The taxi screeched to a halt at the international airport in Peru, and so did her heart. She had no family who would help, and nowhere to go except… home. The United States.

Watching her back, feeling desperate and more frightened than she'd ever been, she got on the first plane she could-to Los Angeles. She had little cash, but stopping at the bank just didn't seem plausible at the moment, so she used a credit card.

Haley had come to this continent with other brilliant geologists, to study earth movement. It had been Japan before that, and before that, Europe. Anywhere plagued by volcanoes and earthquakes. She'd been the youngest on the team, but wasn't she always? Having finished her doctorate by her middle teens, Dr. Haley Whitfield had been quickly accepted into the elite group at EVS. Their goal: to predict earthquakes and volcanoes in order to save and preserve lives. She'd done her part-developed an undersea computerized system that would help anticipate those events-but she'd never in her wildest dreams thought it would be used to cause them. Yet, that's what someone had done. Used her ideas to create earth movement. To kill.

She knew this without a doubt. Knew that yesterday's tragic earthquake several hundred miles to the south, on an unknown and totally uncharted fault, hadn't been natural. Thousands had died-because of her system.

Motivated by adrenaline and fear, she rushed toward her departure gate, numb with shock. Work was her life, and everything-absolutely everything she'd worked for-she was leaving behind. The pain in her stomach twisted like a knife. Who knew where Bob and Alda, the other two geologists were, or if they were even alive? Or if Lloyd Branson, head of EVS, had escaped the bomb? Had the sweet, quiet, unassuming man been murdered, too? Her heart ached for those she'd known as her only friends, and she prayed they were safe, that they were right this minute fleeing as she was.