Heat Read Online Free Page A

join the game when he noticed the name of this
perfectly matched player
.
Gaia13.
He froze. It could be a coincidence. There had to be other girls in the world with the name Gaia who liked chess.
    Sam's fingers began to literally tremble above the mouse button. He wanted to join the game. There was a chat facility that let the two players send messages to each other while playing. If it really was Gaia--his Gaia--Sam would have a chance to tell her some of the things that he had been thinking for the last few days.
    He was going to press the button and go in.
He was
.
    It's not her. It can't be her.
    His finger touched the plastic of the button. All he had to do was click the button. All he had to do was . . .
    The icon that represented a waiting player suddenly disappeared.
Gaia13 has left.
    Sam leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It wasn't her. The name players used on pogo was only a nickname. Just because some player used the name Gaia didn't mean it was Gaia Moore. It wasn't her.
    Sam didn't believe that for a second.
    WHO IS? QUERY RESULTS
    Movie of the Week
    Moore, Katia
*No Records Found.*
    Whois? Query Results
Moore, Gaia
*No Records Found.*
    Mary Moss frowned and gave her mouse a shove that sent it sliding across the desktop. She had tried a hundred different search engines and a dozen different queries, and she was still no closer to finding out what she wanted to know. There were a zillion
    people named Moore and at least ten thousand named Katia. But nowhere could Mary find that combination--the combination that was the name of Gaia's mother.
    Ever since Gaia had decided to share the story of her mother's death, Mary had been obsessed with finding out more.
The story had everything
. There was violence. Murder. Mystery. And, of course, heartbreaking tragedy. Gaia Moore was a regular walking movie of the week. And Mary was a sucker for drama.
    But of course, it was more than that. Gaia was Mary's friend. Gaia had saved Mary's ass, both physically and emotionally, on more than one occasion. Maybe this was Mary's chance to finally do something for her best friend.
    Mary leaned back in her chair and ran her fingers through her ginger red hair. There had to be some way to get the information she was after. There had to be someplace she could go, someone she could ask.
    If I only had a little blast of coke, I'd be able to think so, so much better.
The idea of the drug was enough to make Mary shiver
. A little cocaine would be like a glass of cold water after crossing a desert. Just one little line would be like ten pounds of Dove dark chocolate. It would be like ... like ...
    It would be like setting your hair on fire and trying to put it out with gasoline.
    Mary knew well enough that there was no such thing as just one little line of coke. One line of coke could turn into a thousand miles of white powder. Mary had only started fishing her life out of the toilet she had fallen into after her last tangle with drugs. The last thing she needed was to jump inside and flush.
    Another idea occurred to Mary. She selected another site from the menu and waited until the search box came up.
    ALTAVISTA ADVANCED QUERY FACILITY
moore AND katia
    --No results. Try another query.--
    ALTAVISTA ADVANCED QUERY FACILITY
moore AND death AND fire
--1 Result Found--
    Mary almost typed a fresh query
before she realized that she had gotten a hit
. Quickly she snatched back her mouse and clicked on the link.
    The page turned out to be the archives of a small upstate paper. The article was so different from the story that Gaia told, Mary thought for a second it was just a mistake. Then she realized it wasn't a mistake. It was a lie.
    LOCAL WOMAN DIES IN FIRE
    The west county home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Moore burned down in the early morning hours this Tuesday. Mr. Moore, an employee of the State Department, and his young daughter escaped the blaze, but Mrs. Moore was unable to leave the home in time. The county coroner's