Strangers

murmured wordlessly in her sleep. Suddenly and curiously shy about meeting Jack Twist's eyes, Jorja used her daughter's dreamy mutterings as an excuse to look away from him.
        Jack said, "Whatever secret they're protecting is so important they had to let me carry on with whatever crimes I chose to commit."
        Ginger Weiss shook her head. "Maybe not. Maybe they engineered this guilt. Maybe they planted the seed, so you'd change."
        "No," Jack said. "If they didn't have time to weave the story of the toxic spill into everyone's false memories, they sure wouldn't have had time to finesse me toward the straight-and-narrow path. Besides… this is difficult to explain… but, since coming here tonight, I feel in my heart that I've learned guilt and found my way back into society because something so important happened to us two summers ago that it put my own suffering in perspective and made me see that none of my bad experiences was so bad as to justify the warping of my entire life."
        "Yes!" Sandy said. "I feel that, too. All the hell I went through as a child… none of it matters after what happened that July."
        They were silent, trying to imagine what experience could have been so shattering as to make even the most painful of life's tricks seem of little consequence. But none of them could puzzle it out.
        After he selected more songs on the jukebox, Jack asked a lot of questions of the others, filling the gaps in his knowledge of their various ordeals and putting together a complete picture of their discoveries to date. That done, he guided them through a discussion of strategy, formulating a set of tasks for tomorrow.
        Jorja was again intrigued by Jack's leadership skills. By the time the group discussed what steps should be taken next and settled on an agenda, they had agreed to undertake precisely the tasks Jack thought ought to be accomplished, though there was never a sense that he had commanded or manipulated them. When he'd first appeared in the Blocks' apartment, he'd proved he could take control of a situation and, by sheer force of personality, make people obey him. But now he chose indirection, and the speed with which everyone came around to his purposes was proof this was the right tactic.
        Jorja realized that he impressed her for many of the same reasons that Ginger Weiss had impressed her. She saw in him the kind of person she had been struggling to become since her divorce - and the kind of man that Alan could never have been.
        The final problem the group dealt with was the danger of an attack by Falkirk's men. Now that there was a real chance their memory blocks would substantially decay - or crumble completely - in the near future, they posed a greater threat to their enemy than at any time since July, the summer before last. Tomorrow, they would be separated most of the day as they carried out their various tasks and researches, but tonight they were in danger if they all stayed at the motel, making one easy target. Therefore, they agreed that most of them would go to bed now, while two or three drove into Elko and spent part of the night circling through town, always on the move, alert. Assuming that the Tranquility was under observation, the enemy would at once realize they could no longer seize everyone in a clean sweep. At four o'clock in the morning, a second group of outriders could rendezvous with the first team in Elko and relieve them, so they could come back here and get some sleep.
        "I'll volunteer for the first team," Jack said. "I just have to fetch my Cherokee from the hills, where I left it. Who'll go with me?"
        "I will," Jorja said at once, then became aware of the weight of her daughter on her lap. "Uh, that is, if someone'll let Marcie sleep in their room tonight."
        "No problem," Faye said. "She can stay with Ernie and me.
        Jack said they ought to divide their numbers further, and Brendan Cronin volunteered to join him and Jorja on the first team. The priest's response triggered a peculiar feeling in Jorja, a pang she would not identify as disappointment until much later.
        Because everyone else had errands to run early tomorrow, the second team was composed of only Ned and Sandy. A rendezvous between the teams was set for four o'clock in the morning at the Arco Mini-Mart.
        "If you get there first," Jack said, "for God's sake don't buy a Hamwich. Okay, I guess that's