Five minutes later Maggie stepped out of the elevator. She removed her shoes and carried them down the hall, across the newsroom, and into her office, where she dumped them in a corner. She slid her feet into a pair of scuffed loafers and settled down to put her office to rights in preparation for her trip. She looked up once, an hour later, to see Ted staring at her from across the newsroom. He blew her a kiss. She smiled and waved.

She felt so giddy she didn't know what to do, so she blew a kiss in return, which brought a smile to Ted's face.

"He's not setting me up. He's not. He wouldn't do that to me again. I trust him. I really do. Well, mostly I trust him," she muttered under her breath.

The big question was, should she stay at Ted's apartment or take the cats to her house? If she stayed at Ted's, she could spy on him, check out his computer and whatever else he had lying around. Like she would really do that. She'd end up doing his laundry, cleaning the apartment, feeding the cats, and changing the sheets. It would be okay to leave the cats for an overnight trip as long as she fixed the litter boxes and put down plenty of water and food.

She blinked when she heard the strange buzz from the cell phone Charles had given her. She dug it out of her backpack and opened it. Her heart picked up an extra beat when she realized that the caller was Jack Emery.

Chapter 3

Dawn was just moments away when Jack Emery slammed his way into Harry Wong's dojo. He was shivering and sweating at the same time as he jumped around from one foot to the other. "It's cold out there," he said to a startled Harry.

"What the hell are you doing here at this hour of the morning, Jack? I thought we said we'd meet at ten. It's not even six yet."

"I wanted to make sure you didn't weasel out on me, Harry. You were pretty pissed when you left last night. We can't screw this up. Everything hangs on our pulling it off and making it legit. You got any hot tea?"

"What's with that we shit, Jack? Tea isn't ready yet. The reason it isn't ready is because I just got here myself. And the reason I just got here was I was at your place till two this morning. Then I had to go across town on my cycle and almost froze my balls off. It took me two hours to thaw out, and that means I only got an hour's sleep."

"You're missing an hour. I thought you could count."

"I tossed and turned after I thawed out. I hate you, Jack."