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toward the exits and not to panic. There were dim lights in the hall beyond, while the ballroom remained totally dark. It had been the most terrifying experience of Sarah's life. Seth grabbed her arm, and pulled her to her feet, as five hundred and sixty people pushed their way toward the exits. There were sounds of people crying, others groaning in pain, some shouting for help, saying that someone next to them was hurt.
    Sister Maggie was already on her feet, moving into the crowd rather than out of the room. “What are you doing?” Father Joe shouted after her—they could see dimly now in the light from the hall beyond. The enormous urns of roses had fallen over, and the scene in the ballroom was one of total chaos and disorder. Father Joe thought Maggie was confused as she made her way deeper into the room.
    “I'll meet you outside!” she shouted, as she disappeared into the crowd, and within minutes was on her knees next to a man who said he thought he'd had a heart attack, but had nitroglycerin in his pocket. She reached in unceremoniously and helped him find it, took out a pill, and put it in his mouth, and then told him not to move. She was sure help would come soon to assist the injured.
    She left him with his frightened wife, and moved along a littered path wishing she was wearing her workboots and not the flat pumps she had worn. The ballroom floor was an obstacle course of tables lying on their sides or even upside down, with food, dishes, and broken glass everywhere, and some people lying amid the debris. Sister Maggie made her way systematically toward them, as did several other people who said they were doctors. There had been many of them in the room, but only a few had stayed to help the wounded. A crying woman with an injured arm said she thought she was going into labor. Sister Maggie told her not to even think about it until she got out of the hotel, and the pregnant woman smiled as Maggie helped her stand up and start moving out of the ballroom holding tightly to her husband's arm. Everyone was terrified of an aftershock, which might be even worse than the first quake. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that it had been greater than seven on the Richter scale, maybe even eight, and there were groaning sounds in the room all around them as the earth settled again, which was anything but reassuring.
    At the front of the room, Everett Carson had been next to Melanie when the quake hit. As the room tilted crazily, she had slid right off the stage into his arms, and they both fell to the floor. He helped her up when the shaking stopped.
    “Are you okay? That was a great performance, by the way,” he said lightly. Once they opened the ballroom doors and light filtered in from the hall he noticed that her costume had torn, and one of her breasts was exposed. He slipped his tuxedo jacket on her to cover her up.
    “Thank you,” she said, sounding dazed. “What happened?”
    “About a sevenor eight-point quake, I believe,” Everett said.
    “Shit, now what do we do?” Melanie looked scared, but not panicked.
    “We do what they're telling us, and we get our asses out of here and try not to get trampled.” He had been through earthquakes, tsunamis, and similar disasters in Southeast Asia over the years. But there was no question, this had been a big one. It had been exactly a hundred years since the last big San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
    “I should find my mom,” Melanie said, looking around. There was no sign of her or Jake, and no way to recognize people easily in the room. It was too dark. And so many people were shouting, and there was such pandemonium going on around them that you couldn't hear anyone except the person standing next to you.
    “You'd better look for her outside,” Everett warned her, as she started to make her way to where the stage had been. It had collapsed, and all the band's equipment had slid off. The grand piano was teetering at a crazy angle, and fortunately hadn't