Rachel Lee - The Man from Nowhere

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.”

“Well, I’ll give you credit for guts and curiosity, but I’m not going to tell you that was a wise thing to do with a total stranger.”

“Well, since I’m getting concerned about the state of my own mind right now, I have to agree. I bounced from he’s not really a threat to feeling stalked, and now I’m on my way back again.”

At that Gage really laughed. “It’s hard to reach a conclusion in the absence of facts. But I have some facts for you. Interested?”

“In anything that might help me get my balance back. When I have to stand back and look at my own mental workings, something’s not right.”

She could hear the smile in his response. “Smart people do that all the time. It’s the idiots who never selfexamine. Anyway, I do have some info for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I couldn’t find anything on him yesterday because he used a fake name on the motel register.”

“Not good.”

“Not a crime. When I stopped last night and talked to him, I got his driver’s license. No wants, no warrants, great credit rating and he owns property in California.”

“That’s a long way away. Anything else?”

“Actually, yeah. But nothing that raises a red flag.” Gage fell silent a moment. “Did he give you his full name?”

“No, just Grant.”

“Well, until the guy does something wrong, I don’t feel I have the right to share any more. Sorry, but there are limits. Just ask him his full name. Then you can find out what’s in the public record just as I did. But I don’t have the right, legally or ethically, to go beyond what I just told you.”

She almost sighed, but knew he was right. How much would she want Gage to invade her own privacy just because she made someone feel uneasy?

“Thanks, Gage. I appreciate your help.”

“You’re more than welcome. If he does anything else to concern you, let me know immediately, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

She closed her phone, slipped it back into her pocket and felt an urge to laugh at herself. Oh, it was so shocking! Yep, really shocking. Some guy sits on a public park bench, legal even at one in the morning, and nobody could do anything about it.