Lightning

her apartment, the instant she inserted her key in the door, he turned and fled down the stairs from the second-floor veranda, neither asking for a goodnight kiss nor giving her a chance to invite him in.
    She stepped to the head of the stairs and watched him descend, and he was halfway down when a gust of wind turned his umbrella inside out. He fought with it the rest of the way, twice almost losing his balance. When he reached the walk below, he finally got the umbrella corrected—and the wind immediately turned it inside out again. In frustration he threw it into some nearby shrubbery, then looked up at Laura. He was soaked from head to toe by then, and in the pale light from a lamppost she could see that his suit hung on him shapelessly. He was a
huge
man, strong as two bulls, but he had been done in by little things—puddles, a gust of wind—and there was something quite funny about that. She knew she should not laugh,
dared
not laugh, but a laugh burst from her anyway.
    "You're too damned beautiful, Laura Shane!" he shouted from the walk below. "God help me, you're just too beautiful." Then he hurried away through the night.
    Feeling bad about laughing but unable to stop, she went into the apartment and changed into pajamas. It was only twenty till nine.
    He was either a hopeless basket case or the sweetest man she had known since her father died.
    At nine-thirty the phone rang. He said, "Will you ever go out with me again?"
    "I thought you'd never call."
    "You will?"
    "Sure."
    "Dinner and a movie?" he asked.
    "Sounds good."
    "We won't go back to that horrible French place. I'm sorry about that, I really am."
    "I don't care where we go," she said, "but once we sit down in the restaurant, promise me we'll
stay
there."
    "I'm a bonehead about some things. And like I said… I never have been able to cope around beautiful women."
    "Your mother."
    "That's right. Rejected me. Rejected my father. Never felt
any
warmth from that woman. Walked out on us when I was eleven."
    "Must've hurt."
    "You're more beautiful than she was, and you scare me to death."
    "How flattering."
    "Well, sorry, but I meant it to be. The thing is, beautiful as you are, you're not
half as
beautiful as your writing, and that scares me even more. Because what could a genius like you ever see in a guy like me—except maybe comic relief?"
    "Just one question, Daniel."
    "Danny."
    "Just one question, Danny. What the hell kind of stockbroker are you? Any good at all?"
    "I'm first-rate," he said with such genuine pride that she knew he was telling the truth. "My clients swear by me, and I've got a nice little portfolio of my own that's outperformed the market three years running. As a stock analyst, broker, and investment adviser, I never give the wind a chance to turn my umbrella inside out."
2
    The afternoon following the placement of the explosives in the basement of the institute, Stefan took what he expected to be his next to last trip on the Lightning Road. It was an illicit jaunt to January 10, 1988, not on the official schedule and conducted without the knowledge of his colleagues.
    Light snow was falling in the San Bernardino Mountains when he arrived, but he was dressed for the weather in rubber boots, leather gloves, and navy peacoat. He took cover under a dense copse of pines, intending to wait until the fierce lightning stopped flaring.
    He checked his wristwatch in the flickering celestial light and was startled to see how late he had arrived. He had less than forty minutes to reach Laura before she was killed. If he screwed up and arrived too late, there would be no second chance.
    Even while the last white flashes seared the overcast sky, while hard crashes of thunder still echoed back to him from distant peaks and ridges, he hurried away from the trees and down a sloping field where the snow was knee-deep from previous winter storms. There was a crust on the snow, through which he kept breaking with each step, and progress was as difficult as if he had been wading through deep water. He fell twice, and snow got down the tops of his boots, and the savage wind tore at him as if it possessed consciousness and the desire to destroy him. By the time he reached the end of the field and climbed over a snowbank onto the two-lane state highway that led to Arrowhead in one direction and Big Bear in the other, his pants and coat were crusted with frozen snow, his feet were freezing, and he had lost more than five minutes.
    The recently plowed