author's note: new format, giving locations, dates, and times. I'm thinking about trying this kind of thing out for my NaNo this year, and am experimenting with it in the mean time. first chapter edited slightly to reflect this change. reviews are appreciated. ;-)

Bryant Manor
Boston, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
June 10th, 2004
5:33 PM

"Now isn't the time or the place for lolly-gagging, Celine." Alex murmured to his sister next to him.

"Oh, give me half a chance to work my charms." The older woman replied, easily keeping pace with him.

"This is a job, Celine. Nothing more."

"I realize, Alex. I'm a professional." Celine paused for a moment, and Alex automatically slowed when she did, glancing around conversationally as though he'd just been alerted to the fact that there was an old friend approaching. "Person I'd be most concerned about at the moment is that little thief you got to come along with us."

"She's good at her job." Alex defended, not looking at Celine.

"She doesn't understand that conning is just a simpler degree of thievery."

"She doesn't like human interaction."

"It's creepy."

"Look, just do your job, and let her do hers."

A pause.

"You better know what you're doing, Alex." Celine skirted past him, and a whiff of her perfume when up his nostrils. It stunk. He'd told her as much when she'd been smelling it at the store but, as usual, she'd failed to listen to him. "I don't want to end up dead because your most recent charity case couldn't deliver."

"You won't." Alex murmured, even though he knew she could no longer hear him.

He honestly hoped he was right.

With a weary hand, Trevor Strauss wiped some of the stream off of the mirror and found too equally tired green eyes staring back at him. He looked like something straight out of a horror movie, and he knew it only too well.

"Gotta be more careful how much you drink." He muttered to himself, rubbing one eye with his index finger and the other with his thumb. He drew them together, pinching the bridge of his nose, and then turned away with a half-sigh. In passing, he wondered if he would ever be able to remember the name of the woman he'd entertained the night before; but he knew it was unlikely. She'd taken herself out of the room the moment he'd opened his eyes and stumbled to string together an adequate sentence.

It was all beginning to go downhill. Again.

Trevor wandered back into the middle of the room, where the single bed was set up perfectly aligned with the television. His bag was tossed haphazardly into the middle of it, where he'd placed it while he'd searched for clean underwear before taking a shower. Now, he tugged out a clean white t-shirt and pulled it over his head, not bothering for the moment with pants.

The alarm clock blared noisily, and he reached over to shut it off, having forgotten entirely that he'd set it. It was kind of pointless anyway. Trevor hadn't slept through an entire night since his sister's death three years ago. The doctors called it insomnia, but Trevor knew for a fact that it was merely the fact that the nightmares terrified him. Imagining her, sitting there in the middle of her room, making the conscious decision to take her own life...

Of all the people who deserved to die in the world, Lucy had not been one of them.

They'd ruled her death a suicide, but Trevor considered it murder. If life had progressed for them as normal, if the events that had happened directly before her death never had happened, if those people had never entered their lives...

Life was a bucket of ifs, and he just kept drawing more from the well.

Trevor brushed a lock of blond hair out of his soft green eyes and sat down on the end of the bed, staring across the way at the mirror. His eyes were listless and devoid of emotion, and his expression was drawn and tired. If anyone from the family were to see him looking like this, they'd immediately disown him.

Trevor ran a hand through his hair, musing it up severely, and leaned back slightly against his suitcase. His eyes hurt from lack of sleep, as did most of his bones. But sleep was a right, and he'd not yet earned it.

Sighing, he stood and wandered across the way to the place where his laptop was set up.

It was time to get to work.

Pleasant Pines Apartments, Apt. 201
Paradise, Wyoming
April 20th, 2008
5:15 AM

The insistent whining of her miniature dachshund slowly drew Riley Scott out of what had previously been a sound sleep. She groaned, rolling over in her comfortable bed, and slapped at the air as though to turn off the alarm clock.

The whining persisted.

"No." She half-muttered, half-groaned, still slapping futilely at the air. Her hand fell limply over the side of the bed and hung there, relieved beyond relief when the whining stopped.

But then, a cold, wet tongue ran it's self across her hand.

"Not now, Pips." She murmured, withdrawing her hand.

The whimpering resumed immediately, and Riley finally found it within herself to open her deep blue eyes and stare at the blinking red numbers painted on her alarm clock. 5:15, it said clearly. There was no room for doubt, since she'd double checked to make sure the clock was right last night.

With a sigh, Riley drew herself up into a sitting position and glared at the black-and-tan weenie dog sitting on her floor. He was wagging his tail as though he weren't perfectly aware of the fact he was making her wake up three hours before she'd wanted to. She gave a moment of serious consideration to chucking a pillow straight at his face; but, as though sensing her evil thoughts towards him, Pippin tilted his head to one side and peered at her through intense puppy dog brown eyes, the like of which she'd never been able to say no to.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slipped them into the slippers she intended to wear outside, reaching for her robe as she did. It was five in the morning; any person who was out and about at this time in the morning was crazy, and therefore she didn't care about their opinion of her.

Vaguely, she remembered the days when she'd sometimes not even go to bed until five.

Some part of her whispered that that had been the life; but, remembering how tired she was and how quickly she wanted to get back under her warm covers, Riley opted not to reminisce right now. Besides, that life hadn't been real. Or... good.

She scooped up her dog on the way out, flipping him over on his back in the crook of her arm and nosing him, subconsciously treating him like the baby he was so willing to be. Named Pippin after the hobbit from the Lord of the Rings, she intended to one day get the weenie a brother and fittingly name him "Merry" (maybe, she reflected now, in the haziness of her still-mostly-asleep mind, a sister would better fit that name); but for now, she was perfectly content to spoil the dog.

"You know you're a pain in the butt, right, Pips?" She asked, automatically reaching for the leash she'd abandoned on the hallway floor the night before.

Pippin licked her finger in reply, and she grinned, quickly fastened the buckle to his black-studded collar. He wiggled out of her arms and she let him down, running a hand through her strawberry blond hair as she walked towards the door, snatching up her pooper-scooper accesories as she went. It was a routine by now, and one she had memorized; she hardly even needed to look.

She and Pippin had been doing this for two years without fail by now.

Suddenly, Pippin drew up short, his posture tense. He crouched and let out a sharp bark.

It was unexpected. Pips didn't usually bark. She opened her mouth to scold; but before she even got a chance, she realized he had perfectly good reason to bark.

A pair of dark eyes were locked with hers, and they did not belong to a dog. A half-smile curved up a pair of all-too-familiar lips. At the unexpectedness of it all, Riley sucked in her breath, staring at him in disbelief.

And then, he spoke.

"Hey, Riles."