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fortune teller had read her palm once. She'd said that Grace would live far from city lights and that she'd have to pass the stars to get there.

Grace smirked at herself in the mirror. At 27, she was firmly entrenched in city life. She had worked her ass off moving from being an administrative assistant fresh out of college to her current position as an information broker for Mario Fisher Ltd., one of the top information traders. Her job certainly wasn't going to be taking her past the stars. Information brokering was firmly entrenched on Earth, with no reason to visit any of the outlying mining colonies. Even competitive intelligence ops, like Dennis, had no reason to go off-world. All the decisions were made here. Grace was a city girl through and through.

She turned off the tap and looked around the room. No paper towels were in the holder, or anywhere else. She cast a brief glance at the bathroom stalls and decided the chances of toilet paper were pretty slim. Sighing, she wiped her hands on the dark grey fabric of her skirt, hoping she wasn't doing any more damage than the latte had already done. She took one more look in the mirror, making sure no blood had found its way to her face and her blond-streaked brown hair was more or less in place. She looked at her wrist to check the time. She had time for one shot to toast the dog before she had to get home.

It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dimness in the bar. It was still early enough that business was slow, thankfully. The last thing Grace wanted was to deal with the kind of people who would be frequenting streetside bars. She picked the least dirty looking of the bar stools and slid onto it, her purse hitting the bar with a jingle of loose change. The bartender, a cute Asian guy, cocked an eyebrow in her direction. "A salty dog shot," she requested. The bartender nodded and began mixing vodka and grapefruit juice.

"Was that your dog?" asked a man a few seats down.

"What?"

The man nodded toward the dirty window looking out on the street. "The dog. Was it yours?"

Grace could just barely make out the remains of the stain outside. "No," she said, taking the drink the bartender handed to her. "He wasn't mine. He wasn't anyone's." The drink burned as it went down.

The man shifted, holding out a hand to her. "Edward."

Grace paused before taking his hand. He was handsome, in a rough guy cleaned up way. His brown hair was conservatively cut, and a lone earring glinted in his left ear. The white tee shirt

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