He glanced at the Extra’s headlines and groaned. “Gibson set to unveil new Phillips plan.”

“Shit,” Quinn said.

He read the story quickly. Sure enough, Paul Gibson, the chairman of Loudoun’s board of directors, had begun circulating a plan that would give a developer two-thirds of the old farmstead, but protect the rest under a conservation easement.

All his work, Quinn thought, and his story was already outdated. There was seldom anything worse than waking up and discovering you had been scooped. How had it happened? He had talked to everybody, including Gibson. And no one had breathed a word about any new plan. Damn.

He did not even need to look at the by-line. He knew Summer had beaten him and she would find some way to bring it up the next time they met.

Quinn dropped the paper in disgust and got up. He stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. He stopped when he passed the mirror above the sink. In the reflection was a 30-year-old of average height and regular build-he was thin enough, but not in great shape. He put his hand through his brown hair. Were those gray hairs? Maybe it was the nightmares. Was he good looking? He didn’t know. There seemed little exceptional about him.

Except…his eyes. He stared back at himself with electric blue eyes. An old girlfriend had once told him his eyes were the only reason she had agreed to go out with him. She had been on the verge of saying no when she looked him in the eyes. And then she changed her mind.

Quinn smiled, but the expression held little humor in it. If his eyes had ever been arresting, he doubted anyone would notice now. His skin looked gray and pallid, as if he hid himself from the sun. And his eyes were surrounded by dark circles, the sign of a man who does not sleep well.