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"The M Necrose pandemic has now become the fourth deadliest disease outbreak in history, surpassed only by the Black Plague, the Spanish Flu, and the Bird Flu Next up, sports on News Center Eighteen"

I turned off the TV then and took another long drink of water It was as though I’d never been gone The world had gotten along just fine without me I leaned back into the cushions and listened to the sounds of the ocean through the open screen door I , started, and looked out the pictureto see hbor, Inez, at my door She rapped in a towel

Inez used to be the housekeeper for my best friend, Vicki Cooper, who had owned both my beach house and Cooper Manor, the mansion at the top of the hill When Vicki died, she left me the beach house and left the roundskeeper I trusted them to keep an eye on my place and to water my plants in my absence

I opened the door with a s for Mexico "Hey, Inez How have you been?" I openedbut she just ood until your puppy du at the time"

That hen I looked outside "Crap!" One of the abilities of a siren, besides being able to mentally influence some people, is an affinity with the ocean I’d been away froles;about the ocean just now had caused the water to move inland My cousin, Adriana, the Pacific siren princess, told me this was a common problem when sirens come into their power The sea follows us The water was up to the bumper ofpool There’s an upper one as well, but Inez prefers the lower one because it’s on the beach I doubted that seaas all that had been dumped in it; there were probably a few buckets of sand and a variety of s there now "Oh, man I’m so sorry, Inez I’ll clean it up"

Iup after my mistake because she shook her head with a note of a It’ll follow you back" I tried to protest, but she was firo swi to scrub down the bottoo back out to sea"

One of the things I like about David is that he never uses chemicals in the water, so he could let it drain back to the ocean with the blessing of the State of California’s environmental offices Vicki had installed a very expensive reverse os out would be perfectly safe for whatever creatures it encountered

I vowed to add a thousand to the a the pool isn’t cheap and despite her protests, I knew David had changed the water right before I’d left

After writing ed into my suit and went for a swi me into the water

There really isn’t any way to explain what it feels like to swim in the ocean Once my body cooled to the temperature of the water, it was as if every as an extension of h the breakers and swells until the surface was nearly flat There wasn’t much of a breeze and the sun warmed my hair A porpoise appeared and chuckled atplayful and relaxed at last, I played with the porpoise, diving right alongside his sleek gray form We came out of the water nearly siain We must have done this about ten times before he bobbed his head in approval, tittered, and say to join a group that was tail-walking in the distance

I floated on ulls overhead swooped and dipped in approval I’d been away froh to pine for the sea, and yes, to miss my noisy feathered friends One of the a ship, and I nearly dropped under the water to avoid being hit But it slowed at the last second in a fluttering of snoings and delicately dropped a tiny pink conch shell onto my bare stomach Then it flew back up to join its fellows overhead Hoeet A gift from my admirers

I have weird admirers

I suppose I should have called some people to let them knoas back But I really wanted peace and quiet for at least a day or two So I put my new conch shell on the mantel with the others I’d collected over the years, called out for pizza since ht a lot about the wine before selecting a siically enhanced red I’d coht now, not without conjuring up a whole lot of bad memories I didn’t want to think about the man who’d created that wine Not today Maybe not to onaround the house before I felt ready to be part of the real world again Finally I dressed and headed for the office oneforward to a nice, nor of telephone calls and paperwork--and chatting with Dawna, my smart, savvy receptionist, who is also one of my best friends in the world

I run a private security business out of an office on the third floor of one of the last historic buildings in don Santa Maria de Luna It’s an old, red-brick Victorian with gingerbread trim, a wide front porch, and a balcony onpartial protection from the California sunshine Once upon a time it had been a stretch to afford the rent Prices in Santa Maria aren’t as bad as in Hollywood or LA, but they’re not cheap, either After I inherited the building (and the headaches that go along with owning commercial property) that wasn’t an issue I hadn’t even known Vicki had ownedintoGod, it was good to be back I couldn’t wait to get back to nore Dawna’s car was in its usual spot I wasn’t surprised As receptionist, Daasn’t scheduled to start for another hour, but she gets into work early et a chance to talk before the day’s craziness started