We loose sight of each other, but I can feel your presence stronger and stronger. You're standing with your back facing me when I get near you. I see ...ou looking around not noticing me any more, but knowing me near.The next moment I'm right behind you. You know I'm there but you don't turn around. I look down and see your open shoes and naked legs. I follow your legs up till the border of your short summer skirt. The soft skin of your legs, the hollow at the back of your knees. I want to feel. " Hey, long time since I heard from you," he said. "Must be what, 30 or 40 minutes." I have some information about the man in Linda Cardelli's bank," I said without humor. "He's Baltic, likely Chechnyan. And I have a photo I would like to e-mail to you." Son of a bitch," Meadows said. "We do not need any fuckin' Chechnyans rolling around in this city." I tend to agree," I said."You tend to agree because if they show up it'll mean a war for you," he said."And likely a war for you," I replied.. I groaned. Gramps had never stayed in bed beyond 6am and we were 30 minutes (fast) walk from his house. It was only 20 to Emme’s. Why THE FUCK hadn’t I just said I was going to stay there? Emme smiled and began texting on her phone, oblivious to my glare. We would have to take ‘The Shortcut’.Everyone called it that, so much so that it had become a kind of urban myth in our small town. Parents warned their k**s by saying it in a scary voice, anyone who was late for anything was presumed to have. “Philippa, Philippa.”Yes, she was pretty sure the whispers were coming from a pile of books in a corner. She looked around. Nobody was there.“Philippa, Philippa.”The whispers seemed to be coming from one of the books. Someone must have found out about her secret hobby and planted an MP3 player down here. It couldn’t be Byron, he was twice her age and distinctly short on technical savvy. But no-one else had access to the key.“Philippa, Philippa.”It seemed to be coming from a book about two.