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opened a window on his computer and beckoned Miles over.
    “Look at this,” Price said.

    United Press International
    Big Bear, California
    Mass hysteria has hit Big Bear, California and several small towns in Southern California.
    People in the town of Big Bear have gone missing, say their loved ones. They’re missing in Bakersfield, Needles, Los Angeles, and hundreds of other small towns in Southern California. Not just one or two people, reports say, but tens of thousands in the last 48 hours, according to police sources. Relatives of the missing have jammed the police station in Big Bear looking for their loved ones who, they say, have literally disappeared off the streets and homes of this high-desert community, 70 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Authorities have no explanation for the disappearances.
    “Now, even I don’t believe that,” Price said. “I’ll call my friends at the Times and they’ll get a big kick out of this. You’ll see.” Price looked at the copy and shook his head. “I think it’s some kind of New Year’s joke.”
    “It’s the first of February,” Miles said. He lifted the lid on his cup of coffee and peeked at it.
    “We’ll run it on page two. Follow up. It’s a good story, win or lose,” Price said.
    “You’re kidding,” Miles said.
    “Miles, will you please stop questioning authority. We are a small country newspaper. You are a small-town reporter; we are losing readers every day to Oprah Winfrey and unwashed, hare-brained bloggers, not to mention Twitter. Now get on the damn phone and get the story from—where is it?”
    “Big Bear,” Miles said. “I thought you were just telling me how I’m supposed to question authority.”
    “Don’t argue. And don’t forget you have to be at the Genesoft news conference at eleven sharp this morning. They have several new food products to announce. We’re going to give them a full page this Sunday,” Price said. “I promised the CEO, yesterday at lunch.”
    “That’s not news, that’s public relations,” Miles said.
    “Welcome to the news business,” Price said. “They scratch our backs—”
    “We scratch theirs,” Miles repeated Price’s favorite saw. When he was first hired, fresh out of journalism school, the young reporter had been shocked to learn how much PR copy the Herald used. The paper often published whole stories that had originated in some big New York City PR firm, and were part of an expensive US-wide PR campaign.
    Price turned around and left for his corner office. Miles printed up the UPI copy and went to his desk. He underlined the first four towns mentioned, then went to his computer and Googled Big Bear’s municipal listings for the police department’s non-emergency number. He dialed it. No one answered.
    Well, so far, it’s no lie , Miles thought and hung up.

       
            *   *   *

    From his office window, Dr. Marvin Poole watched the string of colored Christmas lights twinkle out on Main Street. The doctor could see his new Volvo station wagon where he’d parked it earlier that morning, with several inches of new snow on the hood and roof. A sheriff’s car drove by in the misty grey penumbra. Poole saw T.C. McCauley, one of his patients, at the wheel. He caught a glimpse of Willis Good in the back of the patrol car and he shook his head. He’d treated the Good children only a few days before. He couldn’t believe what he’d read in the paper: that Willis had murdered his family in cold blood—all of them.
    He made a note to call Willis’s mother and see if he could do anything for her. He’d always had a weak spot for the poor woman and her son.
    “I have CDC on line three, doctor.” Marvin Poole heard his receptionist on the intercom and he reached for his desk phone, chagrined. It was hard to call a place where he’d once worked. He missed his former life; he missed walking into the middle of an epidemic in the backside of nowhere. But he was younger then, he