Kiki picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. She would have much rather talked to her on her cell phone, but she feared that it, too, had been lost in the fire.

"Hello?"

"Kiki, darling!" her mother's voice rang out from the other end. Constance Long, her mother, had been raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, having come from a very rich and prominent family. In rebellion to her parents, she had married Frank Long, Kiki's father, a working man. Kiki was never ...