“The who part is easy unless the violator is dialing in by modem from the outside.”

“But the note was sent to someone in my office - to a device in my office.”

“That doesn’t mean that an insider didn’t get someone from the outside to break in, Aunt Kay. Maybe the person snooping doesn’t know anything about UNIX and needed help to break into your directory, so they got a programmer from the outside.”

“This is serious,” I said.

“It could be. If nothing else, it sounds to me like your system isn’t very secure.”

“When’s your term paper due?” I asked.

“After the holidays.”

“Are you finished?”

“Almost.”

“When does Christmas vacation start?”

“It starts Monday.”

“How would you like to come up here for a few days and help me out with this?” I asked.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m very serious. But don’t expect much. I generally don’t bother with much in the way of decorations. A few poinsettias and candles in the windows. Now, I will cook.”

“No tree?”

“Is that a problem?”

“I guess not. Is it snowing?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

“I’ve never seen snow. Not in person.”

“You’d better let me talk to your mother,” I said.

Dorothy, my only sibling, was overly solicitous when she got on the phone several minutes later.

“Are you still working so hard? Kay. You work harder than anyone I’ve ever met. People are so impressed when I tell them we’re sisters. What’s the weather like in Richmond?”

“There’s a good chance we’ll have a white Christmas.”

“How special. Lucy ought to see a white Christmas at least once in her life. I’ve never seen one. Well, I take that back. There was the Christmas I went skiing out west with Bradley.”

I could not remember who Bradley was. My younger sister’s boyfriends and husbands were an endless parade I had stopped watching years ago.

“I’d very much like Lucy to spend Christmas with me,” I said. “Would that be possible?”

“You can’t come to Miami?”

“No, Dorothy. Not this year. I’m in the middle of several very difficult cases and have court scheduled virtually up to Christmas Eve.”

“I can’t imagine a Christmas without Lucy,” she said with great reluctance.

“You’ve had Christmas without her before. When you went skiing out west with Bradley, for example.”

“True. But it was hard,” she said, nonplussed. “And every time we’ve spent a holiday apart, I’ve vowed to never do it again.”

“I understand. Maybe another time,” I said, sick to death of my sister’s games. I knew she couldn’t get Lucy out the door fast enough “Actually, I’m on deadline for this newest book and will be spending most of the holiday in front of my computer anyway,” she reconsidered quickly. “Maybe Lucy would be better off with you. I won’t be much fun. Did I tell you that I now have a Hollywood agent? He’s fantastic and knows everybody who’s somebody out there. He’s negotiating a contract with Disney.”