alyson on the stereo. “No, no pictures.”
    “Liar.”
    “Yeah.” She didn’t flinch when Lisa touched the back of her hand with a gesture of sympathy, but honestly, she told herself, it had been three years. She ought to have moved on, she knew that. Even if her one mistake had unfairly cost her everything she wanted, she still should have moved on. Moved on to what well, that was the unanswered question. It was time to start looking for answers.
    “How old do you think I am?”
    Ani made a show of looking Lisa up and down. “I’m a bartender don’t expect flattery. You’re thirty. Most people would think you’re twenty-seven, maybe twenty-six. I certainly thought you were younger than you are, at first.”
    The remnant of tears in Lisa’s eyes was