CHAPTER II Summer had come and gone. The city was slowly beginning to apply its autumn make up, tinting parks and gardens in all possible shades of yellow and russet. Alice loved that time of year with its symphony of colors and wasn't in a hurry to see it replaced by the white shawl that would unavoidably cover New York in a couple of months, turning cars into cartoon vehicles and bystanders into clumsy frozen penguins....

CHAPTER I Cloudy Friday. The sky was so dark that it seemed to be mourning and the meagre daylight didn't quite reach the window of the small office. Alice looked at the clock on the opposite wall. 4:30 p.m. She suddenly realized that she had been reading and rereading the same page over and over again for the last thirty minutes without understanding a single sentence. It was quite an important file and already late, but...