Firestorm-pigeon 4 by Nevada Barr Page B

remembering his promise to himself. Vaguely he wondered why he always waxed dopey in gratitude. It disarmed people. He'd used the technique so long it had become habit. A self-made nerd, he said to himself without rancor. Whatever worked.

Absently he turned the sound back on the television, banishing the emptiness of the room. Danny hopped along the back of the sofa and onto Frederick's head where he chirped happily, picking through the fine dark hair.

Of course Anna was on the Jackknife. Never had Frederick met a woman with such a propensity for disaster. In high school he'd known a kid like that, Desmond Gallagher. He hadn't thought of Desmond in twenty years hut now he was clear and lively in Stanton's imagination. Desmond himself was a slight, pleasant, intelligent boy but he seemed a vortex for strange events. If Desmond walked by a liquor store there was a ten to one chance it was being robbed. If he sat too long at a bus stop odds were a nearby water main would break or a passing Brinks truck would lose its brakes and careen into a fruit stand.

Anna apparently had that lightning-rod quality.

She attracted you, Frederick thought, then wondered why he equated himself with a natural disaster.

Danny still on his head, Stanton rose and shuffled into the tiny kitchen. Dishes were washed and dried and put away and the stove top wiped clean. The one-man breakfast table, like every other flat surface in the house, was piled with papers and magazines.

Frederick had to read them before he allowed himself to throw them out. Information: one never knew what might be important. Stanton tried to assimilate it all and he was blessed— or cursed—with an excellent retention and retrieval system. At Trivial Pursuit he was unbeatable.

He dumped his unfinished scotch in the sink, then washed and dried the glass. Alcohol didn't hold a tremendous appeal for him but it seemed a man ought to have at least one vice to come home to and he never took to tobacco.

He put the glass in the cupboard with four others exactly like it stacked two by two, and stood staring into the shelf as if waiting for a floor show to begin on a miniature stage.

He was worried for Anna's safety, for her comfort, for her life. To a lesser extent, and perhaps more impersonally, he felt a kernel of sadness for the others, Jennifer Short, the Newts and Johns and whoevers. Those were the honorable emotions floating up into the dark of his mind like the messages that used to float up into the black window of a "magic" eight ball he'd been given as a child.

Less than honorable and more compelling was anxiety for himself, for his future. "Future" wasn't quite right. Destiny, Frederick thought, and smiled without being aware of it. To lose Anna Pigeon would be to lose some elusive possibility, some potential fate that was grander, more satisfying than the one that trickled in through his windshield and across his desk every day.

The woman represented a chance.

A chance at what, Frederick wasn't sure. Maybe the all-encompassing "brass ring." A chance he couldn't bear to lose. At forty-four, twice divorced, there might not be many chances left.

Chapter Six

A ROAR FILLED Anna's ears. She didn't know if she was screaming or not. Probably she was. A terrible fear of being crushed by the immensity of what was coming poured through her and she had to fight down a panicked need to throw off the flimsy aluminum shelter and run. Nowhere left, she told herself. And she remembered her father's voice from childhood telling her if she ever became lost to stay put and he'd come find her. Stay put, she told herself.

She must have spoken the words aloud because fine, burning grit filled her mouth and throat. Each breath scorched the membranes of her nose and fired deep in her lungs.

Wind grabbed at the shelter, tore up the edges, thrusting fistfuls of super-heated air beneath. Pushing her elbows and knees against the bottom of the shelter where it folded under, Anna fought to