Danielle has rarely been so relieved to return to her apartment. Her feet hurt, her little black cocktail dress has been decorated with half a spilled Cosmopolitan, and the taxi that brought her home smelled of vomit. She totters into her building's foyer and waits for the elevator. Her apartment is only two flights up, but high heels, exhaustion and alcohol make those thirty-two steps seem like the Empire State Building. Once home, she leans against the wall to remove her shoes, and nearly knocks over the ornate wooden coatrack that once belonged to her grandparents. Collapsing onto her bed is a physical relief. She knows she must undress, shower, and drink as much water as she can stand before allowing herself to pass out, but right now it is so good to close her eyes and just lie here. Even if she is all alone.

Her phone rings. She ignores it, lets it warble five times and switch to voice mail. But it rings again, five more times, and again, and again. She tries to tune it out. Even getting up and walking across the room to unplug the phone seems like an unbearable effort. But the sound bores into her brain like a barbed drill bit, and eventually she forces herself to her feet, steps to the glass table, and on impulse, angry now, who dares call her at three AM, she answers.

"Who is this?" she demands.

At first there is no reply. She is about to hang up, thinking it a prank caller, when a woman's voice answers, accented and tentative: "Hello? Is this Danielle Leaf, please?"

"Yes, what do you want? Do you know what time it is?"

"I am so sorry to call you at this hour. But it is necessary."

"Necessary for what?" The woman's accent is Indian. A telemarketer? If it is, Danielle vows, she will call the Better Business Bureau come morning.

The woman says, "My name is Jayalitha. I was a friend of Angus McFadden. I believe, if you are the Danielle Leaf I seek to contact, you will recognize that name?"

Danielle takes a moment to digest that. Then she retreats to the bed, sits on it, and says, "Yes. I knew Angus."

"Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness."

"What are you – Wait. Are you, was I supposed to deliver your passport? To Kishkinda? Like, six months ago?"

"Yes."

"You're supposed to be dead," Danielle says.

"Yes. I am sorry. That was necessary."

Danielle hesitates. She doesn't want anything to do with this. But she can't just hang up. "Why are you calling me?"

"Please, Miss Leaf," Jayalitha said. "I know no one else in this country. I have no money left. I am here without papers or visas. I fear there are men hunting me. Please can you help?"

"This country?" Danielle now notices the absence of a transoceanic call's tiny but perceptible time-lag.

"Men hunting you? Where are you?"

"I am in the city of Los Angeles."

"What are you," Danielle pauses, not sure what question, if any, she wants to ask. She tries to collected her frazzled thoughts, but they won't stop unravelling.

"Please. My telephone card will soon empty. I beg you, Miss Leaf. You are my only hope."

"Don't go confusing me with Obi-Wan."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Shit," Danielle says. "Call me collect."

"I am sorry? Collect?"

"Reverse charges. We call it collect here. Call me collect in ten minutes and I'll try to figure something out."

Danielle takes advantage of the pause to have a quick shower, as cold as she can stand. She is drunk, but not too drunk to know that Trouble is rearing a monstrous and many-fanged head, and she needs to be as sober as possible.

** *

"Where are you exactly?" Danielle asks, after accepting the charges. "I am in Union Station, Los Angeles."

"How did you get there without ID?"

"By ship. From China. It was a terribly long journey."

"And you think there's someone after you?"

"Yes. I called Angus earlier today, I did not yet know what," Jayalitha's voice falters, "what happened to him. Someone else answered. Someone with a terrible voice. And then tonight I was pursued by two men. Perhaps they were just dacoits. Criminals. But I saw them moving through the station, seeking someone. When they saw me they gave chase. I barely escaped. I fear they may return."

"Huh." Danielle isn't sure she should believe any of this. "How did you get my number?"

"From your parents."

"My parents?"

Jayalitha says, "I recalled your last name and that Angus described your parents as wealthy lawyers in the city of Boston. I used the Internet to find their telephone number. Miss Leaf, I am terribly sorry to bother you. It mortifies me to call you like this. But when I learned that Angus is dead... Please, Miss Leaf. I truly believe you are the only person in this world who might be willing to help me. Please. I beg you. Please help me."

"Help you how?"

"Any way you can."

"Well, uh, where are you staying? Maybe I can send you some money."

"I am not staying anywhere," Jayalitha says.

"You're on the street? In Los Angeles? You can't do that."

"I have no choice."

"You don't have any money at all?"

"I am barefoot, Miss Leaf. My pockets are empty. I have no jewellery. I have nothing but the clothes on my back."

"Shit." Danielle tries to think if she knows anyone in Los Angeles. A few acquaintances, but no one she can call to pick up a strange homeless Indian woman in Union Station at night. "Look, I'm sorry, I don't think there's anything I can do for you tonight."

"Tomorrow. The next day. Anything, Miss Leaf. I beg you."

Danielle shakes her head. "Call me back in the morning, okay? I need, I'm sorry, but I'm falling over here, I need to sleep. When my head's clear I'll try to think things over. I can't promise anything. But call me back and I'll answer. Is that okay?"

"Thank you," Jayalitha says passionately, as if Danielle just promised her a million dollars and a Special Forces honour guard. "Thank you, Miss Leaf."

"Don't thank me yet. I haven't done anything for you."

"You have given me hope, Miss Leaf. I thought I was lost."

"Just call me in the morning," Danielle says uncomfortably. "We'll work something out." But she can't imagine what or how.

** *

The next morning's hangover is not too bad. Headache, malaise, waves of nausea when she thinks of eating, all easily dulled by codeine-fortified Tylenol. Danielle has suffered far worse, and recently at that. She tries to work out how many times she has gotten drunk in the last month, but gives up before the calculation is complete. She knows the answer will be depressing.

Maybe she should get a job. But she hates jobs. She could volunteer somewhere. But she hates people. It would be easier if she didn't have any money. Then she would have to get a job. She would have to struggle to get by. She would not go out almost every night with her false friends, the New York social circle she now inhabits; heartless men and women in their thirties with too much money and time on their hands, living an almost hysterically decadent existence of drink and drugs and clubs and parties and Hamptons weekends, as if the Red Death of age does not exist.

Danielle met them through a girl she knew in college. She was welcomed with open arms. This dissolute clan's numbers are constantly diminishing, their members lost to exodus, coupledom, or parenthood, and people like Danielle – fresh blood, a new distraction, someone of the right age and inclination, willing to fill all their hours with empty pleasures – are always welcome. So long as they have money. And Danielle has plenty of money, without even going to her family. At least not directly. Citibank has loaned her four hundred thousand dollars, secured by her Manhattan apartment, which has nearly doubled in value since her parents bought it for her five years ago. The way things are going, she will spend it all in three years – but what does that matter? Three years is an eternity. And Danielle knows her parents will rescue her, if they have to, when that day of reckoning comes. She promised herself, once, when she went to India, that she would never depend on her parents again, but today that passionate oath seems ridiculous. Why should she care about self-reliance? Or, for that matter, anything else?

She sits in her apartment, reads the Times, and drinks two mimosas. The more she waits, the more Jayalitha does not call. Danielle wonders uneasily if something bad has happened to her. She decides she will find some way to send the Indian woman some money. Maybe a thousand dollars. But that will be all. It is more than she deserves, after the way she has dredged up bad memories of Laurent and those two months of madness. That was only a few months ago, but Danielle had managed to make it feel so distant, so long ago and far away, until last night's phone call. Today those memories feel like a wound whose scab peeled off before it even began to heal.

Eventually she decides to call Keiran. He might want to know that Jayalitha is still alive. Maybe Danielle can outsource her charity case to him. She has spoken only once to Keiran since their surreal abduction to Jack Shadbold's superyacht, a week after her return to New York, when she called and asked him to keep track of any police investigation of the bombing. Back then she was terrified of being hunted down, arrested, extradited. That fear has since withered away. Now the thought of actually being investigated and punished for her part, or more accurately non-part, in Laurent's actions seems ludicrous. Danielle knows she was completely irrelevant to Laurent. As she was to Angus and Estelle and their foundation. The same way she has been irrelevant to everything all her life. She has left no more trace on this world than a drifting butterfly. Pretty, briefly entertaining, but completely immaterial.

When she picks up the phone, the dial tone pulses rapidly, meaning she has voice mail. Danielle guiltily punches the code. Jayalitha must have called already, and Danielle slept through it without knowing. And indeed there are two messages of an automated voice asking if she will accept a collect call. She hangs up, hesitates, and calls Keiran.

"Danielle," he answers warmly. Her outgoing caller ID is supposed to be disabled, but she supposes that doesn't apply to hackers. "How are you?"

"Fine," she says shortly. She doesn't want this to become a personal conversation. "Guess who called me last night?"

"Rin Tin Tin?" Keiran is clearly in one of his whimsical moods.

"Jayalitha."

"And who's she when she's at – Jayalitha? But she's dead."

"No. She isn't. Laurent lied." Danielle winces. "Go figure. She's in LA. Arrived on a boat from China or something, illegally. She must have been really out of touch, she didn't even know Angus was dead until she got there. She said I was the only one she could call."

"It might have been an actress."

"I don't think so. I think it's her. She says there's men chasing her."

"Chasing her? Why? How do they know she's there?"

"I don't know." Danielle's guilt at having missed the previous two phone calls intensifies as she realizes Jayalitha may have been running for her life while Danielle slept. "Apparently she called Angus and someone else answered. With a terrible voice, whatever that means. Then two guys turned up looking for her but she got away."

"Wait a moment," Keiran says, his voice suddenly taut. "She rang Angus, someone else answered, and then she rang you?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh?"

After a moment he says, flat and businesslike, "I'll ring you back. Lock your door. If anybody knocks, call the police."

"What the hell –"

"I'll call you right back." He hangs up.

** *

Keiran's warning is ridiculous. His hacker and drug-culture background has made him paranoid, that's all. Nobody is going to come after Danielle in her 16th Street apartment on a bright Sunday afternoon. Nobody can possibly have any reason to. The phone rings. Danielle jumps, scolds herself for being skittish, and answers.

"This is MCI," a robot voice says. "Will you accept a collect call from," and then Jayalitha's voice, identifying herself.

"Yes," Danielle says.

"Miss Leaf. I am sorry to trouble you again."

"It's no trouble," Danielle lies. "How are you?"

After a pause, Jayalitha says, "I believe I have been worse. And yourself?"

"Hung over," Danielle says, and quickly kicks herself for complaining about a hangover to a penniless, homeless, friendless illegal refugee. "Never mind. Is there any way I can send you money?"

"I am afraid I know nothing about how such things work in America. Will my lack of papers make it difficult?"

Danielle sighs. "Yes." She has never used Western Union, or poste restante, but she can't imagine them not requiring ID.

Her phone beeps. Call waiting. "Just a minute," she says, and switches over.

Keiran says, "Someone's been paying for Angus's phone."

"What?"

"His mobile number. Someone paid to keep it active, and forwarded all calls to an untraceable VOIP gateway. I hacked into Virgin Mobile's phone records. He's received exactly one call in the last two months. From Union Station, Los Angeles, yesterday."

"So she's telling the truth," Danielle says.

"Then the truth is bad news. Someone keeps Angus's phone alive, then answers in an anonymized voice? Must be a hacker. Must have a reason to go to all that work."

"What are you talking about? What reason?"

"Think it through. They've been waiting for her. They knew she was alive. Angus's phone was bait for when she rose from the dead. They traced the call, now they know where she is, and they're after her."

"They who?"

"P2. Laurent. Shadbold. Justice International. Who else?"

Danielle grunts at the sound of Laurent's name. "Why?"

"Because she knows something she shouldn't," Keiran says. "Something big. Come on, Dani, think. That's why she had to pretend to be dead for the last six months. That's why she's in trouble. That's why she is trouble."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if I was P2, I'd take a look at what other numbers she called with that phone card. And I'd come across a very familiar name."

"Me." Danielle sits down hard on her couch. She feels the world whirl sickeningly around her, like she has had too much too drink already. If Keiran is right, the mere act of answering her phone last night was disastrous. They won't know Jayalitha didn't tell her anything.

"Exactly," Keiran says.

"They wouldn't really. Would they?"

"Wouldn't really what?"

"Do anything," Danielle says softly.

"Predicting the behaviour of psychotic dying billionaires is not my speciality. I suppose it depends on what exactly Jayalitha knows. Did she tell you?"

"No. I've got her on the other line right now."

Keiran thinks a bit.

"Whatever it is, it must be important for them to go to all this work to catch her," Danielle says, thinking aloud, beginning to realize how much trouble she might be in. She feels dizzy, like she is on some kind of carnival ride that won't stop, is spinning out of control.

"Not just important. Dangerous. To them. And by logical extension, her as well."

"And now me too."

"And now you," Keiran agrees. "Tell her to get away from Union Station before it's too late. And then, maybe I'm being paranoid, but I think at the moment paranoid is good. You get out of there too."

"Out of where?"

"Your apartment. New York. Go someplace you can't be found for a while. Actually. Wait. Any chance you could get to Los Angeles?"

"Are you serious? Won't that just get me into more trouble?"

"She needs help," Keiran says. "Angus and Estelle would have wanted us to help."

"So go there yourself."

"I will. But I can't go today. And she needs help now."

"I'm starting to think I do too. I'm going to call the police."

"And what? Tell them the whole story?"

Danielle thinks a moment. "Maybe not."

"If Shadbold really has gone on the warpath, the only thing your NYPD can do for you is draw the chalk outline around your corpse."

"Thanks. That's so comforting."

"Just get out of there. Go to L.A. Get Jayalitha to meet you."

"Why? If we've got our own problems, why do we have to worry about her? Can't we just send her some money? I mean, I'm sorry for her, but she's Angus's friend, not mine."

"I want to know what she knows," Keiran says. "Don't you?"