. ********* Kimberly Reed arrived at the fourth floor via the central escalators, and took an immediate right into the Sciences section, making a be...-line for the geography books. As she did, she couldn’t help but notice a pair of similarly clad legs on the nearby escalator coming down from the fifth floor. Kimberly didn’t need to wait and see the rest of the body that followed those legs to know that Erica was hot on her heels, and Kimberly broke out into a very un-librarian-like run through. Elspeth was due in her tutorial the following afternoon, Laura reflected, she would study her closely. The tutorial only served, in fact, to heighten Laura’s fascination and suspicion still further. For one thing, it was attended not only by Elspeth but also by Kathryn Hayward, whom Laura had almost forgotten about but who was just as distant and vacant as she had been the previous week, smiling absently and gazing out of the window all afternoon. It was a telling reminder of what both girls. She passed a blue van in the parking lot near the gym, and she was snatched. They put her in handcuffs and in the van, and then they opened a can. They all had gas masks on. The can must have had some knockout gas, because that was the last thing Cassandra remembered.When she remembered all this, she panicked. Had those strangers done something to her? She rushed to check herself in the mirror. As far as she could tell, her physical appearance was unaltered. That settled her a little bit,. It’s been a week but maybe someone will remember something.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly as they left his office. He should flag the man’s jacket, write up an official complaint for his file. And he would, when he had the energy left to look up the right paperwork. ‘Gabe? You got a call,’ one of the guys out in the bull pen hollered in to his office. ‘Message, asshole,’ Gabe said to himself. ‘Don’t any of you know how to take a message?’ He picked up the handset and hit the flashing button on.