Dar reached behind her and picked up her mug, curling her hands around the ceramic surface and taking a sip of the flavored, pungent beverage.

She enjoyed the peace of early morning, and if she didn’t turn her head to see the long Miami Beach skyline rising to her left, she could imagine she was out in the Caribbean somewhere, viewing the sunrise.

Her condominium was a split-level townhouse, sharing a cluster with four other residents here on the outer eastern shore of the small island. The outer walls were reinforced steel and concrete, neatly designed and landscaped to simulate quaint adobe, but meeting current hurricane codes as was mandatory in Dade County.

That meant low, sloping roofs and all-concrete block construction, and a challenge for high-class architects to make buildings look less like bunkers, but Dar had spent one Category Five hurricane in the place, and she was glad to skip on the glamour in trade for having the walls stay put around her.

Fisher Island was an exclusive community, offering large oceanfront residences for those who could afford to pay unbelievable prices for them. Dar was thankful that she had inherited hers. She had seen the price tags for them, and found it hard to believe someone would spend five million dollars for what amounted to an apartment. Even a really, really nice apartment, with five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and a gorgeous kitchen, which she seldom used.

She could afford it. Being the VP Ops of the largest computer services company in the world garnered her a very healthy paycheck, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Thanks, Aunt May.” She toasted her departed, much-beloved aunt with her coffee. May Roberts had been something of a sensation in the family, Tropical Storm 5

marrying four men and burying them all, all the while adding to her considerable bank balance. She’d bought the condo as an investment and occasionally rented it out, but had willed it to her niece on her death, correctly figuring it was better for Dar to live here than in “that horrible Grove.”

The little place among the jasmine and ficus was far more Dar’s style: a studio, with a hot plate and huge bay windows, and worn real wood floors that had fifty years of dogs’ nail marks in them. She’d been able to walk to the waterside and wander through the area’s sometimes oddball residents and not feel out of place in her hiking sandals and cutoffs.

No one had to know she was a corporate big shot. She liked it that way.

Dar studied the horizon. She could have rented this place out when May died, and kept living where she was, but it had occurred vaguely to her that she might want to have a party someday and the condo had a lot more space for that.Plus the view from the porch of the Atlantic to the horizon was priceless.

After several years of residing in the middle of the eclectic artists’

community to the south, the change had taken some getting used to, but Dar had finally decided she liked the island. It was accessible only by car ferry.

She could get away from the city there and spend some time in quiet solitude without fights, and crime, or even noisy neighbors. Five million dollar apartments had thick walls.

The maintenance fees were outrageous, and accounted for all the island’s amenities, but they were less than the rent she’d been paying in the Grove, so it had worked out for her in the end. She found herself enjoying a lifestyle she’d never considered attempting, and even had fun watching the upper crust socialites who populated the island at their strange social rituals.

The sun turned the horizon coral pink, and before her eyes, the sea slowly moved from inky black, to fluttered dark gray, to a deep, rich green. The offshore current was lightly choppy, breaking the surface up into ripples, and she took a breath of the sea air with a sense of pleasure.

Its ever-changing, elemental nature had always appealed to her, and she often spent her early mornings in the peace of its uneven rhythm before she went on with her problem-filled, hectic days.

“Well, time to get moving.” She finished her coffee, then slipped inside the glass doors, moving from the warm humidity to chill air conditioning with a tiny shiver. The tile floor was cool against her bare feet, and she went quickly to the walk-in closet, shedding her T-shirt and exchanging it for her workout gear, which consisted of a pair of running shorts and a snug sports top.

She pulled her hair back and put a band around it, then sat down to put on her shoes, tugging the laces and tying them with efficient fingers. “I don’t think your wife would like my fitness secrets, Alastair,” she remarked to herself wryly. “They involve sweat, and lots of it.”

With a sigh, she stood and walked over to the small closet just inside the alcove where the stairs came up. She ducked inside to pull out a set of wrist and ankle weights, which she fastened into place carefully. Then she slipped down the stairs and unlocked the front door, locking it behind her as she emerged onto the small porch outside the condo. A dozen stairs led down to 6 Melissa Good the underground parking. She dodged underneath, ending up on the path that meandered down towards the water.

The island was about a mile across and roughly round in shape. She made it her habit to circle it four times, rain or shine, even in the wicked downpours subtropical Miami sometimes provided. With a sigh, she began to jog and headed off around the path.

It paralleled the Atlantic, at first, going on in front of clusters of condos much like the one her own was in. The architecture was mellow Mediterranean, with barrel tile roofs and adobe-style walls, and the buildings seemed to blend in to the surroundings. The landscaping, rich with salt-tolerant bushes, was neatly kept and perfectly trimmed, and she could see where beds of winter flowers were being planted to give a bit of variety to the scene.

Artificial variety. Winter had little meaning here, the one or two months of relief from the tropical heat and constant thunderstorms rarely providing more than a day or two of mild sweater weather. Seasons didn’t truly exist.

Once past the condos, she was moving in front of the beach club, with its rustic-style restaurant, and the small, if pristine, white sand beach that bordered it. Chaise lounges were already set up, the beach boys sweeping sand off their surfaces; the workers waved a familiar hello to her as she passed.

Then up onto the coral deck and past the old mansion, once owned by the Vanderbilts, which housed the main restaurant and club bar, its coral-surfaced saltwater pool glinting in the dawn light. Peacocks wandered over the pool deck and ruffled at her as she passed, letting out an occasional startled cry which split the air at odd intervals.

More condos next, then the triple-slipped marina, at this time of year crowded with boats bobbing gently on the waves. Some were sailboats, their sails furled under cover, and some were large motor yachts, ships really, which had multiple decks edged out in polished mahogany.

The back side of the island wasn’t so glamorous, since it faced the long series of piers that made up the Port of Miami, where trade from all over the Caribbean and South America docked long barges and cargo ships, and the towering rows of unloaders clanked gently in the breeze, as yet inactive.

That led around to the side, which faced Government Cut, the main shipping channel into the Port, where the car ferries had to cross to get to the terminal on McArthur Causeway. It was also the main entrance for all the cruise ships, and as Dar rounded the corner, she found herself passing Sovereign of the Seas on its way into port, its green glass windows reflecting the dawn light back at her. A few early risers on deck waved at her, but she kept her eyes forward and didn’t acknowledge them.

It was all familiar, all part of her routine. By the time she hit her fourth lap, the sun was peeking over the horizon, painting the sky in peaches and cream as the clouds hung over the ocean, and the humidity was rising as well, drenching her in sweat.

Dar slowed as she ended up where she started, and as she halted and paced slowly around to cool off, a boy with curly blond hair skimmed up in a golf cart, the words Beach Club blazoned on its fiberglass front. “Morning, Tropical Storm 7

Carlos,” she said between breaths.

“Morning, Ms. Roberts.” The boy hopped out, straightening his white linen short-sleeved shirt neatly, and lifting a gently steaming cup from a tray on the front seat. “Here you go.”

Dar gave him a half grin and took the cup of café con leche. “How do you manage to time this just right?”

The boy smiled. “Not me, ma’am, it’s you. Like clockwork—six-forty-five, here you are.” He paused. “Unless it’s raining, of course, and then it’s six fifty-five.”

She laughed and took a sip of the beverage. “Mm...lots of sugar and cream. Just how I like it,” she complimented the server, who sketched a quick bow in response. “Thanks.” Dar started up the stairs as he turned and scooted back into his cart. Turning the vehicle deftly, he zipped back up the path.

Carlos was a pre-med student, working his way through one of the local colleges by waiting at the Beach Club during the early hours and going to afternoon classes. He was a friendly kid, local, as most of the day servers were, and Dar liked him a lot. He took extra effort to find out things his regular customers—and Dar certainly was that—liked and gave it to them, no questions asked.

She finished the coffee as she padded around the condo, pulling out clothes and starting the shower running. Fifteen minutes later, she was drying her hair and pulling on the tailored gray skirt suit and black blouse she’d chosen to wear, buttoning the cuffs and laying the top button open to expose the thin golden chain holding up a tiny teddy bear, her only jewelry save the diamond studs perched inconspicuously in her ears. Company dress code: no danglies.