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fence enclosed an Olympic-sized pool. It had been drained over a year ago, when Ellen Kirkwood closed the hotel, but Adrienne could still almost feel the tingle of its cold water on a blazing summer afternoon.
    She and Kit and their friend Julianna Brent had spent endless hours poolside, Julianna always earning the most attention with her astonishing body clad in one of her many skimpy bikinis. Adrienne smiled at the thought of the venomous looks Julianna had drawn from so many females, while the males gazed at her with expressions varying from shyness to pure lust. Not in the least reserved, Julianna had loved every moment of the fascination she caused. If either Adrienne or Kit had been jealous of her, the feeling was overwhelmed by their pride at having a gorgeous friend everyone knew was destined to someday smile from the covers of national glamour magazines.
    On the warm summer evenings after an afternoon of swimming and sunbathing, the three of them had ridden around town in Kit’s red convertible. They’d flaunted their tans in cutoffs and halter tops, flirted with boys congregated on street corners, and endlessly listened to Julianna’s favorite song, “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics, which she played at ear-shattering volume, singing along with Annie Lennox. Those were the summers when Kit, Julianna, and Adrienne were sixteen and seventeen. They were great summers, Adrienne thought. Probably the best, most carefree times of the
    Okay, now you’re being morbid, Adrienne thought as she felt depression descend. It’s stupid for me to get so devastated over a building scheduled for demolition when everything else is so good in my world.
    A crow cocked its head and looked down at the mumbling woman with unmistakable ridicule. At least it seemed unmistakable to Adrienne. She glowered back. She’d talk to herself if she liked. Then all six birds flapped up from the telephone wire when an explosion of barking ripped through the quiet morning.
    “Brandon!” Skye shouted. “Don’t you dare go in that hotel!”
    In the hotel? Adrienne thought. At this time of morning, every entrance door to the hotel should be shut and locked.
    More barking from Brandon. More yelling from Skye. “No! You’re wet and dirty! We’re gonna get killed if you go in there—” A moment of silence except for the birds fluttering back to the telephone line. Then a familiar, “Morn, I need you!”
    Adrienne dropped her sketchpad and pencil and headed to the west end of the hotel, from where Skye’s voice had come. She was glad she’d worn running shoes because the grass was laden with dew. “Where are you, Skye?”
    The slender girl with her long pale blond hair and fashionably torn jeans appeared at the corner of the hotel. “There’s a door standing wide open on this end and Brandon ran inside. Mrs. Kirkwood will
kill
us if he does any damage!”
    “He’s not destructive,” Adrienne said in relief when she reached her daughter to see the only problem was a runaway dog. “He won’t hurt anything.”
    “But he’s acting weird.”
    “He’s just acting like a high-spirited dog. Don’t get so worked up, Skye. We’ll find him.”
    Good grief, Adrienne thought in irritation. Skye acted as if Brandon were a six-week-old pup. But she understood the girl’s protectiveness. At her tenth-birthday party, Skye’s father, Trey, had presented her with Brandon, already full grown and rescued from the dog pound less than twenty-four hours before he was to be “put down,” which made him even more precious to the animal-loving girl. That night, Trey had been killed in a motorcycle accident. In a way, for Skye the dog had become the last precious legacy her father had left to her.
    Adrienne entered the side door behind Skye. It was dark, but Adrienne saw a panel of switches in the dim morning light coming through the open door. She flipped two, and bulbs sprang to light beneath crystal fixtures on the ceiling.
    Brandon barked in the