"i." A woman stood in the doorway, American if her breathy voice was anything to go by. "Are you Payann, by any chance?" Paen looked up from a tattered manuscript, wincing slightly at the mispronunciation of his name. The woman had to be from the southern US. No one else drawled his name into two syllables. "I'm Paen, yes. Can I help?" "Hi," the woman said again, slipping in through the barely opened door, a big Cheshire cat smile on her face. "I'm Clarice Miller." Paen was on his guard the second the smile hit her lips. Whose was she?.
