The Man from Nowhere

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just resting, for obvious reasons.”

He was a lousy liar, she decided, because she didn’t believe that, even if it did fit. But if he was a lousy liar, that was a good thing. It meant he wasn’t practiced at deceit.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Don’t let me keep you.”

But he didn’t move. Instead, he said something she wondered if she’d heard right. “Everything’s wrong tonight.”

“What?”

Again that little shake of his head. Then, “Look, I’m really sorry. I don’t sleep well at night, never have. So I’m walking. Waiting, I guess.”

She seized on one word. “Waiting?”

He drank more coffee, this time sipping, as if to put off his moment of departure, quite different from when she’d first approached. “Do you know anybody who doesn’t have a rucksack full of emotional baggage?”

“That’s some question!”

“But an honest one.”

So she gave him an honest answer. “I guess not. More for some than others.”

“Well, mine’s pretty full. So I guess you could say I’m waiting for some resolution.”

“Don’t you usually have to work at that, not just wait?”

“I am. Believe me, I am.”

In spite of herself, Trish was growing more intrigued. But then he sighed and passed her back the empty mug. “Go inside before you get chilled,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to walk back to the motel. Maybe pop into the truck stop for a wee-hours breakfast.”

The truck stop was indeed the only twenty-four-hour business for miles.

He rose, and even in the darkness she could see him grimace. “Nice talking to you, Ms. Devlin.” He started to limp away. But after three steps, he paused and looked back. “If you want to join me at the truck stop, I should be there in about thirty minutes.”

She hesitated. “I could give you a ride.” The instant the words escaped she wanted to snatch them back. Was she nuts? Completely nuts? She knew nothing about this man.

“Sometimes,” he said, “walking is the only way.” Then he resumed his painful departure.

Trish watched him until he vanished into the shadows. Only then did she realize she was growing cold.

Damn! Meet him at the truck stop? Give him a ride? Had some evil spirit taken over her brain?

Shaking her head at her own behavior, she went back inside.

Forget about it and go to bed. Wise advice to herself. Except she couldn’t forget about it and didn’t seem to want to get ready for bed despite the late hour. She grabbed the new novel she’d started earlier and tried to read it. But all she could think about was meeting the stranger at the truck stop and maybe learning more about him. Actually seeing his face in the light. Getting his measure.

It would be safe at the truck stop, a busy place at any hour. Safer than what she had just done by accosting him on the darkened street.

A minute later she was grabbing her keys and heading out the door.

The truck stop restaurant was indeed brightly lit, and in addition to the staff held about a dozen drivers, all eating some version of early breakfast or late dinner, every occupied table boasting a generous carafe of coffee. Some of the drivers seemed to know each other. Others greeted each other, table to table, strangers in a common place and time.

Grant sat alone at a table backed up to the wall. He already had coffee, and she noted that an extra mug was at the seat facing him. Whether for her or for someone else she didn’t know.

She ignored the interested looks she received from the truckers as she eased her way between tables to Grant’s.

“Hi,” she said. In the light he proved to be goodlooking, if a bit wan. Silvery threads of gray sparkled in his dark hair. His eyes were dark, that brown so deep it would sometimes appear black. He returned her greeting with a faint smile and motioned her into the seat facing his.

“I got you a cup,” he said.

“You knew I’d come?”

“Anyone who’d come out onto a dark street to beard a stranger who frightened her must have more curiosity than a dozen cats.”

In spite of herself, she smiled back and took the chair. “It gets me into trouble sometimes.”

“I imagine so. On the other hand, you probably don’t run through life with a load of nagging questions.”

“Not often.”

He reached for the carafe and filled her beige mug. The table already held a saucer full of little half-and-half containers. She reached for one, opened it and poured the contents into her coffee. At this hour of the night, even her beloved beverage could give her heartburn. The half-and-half would help.

“I haven’t ordered yet,” he said. “Take a look at the menu. I’m buying.”

“I can buy for myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But since I caused all this uproar for you, this seems like the least I can do. And believe me, I can afford it.”

So she reached for the menu and began scanning a list that exceeded Maude’s City Diner in variety, but probably not in saturated fats. Here she could even find artificial eggs and vegetarian omelets. It gave her a glimpse of the new generation of truck drivers.

But what the heck. She settled finally on their “fluffy” pancakes.

The waitress came and took their orders, his a fullsize breakfast with all the trimmings. He certainly wasn’t worrying about his weight or his cholesterol.

With the menus tucked back into the wire holder behind the salt, pepper and ketchup, they stared at one another over coffee mugs. Trish found herself strangely reluctant to grill him, even though she’d started their conversation back on the bench by doing precisely that.

Finally he spoke. “So what can I tell you that will ease your mind?”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“That I mean you no harm. A statement that is absolutely meaningless without anything to back it up.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “Seems like one of those lines in a bad sci-fi movie that always winds up being the prelude to something terrible.”

“Hey, I like those old science fiction movies. The older and more awful, the better.”

“The ones with nuclear bombs that are both the cause and the solution to whatever is ravaging the world?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, those. Science as the be-all and end-all.”

“I take it you don’t believe that.”

He hesitated. “Not anymore,” he said finally.

She eyed him directly. “What changed your mind?”

“Let’s just say I have reason to believe that science is less of an answer and more of a question. It should be a search, not a conclusion.”

“Interesting way of putting it.”

The waitress interrupted, serving their breakfasts with a smile that seemed almost obscene at this hour of the night. Either the woman was a native night owl, or the need for tips made her pretend to be one.

After a bite of pancake, which did indeed prove to be very fluffy, she posed a question. “What brings you to Conard City? Sure, the state highway runs through, but it’s not the kind of place where people usually stop and stay without a reason.”

“I’ve been on the road for a long time. Guess I finally realized you can’t outrun yourself. Seemed as good a place as any to wait for the rest to catch up.”

The answer sounded pat. Too pat. She looked down at her mug, then picked up the spoon to stir her coffee pointlessly. “Really,” she finally responded.

“Really,” he said. “Sounds like a bad novel, right?”

She met his gaze again. “No, not exactly. Just…stock.”

He nodded slowly. “There’s a difference between citing a cliché and meaning it.”

“Well, yes.”

“And clichés become clichéd because they’re often true. Otherwise people wouldn’t use them so much.”

In spite of all her suspicions, she felt more intrigued that ever, and sensed the beginnings of an actual liking for this guy. She didn’t want that.

He shrugged finally. “It’s true. I ran from myself. From an unhappy time in my life. And like all people who run, I found all the troubles and grief just came along with me. Some memories can’t be erased. They stick like burrs on your cuffs.”

“Yes, they do. Would you want to erase your memory?”

“There’ve been times I’ve actually thought that would be a good thing. But other times…well, frankly, Ms. Devlin, you can’t give up the bad without giving up the good.” He looked out the window, but there was clearly nothing to be seen beyond the reflections of the interior of the restaurant. Darkness turned the windows into mirrors.

“I had to put my favorite dog to sleep a couple of years ago,” he said slowly. “Best dog I ever had. She taught me a lot about being a better person.”

“How so?”

He looked at her again, and there was no mistaking the heaviness in his sad, dark eyes. “I could be lazy. I could be impatient. I sometimes made her wait for the smallest of her needs. Sometimes I yelled at her for no better reason than that she was asking for a simple thing like a walk, or water. Because she was interrupting something I thought was more important at that moment. But she never held it against me. She’d go away and wait quietly, and the minute I gave her the attention she had asked for, she was hopping with joy and gratitude.”

Trish nodded. “It’s been a long time since I had a dog, but I remember it.”

“Endless love. Endless forgiveness. Endless patience. Anyway, she was a lesson, and she began to get through to me about all the truly important things in being a decent human. Simple things, every one of them, but so difficult to do. Unless you’re a dog.”

“They do seem to do it naturally.”

“I have a friend who tags her e-mails with ‘WWDD: What would dogs do?’” He smiled faintly. “A little over the top, maybe, and probably offensive to some, but to some extent my dog became my touchstone, so I understand what my friend is trying to get at. Anyway, I finally had to put the dog down. I’d waited too long because I needed to hang on, but finally I realized I was hurting her to put off my own guilt at the decision I knew I had to make.”

“It’s an awful decision to have to make.”

“It is. I guess part of me hoped I’d wake up one morning and find she’d passed peacefully in her sleep, so I wouldn’t have to make a choice at all. Life doesn’t always allow us to do that.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She paused, then took another bite of pancake, waiting for whatever else he might volunteer.

“Thing was, much as I grieved for Molly, I learned another lesson from her—it hurts, but you have to remember the good times, not the very end, which was so hard.”

Despite her determination not to respond emotionally to this guy or his story, Trish felt her throat tighten. She put down her fork.

He seemed to recognize her reaction, because he said quickly, “Sorry, I’m not trying to tug your heartstrings. It’s just…you’d think having learned that with the dog, I’d be better at handling stuff. But I’m not. When the rest happened, well, I didn’t want to be around anything that reminded me of it. So here I am, on a quest for some kind of peace. Very sixties California except it’s nothing like that. I got here and saw my journey coming to an end. So I’m going to hang around until it’s over. And then I’m going home.”

She nodded. His story made sense to her, although she would have liked to know more about what had put him on the road. However, she felt it would be prying too much to just come right out and ask. As she knew herself, some things were painful to talk about, even with friends, and impossible with total strangers. And hadn’t she herself come running home to Conard County because of a past she didn’t want to face every single day?

People did things like that, rational or irrational.

He resumed eating. She followed suit, absorbing what he had told her, weighing it in her mind and deciding that on the face of it, she didn’t need to be paranoid. People had seen them together, Gage had stopped to check him out. If he meant her any harm, he was certainly on notice now that he’d be the prime suspect.

“Are you a scientist?” she asked, at once trying to learn more about him and direct the conversation to less explosive territory.

“In a way. I work in computers. Software and system design. At least I did.”

“Will you go back to that?”

He put his fork down and for an instant he looked almost eager. “You know, sometimes I think about it. I was getting into some really interesting research.”

“I didn’t think computer people did research.”

Again that half smile. “Not all of us sit in cubicles and write code. Some of us are, or were, busy looking toward the future.”

“In what ways?”

“Well, we’re approaching the possibility of quantum computers. Do you know anything about quantum physics?”

“I had a physics course both in high school and college. I wouldn’t say I’m well versed, but I have a nodding acquaintance.”

“When it comes to the quantum world, nobody really understands it, anyway. All we can do is make predictions based on large numbers. Sort of like playing the odds.”

“Oh, that makes me feel secure.”

His smile widened. “We’re both here talking, and the restaurant hasn’t vanished. So the large numbers work just fine for most purposes.”

“But in quantum computers, what happens?”

“That’s the problem we’re trying to sort through. Things get dicier, of course, at such a small scale. But then studies actually proved the so-called observer effect—have you heard of that?”

“Something about the act of observing affects the measurements?”

“At the quantum scale, yes. But it goes way beyond that. I won’t bore you with details, but a number of experiments show that conscious intent can affect the basic randomness we expect at the quantum level. One extended study of them at Princeton, in fact. The effect wasn’t huge. Just a nudge this way or that, tiny but statistically relevant. That throws a big monkey wrench into quantum computing.”

“Wow. And you were working on that?”

“Doing some research, yes. You can’t move into nanotechnologies unless you can guarantee reasonable accuracy. If a process relies on quantum randomness, you have to correct for influences that actually reduce that randomness.”

At that she felt herself smile. “Now I’m in over my head. I just know how much I depend on my computer to be accurate.”

“Exactly. So there’s a lot of work to be done. But it’s unleashed some fascinating questions.”

“And that’s why you said science should be about questions, not answers.”

“Well, partly.” His face shadowed a bit, but he continued. “We need solutions, but solutions aren’t necessarily answers, if you get my drift. And some people don’t even want to ask the questions.” He fell silent, then dipped a corner of toast in his egg, and popped it into his mouth. He appeared to have gone elsewhere in his mind, whether to his former research or some darker place she couldn’t know.

But one thing seemed to be clearer for her: there was no reason to believe this man intended her any harm whatsoever. Once again she began to feel embarrassed by the mix of emotions that had led her to go to Gage.

Even though the sheriff hadn’t thought she was out of line for being nervous about this guy sitting across from her house every night in the wee hours, she herself felt as if she had made a mountain out of a molehill.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I overreacted by getting the sheriff involved.”

It took him a moment to drag himself out of the well of thought he’d fallen into. “I understand perfectly. The world being what it is, you’d be strange if you hadn’t gotten nervous about me sitting across from your house every night. It’s not like I’m someone you know from around town.” Then he shook his head very slightly and smiled faintly. “Not that anyone can be sure of anyone just because they know them by sight.”

“You’ve lived in a big city?” His answer would seem to suggest that.

“Yeah. So I understand. I may be out there a few more nights, because it’s a convenient place to rest.”

She noticed he didn’t ask if that would continue to bother her. Apparently he felt he’d answered her questions sufficiently. And just like that, she felt nervous again, because the bottom line was that she hadn’t learned a damn thing about him really. The death of his dog? A personal tragedy? References to computer research? Conveniently lacking any verifiable details?

All of a sudden she didn’t feel silly anymore. In fact, she wondered if she’d just been treated to a good sales job.

She pushed back her plate and stood. “I feel stalked,” she said flatly. Then she grabbed her purse, threw bills on the table and walked out.

No one followed her to her car. When she glanced back as she was about to climb in, she saw Grant still sitting at his table, staring into space.

Yes, she felt stalked. That was exactly the word, the one she hadn’t actually put her finger on until just now.

And there were a lot of good reasons for her to feel paranoid about that.

Chapter Three

Trish’s computer hummed quietly as she searched the Net for information. Outside, another bright, cool day was beginning to degrade into cloudiness that might bring rain or even snow. She didn’t know or really care. She was too busy trying to verify what Grant had told her last night about the research he’d been doing, then trying to find out if it led her to him.

Either she didn’t know the best search question to ask or the subject wasn’t one of the most popular. Either way, several hours passed during which she scanned articles that hinted at the matters Grant had spoken of last night without success.

He appeared to be right about one thing: from what she was seeing, not many scientists wanted to ask whether conscious intent could affect the quantum field.

She did, however, gradually realize that some terms were appearing repeatedly without explanation, as if they were understood. And she realized there was a certain evasiveness when they came up. Either that or they were used within such strictly defined limits that she couldn’t get the meaning.

Finally she changed her search criteria from quantum physics and linked conscious with Princeton. Up popped a Web site link for the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab.

She might not have studied physics in depth, but as an accounting major with a minor in economics, she had studied a lot of statistics, and as she delved deeper she discovered that the things Grant had discussed in loose generalities were actually being investigated with mind-blowing results. While the ultimate conclusion was that conscious intent had such a small effect on random number generators that it could be ignored, the fact remained: the statistics showed the effect to be way, way beyond chance.

Good Lord! she thought. What a door to open: human thought could affect the functioning of a machine…or the rate of radioactive decay. In small ways, yes, but even those small ways were a window to a whole different view of the universe. And it further elucidated what Grant had meant about some scientists being afraid to ask the questions. Of course they were afraid to ask. None of them would want to be labeled fringe lunatics.

She sat back in her chair, stretched and thought about what she had just learned. Grant, whoever he was, hadn’t been spouting some kind of extremism last night, but a valid scientific viewpoint, however much mainstream science might try to skirt it. That much at least hadn’t been a sales job.

However, there was no way to search for him, not with only one name, first or last she didn’t know. No matter how many ways she tried it, the word grant came up more often for grant applications and awards than anything else. How convenient.

She sighed, then spoke aloud to the empty room. “Get over this obsession,” she told herself. “Just get over it. Load the damn shotgun if you’re that worried, and then forget about it.”

Not a normally obsessive person, her behavior, her contradictory responses, had begun to seriously trouble her. The man limped around town in the middle of the night, sat on a public park bench for a whole twenty minutes, had spent time last night trying to reassure her in some way, and there was nothing left to do except regain her own sense of proportion and rationality.

Sitting here at the computer working the “Grant problem” as if she had nothing better to do with her time was out of character.

Wasn’t it?

She sighed again and rubbed her eyes. “What is going on?” she asked the room. The room, of course, didn’t answer.

But some little voice in her head finally did.

It’s not about this guy, it’s about another guy. A guy who lied to you.

Was she really in some subconscious way trying to make Grant a stand-in for Jackson?

Oh, yeah. Now you’ve got it.

At once she leaned forward and pressed the button to hibernate her computer. Then she shoved back from her desk, realizing only as she stood that she had grown stiff from not moving for so long.

“Idiot,” she said to herself.

In the kitchen she made a fresh pot of coffee and a turkey sandwich.

Yeah, she was an idiot, she decided, but only because, however indirectly, she had opened that damn Pandora’s box again, the box named Jackson Harris.

That box containing a torrid fairy tale, an all-consuming eight-month romance that had ended in the heartstopping, earth-shaking discovery that he was a married man. That he had lied to her all along, claiming he was divorced. An instant of discovery and shock that had seemed to kill everything inside her in one icy blow.

Until the pain started. To this day she couldn’t say what hurt worse: losing love, being used or being betrayed so callously. It had certainly hurt to leave her job in Boston because she couldn’t face the constant reminders.

But at least she had managed to find her way home. Maybe she had thought it would all get better here. Instead, just as Grant had remarked last night, she’d brought her baggage with her. You can’t run from yourself. Probably one of the oldest clichés in the world. And so, so true, as Grant had pointed out.

She sat at her kitchen table and bit into her sandwich, thinking about the tangled mess of her mind. A mind that she always preferred to believe was relatively neat and orderly…yet as of this moment seemed anything but.

What was the psychological term? Transference? No, more like projection? Whatever, it disturbed her to think that she might be reacting to Grant in a way dictated by her experience with Jackson. After all, what had Grant done except sit on a park bench in the middle of the night? So maybe her suspicions resided less with his actions and the timing of them than they did with the horrendous betrayal she had suffered at Jackson’s hands. Maybe she felt uneasy and threatened for no other reason.

Probably a good time to have a heart-to-heart with one of her girlfriends, but a glance at the clock told her that they were all still involved in the middle of their workdays. Not the time for a conversation like this.

She took another bite of her sandwich just as her cell rang. With a muffled groan as she tried to chew and swallow fast, she pulled the phone from her pocket as the ring tone played the same bars of “Carmina Burana” for the second time.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Trish, it’s Gage.”

“Oh, hi, Gage. Thanks for calling. I’m sitting here concluding yet again that I’m overreacting to that guy.”

“Conclude away. I did the ‘stop and identify’ I promised you I would last night.”

“I saw you. You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. “Not a chance. Why?”

“Because after you left I went out and talked to him. And then I met him at the truck stop and we talked longer.”