Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page B

all. This was just the kind of emotional reaction she had hoped to avoid.
    She paused, looking around. Beside her, a line of people were waiting to get into the Waterworks Bar. A couple necked in a doorway. A group of Wall Street types were walking home, all dark suits and briefcases. Her attention was attracted to a homeless man who had been shuffling alongside the building façades, matching her pace; he stopped, too, and turned around abruptly, heading the other way.
    Something about the furtiveness of that motion, about the way the man kept his face from view, made her big–city instincts sound an alarm.
    She watched the homeless man lurch along, covered in dirty rags, looking precisely as if he was trying to get away. Had he just robbed somebody? As she stared after him, the man reached the corner of 88th Street, paused, then shambled around the corner, looking back once just before vanishing.
    Nora's heart stopped. It was Fearing. She felt almost sure of it: the same lean face, the same lanky frame, the same thin lips, unruly hair, and leering smirk.
    She was gripped by a paralyzing fear — which, just as quickly, gave way to furious anger.
    "Hey!" she yelled, breaking into a run. "Hey, you!" She began pushing her way along the crowded sidewalk, halted by the Water–works crowd. She bullied her way through.
    "Whoa, lady!"
    "Excuse me!"
    She broke free and ran; tripped; stood up again; then resumed her chase, spinning around the corner. Eighty–eighth Street stretched eastward, long and dimly lit, lined by ginkgo trees and dark brownstones. It ended in the bright lights of Amsterdam Avenue with its pretentious bars and eateries.
    A dark figure was just turning onto Amsterdam and heading back downtown.
    She raced down the street, running for all she was worth, cursing her weakness and sluggishness after the concussion and bed rest. She rounded the corner and stared down Amsterdam, similarly crowded with evening–goers.
    There he was: moving quickly and with sudden purpose, half a block ahead.
    Thrusting aside a young man, she began running again, catching up to the figure. "Hey! You!"
    The figure kept going.
    She darted between pedestrians, stretching out her arm. "Stop!"
    Just before reaching 87th Street, she caught up to him, seizing the dirty material of his shoulder and spinning him around. The man righted himself unsteadily, staring back at her with wide, fearful eyes. Nora released the shirt and took a step back.
    "What's your problem?" Definitely not Fearing. Just some junkie.
    "Sorry," Nora mumbled. "I thought you were someone else."
    "Leave me alone." He turned away with a muttered "bitch" and continued his unsteady way down Amsterdam.
    Nora looked around wildly, but the real Fearing — if he'd ever been there to begin with — had vanished. She stood amid the surging crowds, her limbs trembling. With a huge effort, she got her breathing under control.
    Her eye settled on the closest bar, the Neptune Room: a loud, ostentatious seafood place she had never been into. Never wanted to go into. Never expected to go into.
    She went in, settled on a stool. The bartender came over right away. "What'll it be?"
    "Beefeater martini, extra dry, straight up, twist."
    "Coming right up."
    As she sipped the oversize, ice–cold drink, she upbraided herself for acting like a psycho. The dream was only a dream and the homeless man wasn't Fearing. She was shaken up; she needed to get a grip, calm down, and put her life back together as best she could.
    She finished her drink. "How much?"
    "On the house. And I hope" — the bartender said with a wink — "that whatever devil you saw before you came in is gone now."
    She thanked him and rose, feeling the calming effects of the liquor. Devil, the bartender had said. She had to face her devils, and do it now. She was falling apart, seeing things, and that was unacceptable. That wasn't her.
    A few minutes' walk brought her back to her apartment building. She briskly passed through