The Planck Factor

My mind reeled with possibilities. Did Cynthia know the two men? Could she and Liz both be in on this? (Whatever “this” was.) I shook my head and wandered over to my laptop.

This time, I registered something weird about the laptop. I could swear I’d left it right in front of the chair where I’d been working. But the laptop was placed at an angle not suitable for working. Why?

I sat down and pulled the laptop into position before me and pondered it. Did someone tamper with it?

I started it up and got a message—something about shutting down in the middle of running a program.

“Great. What’s this?”

Perhaps whoever knocked me out went through my files. All my novel’s chapters, my research notes, and whatever was in my browser’s cache.

Then, I remembered Selby’s words and thought, “Is all this really about the novel?”

That’s crazy.

Fred wanted to tell me something important. Could it be the people who are after me think he actually succeeded in doing that?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jessica

I tried to remain calm and reason it out. What could Fred have wanted to tell me and how would it relate to the novel I was working on? It was just too bizarre to think that the people who were after me were like those who were after Alexis.

I shook my head, as I opened my word processing program. I wanted so much to finish my novel. But doing so meant rehashing all the horrible similarities between my life my work. Am I writing a novel or a thinly veiled autobiography? I laughed, but the sound was less happy than desperate.

If nothing else, it seemed wise to check my files and make sure nothing had been deleted. If my novel had been deleted, in whole or part, I’d need to find a geek to recover what was lost.

Resolutely, I turned to my laptop and scanned the chapters quickly to where I’d left off, after Alexis had slipped away from Swede and gone to New York.

Alexis

Alexis arrived at LaGuardia, feeling frazzled and more than a little ill at ease. She wasn’t sure whether to feel triumphant or like a heel for ditching Swede the way she did.

As she toted her bag off the plane, she looked around for someone carrying a sign with her name on it. Her sister Katie had arranged for a car to pick her up. It was coming up on midnight and Katie lived in Manhattan, where owning a car was a huge expense and an annoyance. However, Katie said she’d wait up for her.

A short, balding man in a suit and hat, with broad, liver-spotted features and tired eyes, awaited her with sign in hand. Alexis walked up.

“I’m Alexis Sullivan,” she said.

> “Oh, good.” The little man said it like he meant entirely the opposite. “I’m Mel. I’m your drivah.”

If Mel was any indication, New Yorkers weren’t terribly effusive.

“Got everything?” Mel asked.

“Yup.” Alexis could match his lack of effusiveness with her own brand of taciturn.

Mel just nodded and looked relieved. “Well, dis way den.” Alexis followed.

En route to Katie’s place, Alexis and Mel exchanged few words at first. Alexis was too tired to think of anything to talk about, and Mel seemed happy with that.

As they crossed the Queensboro Bridge, Mel spoke up. “So, your first time in Noo Yawk?”

“Oh, no. I’ve been here before. My sister has lived here a while.”

“Uh huh. Where you from?”

“I go to school in Eugene. University of Oregon.”