1

“THERE WEREN’T ANY GOATS on the plane,” said Dr. Barry Hancock Cantrell after emerging from customs.

“Were you surprised?” asked his cousin, Dr. Andrew Menton, who had come to the airport to meet him.

“Pleasantly.”

“Good. Then welcome to normality, if you consider Los Angeles normal,” said Andrew, and hefted a couple of Barry’s suitcases.

After serving two years in the Peace Corps on Prego Prego, a Pacific island formerly colonized by the Italians, Barry was prepared to see goats almost everywhere; they were a mainstay of the island’s economy.

They rode in the front seats of cars and slept on living room couches. They had also arrived at his pediatric clinic with their owners claiming to love them like children.

Barry said no to them and to anyone else with an inappropriate request, however tempted he might be to take a goat’s temperature just to maintain good public relations. He maintained high standards at his clinic and always, despite the heat, wore a white coat.

Now Barry shrugged aside his stiffness from the long flight and grabbed the rest of his luggage. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“It’s the least I could do for my new partner. Believe me, I have a vested interest in making sure you don’t get lost,” Andrew said as they rode a moving walkway through the huge modern airport.

An image of its counterpart on Prego Prego flashed into Barry’s mind. The ramshackle terminal barely provided shelter from tropical rainstorms. Passengers raced across cracked pavement to reach the planes, en route battling monkeys that darted onto the tarmac to snatch at their carry-on luggage.

Inspired by his late mother’s idealism, Barry had set out to help save the world after completing his medical residency. Serving on the island had been a worthwhile experience, but boy, was he ready to be back in the U.S.A.

He and his cousin formed a matched set, Barry realized as the two of them stepped off the moving walkway. Although Andrew was seven years older and a few inches shorter, they had similar broad shoulders, moderately muscular builds and dark brown hair.

The family resemblance should make patients feel comfortable, now that Barry was joining Andrew’s upscale pediatric practice. He made a mental note to find out where his cousin shopped for those tailored slacks and crisp shirts. His own wardrobe was sadly lacking.

“Your flight was a little late, thank goodness, or you’d have had to wait for me,” Andrew said as they skirted a group of camera-laden tourists. “You know how it is, trying to leave early on a Friday afternoon. Kids always get sick on the weekend. You’d think some of them could at least wait until tomorrow.”

“You work Saturdays?” When he’d agreed to join the practice, Barry hadn’t queried about specifics.

“Yes, for a few hours. I’m giving you this weekend off, though,” Andrew said. “You can relax until Monday.”

“Thanks.” Barry hesitated to make his next request, then reminded himself of how urgently he wanted to start his search. “I’m a bit jet-lagged, but I’d like to explore the nightlife. Can you recommend any places to go dancing?”

“Sure. I’ll give you that information as soon as I have a free hand,” Andrew said. “I came prepared because you asked me the same thing in your e-mail last week.”

“I did? I guess I’m a bit overeager,” Barry admitted. “Well, I’m thirty-one years old. In med school, I wasn’t ready to settle down, but boy, has that changed.”

A scratchy touch on Barry’s throat reminded him that he was still wearing the island’s farewell necklace of seashells and macaroni. He would miss the laid-back island ways, his small patients and his dedicated staff.

He would not miss the absence of a woman in his life. After two years of self-imposed celibacy, he was eager to find the right lady to marry.

The men exited the terminal into a cool early-March breeze. It never got this chilly on Prego Prego. Usually the air steamed in the heat and carried the scents of salt water and blossoms. Los Angeles smelled of exhaust fumes.

Barry hadn’t seen this many cars in the entire past two years, he noted, as a long line of vehicles halted to let the two men cross to the parking structure. He liked cars. Seeing so many at once, though, was a little overwhelming.

“What kind of woman are you looking for?” Andrew asked as they entered the parking garage.

“Someone steady and reliable,” Barry said, having given the matter due consideration. “Pretty but not flashy. Intelligent.”

“Anything else?” His cousin led the way into a garage elevator.

Mentally, Barry searched through the scenarios he’d created during the long, lonely nights on Prego Prego. “She should have a career that matters to her. Of course, she’ll have to want children, too.”

“Absolutely,” said Andrew, who had two kids of his own.

“I guess I’m asking a lot,” Barry said.

“On the other hand, you’re offering a lot,” his cousin commented. “You’re a doctor.”

“I’m not rich,” he pointed out.

“With the proper investments, you’ll get there.” The elevator door opened, and Andrew led the way between rows of automobiles.

“Here’s my car.” Stopping behind a Lexus sedan, Andrew set down the suitcases, fished in his pocket and handed Barry a slip of paper. “Before I forget, here’s the name and address of a club. Can’t vouch for it personally, though. I had to rely on one of my sources.”

“That sounds intriguing.”

“Apparently this club scene is a complicated business.” Andrew opened the trunk. “This is supposed to be the newest, hottest place.”

“I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that,” Barry admitted.

“Have a drink, and if you don’t like the scene, go home,” Andrew said. “It’s not as if you’re going to meet the perfect woman on your first try.”

“Besides, faint heart ne’er won fair maiden, right?” Barry said.

“Something like that.”

As they piled his luggage into the trunk, his mind skipped ahead to that evening. He pictured a woman sitting at the bar, perhaps with long dark hair like his sister-in-law, Cindi, or maybe short blond locks. Their gazes would meet…

“Cindi arranged for the leasing company to leave your new car in your garage,” Andrew added. “It’s a sharp little sports number.”

“What color?” Barry asked.

“Metallic blue, she said.”

“Sounds perfect.” Sleek but not loud, that was what he’d requested. And a midpriced American model that wouldn’t strain his budget.

On Prego Prego, Barry had lived in a hut made of scrap iron with a roof fashioned from discarded tires. He was looking forward to occupying the new condo he’d bought through an Internet broker.

“Your utilities are turned on, so you’re all set,” Andrew said. “We’re expecting you at my house for dinner Sunday night. Think you can find your way there?”

“Sure.” Although he’d grown up in Austin, Texas, Barry and his mother, Meredith, had moved to L.A. when he was seventeen, after she and his father divorced. It had been a painful split, following years of disagreements.

His parents hadn’t fought over anything as mundane as money or religion. Both were sixties-era idealists who grew apart over the years. Meredith came to believe the government could solve all problems while his father, Lew, a family doctor in private practice, contended fiercely that the government was the problem.

After moving west with Meredith, Barry had visited the Menton family home often while attending college and medical school at UCLA. “I can’t wait to see Cindi and Aunt Grace,” he said.

His cousin nodded. “They’re delighted that you’re here.”

As he got in the car, Barry reflected that he couldn’t wait to find his own version of Cindi—smart, efficient and elegant. Maybe it would happen this evening, if he got very, very lucky.

THE PEDIATRIC waiting room erupted into chaos while Chelsea Byers was on the phone in the reception bay, trying to schedule a child’s appointment. The mother, a real estate agent, kept putting her on hold to take other calls.

The trouble started, as far as Chelsea could tell, when three-year-old Laryssa swiped a Lego piece from two-year-old Krystle. Wailing, Krystle threw her doll, missed, and hit four-year-old Tisa, who stumbled against the giant aquarium.

All three girls were children of privilege. Their clothes were probably purchased on Rodeo Drive, their hair was cut and curled at designer salons and one girl had bragged that she drove her motorized minicar through her family’s mansion.

They also knew how to act like fishwives.

With a scream of outrage, Tisa flung herself at Krystle. The smaller child dove beneath the Lego table, wiggled out the other end and banged Laryssa on the kneecaps, sending her crashing to the carpet.

“Yo! Stop killing each other!” Wedging the phone between cheek and shoulder, Chelsea waved her hands. Gold sparkles flew from her fingernails.

She could feel her purple-tipped black hair bursting free of its clip, so she set down the phone. A voice squawked on the other end. Chelsea said, “Excuse me,” and put the woman on hold.

To her relief, the three girls stopped fighting and stared at her. “You have funny hair,” said Tisa.

“Can I see your nails?” asked Laryssa.

“Sure.” Chelsea held them out. Poking at the sparkles, the little girl giggled.

Krystle pouted. “Me touch hair!”

“I’m not sure if I should let you.” Chelsea looked toward their mothers for permission. The three of them regarded her with varying degrees of exasperation.

“It’s no wonder they’re restless,” said Laryssa’s mother. “We’ve been waiting half an hour.”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Withers is the only one in the office this afternoon,” Chelsea said. “Dr. Menton went to meet his new partner at the airport. He’ll be starting here on Monday.”

“His new partner?” asked Tisa’s mom.

“He’s Dr. Menton’s cousin, Dr. Barry Hancock Cantrell.” Chelsea ducked out of the reception bay, which was edged by a semicircular counter. Through a door from the inner hallway, she entered the waiting room. “Here.” She crouched to let Krystle touch her flamboyantly dyed hair.

“His new partner is a Hancock?” Laryssa’s mother sounded impressed.

Benedict Hancock, grandfather of Andrew Menton and Barry Cantrell, had been a legendary pediatrician in Los Angeles. Chelsea wasn’t impressed by pedigrees, and from his reputation she expected this Barry person to be a huge stuffed shirt, but the mothers were obviously bedazzled.

“I guess we can put up with a little inconvenience,” said Krystle’s mother. “For a Hancock.”

The three little girls surrounded Chelsea as if she were a new form of entertainment. She found she enjoyed being down here on the floor, away from the demands of the phone.

Let voice mail handle things for a while. As for leaving the real estate lady on hold, turnabout was fair play.

“Anybody want a horsy ride?” she asked.

“Yippee!” The girls piled on.

Chelsea collapsed with an exaggerated groan. “Not all at once.”

“Me first!” said Tisa.

“Me!” That was Krystle.

“I want the longest ride,” said Laryssa.

None of them got off.

“Make up your minds,” said Chelsea.

“I’m thinking,” said Tisa.

At close range, Chelsea discovered, the kids were cute. At least, as much of them as she could see from this angle.

She’d never felt comfortable around children. Being a receptionist in a pediatrician’s office hadn’t been her first choice of job, although she liked it better than the half-dozen positions she’d held previously.

Speaking of positions, this one was cramping her legs. “Somebody has to get off,” she said, to no effect.

The nurse, Helen Nguyen, pushed open the internal door. “Laryssa Oglesby,” she read from her chart. “Chelsea? What are you doing on the floor?”

“Trying to breathe.”

“Having any luck?”

“Not really.”

By the time Mrs. Oglesby removed her daughter and Chelsea gave the other two girls their rides, her slacks were covered with carpet lint and her scalp ached from having her hair pulled as reins.

Kids might be cute, but she wondered where their mothers got their patience.

With a sigh, Chelsea went to pick up the calls on hold. It was three-fifteen. In a few hours, she’d be free for the weekend.

Friday night was playtime. She planned to hit the newest, edgiest nightclub, the exciting kind that opened in a converted warehouse without benefit of fire inspections or code enforcement, and would no doubt close as soon as the authorities got wind of it.

Maybe she’d meet a really cool guy, the wilder the better. If not, she’d dance with lots of geeks and have a good time anyway.

BARRY STOOD inside The Slash/Off! Club, trying to take his bearings.

Beams of colored light swept the vast space with dizzying speed, making the throng of shaggy dancers resemble a herd of stampeding buffalo. Between the so-called music and the stomping of feet, he hadn’t heard such loud noise since the last typhoon hit Prego Prego.

“Move it!” came a woman’s voice from behind. “You’re blocking the way!”

Since she had to scream in his ear to make herself heard, she came close enough to give Barry a whiff of her perfume. It had a sharp, fresh tang that he couldn’t identify, definitely not old-fashioned floral.

He moved aside. As the woman brushed by, he got an impression of delicate features set off by black hair tipped in purple. On Prego Prego, she would have been taken for a strega, a witch who told fortunes.

A drunken couple weaving toward the door shoved into the woman. When she stumbled, Barry caught her arm to steady her.

The fabric of her blouse felt slinky against his hand. Its indefinable colors shimmered in the shifting light, and its low V-neck gave him an unexpected view of soft, uplifted orbs.

Embarrassed, he released her. Not quickly enough to keep her from noticing where he’d been looking, apparently, because the woman bristled at him.

“Having fun?” she demanded. A lull in the music made her voice carry.

“Not yet. I just got here,” Barry said.

Holding her ground against jostling passersby, the woman scrutinized him with narrowed eyes. “How’d you get by the guard in front? I mean, a white suit! You look like a refugee from some safari movie.”

Barry had been surprised to find a man posted in front of the club rejecting anyone who wasn’t dressed bizarrely enough. He hadn’t expected to pass muster, although surely he was due some points for the stubborn wrinkles in his only casual suit. “I told him I was wearing a faux-fur loincloth underneath.”

“Are you?” the woman asked.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Barry stopped, surprised at himself for flirting. This wild-haired woman with the low-cut, bare-midriff blouse was as far from his style as a female could get, regardless of the heat she aroused in his midsection. “Forget I said that.”

The noise that passed for music resumed its ear-shattering shriek. The woman drifted into the throng, vanishing from sight almost instantly.

Barry felt a moment’s disappointment. She might not be his type, but he would have enjoyed a little more interaction.

After two years of celibacy, he was obviously far too vulnerable, Barry thought. Best to forget her.

To his left, he spotted a bar constructed of raw-looking wood, and headed toward it through drifts of sawdust. Come to think of it, once he disregarded the high-tech gizmos that passed for decor, the entire club resembled a warehouse that had been converted hastily into a nightspot.

What kind of sources did Andrew rely on? Barry couldn’t picture his conservative cousin hanging out in a place like this, that was for sure.

He found a stool and tried to catch the attention of the bartender, who was waiting on customers at the other end. In addition to a hefty admission price, the Slash/Off! required a two-drink minimum, which he’d paid for in advance. Barry decided to make one of them nonalcoholic, since he was driving.

People streamed past him. For his taste, the women were by turns too offbeat, too hard-faced, too gaunt. In comparison, the strega had been downright conservative.

Jet lag was catching up to him, he realized. Maybe he should forget about the drinks and go home.

“Tough week?” asked the man sitting next to him. Mercifully, the rock music wasn’t as loud in this corner, so he could make out the fellow’s words.

“Long flight,” Barry said.

“It doesn’t help that airline service is so lousy.” The man had a thin face with a scraggly growth around the chin. His expression was friendly, though. “Hi, I’m Will.” He extended his hand.

Barry started to say his name, then thought better of it. Although the guy seemed harmless, he didn’t want to give out too much information.

“Hank,” he said, shaking Will’s hand. Hank had been his nickname in sixth grade, derived from his middle name Hancock. He’d used it because there were two other boys named Barry in the class.

“Save my seat, Hank.” Will went to join the knot of people around the bartender. A few minutes later, he returned with two glasses of white wine. “It’s the best I could do. The guy had them already poured.”

Barry handed over one of his drink receipts. “Thanks.”

“No big deal.” Will stuffed the piece of paper into his shirt pocket. “How’d you hear about this place, anyway?”

“Through a friend.” He took a sip of the wine. It was odd-tasting stuff, even by Prego Prego standards. “Why?”

“With that white suit, I figured you don’t live around here.” The man watched him so intently that Barry began to feel uncomfortable.

He’d been ill at ease when he arrived on Prego Prego, too, especially the night a monkey swiped his undershorts and paraded around town in them. Since the bright gold-and-black shorts had “Go, Bruins!” printed on them, there’d been no question about whom they belonged to.

Barry had never felt in any danger on the island, though. He did now, although he couldn’t figure out why. His temples hurt, probably from jet lag. His vision was getting foggy, too.

Another sip of wine might clear his head. Barry was lifting the glass when a slender feminine arm reached past him and knocked it away, spilling wine across the counter.

“Hey!” Blearily, he peered at his attacker. It was the woman with black-and-purple hair.

“You idiot!” she said. “You stand out like a sore thumb in that white suit. Don’t you know your drink is probably drugged?”

“No, it’s not. He…” Barry looked around for Will. “Where’d he go?”

“Back into the hole he crawled out of, I hope,” the lady said. “I saw him carrying two glasses and it made me suspicious. Women don’t accept drinks from guys at places like this because they spike them.”

The room was spinning, not unpleasantly. “How can you spike a drink that’s already alcoholic?”

“Boy, are you naive. Where’d you come from, anyway?” she asked. “Outer Mongolia?”

“More or less.” Barry realized he couldn’t pronounce Prego Prego in his current condition without spitting. “Why would he spike my drink?”

“You’d have awakened in an alley, if you were lucky enough to wake up at all,” the woman said. “Minus your wallet and your keys. Your car would be gone and when you got home, so would the contents of your apartment.”

Barry felt utterly stupid. Not to mention stupefied. “Nobody warned me.”

“I just did,” the woman said. “Did you come with somebody? You must not have drunk much, because you’re still conscious, but I don’t think you should drive.”

“Can’t drive,” Barry agreed. For some reason, he found himself willing to go along with anything she suggested. It must be an effect of the drug.

“You could drive me home,” he said.

“I guess I could. I came with my roommate, so I have to find her and tell her.” Without hesitation, the woman clambered up a stool and onto the bar, where she stood peering into the maelstrom of dancers.

At this angle, Barry noticed that square-heeled open sandals supported her delicate feet, with the toenails painted midnight blue and studded with ruby-red stones. The shapely length of her legs extended up to the short wrap skirt.

In his present condition, he found blue-and-red toenails utterly fascinating, not to mention the long slender legs and short skirt.

“Anything you can’t see from down there?” the woman asked. “I’d hate for you to miss anything.”

“You’re pretty,” Barry said dreamily.

The woman climbed down. “You’re smashed.”

“Feeling no pain,” he agreed.

“You definitely need help. My name’s Chelsea, by the way,” she said. “I don’t see Starshine anywhere.”

“Let’s go outside and I’ll show you,” Barry said.

“Starshine is my roommate.” Amusement tugged at her lips. “You really are far gone. I barely rescued you in time.”

“I like being rescued.” She had lovely eyes, he thought, purple with black flecks to match her hair or, at least, in this light that was the color they appeared.

“You didn’t tell me your name.” Chelsea scrambled to the floor and took his arm.

“Uh…” He thought it started with a B, but his lips were too rubbery to pronounce it. “Hank.”

“Come on, Hank.” She guided him to his feet. Barry discovered that his knees had gone soft. It was an interesting sensation.

In a dreamlike state, he passed through the crowd and out into the crisp night. On the way, he bumped into the guard, who took a long, angry look at his suit. “Hey, bud! You were supposed to strip down to your loincloth.”

Barry struggled to marshal the mental resources and verbal agility that had placed him third in his class at medical school. “Huh?” was the best he could do.

“You have your nerve!” Chelsea told the hulking guard. “My client was drugged, right here in this poor pretense for an establishment. You tell your boss he’ll be hearing from my firm.” Before the man could reply, she hauled Barry out of the building.

“You’re a lawyer?” he asked, intrigued, as he wobbled alongside her across the sprawling parking lot. Around it rose the stark rectangular shapes of warehouses.

“No. I didn’t want Mr. Jockstrap Mentality to get the idea he was entitled to strip you himself,” she said. “Where’d you park?”

“I’m not sure.”

It took a while to locate the sports car. Then Barry was fumbling in the glove compartment for his address when Chelsea pointed out that they had to head for her place, not his. “Since it’s your car, I’d have no way of getting home. You can sleep on my floor and drive to your place tomorrow.”

“Whatever,” he said.

“Nice wheels, by the way,” said Chelsea, and started the engine. She backed up so quickly that Barry left his stomach in the parking space.

Off they shot into the night. Dazedly, he reflected that he was entrusting his life to a strange woman who drove too fast and had a roommate named Starshine.

He just hoped she didn’t keep goats in her apartment.