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ankles
    cracked.  She had a lot to think about.  Besides, she was too lazy to go
    to sleep.  It would mean getting up and crossing seven feet of hardwood
    floor to switch off the light.
    How serious was the threat against her sister?  she wondered .
    For Molly to mention it at all indicated some concern.  On a couple of
    occasions tlicre had been those who wished Anna ill.  Oddly, before the
    fear and outrage set in, her feelings were hurt; a childish sense of,
    How could anyone dislike nte?  Anna had felt that from Molly.  For a
    healer it must be worse.
    In law enforcement, emergency response, firefighting-the things rangers
    were involved with-a great deal of one's time was spent sitting around
    waiting for something bad to happen.  When boredom set in, it was
    inevitable that one sort of hoped something bad would happen.  No malice
    intended, just something interesting to do.  A psychiatrist dedicated
    her life to ameliorating the impact of those bad happenings.  It would
    hurt to be the object of deadly hatred even if you knew the polysyllabic
    name l'or the syndrome.
    Molly would get over the insult-probably by morning.  Despite her
    vocation, Anna's sister was remarkably sane.  The threats were the
    tangible aspect of the greater evil of hatred and possibly madness.  How
    real the actual danger was, Anna couldn't fathom.  The note and the
    message were so pedestrian.  There was a hollow bureaucratic ring to
    them.  Impersonal to the point of cruelty.  Anna remembered her
    fifth-grade teacher, Mr.  White, telling her that hatred wasn't the
    worst of emotions.  If one hated one still cared .
    Indifference was the most inhuman.
    Anna could picture the author of the threats calmly penciling "Kill Dr.
    Pigeon" on her calendar between "Meet with client rep" and "Get facial."
    Tomorrow night she would test AI Magnum's patience.  She'd call both
    Molly and Frederick.  Surely sleeping with an FBI agent earned a girl
    some perks.
    As had every day since Anna arrived on the island, Thursday dawned hot
    and humid, the overnight low scarcely dipping below eighty.  Inland the
    heat was intensified by the clack of cicadas and the intermittent drone
    of the drug interdiction plane making its sweep of the woodlands.  By
    nine a.m.  it was ninety-three degrees.
    On the shore a sea breeze made it livable.  Anna and Rick patrolled the
    beach.  AI and Dijon were condemned to the suffocating interior till
    they switched in midafternoon.
    Shore duty pleased Anna because of the air and the everchanging patterns
    of water and shell and sand.  Sky mosaics, painted by clouds, had yet to
    begin for the day.  Cumberland sat beneath an inverted bowl of burnished
    and burning blue.
    At intervals were solitary fishermen, their folding chairs plunked down
    where the last lick of surf could wash over their toes, cooler and
    fishing rod in serene attendance.  Creels were set several yards from
    the main encampments, an island phenomenon that had been in place for
    many years.  Legend had it the alligator they called Maggie-Mary would
    crawl down from the inland dunes, moving as quietly as a ghost for all
    her great and scaly length, and rob them of their catch.  The creels
    were set apart lest she inadvertently rob them of a leg or a hand in the
    process.
    Rick was happy with beach patrol because of the nude sunbathers.  It
    never ceased to amaze Anna that in America naked was such a big deal. In
    parks all across the country naked sunbathers, skinnydippers, and
    topless hikers were warned and cited and occasionally arrested under any
    statute that was handy, from Disturbing the Peace to Disorderly Conduct.
    The only ticket Anna thought fit this trumped-up crime was Interfering
    with Agency Functions.  It certainly interfered with Rick's and Dijon's.
    Dijon, Anna forgave-maybe because she liked him, but mostly because he
    was twenty-two.  Dogs bark, cats sharpen their claws, boys ogle and
    pant.  Rick-in his