A book in the Way Out West series, 1998

She had to hurry. Her very life could depend on it. Sprinting up the stairs to the tiny flat she and the other geologists stayed in during their stint with EVS-Earthquake/Volcano Studies-in South America, Haley came to a skidding halt.

Blood stained the open door. Just inside lay two very still bodies. Oh, God. Danyella and Frederick. Her colleagues. Her friends.

Haley backed up, feeling faint and stiff with terror. But for the grace of God, it could have been her lying dead on the floor. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her panicked breathing and whirled, running as fast as she could back down the stairs.

The sharp pain in her abdomen told her that she needed the ulcer medicine in her purse, badly, but she couldn't stop. If she did, they'd find her, and Haley doubted she'd ever need her medicine again.

Think, think. She had to think, but it was all she could do not to scream in frustration and fear. Last week, she'd made the discovery. The one she'd worked on for so long. She'd created a system that would take some of the mystery out of earthquakes and volcanoes. But something had gone wrong-terribly wrong. Earlier today, she'd found EVS's office building destroyed by a bomb. And now she'd made the grisly discovery that two of her five-member team had been murdered. If what she suspected was true, Haley had no doubt she'd be next. The team would he systematically wiped out, one by one, because of greed.

It was simple. She believed her system priceless because of the lives that could be saved. But someone else cared more about the quick money to be made. With a strength she didn't know she possessed, Haley calmed herself and hailed a taxi, holding her breath in the oppressive heat as the insane driver sped into traffic, dodging through throngs of people, bikes and cars.