Programmed for Peril

check for injuries thoughts of Carsonflooded in, threatening to paralyze her. She fought them off. Sitting up, she felt her head. No bumps. She looked at her watch. She had been out for only five minutes. She pressed her face to raised knees. A single question shoved in like the tip of the wedge of all her dread.
    How had he found her?
    It did not seem possible! She had done so much to hide her tracks, even from one as cunning as he. How, how, how had he found her? She couldn’t let the thought go, gnawed it like a starved mastiff at a bone.
    Sleep? Forget it! Sleep when he stood somewhere within the vast spread of city limits planning... things for her? It took her nearly two hours to make an educated guess as to what had gone so dreadfully wrong. She snatched up the Phone and dialed her mother’s number. Marylou’s voice dwelled half in slumberland. “Mother, listen to me!” Her Voice was harsh and dry with fright. “Are you awake yet?”
    “Can’t this wait until tomorrow, for heaven’s sake?”
    “Absolutely not!”
    “What do you want, Patricia?”
    “I want to know where you sent my engagement announcement. The one you insisted be made public at the end of January.”
    Marylou’s wits were still befuddled. “News of an approaching important wedding should be widely broadcast.”
    “How widely, Mother? To what newspapers did you send the announcement?”
    “All the important east coast ones: Globe, Times, Inquirer, Post, and the Constitution. ”
    “How about the west coast?”
    “Well, hardly anyone there knew you. So I sent just one announcement. To the paper in that little town you used to live in. La Cornada.”
    Her mother talked on as Trish lowered the receiver, heavy as heartbreak in her numbed hand. The connection broke, leaving her in silence. So it was indeed Carson again.
    Memories of him rushed forward, as impossible to stop now as a supertanker in the mid-Atlantic. She had moved to La Cornada because she could live temporarily with a former college roommate. There she found work as a programmer, in time she set up her new life and a social circle. An acquaintance gave a party. Through such a commonplace chain of events she met uncommon Carson.
    From where she stood chatting in the kitchen, his voice caught her attention. Tone and substance both tugged at her. There was a pleasing resonance in his speech. She left her spot by the dishwasher and moved out onto the deck. Carson was making his argument to a half circle of surrounding guests. The topic of discussion was Japanese competition in chip manufacture. The technical and statistical information with which he supported his points was pertinent, brief, and timely.
    She never forgot her first sight of him—or her first thought: energy! He leaned forward, thrusting index fingers to emphasize the words pouring out in a shower heavy enough to wet down the most resistant counter-opinion-There was energy, too, in the shift of his feet and solid legs in khaki shorts hacked out of a pair of dying slacks. He was a bit over six feet, in his mid to late thirties. Closer, she saw the deep luster of his shoulder-length mane of red hair, the piercing green eyes, and the scattering of acne scars on his cheeks.
    One of the gathered turned away and walked past Trish. “The genius has spoken,” he said half to himself. “Debate judged yet another win for Carson Thomas.”
    Not until the next day was she aware of the deep impression Carson had made on her. When she thought of the party, he eclipsed whatever else had happened. She realized she regretted not having been introduced to him.
    He remedied that at the post office the next week. His hand fell from behind on her shoulder. She turned. Those eyes! Green could be a commanding shade. She shivered inwardly like a schoolgirl confronting her crush. “Carson Thomas,” he said. “I saw you at Earthman’s party the other night.”
    “You noticed me? You were busy debating—”
    “I notice everything around me. Most particularly women in their early twenties with nifty black bangs and big gray eyes. You’re Patricia McMullen Morley,”
    “How do you know that?”
    They were walking together out of the post office. “When I want information, I go after it,” he said. “It only took four phone calls. My personal best was twenty-three.”
    “You made twenty-three phone calls to get a name?”
    He shook his head, red hair brushing his shoulders. “Not for the sake of a lady. I was trying